So this week we learned quite a bit in class about the power of what we
cannot see. The opaque tower of the Panopticon creates an atmosphere of
always being watched for the prisoners in Bentham’s conceptualization of
such an institution. Subjugation under these
circumstances can be quite facile. With the advent of certain
technologies, most of us are essentially in this prison: CCTV, social
media, camera phones, etc all make us incredibly vulnerable to being
surveilled. All the world’s a stage and big brother is
always watching.
… Or at least that’s how it is meant to look. There is more power the
vagueness and anonymity of this overseer figure/s than in a situation
where only one known person is in charge (for example, how Mark pointed
out that the talking CCTVs in the UK were not
taken as seriously as their silent counterparts). This uncertainty or
mystery has been known to result in self-policing toward following the
rules of the tower (or state, society, what-have-you).
We derive our notion of these rules by which groups or actions are
punished and which are left alone—or maybe even rewarded. What do
certain omissions or penalties within a theatrical work tell us about
the culture that it is reflecting? Furthermore, what is
shown impacts us as an audience. Like the women in Fiji from the Bordo
article, we internalize some of the ideas that are put before us by the
media whether we like it or not. In some cases, we aid in enforcing
these standards that were not initially our
own.
But what could something like that look like? My mind jumped to horror
movie rules. Virginity in women is often the key to survival or even
magic powers! By contrast, the people who are murdered often break the
rules we tell our teenagers to follow (don’t have
sex, don’t drink, don’t smoke pot, etc.) but we also often see members
of socially marginalized groups get the literal and/or figurative axe
(for examples, see Tv tropes:
Black Dudes Die First,
Bury Your Gays). What does that say about the filmmakers? What does
it say about the intended audience? Have these messages been
internalized and could they be harmful?
Side note! The movie “Cabin in the Woods” (or, as my brother calls
it, “House of Traps with Thor”) deconstructs this in a fun way. The gods
they are feeding are the audience itself and we (the audience) like our
formulaic scary movies to work in specific
ways.
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Five friends go to a remote cabin in the woods. Bad things happen. Starring Chris Hemsworth and Jesse Williams #CabinInTheWoods http://www.lionsgatehorror.com https ...
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Our Sofer reading about “dark matter” adds another layer to these
notions while simultaneously driving home the point that what is unseen
holds power in a way that is more directly applicable to our field. The
gravity (pun intended) is heightened for the things
that the audience does not get see. Yes, we sometimes get our
adventures with the Carnage Cart (ekkyklema) revealing dead bodies, but
it means more after being unable to witness the violence that lead up to
the gruesome scene before us. As we all have learned
from encounters with David S. Pumpkins: “the scariest thing to the mind
is the unknown.”
Sometimes the dark matter of the play is simply an influential figure or event (Byron in
Arcadia, Pepe El Romano in The House of Bernarda Alba,
a gunshot, a wedding, etc) rather than something spooky-scary, but
regardless of what sort of emotion these offstage/offscreen elements are
intended to evoke they hold a commonality
of power.
Or
do they? Have you ever seen an instance of something that was shown
being more impactful than it would have been to keep it out of the
audience’s sight? Or—on the flip side—have
you ever been severely let down by the choice to have an element
presented as dark matter instead of overtly? Have you ever found
yourself utterly engrossed in something that you couldn’t see? Feel free
to riff on that.
For example, we never see what’s behind Nancy but I noped right the hell out of this one the first time I saw it.
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Expediente Warren: The Conjuring (2013) Director: James Wan Paranormal
investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren work to help a family terrorized by
a dark presence in ...
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Most importantly, I’d like you to find an example of a work that utilizes “dark matter” while also enforcing some sort of hegemony, politics, or morality. How effective is it? What does the lesson conveyed about who is punished and who is rewarded say about the artists and their audience? Did this impact you and your perception of the world? Did you generally dig it?
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