Fish Stories and Poesy: Delighting in the Poetic in Lies, Myths, and Tall Tales

          “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”  This homily has been attributed to any number of writers, thinkers, and folk heroes.  One need only look so far as that one relative who is always making a scene at parties to see it in practice.  The struggle is when that person is one that you love and the story is about you.  While at my father’s wedding reception he spoke with a young man about an experience, within earshot of me, that he purported that I had had as a missionary in Peru.  He stated that at one point after arriving in a small hamlet the campesinos came in and helped themselves to my clothes and supplies, leaving me with nothing.  The young man was aghast.  He could hardly believe his ears and yet here was my father  and here was I.  There was one problem: it never happened.  Not to me. Not to anyone I knew.  Nor had I ever heard that story until my father told it.  This, however, is the truth.  My experience was hard.  The people were poor.  And I felt sorry for them.  That’s it.  So in that sense, the story was “true” albeit not factual.
      Stories of this type exist as part of the mythology of our culture.  Within the LDS and more specifically LDS BYU culture myths exist that are true though perhaps not factual.  For example, Steve Martin the actor is not nor ever has been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Yet the story persists.  It has become elaborate in its details.  He was seen on Jay Leno wearing a CTR ring.  A friend of mine claimed to have seen him talk about his conversion on David Letterman.  My own brother claimed to have had a companion whose brother baptized him.  None of these claims are factual, but they support a common belief.  They indicate that the gospel is a powerful force and can change the life of anyone, even a dirty old sinner like Steve Martin.  Stories of this type can start with a grain of fact.  It is entirely possible that a man in California by the name of Steve Martin was baptized in the early 90’s.  But the story assumes more details to support the truth it claims.  Gradually, the story becomes more epic and the characters are transported from real life to the mythic world of heroes.  The myth is still true (The gospel can change anyone.) Though now the facts have been replaced with the shinier model, poetry.  This is not unlike the Tragedy of the past.  The Trojan war was real.  The truth is that war is hell and women suffer.  Though the events of Euripides Trojan Women likely did not happen, it is true to the ideas that it presents.  Or while it is likely that Henry in Shakespeare’s Henry V never said “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers!  For he who sheds his blood with me this day shall be my brother.”, what is true is that war equalizes us all as we face that same specter, death.  Tragedy or the epic poem or even a story about a man running from God and being eaten by a fish are repositories of truth, though the trappings may be fantastical.  In fact, that’s the whole point.
    Sir Phillip Sydney in his Defense of Poesy speaks of the delight of poetry.  Poetry’s ability to take noble ideas of truth and God and encase them in the beauty of metaphor, is what brings this delight.  Delight, though pleasurable, can also be ennobling and beatifying.  This is why poetry in this broad sense is also the language of the gospel.  One can be delighted in the beauty of the metaphor of the 23rd Psalm and enlightened by the truth it contains.  Truth and poetry go hand in hand, while facts do not.
    In Tim Burton’s Big Fish, Edward Bloom is a man of stories.  He tells stories of varying degrees of factuality, but all contain truth.  As Ed Bloom speaks with Josephine of his dream of the crow, the camera pulls close to his face.  The music becomes foreboding.  And Josephine is enthralled.  In the end, it’s just a joke.  She laughs, delighted with him.  The story has little to no bearing in fact, but the truth of the darkness of the adult world  is still present and the characters and audience can delight in the intersection of the craft of two storytellers (Ed Bloom and Tim Burton) with that truth.  This is the crux of the argument of the film.  That these poetic stories are more important than the facts.  Real life has incidents that do not matter to truth.  Poetry carefully crafts the formalistic element to express that truth, regardless of the facts.  As Edward says to Will regarding his (Will’s) writing “It has all of the facts and none of the flavor.”
    This is evident in the visual text of the film as well.  Burton chooses to intensify and broaden the color palate in the visualization of Edward’s stories.  Everything is bigger, brighter, more grotesque, and more beautiful than real life.  The acting is more gregarious.  All the shots are more “perfect” than those in the real world.  Case in point, as Edward tells of giving the Daffodils to Sandra, we see warm light on her face as she awakes.  She walks to the window and camera hangs over her shoulder and she draws back the curtain and we see a field of pure yellow with Edward standing on the right third.  This image would be virtually impossible to replicate in real life, yet we revel in it’s beauty.  And it expresses the truth: that Edward Bloom loved her enough to do anything for her, and that Tim Burton believes that these stories matter.
    The delight of Poetry comes from its ability to wrap the truth in beauty.  In doing so it is more palatable and memorable.  We will more readily accept truth in the delightful dressing of poetic text, visual or verbal.  Perhaps this is why the myths of our LDS culture endure.  We delight the perfect coincidences and LDS specific language.  We are enlightened by the truth and entertained by flavor. The facts matter not when a good story draws us in.  This is not a lie, it is poetry as Sydney and Aristotle and so many others defined and when we share stories in this way, we are in good company.

The Utility of Polysemous Text in Beasts of the Southern Wild

     There has been a debate in the world of representation for ages: Is art for teaching of for enjoyment?  Should it lift us to a higher plane or dull the pain of days?  Is it essentially useful or enjoyable?  St. Augustine said, “There are things to be enjoyed and there are things to be used.”  A film is a thing and its purpose falls into one of these two categories.  When a film has as its goal teaching an ideal or moral it then falls in the realm of useful.  Signs are useful.  They signify something else to teach us something about that sign.  Films are a collection of signs and as Augustine says, “Things are learnt by signs.”  The Beasts of the Southern Wild full of signs.  It is also intended to teach, through its polysemous text, a lesson.  This it does by literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical means.  Literal is that the sign in the film represents something in real life, a thing.  Allegorical is a sign that represents something other than itself that exists.  Moral is that the sign is signifying a lesson of behavior, what one aught to do.  Anagogical signs represent the mysterious or metaphysical, the big picture outside of our world of signs.  It is clear that the authors of Beasts of the Southern Wild are using signs to teach a Truth.  By analyzing the literal, allegorical, moral, or anagogical signs in Beasts of the Southern Wild one can access the useful nature of the text and understand the Truth that the author is trying to express.
    The protagonist is Hushpuppy who “lives with her father in the Bathtub.”  This is the first sign.  The literal is what we see.  The Bathtub is a place in Louisiana that is populated by painfully impoverished families that are cut off from the outside world geographically.  The images are of filth, trash, dilapidated homes, and poorly clothed scrawny human beings.  All we can gather from this in a literal sense is that this means to represent those things that actually exist in our world.
    The allegorical approach can reveal that the Bathtub is a microcosm of the highly impoverished anywhere.  The separation created by the levee over which we can see the bastions of industry represents the metaphorical separation between the very poor and the industrialized capitalist world.  The Bathtubbers did not build the levee.  It was placed there by the others indicating that that separation is desired and maintained by the haves. 
    As a moral sign, the Bathtub, with its levee of separation represent a responsibility on the part of the haves.  They ought to remove that separation and yet not try to rescue those in the Bathtub.  They need to be freed but not condescended to.  Interestingly, the Bathtubbers are the ones who break the levee perhaps referencing the proposition of Freire that the oppressors have not the power to liberate the oppressed.
    The Bathtub is also a place of innocence.  The adults and children have the same level of engagement with the earth and themselves.  In this sense it is a Garden of Eden.  (If one considers that in psychoanalytic theory things can be represented by their opposite.)  The people live separated from the cares of the modern world.  Also, children take baths, adults shower.  When one bathes, one does so without the cumbrance of clothing, as Adam and Eve were in the garden.  Young children bathe together without shame or concern, as Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed.  So, the Bathtub becomes the anagogic sign of that state in God’s eternal scheme.  That state that is ultimately temporary and must be abandoned to progress into a higher state.
    The next sign is the Auruch.  Which in the literal is a large beast that is freed from arctic ice and comes to eat Hushpuppy.  Auruchs actually existed and eventually went extinct in the 1600s.  It can be assumed that they are a figment of Hushpuppies imagination.
    The allegorical significance of the sign is that they signify the fears of Hushpuppy as she does not acknowledge her father’s imminent death.  Hushpuppy strikes her father in the chest after he slaps her.  He collapses to the ground and she sees strange markings on his chest which she determines to be a sign of illness.  Shortly after, the Auruchs are shown breaking free of the ice and coming toward the Bathtub.  Until this moment, Hushpuppy was frozen in a state of eternal childhood, no fear, death was not a reality.  After seeing the sign of her father’s mortality, the reality of death is released and begins the convergence to confrontation.  When Hushpuppy finally is face to face with her fear, she accepts them as “kind of friends” showing her progression into adulthood.
    The Moral sense of the Auruchs is the necessity of all to face their fear.  Every person will come to a point in their life when they have to choose to face teh reality of death or remain is a state of arrested development.  Hushpuppy has to choose to make peace with her father or allow herself to be consumed.  This is a choice all must make.
    Anagogically, the Auruchs are the introduction of death into the world after the rebellion of Adam and Eve.  Hushpuppy is given the fruit of knowledge as she rebels against her father and strikes him.  That bite of fruit introduces the necessary element of death into the holy pageant that ultimately leads all mankind to God.
    An additional sign, is the journey to Elysian Fields.  Literally, the girls swim out into the ocean are picked up by boat and taken to a brothel.  There they are loved and cared for by the women there and Hushpuppy speaks with a waitress who holds her.  This is only the second time that that has happened to her.
    As an allegory, it represents the drive that all people for love and affection.  When in times of trial or struggle, people seek comfort and solace in others.  People can at times receive guidance from others with more experience.
    Morally the need for all to seek divine guidance for the strength to face fears and trials.  Hushpuppy is fed, held, and advised by a waitress as sign of the power of God feed, heal, and advise those who seek him out.  Those willing to put forth the effort to find that healing and comfort will be strengthened sufficiently to face death in the face and bring comfort to others.  Hushpuppy is empowered by her experience to stare death in the face and bring healing food to her father.
    In greek myth Elysium was a place of rest and corresponds in many ways with the christian heaven.   The brothel is an anagogic sign of heaven, though less as a place of rest, than as a recourse.  If Hushpuppy is Eve having brought death into the world, she must recur to heaven and thereby bring back redemption.  In this way she is also a figure of Christ, returning from heaven to take back the sting of death, bringing the food of life to her father so that they can be reconciled.
    By analyzing the literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical one can determine the useful end of the signs utilized by the authors to teach Truth.  The polysemous nature of text allows for these different types of metaphor.  However many in our post-modern world don’t find one Truth in this text, as Roger Ebert said, “You can make "Beasts of the Southern Wild" into an allegory of anything you want. It is far too detailed and specific to fit easily into general terms.” (http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/beasts-of-the-southern-wild-2012).  Even so, it is valuable to use the Medieval approach to suss out possible good for the audience.  Beasts of the Southern Wild is a rich text with a multiplicity of meanings, and that’s good.  The truth found there will inevitably lead to the greatest good.

Shattering the Golden Calf: "The Searchers" and Aristotle's Grand Narrative

    “Tragedy is a representation of a serious, complete action [...] accomplishing by means of pity and terror the catharsis of such emotions.”  This phrase, lifted from Aristotle’s rather dense text, the crux of representation for thousands of years.  The intent of his work is somewhat difficult to suss out and has been the source of some heated discussion over the years.  If we approach his work as a textbook of creation, we see that our works should focus on plot, action that is probable and necessary, and result in the catharsis of emotion. (The significance of which is also a subject of debate.)    Such an approach is severely limiting to artists today and often scorned and repudiated.    That being said, his work is based in the fundamental belief that there is a right way to do things.  Tragedy that does not follow this way should be rejected or at the very least looked down upon.
    We can look at his codifying of the tragedy.  It’s parts consist in: plot, character, reason, diction, song, spectacle.  He explains each part in detail and reveals a very reasonable explanation of what works and what doesn’t.  He establishes the god of theatre as emotional response.  All of these aspects must bow at the altar of catharsis.  By defining a goal and determining the best means for achieving that goal, he sets a standard.  This Discourse over ages has created a hegemony within the theatrical world (and by association film and television).  While students may not study The Poetics explicitly, the doctrine of plot above all and empathetic engagement have continued to be a part of the art of representation.
    The western is a form of representation which has its own Discourse connected with that of Aristotle.  Within the western a codified construct is designed to elicit a strong emotional response.  We have stock characters with their ethnic and economic associations.  White settlers are “good” and native injuns are “bad.  The structure is simple and follows a direct chronological path from exposition to resolution.  There are a series of reversals and recognitions , both necessary and probable, of increasing magnitude until a climax is reached.  We feel pity for the plight of the poor white settlers at the hands of evil conspiring injuns and terror for the protagonist as he reaches his crises.  All of this fits nicely within the prescriptive methodology of Aristotle.
    Additionally, and perhaps more interestingly, it represents the continuation of the fundamental assumption of right that is implicit in Aristotle’s work.  Aristotle believed that there is a right and a wrong to theatre, a grand narrative, and that is reflected in the traditional western.  Not only are the characters polarized to a center and an other, but the aping of the the tropes of the western by each successive director indicates the hegemonic Discourse.  That grand narrative of theatre exists only because of that belief in a right or wrong.
    John Ford’s The Searchers pays homage to that narrative while questioning it’s Discourse.  The most obvious example is the decentering of the protagonist.  John Wayne’s character is presented to us as a good, one to be emulated.  But as the film progresses, his character begins to exhibit behavior that one associates with the other.  He adopts the comanche beliefs enough to desecrate a corpse and ultimately scalps the Chief.  Ultimately he is willing to kill his niece for becoming “infected” by the comanche culture.  (She refers to the comanche as “her people”.) This being the case the film does not go so far as to flip the binary.  The comanche are not necessarily portrayed as good and certainly are not placed at the center of the plot.  This ambiguity of good and evil brings into question fundamental beliefs as to what is good and bad and more importantly, who is good and bad.
    Though Aristotle places the primary importance on plot, the film instead questions the morality of a character indicating a subversion of that very notion.  Both the antagonist and the protagonist do similarly things feel similar hatred, so what they do is difficult to distinguish in its morality.  The audience is left then to focus on character, on who not what. It is clear that John Ford wanted audiences to face the ambiguous morality within an individual, doing so places primacy on the character over plot, which challenges the Discourse of both the western and Aristotle himself.  The fact that doing so actually increases the empathetic response in the audience and thereby the catharsis shows that there is not a right or wrong in representation.  One can still bow to the god of theatre without following the code.  The final shot of the film is indicative of this.  The family brings their “adulterated” daughter with melding of white and comanche tradition back into their home through the door and the protagonist remains outside with his and our notions of right and wrong, good and bad, or center and other.  The narrative of Aristotle’s Poetics and the American western is thereby subverted and we must then wrestle with our own narrative and decide what to leave outside the door.

Online Response #1 Bill, Ted, and Intro to Theory

The Commodity of Identity and Expectation
    The reality of viewing versus the myth of expectation is a conflict often battled in the darkened movie-houses that dot our planet.  When presented with a set of possibilities the mind instantly begins anticipating results based on past experience.  For example, we hear a sound and we pass through potential causes of that sound from the least likely to the most.  Upon settling on the most likely, we determine a plan of action.  If identified as benign, we may well ignore said sound, but if our possibilities are defined by less likely, yet more frightening cause then we venture.  Between the moment of decision and the final viewing there is anticipation, anxiety, and perhaps outright terror.  When the source of sound is viewed it either meets, exceeds, or fails our expectations we respond elated, deflated, or perhaps relieved.  This pattern repeats itself often and is the basis of our reactions to viewing media.  We are introduced to a film via commercial, or trailer, or word-of-mouth.  We begin to anticipate the possibilities based on past experience.  Who’s the director?  Who penned the play?  What genre does it fit?  What’s the rating?  Has it been reviewed and by whom?  These bits of information help us to anticipate what  we will see on the screen.  Our expectation is set.  We drive to the theatre watch the film and begin the process of matching the film to our expectation. When the final credits roll we finalize and walk out satisfied or disappointed.  This is all nothing new.  However, the reality of expectation is that audiences prefer their expectations over reality.
    In Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, we are introduced to two high school slackers who represent not any real person, rather an expectation for what teenagers who are in garage bands in southern California are supposed to be.  Had they been subtle and grounded in the reality of a pair of high school slackers, we, as an audience, would likely have found them less relatable.  The concept of the high school slacker becomes codified into a specific set of traits that represent the audience’s expectations.  This is done to the end that audiences will not be disappointed, rather gratified that their expectation was met and perhaps return or encourage others to participate in the enduring of the teen myth.  The motivations become, therefore, monetary.  The teenage slacker is dehumanized and commodified.  Packaged to sell.  The reality is no longer what is being represented, but the representation itself.  The representation has value since it can be bought and sold and the real-life slacker has lost his identity to the copy of himself.   To be human is to be represented.  Those not represented are not human.  As the representation becomes more typified and commodified , it bears less and less relation to the reality and the original slacker is left with a choice: remain true and face oblivion of identity or relinquish control and adopt the traits of the representation thereby meeting expectations and falling into a false reality.  They are, essentially left “To be, or not to be”.  And if left with the two undesirable choices of being in oblivion of reality, or the oblivion of its commodified vision some may choose to not be at all, the oblivion of death.
    Granted, it may be hyperbolic to imply that expectations regarding a teen comedy from 1989 will result in suicide, but there is the very real danger of lost identity.  When one’s identity is co-opted and bastardized by a corporate entity to meet the expectations of an audience, one can not help but feel the inferiority of their reality when compared with their peers.  This becomes more apparent in the representation on Genghis Khan.  Kahn is portrayed in his home-time as dirty, hungry, and sexist.  The women surrounding him are scantily clad (in a 1980’s PG-13 sense) and serve the purpose of looking pretty and giving food to their lord.  The clothes are jagged and dangerous looking and there is virtually no spoken language beyond grunts and moans. There is honestly little difference between Khan and the neanderthals of 10,000 BC.  This  presentation of Khan is, like the slacker teen, a specified type designed to meet audience expectations.  He is a version of the western view of the Mongol: a Barbarian in every negative sense of that word.  True Mongols bear very little resemblance to that image that is sold on the screen, but they, along with most of east-asian or southeast asian descent, are dehumanized by its portrayal and must choose to become commodities themselves or be discarded with the refuse of reality.  Their history is bastardized.  Their roots are twisted and they are left without a laudable foundation.  They float, for they cannot claim the wretched past portrayed on the screen, and without those roots must establish an new identity or adopt a different pre-packaged corporate perspective.  This loss of roots is perhaps more tragic than the slacker teen’s loss of age specific identity.  Identity in the western world is forged through choices and consumption, while much of the rest of the world founds their identity on family and tradition.  The commodification of Ghengis Khan represent a form of colonization of Mongolian genealogy, infiltrating their history with monetary goals.  If one’s cultural history can be bought, repackaged, and sold, what is left of one’s self?
    The battle of expectation vs. viewing experience has its casualties and they are not just our emotional state upon leaving the theater.  The efforts of corporate media to make identity a commodity to meet our expectations is resulting in an identity conundrum of those commodified, not to mention the dehumanizing effect it has on those in the audience who are mere dollar signs in seats for the corporations.  It becomes imperative to educate the public on the realities of representation and the corporatization of identity.  Only thereby, can the expectations of an audience be grounded in reality, and true identity be regained and preserved.