The Breakfast Club: The Club to Join, 30 Years Later

I may be in the minority but I’ve never really been a big fan of The Breakfast Club, but only since our class discussion on Thursday have I begun to understand why -- largely, the film appears to strike an offensive against the wealthy and against class-distinction; and yet the acquisition of, and intermingling within, the upper class is the ultimate reward for these students. At first I thought this hypocrisy was antithetical, but since reading Anthony C. Bleach’s “Postfeminist Cliques? Class, Postfeminism, and the Molly Ringwald- John Hughes Films” I’m convinced there is a deliberately neo-conservative promotion, particularly a rebranding of feminine “liberation.” According to Bleach this new stigmatization, possible in a post-feminist society, can be observed by popular culture hijacking the tenets of feminism and warping them from the notion of empowerment to the qualities of self-indulgence and narcissism.

This allows for vehicles like Hughes’ movies to reformat feminism in a way “that sanctions ‘individualist, acquisitive, and transformative’ values and behaviors, as well as in the way that it ‘participates in the ideological and economic normalization of new patterns of exclusion and demographic propriety in the United States.” In other words, The Breakfast Club claims that women, and more accurately the individual, achieve empowerment through consumption and individualism. Additionally, while I realize that there needs to be some sort of denominator to rely on, the fact that feminist tenets (“liberation, agency, and desire”) can be so easily categorized, discerned, and manipulated seems to be indicative of post-feminist discourse itself.

However, my gripes are confined to The Breakfast Club (because I haven’t seen Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink) and not with John Hughes as a writer/director. This is primarily because of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which is easily one of my all time favorites and definitely the one movie that I compel myself to watch every time it’s on television if I happen to glimpse a scene while channel-surfing. I’m sure that Ferris finds itself in some of the same post-feminist, neo-conservative, white-suburbian ruts  that the reading delineates in some of Hughes’ other movies, but I’m usually more focused on the dynamic between Ferris and Cameron (my favorite Hughes’ character) anyways.

Now that I’ve given my obligatory Ferris plug, back to The Breakfast Club; or more interestingly (this time around), the essay. I found myself in agreement with this reading for nearly its entire length -- the exception being a few alternative ideas that stuck me (mostly with that ambiguous ending) which I’ll get to shortly. I thought this essay was one of the most fascinating readings that we’ve looked at yet because it provides a comprehensive summary and analysis of the Reagan-era eighties entirely. It also demonstrates how the eighties have informed today’s society, right along with films like The Breakfast Club (look at the massive following that the film still has thirty years later). It details supply-side Reaganomics and its principles: “growth is good, the entrepreneur is a ‘hero,’ ‘fair government’ is limited government because individuals” can make everyone benefit from their financial gain and because “individuals ‘almost always can solve problems better than government can,’ [as] ‘competition… breeds creativity’.” Furthermore, Bleach goes on to say that these policies have eclipsed economics and permeated “ideological, social, and technological” mindsets for Americans. The impoverished man as a “leech” on society is a part of contemporary discourse, spawned by these early 80s mentalities.

Suddenly, I’ve realized that I’ve participated in this same mindset, that I have marginalized feminism’s previous accomplishments and discarded them as being self-indulgent because I think that there are greater societal concerns. Occasionally when I hear someone focus only on something's effect on women where there are so many other aspects that are relevant to human nature as a whole, I might think "oh boy, more feminist extremism." But that thought process just makes me part of the system! This essay was revelatory by describing this adherence as consistent with postfeminism and I'm contributing myself to an individualistic society, and whether that is ideal or not, I didn’t even realize it (which is the frightening consequence).

Given how declarative of social status The Breakfast Club is by the opening scene alone (as detailed by the essay and discussed by all of us in class); seeing as though there are explicit measures against the upper class as Molly Ringwald’s character, the wealthiest of the detention attendants, comes under frequent assault; and because the movie does quite blatantly demonstrate, in contradictory fashion (following the film’s attack on the wealthy), that upper-class is the desired goal of the masses, it’s pretty safe to conclude that the movie champions this individualistic and acquisitive society that the essay lays out. Now I’m left wondering where Hughes’ role in this construction seems to lie (and it might be worth examining Hughes’ background to find it). It’s obvious that he is undermining his offensive against the upper-class by the end of his films, but is he obviously supporting Reagan-era policy or making that portrayal so obvious that he is satirizing it? Or does it not matter because regardless of the filmmaker’s intentions the movie speaks for itself? This last option is probably the case because even if he were satirizing this individualistic value, he is not doing it explicitly enough as his film condones the behavior rather than condemns it.

It’s fun -- and frightening -- to think that Hughes might just be more concerned with the romance than the social constructs that he has crafted. There is (though small) the chance that he’s just using class distinction as a pliable and relatable landscape to tell his story as class disparity is an age-old reservoir for conflict. He may just be trying to say that romance, especially of the happily-ever-after kind, transcends class differences, that it can bond them or circumvent them, and that it is blissfully unaware of the social constraints that it implores like individualism and acquisition. However, the basket-case must be made to look like a princess to achieve romance, and from a post-feminist perspective, “Claire’s feminism is ‘taken into account,’ only to demonstrate its totalizing force: ... all… march to the beat of her drum.”

Bleacher’s assertion that everyone marches to Claire’s beat brings me to my last point, an alternative idea of mine that I mentioned early, and more of a question for blog discussion than a thought-out commentary on what I’ve previously discussed. Did anyone else find Bender to lead the beat of this “march” through the entire film? He is harsh, he is sardonic, and at times supposedly apathetic, but I also found him to have a penchant for mentorship. Instead of a criminal, he plays more of a brotherly, perhaps even fatherly role, training these other detention inmates to see through his own “lower-class” perspective, and consequently see that being “upper class” isn’t the end goal of everything. This would have large ramifications for Bleacher’s essay: instead of him ascending to Molly’s ranks, the romantic kiss they share at the end is a token of his own success, having brought her down to his level to witness the fruitlessness of her consumerism. That said, this is still highly individualistic -- just at the other end of the spectrum.

Eagerly Accommodating Susan

Coming into Desperately Seeking Susan right off of Purple Rain, I, like a few others who have not seen Desperately Seeking Susan, had expected the film to be Madonna’s take on the Artist’s journey (shaped after her own life and complete with her own concert scenes) in the same manner as Prince’s film. I was delighted to find that I was wrong. This movie was funny, conventional, and entertaining in a way that was free of guilty pleasure.

An argument could be made that Desperately Seeking Susan does provide Madonna’s representation of the Artist archetype, but the film isn’t really interested in developing that narrative. She is not out to hone her craft (though perhaps she has just mastered it) nor is she looking to resolve any creative issues, and her closest proximity to the Artist’s character arc is only her tendency to trailblaze new styles. Jane Miller’s article “Madonna” offers a more accurate archetypal description of the pop star as the Black Madonna. I found this article to be a bit disjointed (a very solid analysis but not exactly cohesive as it seemed to condense a few too many things with insufficient connection) but the article did raise several interesting observations, chief among them the role of archetypes and the creative playground that they foster for the viewer. Miller elaborates, quoting Henri Matisse, that the Black Madonna gives "an enclosed area of very reduced proportions ... solely by the play of colors and lines, the dimensions of infinity." Miller asserts that Madonna, faithful to her namesake, maintains this definition of the Black Madonna archetype and then she connects its function to certain qualities of poetry. Miller describes certain poetry as being highly interpretive for each individual but typically having an emotional direction that is nearly universal. In this way Madonna's persona can can be interpreted by individuals differently, but she is simultaneously forwarding a universal cause, in this case the tenets of third-wave feminism. Miller argues, “Eventually, subliminally, the culture, I believe, feels the effects of these poetic goings-on: a logo, or sign, for example, which the audience slips behind or sees through to get to another layer or message.”

Though I agree with the parallels that Miller draws between poetry and the power of Madonna's dark femininity, and while I know that religious signifiers are imperative to Madonna’s subversive routine, I disagree with Miller's decision to pursue her description of Madonna with a detailed, rather religious, background of the Black Madonna and the statue “visited by thousands of pilgrims.” I don’t think that religious reverence towards the pop star is inaccurate because many do idolize her, I just find it too emblematic and harmful towards Madonna’s intentions. Yes, in reality, Madonna fills the role of the mother figure, or the caretaker, or the religious endower of exploratory opportunities, but I think her intentions are more in line with her role as Susan in Desperately Seeking Susan. The film is interested in grounding such a lofty icon to an average person’s playing field. Madonna, especially as a secondary character in the movie, is not a figure for the viewer to model themselves afterwards or to religiously follow but an excerpt of a way of life in which the viewer may choose to join and coexist -- more sisterly than motherly.

The film also answers Miller's one qualm and qualification about poetic justice, that often its "irony [is] used to excuse life rather than reveal it.” This I think is where the film picks up the heavy-lifting. Madonna herself may not be able to reveal third-wave feminism entirely because she is such an icon that her popularity will just excuse it.  The viewer’s revelation needs to come from consensus and open-appreciation. Enter: Desperately Seeking Susan, the vehicle for third-wave feminism. As I previously mentioned, Madonna plays a role that is more subdued than her typical performance. Her style remains the same, but she is relegated to being a second-string character, instead serving as more of a tool for the character Roberta to convert and develop into a woman enjoying her freedoms associated with third-wave feminism -- like materialism or freedoms of sexuality. Since the film displays such an icon among the mundane, or perhaps since "Susan's" style is made to appear as the more alluring and more necessary behavior, there is the sense that Madonna's behavior is perfectly fine as the norm.

This is made all the more apparent by the men's positive reception to the appearance and behavior that Susan demonstrates in the film. Jim desperately seeks it across the nation and is well accustomed to Madonna's feminism. Dez never bats an eye at Roberta's replication of Susan, and he's glad to be gone with his ex-girlfriend who looks masculine in a second-wave feminist manner. Gary, as a conservative stereotype in a ready position to combat any change to the traditional housewife, hardly fights Roberta's transformation; in fact, he (short-sightedly) seems bored with Roberta's adherence to tradition, he is intrigued and subservient to Susan's attitude, and he is already engaged in an affair -- he, and thus even the conservative types (for argument's sake, the supposed average), is ready for change. Actually, affairs in general are treated with nonchalance and little consequence within this movie, providing further evidence that the "average" and the "norm" should have fewer issues with sexual freedom on all fronts.

Overall, this film spends very little time on presenting two conflicting views which might offer choice for the viewer. It travels a potentially more effective route by taking Madonna's style for granted, or for necessity.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Revolution!

And so, with a mere introduction from Purple Rain, the revolution of product licensing began.

Okay, so maybe it didn’t begin with Purple Rain as it was probably a pretty common business procedure by the time of the film’s release, but the film definitely epitomized the full potential of synergetic partnerships that so many other pairings of film and album have since sought --and usually failed -- to replicate. As R. Serge Denisoff and George Plasketes detail in their article, “Synergy in 1980s Films and Music,” synergy is more a myth too stubborn to die than a formula for success with its seemingly lottery-like qualities. They assert that “the multitude of failures had been overshadowed by synergy successes in the corporate consciousness such as Top Gun and Dirty Dancing” and a number of other films that they support with an exhaustive list of synergies that succeeded and of others that crumbled.

Even thirty years after Purple Rain, licensed products are still as common when big films are released. Soundtracks and video games and companion-novels and t-shirts and toys and too many other products to list are things that we know all too well in a world of consumerism, predicated by successful spin-offs like Purple Rain (which is essentially a spin-off as it came out a month or more afterwards and the album was undoubtedly the partnership’s greater agenda). Then again, perhaps Purple Rain isn’t the best example to compare to today’s brand licensing, as the dominance of music in this process is something that is intrinsic to the “eighties.” Soundtracks today seem like more of an afterthought. With the exception of an occasional Bond flick, we hardly have any movies with catchy themes songs any longer (what’s up with that anyway?). But I’m getting off track.

I guess what I’m trying to say here, or at least tangentially work my way toward (there, I did it again), is that there is a collaborative objective to Purple Rain (film/album) other than its synergetic business goal. Denisoff and Plasketes make it clear that there is no knowing if a partnership is going to be successful, and they imply that synergy is a foolish practice if you can’t afford to bank your resources on a risky venture. So what makes a film like Purple Rain actually succeed? I have no idea. Smarter business-minds than I, have tried and failed to figure it out. But I think it has something to do with a unanimous effort between the two mediums towards a purpose that is not money-related. The film and the music must appease two very different audiences, or at least extrapolate the preferences of one audience on to their less favorable medium. By this I mean that Purple Rain captures the sensations experienced at a live concert, perhaps euphoria, and transcribes it onto a feature film so that both products make a unified, aesthetically hedonistic experience.

I probably just defined music videos, so let me point out that Purple Rain seems unique in that it anthropomorphizes emotion. Prince, and his many sexualized scenes and movements, do not merely appear erotic, they seem to be eroticism incarnate. Similarly, the atmosphere of the film is very sensory. It is sticky and intangible and incomprehensible. These are sensations that are stirred and experienced in real concerts, and so the concert scenes are prolonged so that they feel familiar. The other parts of this film, the “plot” scenes, are quite melodramatic as they are representations of emotion in its purest element too. We get humor and frustration and eroticism and sadness, and they are experienced, not discerned. These scenes could just as easily have had their sound and words revoked while Prince’s music played over their visualization (like a music video), and we still would have anticipated the same emotions. That’s why Prince’s irrational switches from sexual tenderness to misogyny is present in the film: not because he’s here to promote or condemn his actions but because emotions are murky experiences with no clear explanation.

Because this representation of emotion seems like an intended goal of the film, I tend to disagree with Purple Rain exemplifying postmodernity because I think that it blends other elements of traditional intent. It is obviously postmodern in some manners as the observation that I made in the last paragraph was aesthetically focused, and as we discussed at length with Blade Runner, that is a famous quality of postmodernity. Additionally, it’s historical background is postmodern in many ways. The film can hardly be scrutinized formally as it partnered with an album to tell it story, and it does portray a character that blurs The Kid and Prince, and viewers are never not aware of these connection. The fact that two different mediums are working together to tell one story -- the fact that they’re “synergizing” -- is, in and of itself, conceptually postmodern.

But I don’t think the movie is as deliberately artificial as some make it out to be; and I don’t find it to be contrarian with passionate and emotional, technically-sound music (attributes that are applied to non-postmodern music). Purple Rain also has the sincerity that videos like “Video Killed the Radio Star” lack. As for its technicality, just look at the scene in which Prince finds his father’s music -- technical, quantifiable music -- and melds it into his own work. If the movie had been interested in showing that all produced music was just spontaneous sparks of inspiration it would have just ended the matter with the line from The Kid’s father when his son asks him where his piano piece had originated from (something like “It’s all up here” as he points to his head or heart). But that isn’t the case. Sheets of music spill from a knocked shelf when The Kid wrecks the basement in a frustrated flurry and that is narrative assertion that seems relatively traditional.

Okay, so my argument still sounds like its detailing postmodernity and I’m just contradicting myself because my description of the movie’s postmodern elements outweigh the ones that I countered with. Perhaps the frequent Devil’s Advocate in me is just trying to be adversarial because, let’s face it, this movie is too aesthetically focused to be anything but postmodern. I suppose what I’m trying to say, then, is that this movie/album is a different form of postmodernity than we have discussed. And really, its rather crude of me to confine postmodernity to one definition anyway; the condition prides itself on not being clear-cut in the first place. Purple Rain just doesn’t have the ostensible aimlessness or the irony that many other postmodern pieces that I’ve examined have had. The construction and presentation of the film are postmodern, but its purposefulness seems rather traditional.

While the film and the album surely teamed up and synergized for financial gain -- and because brand licensing leads to cool, androgynous Prince action figures -- I think that it is the extra degree of intended passion and sensory objective that unified the two mediums to make this project so much more successful than others.

WarGames: And how does that make you feel?

Having grown up in an age where computer operating systems have always been accessible and user-friendly – hell, where they’ve always existed -- I still find it difficult to wrap my head around the notion that in a time where computers were commercialized they could be as heavily mystified as they were in the early eighties. But having watched WarGames for the first time recently, and exposing myself to old technologies I hadn’t even known existed, I can certainly see the revelatory nature of this 1983 film, especially in as fragile of a period as the cold war’s twilight years.

Sure, the realm of computers and the depths of the internet have always been, and will continue to be, a bit mystifying because there is something inherently mysterious to a community with users that have greater capabilities, and potentially threatening ones, than oneself who are able to manipulate mountains without ever revealing their face. But, as informed by Stephanie Ricker Schulte’s essay “The WarGames Scenario,” general awareness regarding computers, their users, and their capabilities was at a dramatically lower point than it is today, and how could it not be when the internet is so quintessentially integrated into our modern society – it’s unfair to even compare the two. However, what is truly remarkable about these differing levels of awareness between 2014 and 1983 lies not in our societal value of the tool but in the varying degrees that we’ve empowered the government.

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Schultes contextualizes the circumstances of WarGames release (politically, technologically, socially), and she greatly details how the film had branded computers as a “teenaged technology.” On one hand, this established the stereotypes that have lasted even until today: the reclusive, socially inept, predominantly male, computer culture where teenaged boys live in their parents’ basement stabbing away at keyboards. More importantly, Schultes discusses the discourse constructed by the film; namely, the equation of “government internet regulation with parental guidance rather than with the suppression of democracy and innovation.” This exploitation of the public’s general anxiety was a brilliant move by policy makers and other governmental forces because they did not have to deal with the protests of powerful activists, whereas the only ones who may have complained about the violation of their rights and freedoms would have been those marked as “teenaged souls,” and thus negligible by “adult forces.”

I agree with Schultes’ observations, and I also think it’s worth noting that this rhetorical role of parental guidance is further substantiated by Matthew Broderick’s portrayal of the protagonist as he appears not only consistent in his teenaged shenanigans but in appearing psychologically impaired, too. This may just be a byproduct of Broderick being an arguably blank-faced actor, awkward in the delivery of his lines and interacting with people (though he will always be the lovable Ferris Bueller to me), but even if it is an indirect result, there is a pathological element to his role. But I don’t think I’m being generous in meriting Broderick’s capabilities because, my having a sister with Asperger syndrome, I see him staying fairly consistent with depicting the symptoms of a pervasive developmental disorder. His cognitive and language functions are entirely present, but his social interactions are seemingly distorted; he’s ignorant of many social customs throughout, he’s prone to stereotyped behavior, and he’s not always the most empathetic character as he does what he pleases. Of course, this gives the government more fodder for strengthening itself, but I’m also left wondering how radical this particular protagonist may have been in film and media at the time, if in fact it was a conscious decision.

If this representation is the case, then it further plays into the hands of a government deeming itself as a necessarily parental figure because not only is it guiding teenagers away from their antics but they are now being rendered as being pathologically unstable at times. Today, I think it is a more difficult for the government to stray away from its typical prescription as “Big Brother” and become a full-fledged parent because the internet has become so customary, but it is important to extract the meaningful discourse of reactions to cultural anxiety in previous eras because certain methods of scapegoating still apply to contemporary anxieties. Just look at the shift of blame to pathological instabilities and violent video games following a school shooting. The same reactionary principles of warping general awareness is still prevalent.

Blade Runner: Style As Substance

 Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies of all time and probably my favorite science-fiction movie. Alien, another Ridley Scott movie, is also in that running -- though I’d consider it horror more than science-fiction. Naturally, I was excited to see both in the syllabus. 

Anyways, Blade Runner: forerunner of the grimy dystopia, palpably atmospheric setting, haunting cinematography, deft performances from around the board, the most intact synthesized music to come out of the 80’s (see: minimalism) -- it has it all. More importantly, as has been well-established, Blade Runner is the poster-child of postmodernity in film. With its fusion of so many conflicting elements it’s easy to see why. Wet, muddled streets are crowded with transitory customers and dilapidated souls; above their heads, commercialism runs rampant with ads tracing the height of skyscrapers and zeppelins promoting off-world destinations; and even higher, the kings of industry like the Tyrell corporation with its regal ziggurat dominate the city scape. Yet these different classes are bound by perpetual deluge and by their confinement to an exasperated earth. 

And this is merely the blending of social and economic locales. The film has merged countless other incongruities, especially its anachronistic treatment of genre and technology. In his essay, “Building Blade Runner,” Norman M. Klein details a few of these fused elements. He says, “the construction of the blade runner look is very revealing… it is tangibly an old memory remodeled, a movie based on an old movie set about city life.” Furthermore, he stresses the importance of nostalgia in the film, emphasizing that it “replaces social reality.” And he’s right. The movie re-introduces traditional items, like film noir of the thirties and forties with a femme fatale Rachel and a Bogartesque Deckard, all with the intent of establishing viewer comfort with a disconcerting world.

Klein also reiterates that other critics had chastised Blade Runner at the time of its release as being an example of “style over substance.” While I don’t think that the early eighties were yet accustomed to this reversal, whereas today we are well acquainted with style’s ability to become substance, the bottom line is that the movie is purposefully “insubstantial.” It eschews a complex plot for intricate philosophy and a setting that effectively replaces the need for plot. The film is meant to be distant and seemingly hollow. The people are meant to seem aimless. Klein says, “I see a world where no one has time or place to sit longer than a few minutes, where the streets are endlessly milling.” Herein lies another facet of the movie’s postmodernity. This is a stagnant earth. People that can progress are gone; those that remain are rushing around without cause and, in some cases like J.F. Sebastian and his disease, they wither away without hope of improvement. This is why Roy’s emotional effulgence at the end is so climatic. It is the most energetic and most emotional display in the movie -- there is rage and laughter and love and pain and excitement and fear, all poured into his primal howls.

So what is the purpose of this postmodernity in Blade Runner? Does it go beyond constructing a fictional, alternate reality of our world in which we must change our ways to avoid? Here’s where I’m going to get loftily conjectural as I also feel the need to further investigate postmodernity whenever I try and understand its function, something that is quite incorporeal as postmodernity prides itself on its purposelessness.

Anyways, I think (as of right now -- this opinion is bound to change upon the completion of this overly long post) that the purpose of postmodernity is to reach a sort of post-postmodernity. If the main tenets of modernism revolve around the ideas of progression and objective truth; and we understand postmodernity to be the subversion of such tenets; but we consider progression to be inevitable, though perhaps varied in its degree of improvement, because by default it is a byproduct of the passage of time; then postmodernity is just a means of more closely examining possibilities for potential progress, be it through fragmentation or another postmodern device, so that when the time comes to consciously move forward (and that time will come because it is inevitable) we (society) will have a stronger idea of the more advantageous routes to follow for progression.

If this is the case, Blade Runner becomes even more of a standard-bearer for postmodernity. As mentioned before, it is a future that we can watch in relative safety and a future that we will not have reached by its prescribed date. There are similarities between our world and their’s, but in the end it is more dissimilar than not: it is stagnant and paradoxical and thus purposeless (what is the point of being human if we’re less human than an artificial man?). Perhaps this movie serves as a bridge, like other postmodern works, to get us to back to a point of purpose -- that post-postmodernity. If the critics with their claims of “style over substance” are right in saying that this movie is meaningless because reality will not occur according to Blade Runner, then the viewer is now able to extract a purpose from the movie’s philosophies, perhaps discerning the movie as a warning that we should appreciate being human and that we should not squander that opportunity.

Does the movie explicitly reveal this intention? Not really. It elongates our growing destitution, and travels a much drearier path than this cheerful ascertainment -- not to mention its ambiguous resolution with three or four different version makes this determination debatable. And that’s why this movie will remain relevant (philosophically, of course! Obviously, the movie is relevant for its varied scifi progenitorship). On the surface it is seemingly meaningless, but underneath lies a murky pool where answers can be plucked and molded into resolutions, or alternatively crafted to counter such resolutions. 

Lastly, I’m left questioning this movie’s place in the early 80’s. It seems antithetical to the affirmation of conservative values that we had discussed last week with E.T.. I find Blade Runner to be a counter argument directed at those growing values because the film rejects solidarity. Yes, the movie paints a crude rendition of an Asian take-over that probably would have affirmed certain political landscapes during that time, but it also paints capitalism in a negative picture with our industry having bled the world dry. That certainly doesn’t support the rhetoric of the Reagan-era. Moreover, this might explain its rather perverse representation of christianity, especially compared to E.T. In Blade Runner, man becomes God by creating new men and crafting new worlds, and these creations end up throwing down their God. Additionally, these creations that cast down their God are the most religious entities in the movie. Remember, Roy displays the most emotion of all and constantly retains his conscientiousness while Deckard is left helpless and bewildered with Ford at his finest. Also, add in the heavy-handed Christian motifs (dove, nail-in-the-hand) and the replicant really is your most devout character. How is a viewer to make sense of this artificial man being the most holy? Go-go postmodernity!

These rejections of Reagan-era policies aside, the movie does answer some of the cultural anxieties of that time, similar to E.T. of last week. Rather, it allows the viewer to determine a satisfying resolution of their own making, going back to that murky pool metaphor. The film channels American anxieties into a fictional world. As Klein touched on, “The bladerunner city, therefore is comforting in a strange way. We won’t live there. It is not our future. It is their future. But we will be allowed to visit.” No wonder Blade Runner fathered so many subsequent dystopias and post-apocalypses, even more prevalent today, with the genre's allure being its alleviation of cultural worries.

E.T.: The Allegoric-Terrestrial

Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is a film that everyone has heard of, if not seen. It is not the film that first put Spielberg on the map,  but it is one that recognized his mastery as it set the threshold for all family-oriented adventure movies afterwards. It is also a film with consensually acknowledged themes of Christianity, and E.T. has often had these themes dissected and subsequently appropriated for political agendas.

The critic Frank P. Tomasulo details one such appropriation in his essay “The Gospel according to Spielberg in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.” In this essay, he asserts that “ostensibly apolitical movies” like E.T. “simultaneously interacted and collaborated with their immediate sociopolitical circumstances, while also drawing on the timeless… images… characters,  and themes in an effort to efface all contemporary ramifications to the New Right and the Moral Majority.”

It’s difficult to deny the argument that E.T. has Christian themes because the movie is quite blatantly allegorical, though it never lets its biblical DNA hinder its valued entertainment. In fact, it’s even difficult to counter Tomasulo’s observations because they are seemingly obvious and his explanations are quite compelling, such as his analysis of E.T.’s plot arc in line with Joseph Campbell’s delineation of Christ’s plot arc (“Separation,” “Victories of Initiation,” “Trials of Initiation,” and “Return”). Though I begin to disagree with Tomasulo when he gets to his application of these observations. As I mentioned before, Tomasulo is pointing out that E.T. is supporting the current political regime during the film’s release (The rise of the Religious Right in 1982). He draws this conclusion through a resemblance of children before a capitalist nation like children before God. More specifically, he notes that movies like E.T. strive for “the infantilization of the audience, making us all children of multinational corporate capitalism.”

While I don’t necessarily agree with Tomasulo’s main assertion, I’m not here to disagree. I’m here to point out that I am exhausted by the extraction of allegory and the appropriation of certain images for political agendas, like the Christian themes of E.T.. Too often are allegories forced from stories that are something greater, and too often are there stories praised for their literary complexity when they are merely simple allegories. I understand the need for historicism, that this was a time ripe for allegory because the political landscape was shifting and people didn’t know how to feel about the change, and that the first thing a culture does when it’s confused is explore its mediums of entertainment for secret meanings and hidden answers. I understand that allegory is a necessary tool that functions to wake up an ignorant audience in times of crisis, but E.T. is so much more because it is lasting.

Allegory is a transient item. Sure, certain motifs of Christianity will persist for a very long time, but the use of these motifs are trivial for two reasons. One, with enough effort, nearly anything can be used to extract a biblical reference of some sort. Two, these extractions can be easily moulded and rebranded to suit the rhetoric of an era’s political regime or cultural phenomenon. For these reasons, it is more important to look at E.T. for its other attributes, its more enduring characteristics: most notably, its mythology. When looking at the adventure-filled movies for families, filmmakers and movie-goers alike have, are, and will reference E.T.  as an exemplary template of that genre. Will they remember the movie because of its Christian-fueled ties to a certain political era? No, people will remember E.T. for its universally understood coming-of-age story.

I’m not denying the allegorical ties that people like Tomasulo have discerned from E.T.. I’m saying that they’re not as important in the long run. Yes, it’s important when looking at a film over three decades old to keep in mind the political landscape and general mentality at the time. But as a 21st century viewer, I can say that the Christian themes in E.T. are not its most valuable assets.

Who knows? Maybe Spielberg had a very distinct intention when he incorporated so many obvious Christian themes. I like to think that they are so obvious because he is making fun of our tendency to elongate allegory. How else do you explain an alien ship exhaling rainbow exhaust? Maybe I just want my movie-aliens to be chance-visitors, not some messiah or harbinger of judgment day, descended from the “heavens.”
(Picture courtesy of http://www.highdefdiscnews.com/)