WhatTheDickens?

As mentioned in the previous post, in class the other day we discussed the idea of the spectacle and looking at something that cannot return the gaze. This happens several times in The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, particularly with the character of Walter Hartright. In the novel when Walter meets Marian, he has time to observe her before she sees him. During this scene he spends time noting how attractive her physique is, but when she turns around and returns the gaze he declares that she is ugly. Part of Walter’s judgment of Marian’s ugliness could be the fact that she is returning his gaze which is both frightening and unsettling to him. We discussed in class that perhaps if Marian did not return Walter’s gaze, he would have fallen for her.

This discomfort in having the gaze returned reminded me of a comic book that has currently become extremely popular. This comic is Deadpool, and features a snarky mercenary who is constantly breaking the fourth wall. I find it interesting that one of the first comic book characters to regularly break the fourth wall is an extremely rude and immoral antihero.  It makes me wonder if the writers felt this discomfort about breaking the fourth wall and wrote him as an antihero, because it is hard to imagine an extremely likeable and honorable character breaking the fourth wall.

I also find it interesting that with this discomfort, this comic book is becoming so popular. There is some entertainment value in being made uncomfortable, but I wonder if there is more to this issue that is making this comic so loved by fans. Certainly there are other positives to the Deadpool series, but people today have really latched on to this series that has been running since the 90’s. It just leads me to wonder what aspect of today’s culture leads to this extreme enjoyment of the common rules of the spectacle being broken. Perhaps it has something to do with our culture’s acknowledgement that looking at something that cannot look back at you is wrong, and perhaps it is just the enjoyment of being made uncomfortable. No matter what the reason Deadpool’s recent rise to popularity is an interesting study on the idea of the spectacle.

Recently in class, we spent a good deal of time discussing the sensation of looking at something that cannot look back at you, whether it is the bodies of the dead turned from subject to object, or characters in novels who only have the subjectivity we give them. I’m currently in another class on 17th Century Literature, and today our discussion centered around Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, which is a description of Bacon’s ideal science-centric society, written in the form of a fable. Three or four pages in the middle of this fable describe a ceremony, called “The Feast of the Family” in which men who have more than thirty children participate with their families. The entire feast is based on hierarchy and order, and emphasizes the relationship between the patriarchal society and the natural order. In this two-day ceremony, the mother is mentioned once:

“And if there be a Mother, from whose Body the whole Linage is descended, there is a Traverse placed in a Loft above, on the right hand of the Chaire, with a privie Doore, and a carved Window of Glasse, leaded with Gold and blew; Where shee sitteth, but is not seene” (Paper Bodies: A Margaret Cavendish Reader, 283).

That’s it. Never spoken of again. This resonated with me in terms of our discussion of looking at things that can’t look back, and the privilege and power that exist in that structure. This passage made me wonder, however, where the power is for the Mother? She is the looker in this scenario. No one else can see her. Sure, they can look at the box in which she has been placed, but she cannot be seen. And in this, it seems, she has not been given power, but rather has been deprived of it. In the context of this ceremony, the father’s power comes from being made highly visible – from being looked at. The mother’s lack of power originates in her only being able to look without being looked at in return. She is inconsequential, immaterial, and contained. The people who cannot return her look have chosen that dynamic – chosen to be unable to glance at her, or acknowledge her presence. So, while she looks, without being seen, she is still the object.

As I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed yesterday, I came across this event: “Dickens of a Christmas,” which is an annual event put on by the Heritage Foundation of Franklin and Williamson County. The event description reads, “Franklin’s Main Street and its beautiful Victorian architecture will be decked out for the holiday season. Some 200 characters, dancers, and entertainers will fill the street, including several from Charles Dickens’s stories interacting with the public. Expect to see the nefarious Fagin from Oliver Twist; Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim Cratchit with his parents from A Christmas Carol; and of course, a Victorian Father and Mother Christmas with treats for children. The English bobbies are actually on-duty Franklin police officers!”

Beyond this event being a nice local connection for us, it had me thinking about just how influential Dickens was in shaping our understanding of Christmas today. Although people associate Christmas with the birth of Jesus Christ, visualizing the feeling of Christmas spirit seems to be much more closely related to Dickens than anything. The image of a happy family gathered around a warm fire and eating a nice feast for dinner is very Dickensian, in addition to the ideas of celebrating family and giving back to the poor during this time of the year.

In this Tennessean article from the “Dickens of a Christmas” celebration last year, middle-school teacher, Teri Beck, who teaches A Christmas Carol to her students each year, said that the story still resonates with people because it teaches readers, “No matter how bad things get, you can always start over.” Dickens setting this positive message during the winter season that is usually cold and harsh brings some warmth and joy to this time of the year. “Christmas spirit,” the thought that this holiday inspires change in even the most cold-hearted people, is a lovely sentiment, and we probably owe a lot to Dickens for inspiring the warm and fuzzy feeling we get each year.

Dickens and Collins were superstars of their time, and this success can be attributed to their talent as authors, but also and perhaps equally important, their ability to market their books effectively. Through advertisements and serializing their works, these authors were able to capitalize on their popularity and make their quality novels extremely profitable. In trying to find a modern day equivalent to Dickens and Collins, I thought of Disney/Pixar, as the studio has continually produced quality work that have proven to be extremely popular and profitable as well. Last week Disney announced every movie that it will release in the next four years, and as a life-long fan its safe to say I was very excited when I heard this news! This is relevant to our class discussion as well, as I believe this strategic marketing campaign would be applauded by profit-seeking authors such as Dickens and Collins. Disney is capitalizing on their already massive following, and in releasing this news they are securing audiences for their future films, which is exactly what Dickens accomplished with Household Words. Anyways, check out the link as I’m sure there are a couple movies that everyone will be excited for.

Disney announced all its movies coming in the next 4 years — here\’s what you have to look forward to

Over Halloween weekend I was constantly reminded of the novel The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. This novel is representational of the sensation genre, because throughout, Collins elicits internal responses from the reader through his language. This can be seen in the scene where Walter Hartright first meets Ann Catherick.

“In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop by the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my shoulder from behind me” (23-24)

Collins absolutely elicits a sensational response from the reader with this sentence. I know I got goose bumps the first time I read this line.  I felt the same sensation several times this weekend as well though. Media that provides sensation is still popular. It is still not viewed as the most valued media, but it still is quite prevalent, it has just become the horror genre.

On Friday, I saw The Shining at the Belcourt Theatre. The Shining is a fantastically made movie that provides all kinds of physical responses. I kept alternating between nervously biting my finger nails shuddering at the sounds. These sounds, paired with Jack Nicholson’s crazy facial expressions are what really add to the physical responses. The sounds in the film varied between silence and shrill, loud, dissonant music. Sometimes the scene was not inherently scary, but the music is what caused the sensational response. The scene with Walter Hartright and Anne Catherick was not inherently scary either. People can go out walking and be approached by a stranger and not be this terrified, but the description of his blood being “brought to a stop by the touch of a hand” is pretty frightening. Wilkie Collins elicits a sensational response in the reader through words, whereas sensational media today relies more heavily on sound or music to elicit a response.

If you are interested in reading more about the music of The Shining and how the musical selections were paired with terrifying scenes and what this meant for the movie, check out this link http://www.thecinemologists.com/2012/05/music-of-shining-1980.html.

Alongside thinking about how we are advertised to, as consumers, it might be valuable to also look at how we advertise outward. Currently, laptops are the current source of how people consume much of the advertisements they see; ads before a video, or that interrupt the middle of one, ads generated on the sides of webpages based on the viewers search history, ads or sponsored pages on google searches. No one can open the internet and get very far without encountering an advertisement. Simultaneously, though, that same person has opened her laptop to be advertised to, and is advertising herself and her interests to those around by way of laptop stickers.

The amount of information we share through stickers is intriguing; I am currently sitting in Starbucks, and looking around I do not see a single laptop without at least one sticker on it. For lots of the computers I am looking at, I can determine what university someone attends (mostly Vanderbilt), what sorority they are in, what causes they believe in,  and maybe where they are from. My own laptop, as I think about it, tells more about me than it probably should. I have three Michigan/Detroit related stickers on my computer, so it is not difficult to figure out where I’m from. I clearly go to Vanderbilt, am in the Concert Choir, and, if someone felt like doing a bit of digging, the causes I champion on my laptop tell them a good bit about me.

Why do we do this? We say to strangers, “Look! Here are the things I care about!” We can’t see these stickers while we use our laptops; they’re designed to tell other people about us. People we will in all likelihood never meet again. They are, perhaps, ways to make connections. If someone is in Seattle, and has a Vanderbilt sticker on her computer, perhaps another Vanderbilt grad might walk up to them and say, “You went to Vanderbilt, too?” We are, perhaps, saying, not “Here are the things I care about,” but rather, “Here I am, please notice me.”

In class on Thursday, I brought up Stephen King’s categorization of the three types of terror while we were discussing The Woman in White. I did a little more digging into it, since it had been a while since I read the article. If anyone is interested, he talks about the three levels in his book, Danse Macabre. Here is a Facebook post King wrote, summarizing the levels:

In his book, King elaborates, “I recognize terror as the finest emotion…and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find I cannot terrify him/her, I will try to horrify; and if I find I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.”

It would be interesting to attribute our fluctuating level of enjoyment of some of the events that happen in Collins’s book onto King’s categories. The “spine tingling” or “goosebumps raising” sensation we’ve talked about is most closely related to terror. I would categorize events like Anne Catherick’s hand touching Walter or Fosco writing the postscript in Marian’s diary under “terror.” However, events like seeing Laura next to her tombstone would be better categorized under “horror.” There aren’t many “gross-out” moments in sensation novels, but I think there are some easy narrative tactics of the genre, such as repeatedly mentioning one character (Sir Percival) has a secret.

As modern readers, we have been overexposed to most elements that would fall under the gross-out or horror categories. Scary figures like zombies, bloody bodies, and crawling spiders have been used a lot in stories, and so have elements like characters switching places and the not-really-dead dead person. While those tricks are still effective to an extent, they are less remarkable because we’ve seen them before. However, when Collins is still able to create sensation and instill “the finest emotion” of terror in us, it says a lot about the high quality of his novel.

Last weekend I went to Target to shop for Halloween candy and decorations. I was hoping to get a Halloween themed t-shirt as well while I was there. Instead, all I could find were Christmas sweaters. There were also Christmas decorations everywhere, candy canes for sale, and all kinds of Christmas lights. I came back to my dorm and went to the market in the dorm and found candy canes. As I was walking around campus the next day, I saw three different people wearing Christmas sweaters. I don’t know when it happened, but it appears that Christmas is here already.

Unlike his other books or serials, Charles Dickens published his Christmas stories, such as A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, without advertisements accompanying them. This is because these stories were advertising Christmas. They were selling both Christmas consumer goods and the lifestyle that requires someone to purchase all kinds of Christmas consumer goods.

This consumer lifestyle is still very much present today. In fact, the idea of Christmas is getting sold to consumers earlier every year. Before, it was Black Friday when Christmas began. People became angrier and angrier as Black Friday sales became earlier and earlier. I was talking to someone the other day who said their family no longer had Thanksgiving dinner. They now have Thanksgiving lunch so they can still participate in Black Friday.

The interesting thing about advertising surrounding Christmas is not simply how ridiculous it is, it is how amazingly effective this advertising is. Even though it isn’t even Halloween yet, people were still buying Christmas sweaters and candy canes. The advertising of this lifestyle may have began with Dickens, but today’s advertising of Christmas has taken things to an all new level. Next thing you know, Christmas shopping will be year round, and I wonder how Dickens would be involved in this advertising today.

I’m not much of a television consumer, but recently I took the suggestion of a friend and watched the premiere of a new fall show called Scream Queens. Usually I don’t go for this kind of inane teenage drama, but the show has me hooked. The series combines the horror and comedy genres in a sensational romp in which a serial killer in the “red devil” mascot of a university is killing off sorority members. Dumb, right? But I can’t stop watching it. Reading The Woman in White and discussing sensation novels in class has me thinking about my own desire to watch this show, even though its content is often nonsensical and just plain silly. The show is full of intrigue and suspense: each episode sets up a different character to be the potential killer, so that no one can really be trusted. Each episode also ends with a shot of the “red devil” lurking in the shadows, watching the students. The mystery of The Woman in White is largely predicated by the ignorance of the readers and the narrators as to who the real villain of the story is. Sir Percival, Anne Catherick, Count Fosco, and Madame Fosco have all been characterized as potentially dangerous characters, and the suspense and intrigue build as different layers of potential involvement in a conspiracy are revealed. Collins introduces mysterious occurrences one after another without resolving any of them. His sections also often end with cliffhangers, or the feeling that danger is waiting just around the corner, much like the shot of the “red devil” that always ends an episode of Scream Queens. The Woman in White and Scream Queens are similar then, in their sensational nature, constantly framing different characters as potentially suspicious. Scream Queens has just taken the sensation genre and added vapid sorority brats in place of the more innocent, chaste characters central to a Victorian novel like The Woman in White.

Here’s a link to the trailer for your viewing pleasure:

Scream Queens Official Trailer

In class on Tuesday we briefly talked about Asylums in England, and after a little searching I came across this article in Household Words in which Dickens expresses his views on mental illness and institutions for the insane. The article is titled “The Star of Bethlehem” and it recounts the history of the St. Mary of Bethlehem hospital in London that housed the insane and mentally ill. Dickens describes the hospital as a foul, wretched place, and in general he holds very progressive views as the article calls for institutional reform in order to make the living conditions at least tolerable for the patients. Something I found particularly interesting was that if one were so inclined, they could pay a small fee and “tour” the hospital, and I couldn’t help but think of what a great idea this would be for a first date! Anyways, the article is only a couple pages long and I encourage everyone to read it as I think it is very relevant to Wilkie Collins’ novel that we are reading in class!

Household Words \”The Star of Bethlehem\”