SUBVERSIVE READING - Bio-dome (1996) - Part Three

The vaguely stated goal of the bio-dome is “to live in harmony with nature,” and the conflict centers on establishing a harmonious, sustainable, homeostatic relationship between humans and their environment. The dome is regulated by a computer system that gives a readings of the area's homeostasis levels, warning when they become too low. So what exactly does the computer mean by this all-important notion of homeostasis?

We could define it as a state of nature that must be preserved in order to sustain human life. And this state of nature? We could take it is as an ideal state of nature before human intervention, or rather, a state that can thrive as if humans didn't exist, in which case the optimization of nature hinges on the minimization of human impact. We begin to understand that the dome is not a biological or environmental experiment, but a social one. That is to say, the dome was formulated with a particular view of acceptable human practices in mind, and the homeostasis value, with the constant danger of its falling, is a mode of exerting power over its inhabitants by obliging and prohibiting certain practices. This is the dialectical counterpart to our original definition of homeostasis: a state of human nature that must be sustained in order to preserve the current environment. With this formulation, we can see that homeostasis is not an objective scientific truth presented by the supposedly neutral voice of the computer, it is a means of enforcing a particular lifestyle devised by Dr. Noah. Under the veil of optimization hides a whole decision making process based on values presented as unchallengeable scientific fact, which are forced into reappraisal through the radical alterity of Bud and Doyle.

Given the general reliance on tools and foods that could not be produced inside the dome, not to mention the very machinery required to create the simulation of the environment, the sustainability is totally hypothetical. In this respect, it is very telling that the film pivots on scenes that take place in air vents and tunnels. The hidden mechanical infrastructure, the unquestioned requisites of a sustainable environment, are not self-sustaining at all, but evidence of the artificiality of the state of nature.

A reminder that they are trapped inside an 'as-if': an ideal, fantasy nature that allows them to act as if the world came ready made for human habitation, while discounting the extent it must be positively altered, and ignoring all that is uncontrollable and unalterably inhospitable. This is why raiding the storage closet of Cheetos and nitrous oxide, while not harmful to the environment in any way, is offensive enough to have the boys exiled into the desert – it uncovers an embarrassing secret, while simultaneously flouting their miserly, hypocritical conservation for a moment of blissful and careless squandering.

Dr. Noah would like to retain the fantasy that a perfect environment prescribes a single way of living, in which everyone is calm and orderly, satisfying only their minimum biological needs, and faithfully serving their master, who holds the reins of the complex through a centralized administration system called “homeostasis”. As he explains earlier, “Everything you did at home, you're forbidden to do here.” Bud mockingly affirms, “Here at bio-dome, we're dependent on balancing homo's within the system.” The battle between pleasure and utility takes on homoerotic tones throughout the film, culminating in the boys being paraded about by a team of buff, half-naked throne-bearers at a festival of ruinous indulgence. But right after their victory over the dome, their desire for the girls gets the best of them, and they dedicate themselves to restoring homeostasis. In the end they successfully adapt themselves to the demands of the machine, but much to the chagrin of Dr. Noah, its function has been hijacked by the girls. The technology only acquires importance for the boys when it becomes directly linked to the girls' affection, it only acquires power through the aid of sexual leverage. In short, it becomes a measure of the girls' attraction to the boys, a quantified desirability value.

Why is the return to 100% not enough to satisfy Dr. Noah? Because its successful recovery from the festival of joyful squandering, and its ultimate compatibility with the utterly chaotic and moronic lives of Bud and Doyle, means that even when functioning properly it falls short of total administration, and admits the possibility of different social arrangements (the female scientists are now ready to put out for the boys, but are denied, perhaps because the act would cause the desirability meter to fall). First they beat the system through sheer disregard, then they join it for a more thorough and subtle humiliation that leaves Dr. Noah completely powerless. The impotence of the machine without female aid and the hijacking of its meaning by these unwanted characters are enough for Dr. Noah to disown, and seek to destroy, his entire project: “My creation, I know thee not.”

-Brian Mallace

SUBVERSIVE READING - Bio-dome (1996) - Part Two

Many films have made an attempt at exploring the complex relationship that two men have. From, Renoir’s Le Grand Illusion, Ozu’s Tokyo Story, even Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Wilder’s Some Like it Hot, have made some attempts at exploring the fascinating boundaries between men in plutonic relationships. One such film not mentioned much is the 1996 Pauly Shore vehicle Bio-Dome. This film lacks a lot of qualities that produce good cinema - its staging is poor, characterization is almost non-existent, and the visuals produce an almost bland unfocused mess, all of this on top of the poorly developed story, lost in misdirection. But, as a film about male relationships, it produces a truly subversive mainstream piece which highlights a subtle relationship between our two characters: Bud and Doyle (Shore and Stephen Baldwin respectively). They first appear to be two slacker friends existing as plutonic foils, deceptively charming us into seeing them as harmless waifs who spend all of their time together. Instead, these characters are more obviously closeted homosexual lovers.

It all remains clear - the aversion to feminine whims, the destructive pattern of hetero-sexual relationships, the over preponderance of sexual touching (overly sexual gyrations, grabbing and even kissing) and Bud’s knowledge of Doyle’s masturbation techniques (not taken out of context). It would appear that, like Rosencratz and Guildenstein before them, these are two characters trapped in a puritanical prison escaping only through the means of an intense plutonic relationship. The time this film was made was right at the height of the “culture wars” that defined much of the 90’s. Much could not be said and shown, much was even denied by stars afraid of ruining leading man status (Will Smith rejecting a gay kiss in a movie, Tom Cruise and Mark Wahlberg rejecting homosexual activity in respective films). Our film in that context gains a subversive traction; it shows individuals within a harsh cultural reality looking to belong somewhere.

Hence after being rejected by multiple communities (the aforementioned bio-dome and their town) they must act out in order to belong (the plot of the movie). The subversive tone the film sets in regard to our characters and their sexuality allows the movie to make a clear statement on the role of community and personal preference. We witness a movie striving to create a circumstance where societal notions of normalization do not happen (such as in Kaurimaski’s film Leningrad Cowboys) and our characters can form their conceptualization. That is why at the end of the film, the kisses our main characters share with their girlfriends lack passion and focus (despite having no contact with them for a year), they have instead found a place accepting them.  

-Mark Brinton

SUBVERSIVE READING - Bio-dome (1996) - Part One

Pauly Shore is queer.  So what happens when he (and his lover, isn’t it obvious?) enters an enclosed environment where a so-called environmentally homeostatic society is being developed?  He is ostracized.  What does he do in reaction?  He fucks things up, as he should.  What I am getting at is the biopolitics of Bio-dome, and how Shore’s increasingly queer and delinquent behavior eventually brings the bio-dome to its breaking point.

Biopolitics is the administration and fostering of life.  Within the bio-dome one type of life is established (a very hetero-normative life) and Shore is too queer to be allowed to participate in this life.  So quite literally, Shore and his lover (played by Stephan Baldwin) are left to die of thirst in the desert of the bio-dome, but not before they are able to fuck it up enough to bring the bio-dome to its breaking point.  Envision biopolitics as existing as a sound wave.  Everything is included within the wave, yet it becomes more intense at the apex of the wave.  But before the wave breaks into a discordant and uncontrollable noise, we head back the other way and remain stable.  Shore, being queer, is on this wave length, but he is denied access to any privilege, or in other words, he is not allowed to participate in the more intense portions of the wave.  So, to resist, he must tweak the wave past its apex until it becomes noise.

Once he tweaks and modulates the wave of biopolitics he is able to participate in developing a new lifestyle for the bio-dome.  Which is not to say there aren’t many more problems with the new homeostasis established by Shore in Bio-dome; it is to say that Bio-dome is a critique of heteronormativity and how it operates within biopolitics.

-Eric Virzi

SUBVERSIVE READING - Larry Crowne (2011)

In the motion picture, Larry Crowne, we are treated to a man who enjoys and cherishes his days as a lowly cart pusher at a Target-esque store. Here we come to learn that not only does he enjoy middling work as a “team leader”, but that he gets paid very well for doing it (he owns a nice Southern California house and drives an SUV). After an implausible meeting occurs, where Larry is fired because he cannot be promoted, even though he is clearly the best and most competent employee at the store, he enrolls at a local community college in order to make himself marketable again. There, Larry experiences a reawakening that only individuals too hypnotized by corporate culture would experience.

The film begins to show some delusional notions here, delving into Larry’s easy ride through school. He appears to be the only older person at the school (which is simply not true at a community college in Southern California) and seems to be the only member of his friends to actually be affected by the recession (everyone else: his neighbor, the fellow students- seem to exist in a fictional world outside of the recession). With this in mind- his immediate classmate, who has no college diploma, opens a boutique in a rundown neighborhood and it is an immediate success. This sub-plot negates the entire message of the film: the greater necessity of education. It also establishes a subversive message about education, race and class. The character who opens up the boutique is a woman of color- her denying education as a necessary pre-requisite for the market place allows her to subvert the society that education serves. She denies the need for an education in a society that is created for normative conceptions of success and advancement. By denying this she denies these normative conceptions while also denying the racial notions behind them (white normativity and privilege).

This subversive point is not without merit, since her mentor in the film is played by Pam Grier. Grier (as everyone should remember) was the most subversive actress of the 1970’s. Her films embodied a subversive edge, refusing to both conform to white norms and allowing limitations of a physical and socio-economic ghetto to control her. Her character serves as a mentor to the boutique character, inspiring her to follow through and open the boutique. This crucial element illustrates a subversive tension throughout the film, showing that these characters exist in contrast to the main characters.

Larry Crowne exists as an embodiment of white mediocrity conforming to normative conceptions and continued hope that things will simply work out (with no acknowledgment of his white privilege). These characters (Grier and boutique girl) instead represent those who have had opportunities historically and institutionally denied to them (Julia Roberts even illustrates this point when she gives Larry an A, just because he is the only white male in the entire class-despite the fact he incorrectly did his final assignment), therefore they have to subvert normative conceptions in order to combat this denial. While I doubt that this was intentional on the part of the filmmakers (Tom Hanks again), it creeps out as a subversive tension within the film that refocuses its’ central message. 

-Mark Brinton

SUBVERSIVE READING - The Avengers (2012)

Geek Culture has triumphed and overcome the condescension and pretentious curiosity of pop culture once and for all.  For decades, comic books were looked down upon with a snobby look by rich capitalists, while self-proclaimed Geeks continued to buy tons of merchandise like comic books, posters and action figures, all the while making fun of the dominant pop culture.  With The Avengers we see the biggest victory by geek culture as it enters into pop culture and becomes a horrendously giant money-making machine.  Even so, this (somewhat, I guess) subversive culture we call Geek retains some of its dangerous elements while it makes billions for mostly rich white America.

             

Avengers basks in all its masculinist glory, yet retains a feminine hope in the Black Widow played by Scarlett Johansson.  I was delighted to find that she was presented as a seriously dangerous action hero.  Keeping in mind she is dressed in skin tight leather (bringing to mind S&M – and dominatrix clothing), her sexuality is not crammed down our collective throats.  She also seems to have the most character development in the movie.  So, what I am getting at is Avengers presents a female superhero that really kicks ass (which is what superheroes are supposed to do, right?).  While this doesn’t seem all that subversive, if compared to other action flicks, we definitely see a more complex female character in Avengers; Johansson is certainly not in this movie to play the mindless and malleable sex object.  We will see in The Dark Knight Rises if Nolan and Hathaway accomplish the same with their Catwomen.

             

Captain America is Gay!  My proof?  Cap. America and the SHIELD agent (the one who dies) are obviously having a sexy affair off camera.  The relationship is started by the agent, who has had a healthy obsession with the superhero since his childhood.  Cap. America does not spurn any of this obsessive admiration, and actually seems to indulge it.  We can only imagine the dirty and pleasurable things happening off screen.  I definitely enjoyed the gay Cap. America more than the super boy scout act he had going in the beginning of the film.

            

 The more general theme of the movie is quite subversive and runs contrary to the individualism of other comic book movies.  The Marvel superheroes had to work collectively in order to save the world.  It wasn’t collective action like some orgiastic military commercial (most action blockbusters are, i.e. Transformers 1,2, and 3, Battleship, etc.) where robotic killing machines perform their duties like cogs in the machine, (in fact the US military refused to work with the production of Avengers because of the ambiguous authority of SHIELD.)  Each hero has drastically different qualities, some with contradictory perspectives, which they have to overcome in order to benefit the collective.  And this is the main conflict of the film (not the alien invasion which is dramatically anti-climactic and boring), seeing each hero deal with their strong individual egos and attempt to work together.  Does this message reverberate with audiences embedded within a political climate where the Occupy Movement and revolutions around the world are calling for collective democratic action?  There are billions of reasons to say yes.

            

 So while keeping in mind that 1) this made billions of dollars for people whom are mostly already rich in a decidedly not democratic movie production system, 2) the cinematography was bland and overproduced, and 3) most people probably saw it because of the action, we can still hold out hope that people at least were exposed to these subversive elements and that maybe the political climate actually helped propel this not-so-great movie into film history.

-Eric Virzi

Belief in empricism as destruction of the political process

The belief in empiricism limits our ability to think. We accept the notion of empirical thought as absolute, not questioning the sources and location of this thought. This becomes with the "hard sciences", sciences deemed to be entirely based on empiricism. These become understood as fact by everyone, even while the methods for reaching them are not understood.The problem with this comes from the acceptance of methods as truth and an explication for empiricism that is entirely constructed with a false premise. This premise relies on these sciences developing a rigid explanation for the empirical world around us. They fail in regard to this explanation, since the explanation itself is constructed by those creating the explanation. The view we have of expiricism becomes constructed by this small group of individuals( the practioners). We rely on them because of the belief that they must be true, when really such views are really an explanation. This explanation fails to serve as actual truth. The best possible explanation does not serve as truth, it serves as a conception of what occurs. The problem is that this conception has formed the basis of truth in regard to empiricism, when really it is just an explication. This serves to create a problem in regard to the political process.
      The political process relies on empiricism, the idea that problems are solved by facts as truth. Our familarity with the scientific conception of truth develops our reliance on a conception of empiricism in politics. The problem with this stems from the acceptance of these truths. Like with the sciences, an explanation exists,but, not truth. Our decisions and actions in regard to the political process( which we will use to excompass the larger socio-economic arena) come from this acceptance of the empricism of what is presented. Our ability to not  question these things,but, accept them as fact leads to our failure to properly organize and make an effort to change this idea of empiricism in the political process. The occupy movement, which is far from a failure, has not been as successfull as it could have been. The reason why is because of the movement's acceptance of empiricism.  The movement should reject any notion of true empiricism and deny it as a source of truth. This inhibits the ability to critically address anything, because the concept of truth is slanted. If they reject empiricism as a source of truth, then the ability to look deeper into the political process will occur.

The concept of discrimination as distribution of resources

 The perspective developed in a society determines how we distribute resources.  How these resources are distributed forms out of what is acceptable in a society; discrimination comes out of what is found acceptable.  Therefore, discrimination begins as economic discrimination. Our society reasons that all of discrimination is socio-political, instead it is resource driven. If we examine history we notice this pattern. Anti-semitism in Europe developed out of a perception of a one sided economic model. New world racial discrimination began from economic exploitation( slavery) and was furthered by a fear of distribution of economic resources. These and others are  all based on an economic basis: the dominant group striving for control of distribution of assets motivates all discrimination. The resource distribution motivates a sense of collective unconcious to discrimination, we accept it as merely a set of verying factors. Our focus begins to become clouded by own issues and instead denies discrimination occurs.

The solution becomes simple: move beyond a controlled distribution of resources. Move into a system where recourses are distributed without consideration for who they are distributed to. This way we can begin to dissolve prejudice in our society and instead begin to solve our larger problems.

-Mark Brinton