Artigos de revistas sobre o tema "How to get away with murder (Television program)"

The popular American television series How to Get Away with Murder (2014) seems to challenge the long history of stereotypical roles assigned to racial minorities in American media by choosing a multiracial cast to impersonate characters that, while having different racial backgrounds, share a similar socio-economic status and have multidimensional personalities that distance them from the common stereotypes. However, although it has been praised for its portrayal of racial diversity, the series operates within a problematic logic of racial colour-blindness, disconnecting the main characters from any sign of racial specificity and creating a fictional world in which racism is no longer part of American society. This case study aims to demonstrate to which extent the “colour-blind approach” of the TV show reinforces the postracial illusion in the United States, i.e. the idea that the country has overcome its past of racial segregation and now offers the same opportunities for everyone, regardless of colour and race. Through a narrative analysis of the first season of the series, this chapter will argue that the depiction of race in How to Get Away with Murder is highly ambivalent. On the one hand, the show does not completely ignore race by inserting topics such as racism in the plot, giving these issues at least some visibility. On the other hand, its more general panorama reveals an intent to deracialise its main characters in a colour-blind manner. This is problematic since it overshadows racial issues that still have a big impact on the lives of racial minorities.

Drawing from intersectionality theories and black feminist critiques of white, masculinist, and racist discourses still prevailing in the American popular culture of the twenty-first century, this article looks critically at contemporary images of African-American women in the selected television series. For at least four decades critics of American popular culture have been pointing to, on the one hand, the dominant stereotypes of African-American women (the so-called controlling images, to use the expression coined by Patricia Hill Collins) resulting from slavery, racial segregation, white racism and sexism as well as, on the other hand, to significant marginalization or invisibility of black women in mainstream film and television productions. In this context, the article analyzes two contemporary television shows casting African-American women as leading characters (e.g., Scandal, 2012-2018 and How To Get Away With Murder, 2014-2020) to see whether these narratives are novel in portraying black women’s experiences or, rather, they inscribe themselves in the assimilationist and post-racial ways of representation.

The emergence of various sexual subcultures and communities is part of a larger process that has characterized the twentieth century, resulting in ever-growing social complexity and social differentiation. This differentiation process has produced “a new pluralism of class, ethnic, racial and cultural forms as well as a diversity of gender and sexual experiences,” as Jeffrey Weeks puts it in his work, Sexuality (1986, p. 75). Angels in America (1992-1995) by Tony Kushner is a play set in America in the 1980s against a backdrop of conservatism, sexual politics, and a new mysterious disease: AIDS. On the other hand, How to Get Away with Murder (2014-2020) is an American legal thriller television series created by Peter Nowalk and produced by Shonda Rhimes in ABC Studios, in which the LGBTQ community finds its long-neglected place in American society. In both works, written twenty years apart, secrecy and disclosure strongly tied to sexual identity is the real nexus of the storyline in which the protagonists fight with their sexual identities along with social, cultural, and political attitudes, thus, transforming their entire lives into a battleground. In this paper, we aim to discuss the secrecy and disclosure of sexual identities in light of the USA's social, political, and cultural changes in Angels in America and How to Get Away with Murder.

Cyborgs already walk among us. (“Cures to Come” 76) This essay was begun as a reaction to a Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie called Sweet Nothing in My Ear (2008), which follows the lives of two parents, Dan, who is hearing (played by Jeff Daniels), and Laura, who is deaf (Marlee Matlin), as they struggle to make a decision about whether or not to give their 11-year-old son, Adam (late-deafened), a cochlear implant. Dan and Laura represent different perspectives, hearing and deaf perspectives. The film dramatizes the parents’ conflict and negotiation, exposing audiences to both sides of the cochlear implant debate, albeit in a fairly simplistic way. Nevertheless, it represents the lives of deaf people and gives voice to debates about cochlear implants with more accuracy and detail than most film and television dramas. One of the central scenes in the film is what I call the “activation scene”, quite common to cochlear implant narratives. In the scene, the protagonists witness a child having his implant activated or turned on. The depiction is reminiscent of the WATER scene in the film about Helen Keller, The Miracle Worker, employing a sentimental visual rhetoric. First, the two parents are shown seated near the child, clasping their hands as if in prayer. The audiologist, wielder of technology and therefore clearly the authority figure in the scene, types away furiously on her laptop. At the moment of being “turned on,” the child suddenly “hears” his father calling “David! David!” He gazes angelically toward heaven as piano music plays plaintively in the background. The parents all but fall to their knees and the protagonist of the film, Dan, watching through a window, weeps. It is a scene of cure, of healing, of “miracle,” a hyper-sentimentalised portrait of what is in reality often a rather anti-climactic event. It was certainly anti-climactic in my son, Michael’s case. I was taken aback by how this scene was presented and dismayed overall at some of the inaccuracies, small though they were, in the portrayal of cochlear implants in this film. It was, after all, according to the Nielsen ratings, seen by 8 million people. I began to wonder what kinds of misconceptions my son was going to face when he met people whose only exposure to implants was through media representations. Spurred by this question, I started to research other recent portrayals of people with implants on U.S. television in the past ten years, to see how cochlear implant (hereafter referred to as CI) identity has been portrayed by American media. For most of American history, deaf people have been portrayed in print and visual media as exotic “others,” and have long been the subject of an almost morbid cultural fascination. Christopher Krentz suggests that, particularly in the nineteenth century, scenes pairing sentimentality and deafness repressed an innate, Kristevan “abject” revulsion towards deaf people. Those who are deaf highlight and define, through their ‘lack’, the “unmarked” body. The fact of their deafness, understood as lack, conjures up an ideal that it does not attain, the ideal of the so-called “normal” or “whole” body. In recent years, however, the figure of the “deaf as Other” in the media, has shifted from what might be termed the “traditionally” deaf character, to what Brenda Jo Brueggeman (in her recent book Deaf Subjects: Between Identities and Places), calls “the new deaf cyborg” or the deaf person with a cochlear implant (4). N. Katharine Hailes states that cyborgs are now “the stage on which are performed contestations about the body boundaries that have often marked class, ethnic, and cultural differences” (85). In this essay, I claim that the character with a CI, as portrayed in the media, is now not only a strange, “marked” “Other,” but is also a screen upon which viewers project anxieties about technology, demonstrating both fascination fear. In her book, Brueggeman issues a call to action, saying that Deaf Studies must now begin to examine what she calls “implanting rhetorics,” or “the rhetorical relationships between our technologies and our identity” and therefore needs to attend to the construction of “the new deaf cyborg” (18). This short study will serve, I hope, as both a response to that injunction and as a jumping-off point for more in-depth studies of the construction of the CI identity and the implications of these constructions. First, we should consider what a cochlear implant is and how it functions. The National Association of the Deaf in the United States defines the cochlear implant as a device used to help the user perceive sound, i.e., the sensation of sound that is transmitted past the damaged cochlea to the brain. In this strictly sensorineural manner, the implant works: the sensation of sound is delivered to the brain. The stated goal of the implant is for it to function as a tool to enable deaf children to develop language based on spoken communication. (“NAD Position”) The external portion of the implant consists of the following parts: a microphone, which picks up sound from the environment, which is contained in the behind-the-ear device that resembles the standard BTE hearing aid; in this “hearing aid” there is also a speech processor, which selects and arranges sounds picked up by the microphone. The processor transmits signals to the transmitter/receiver, which then converts them into electric impulses. Part of the transmitter sits on the skin and attaches to the inner portion of the transmitter by means of a magnet. The inner portion of the receiver/stimulator sends the impulses down into the electrode array that lies inside the cochlea, which in turn stimulates the auditory nerve, giving the brain the impression of sound (“Cochlear Implants”). According to manufacturer’s statistics, there are now approximately 188,000 people worldwide who have obtained cochlear implants, though the number of these that are in use is not known (Nussbaum). That is what a cochlear implant is. Before we can look at how people with implants are portrayed in the media, before we examine constructions of identity, perhaps we should first ask what constitutes a “real” CI identity? This is, of course, laughable; pinning down a homogeneous CI identity is no more likely than finding a blanket definition of “deaf identity.” For example, at this point in time, there isn’t even a word or term in American culture for someone with an implant. I struggle with how to phrase it in this essay - “implantee?” “recipient?” - there are no neat labels. In the USA you can call a person deaf, Deaf (the “D” representing a specific cultural and political identity), hearing impaired, hard of hearing, and each gradation implies, for better or worse, some kind of subject position. There are no such terms for a person who gets an implant. Are people with implants, as suggested above, just deaf? Deaf? Are they hard of hearing? There is even debate in the ASL community as to what sign should be used to indicate “someone who has a cochlear implant.” If a “CI identity” cannot be located, then perhaps the rhetoric that is used to describe it may be. Paddy Ladd, in Understanding Deaf Culture, does a brilliant job of exploring the various discourses that have surrounded deaf culture throughout history. Stuart Blume borrows heavily from Ladd in his “The Rhetoric and Counter-Rhetoric of a 'Bionic' Technology”, where he points out that an “essential and deliberate feature” of the history of the CI from the 60s onward, was that it was constructed in an overwhelmingly positive light by the mass media, using what Ladd calls the “medical” rhetorical model. That is, that the CI is a kind of medical miracle that promised to cure deafness. Within this model one may find also the sentimental, “missionary” rhetoric that Krentz discusses, what Ladd claims is a revival of the evangelism of the nineteenth-century Oralist movement in America. Indeed, newspaper articles in the 1980s and 90s hailed the implant as a “breakthrough”, a “miracle”; even a quick survey of headlines shows evidence of this: “Upton Boy Can Hear at Last!”, “Girl with a New Song in Her Heart”, “Children Head Queue for Bionic Ears” (Lane). As recently as January 2010, an issue of National Geographic featured on its cover the headline Merging Man and Machine: The Bionic Age. Sure enough, the second photograph in the story is of a child’s bilateral cochlear implant, with the caption “within months of the surgery (the child) spoke the words his hearing parents longed for: Mama and Dada.” “You’re looking at a real bionic kid,” says Johns Hopkins University surgeon John Niparko, proudly (37). To counter this medical/corporate rhetoric of cure, Ladd and Blume claim, the deaf community devised a counter-rhetoric, a discourse in which the CI is not cast in the language of miracle and life, but instead in terms of death, mutilation, and cultural oppression. Here, the implant is depicted as the last in a long line of sadistic experiments using the deaf as guinea pigs. Often the CI is framed in the language of Nazism and genocide as seen in the title of an article in the British Deaf News: “Cochlear Implants: Oralism’s Final Solution.” So, which of these two “implanting rhetorics” is most visible in the current construction of the CI in American television? Is the CI identity presented by rendering people with CIs impossibly positive, happy characters? Is it delineated using the metaphors of the sentimental, of cure, of miracle? Or is the CI identity constructed using the counter-rhetorical references to death, oppression and cultural genocide? One might hypothesize that television, like other media, cultivating as it does the values of the hearing hegemony, would err on the side of promulgating the medicalised, positivist rhetoric of the “cure” for deafness. In an effort to find out, I conducted a general survey of American television shows from 2000 to now that featured characters with CIs. I did not include news shows or documentaries in my survey. Interestingly, some of the earliest television portrayals of CIs appeared in that bastion of American sentimentality, the daytime soap opera. In 2006, on the show “The Young and the Restless”, a “troubled college student who contracted meningitis” received an implant, and in 2007 “All My Children” aired a story arc about a “toddler who becomes deaf after a car crash.” It is interesting to note that both characters were portrayed as “late-deafened”, or suddenly inflicted with the loss of a sense they previously possessed, thus avoiding any whiff of controversy about early implantation. But one expects a hyper-sentimentalised portrayal of just about everything in daytime dramas like this. What is interesting is that when people with CIs have appeared on several “reality” programs, which purport to offer “real,” unadulterated glimpses into people’s lives, the rhetoric is no less sentimentalized than the soaps (perhaps because these shows are no less fabricated). A good example of this is the widely watched and, I think, ironically named show “True Life” which appears on MTV. This is a series that claims to tell the “remarkable real-life stories of young people and the unusual subcultures they inhabit.” In episode 42, “ True Life: I’m Deaf”, part of the show follows a young man, Chris, born deaf and proud of it (his words), who decides to get a cochlear implant because he wants to be involved in the hearing world. Through an interpreter Chris explains that he wants an implant so he can communicate with his friends, talk with girls, and ultimately fulfill his dreams of having a job and getting married (one has to ask: are these things he can’t do without an implant?). The show’s promo asks “how do you go from living a life in total silence to fully understanding the spoken language?” This statement alone contains two elements common to the “miracle” rhetoric, first that the “tragic” deaf victim will emerge from a completely lonely, silent place (not true; most deaf people have some residual hearing, and if you watch the show you see Chris signing, “speaking” voluminously) to seamlessly, miraculously, “fully” joining and understanding the hearing world. Chris, it seems, will only come into full being when he is able to join the hearing world. In this case, the CI will cure what ails him. According to “True Life.” Aside from “soap opera” drama and so-called reality programming, by far the largest dissemination of media constructions of the CI in the past ten years occurred on top-slot prime-time television shows, which consist primarily of the immensely popular genre of the medical and police procedural drama. Most of these shows have at one time or another had a “deaf” episode, in which there is a deaf character or characters involved, but between 2005 and 2008, it is interesting to note that most, if not all of the most popular of these have aired episodes devoted to the CI controversy, or have featured deaf characters with CIs. The shows include: CSI (both Miami and New York), Cold Case, Law and Order (both SVU and Criminal Intent), Scrubs, Gideon’s Crossing, and Bones. Below is a snippet of dialogue from Bones: Zach: {Holding a necklace} He was wearing this.Angela: Catholic boy.Brennan: One by two forceps.Angela {as Brennan pulls a small disc out from behind the victim’s ear} What is that?Brennan: Cochlear implant. Looks like the birds were trying to get it.Angela: That would set a boy apart from the others, being deaf.(Bones, “A Boy in the Tree”, 1.3, 2005) In this scene, the forensics experts are able to describe significant points of this victim’s identity using the only two solid artifacts left in the remains, a crucifix and a cochlear implant. I cite this scene because it serves, I believe, as a neat metaphor for how these shows, and indeed television media in general, are, like the investigators, constantly engaged in the business of cobbling together identity: in this particular case, a cochlear implant identity. It also shows how an audience can cultivate or interpret these kinds of identity constructions, here, the implant as an object serves as a tangible sign of deafness, and from this sign, or clue, the “audience” (represented by the spectator, Angela) immediately infers that the victim was lonely and isolated, “set apart from the others.” Such wrongheaded inferences, frivolous as they may seem coming from the realm of popular culture, have, I believe, a profound influence on the perceptions of larger society. The use of the CI in Bones is quite interesting, because although at the beginning of the show the implant is a key piece of evidence, that which marks and identifies the dead/deaf body, the character’s CI identity proves almost completely irrelevant to the unfolding of the murder-mystery. The only times the CI character’s deafness is emphasized are when an effort is made to prove that the he committed suicide (i.e., if you’re deaf you are therefore “isolated,” and therefore you must be miserable enough to kill yourself). Zak, one of the forensics officers says, “I didn’t talk to anyone in high school and I didn’t kill myself” and another officer comments that the boy was “alienated by culture, by language, and by his handicap” (odd statements, since most deaf children with or without implants have remarkably good language ability). Also, in another strange moment, the victim’s ambassador/mother shows a video clip of the child’s CI activation and says “a person who lived through this miracle would never take his own life” (emphasis mine). A girlfriend, implicated in the murder (the boy is killed because he threatened to “talk”, revealing a blackmail scheme), says “people didn’t notice him because of the way he talked but I liked him…” So at least in this show, both types of “implanting rhetoric” are employed; a person with a CI, though the recipient of a “miracle,” is also perceived as “isolated” and “alienated” and unfortunately, ends up dead. This kind of rather negative portrayal of a person with a CI also appears in the CSI: New York episode ”Silent Night” which aired in 2006. One of two plot lines features Marlee Matlin as the mother of a deaf family. At the beginning of the episode, after feeling some strange vibrations, Matlin’s character, Gina, checks on her little granddaughter, Elizabeth, who is crying hysterically in her crib. She finds her daughter, Alison, dead on the floor. In the course of the show, it is found that a former boyfriend, Cole, who may have been the father of the infant, struggled with and shot Alison as he was trying to kidnap the baby. Apparently Cole “got his hearing back” with a cochlear implant, no longer considered himself Deaf, and wanted the child so that she wouldn’t be raised “Deaf.” At the end of the show, Cole tries to abduct both grandmother and baby at gunpoint. As he has lost his external transmitter, he is unable to understand what the police are trying to tell him and threatens to kill his hostages. He is arrested in the end. In this case, the CI recipient is depicted as a violent, out of control figure, calmed (in this case) only by Matlin’s presence and her ability to communicate with him in ASL. The implication is that in getting the CI, Cole is “killing off” his Deaf identity, and as a result, is mentally unstable. Talking to Matlin, whose character is a stand-in for Deaf culture, is the only way to bring him back to his senses. The October 2007 episode of CSI: Miami entitled “Inside-Out” is another example of the counter-rhetoric at work in the form of another implant corpse. A police officer, trying to prevent the escape of a criminal en route to prison, thinks he has accidentally shot an innocent bystander, a deaf woman. An exchange between the coroner and a CSI goes as follows: (Alexx Woods): “This is as innocent as a victim gets.”(Calleigh Duquesne): “How so?”AW: Check this out.”CD: “I don’t understand. Her head is magnetized? Steel plate?”AW: “It’s a cochlear implant. Helps deaf people to receive and process speech and sounds.”(CSI dramatization) AW VO: “It’s surgically implanted into the inner ear. Consists of a receiver that decodes and transmits to an electrode array sending a signal to the brain.”CD: “Wouldn’t there be an external component?”AW: “Oh, she must have lost it before she was shot.”CD: “Well, that explains why she didn’t get out of there. She had no idea what was going on.” (TWIZ) Based on the evidence, the “sign” of the implant, the investigators are able to identify the victim as deaf, and they infer therefore that she is innocent. It is only at the end of the program that we learn that the deaf “innocent” was really the girlfriend of the criminal, and was on the scene aiding in his escape. So she is at first “as innocent” as they come, and then at the end, she is the most insidious of the criminals in the episode. The writers at least provide a nice twist on the more common deaf-innocent stereotype. Cold Case showcased a CI in the 2008 episode “Andy in C Minor,” in which the case of a 17-year-old deaf boy is reopened. The boy, Andy, had disappeared from his high school. In the investigation it is revealed that his hearing girlfriend, Emma, convinced him to get an implant, because it would help him play the piano, which he wanted to do in order to bond with her. His parents, deaf, were against the idea, and had him promise to break up with Emma and never bring up the CI again. His body is found on the campus, with a cochlear device next to his remains. Apparently Emma had convinced him to get the implant and, in the end, Andy’s father had reluctantly consented to the surgery. It is finally revealed that his Deaf best friend, Carlos, killed him with a blow to the back of the head while he was playing the piano, because he was “afraid to be alone.” This show uses the counter-rhetoric of Deaf genocide in an interesting way. In this case it is not just the CI device alone that renders the CI character symbolically “dead” to his Deaf identity, but it leads directly to his being literally executed by, or in a sense, excommunicated from, Deaf Culture, as it is represented by the character of Carlos. The “House Divided” episode of House (2009) provides the most problematic (or I should say absurd) representation of the CI process and of a CI identity. In the show, a fourteen-year-old deaf wrestler comes into the hospital after experiencing terrible head pain and hearing “imaginary explosions.” Doctors Foreman and Thirteen dutifully serve as representatives of both sides of the “implant debate”: when discussing why House hasn’t mocked the patient for not having a CI, Thirteen says “The patient doesn’t have a CI because he’s comfortable with who he is. That’s admirable.” Foreman says, “He’s deaf. It’s not an identity, it’s a disability.” 13: “It’s also a culture.” F: “Anything I can simulate with $3 earplugs isn’t a culture.” Later, House, talking to himself, thinks “he’s going to go through life deaf. He has no idea what he’s missing.” So, as usual, without permission, he orders Chase to implant a CI in the patient while he is under anesthesia for another procedure (a brain biopsy). After the surgery the team asks House why he did it and he responds, “Why would I give someone their hearing? Ask God the same question you’d get the same answer.” The shows writers endow House’s character, as they usually do, with the stereotypical “God complex” of the medical establishment, but in doing also they play beautifully into the Ladd and Blume’s rhetoric of medical miracle and cure. Immediately after the implant (which the hospital just happened to have on hand) the incision has, miraculously, healed overnight. Chase (who just happens to be a skilled CI surgeon and audiologist) activates the external processor (normally a months-long process). The sound is overwhelming, the boy hears everything. The mother is upset. “Once my son is stable,” the mom says, “I want that THING out of his head.” The patient also demands that the “thing” be removed. Right after this scene, House puts a Bluetooth in his ear so he can talk to himself without people thinking he’s crazy (an interesting reference to how we all are becoming cyborgs, more and more “implanted” with technology). Later, mother and son have the usual touching sentimental scene, where she speaks his name, he hears her voice for the first time and says, “Is that my name? S-E-T-H?” Mom cries. Seth’s deaf girlfriend later tells him she wishes she could get a CI, “It’s a great thing. It will open up a whole new world for you,” an idea he rejects. He hears his girlfriend vocalize, and asks Thirteen if he “sounds like that.” This for some reason clinches his decision about not wanting his CI and, rather than simply take off the external magnet, he rips the entire device right out of his head, which sends him into shock and system failure. Ultimately the team solves the mystery of the boy’s initial ailment and diagnoses him with sarcoidosis. In a final scene, the mother tells her son that she is having them replace the implant. She says it’s “my call.” This show, with its confusing use of both the sentimental and the counter-rhetoric, as well as its outrageous inaccuracies, is the most egregious example of how the CI is currently being constructed on television, but it, along with my other examples, clearly shows the Ladd/Blume rhetoric and counter rhetoric at work. The CI character is on one hand portrayed as an innocent, infantilized, tragic, or passive figure that is the recipient of a medical miracle kindly urged upon them (or forced upon them, as in the case of House). On the other hand, the CI character is depicted in the language of the counter-rhetoric: as deeply flawed, crazed, disturbed or damaged somehow by the incursions onto their Deaf identity, or, in the worst case scenario, they are dead, exterminated. Granted, it is the very premise of the forensic/crime drama to have a victim, and a dead victim, and it is the nature of the police drama to have a “bad,” criminal character; there is nothing wrong with having both good and bad CI characters, but my question is, in the end, why is it an either-or proposition? Why is CI identity only being portrayed in essentialist terms on these types of shows? Why are there no realistic portrayals of people with CIs (and for that matter, deaf people) as the richly varied individuals that they are? These questions aside, if these two types of “implanting rhetoric”, the sentimentalised and the terminated, are all we have at the moment, what does it mean? As I mentioned early in this essay, deaf people, along with many “others,” have long helped to highlight and define the hegemonic “norm.” The apparent cultural need for a Foucauldian “marked body” explains not only the popularity of crime dramas, but it also could explain the oddly proliferant use of characters with cochlear implants in these particular shows. A person with an implant on the side of their head is definitely a more “marked” body than the deaf person with no hearing aid. The CI character is more controversial, more shocking; it’s trendier, “sexier”, and this boosts ratings. But CI characters are, unlike their deaf predecessors, now serving an additional cultural function. I believe they are, as I claim in the beginning of this essay, screens upon which our culture is now projecting repressed anxieties about emergent technology. The two essentialist rhetorics of the cochlear implant, the rhetoric of the sentimental, medical model, and the rhetoric of genocide, ultimately represent our technophilia and our technophobia. The CI character embodies what Debra Shaw terms a current, “ontological insecurity that attends the interface between the human body and the datasphere” (85). We are growing more nervous “as new technologies shape our experiences, they blur the lines between the corporeal and incorporeal, between physical space and virtual space” (Selfe). Technology either threatens the integrity of the self, “the coherence of the body” (we are either dead or damaged) or technology allows us to transcend the limitations of the body: we are converted, “transformed”, the recipient of a happy modern miracle. In the end, I found that representations of CI on television (in the United States) are overwhelmingly sentimental and therefore essentialist. It seems that the conflicting nineteenth century tendency of attraction and revulsion toward the deaf is still, in the twenty-first century, evident. We are still mired in the rhetoric of “cure” and “control,” despite an active Deaf counter discourse that employs the language of the holocaust, warning of the extermination of yet another cultural minority. We are also daily becoming daily more “embedded in cybernetic systems,” with our laptops, emails, GPSs, PDAs, cell phones, Bluetooths, and the likes. We are becoming increasingly engaged in a “necessary relationship with machines” (Shaw 91). We are gradually becoming no longer “other” to the machine, and so our culturally constructed perceptions of ourselves are being threatened. In the nineteenth century, divisions and hierarchies between a white male majority and the “other” (women, African Americans, immigrants, Native Americans) began to blur. Now, the divisions between human and machine, as represented by a person with a CI, are starting to blur, creating anxiety. Perhaps this anxiety is why we are trying, at least in the media, symbolically to ‘cure’ the marked body or kill off the cyborg. Future examinations of the discourse should, I believe, use these media constructions as a lens through which to continue to examine and illuminate the complex subject position of the CI identity, and therefore, perhaps, also explore what the subject position of the post/human identity will be. References "A Boy in a Tree." Patrick Norris (dir.), Hart Hanson (by), Emily Deschanel (perf.). Bones, Fox Network, 7 Sep. 2005. “Andy in C Minor.” Jeannete Szwarc (dir.), Gavin Harris (by), Kathryn Morris (perf.). Cold Case, CBS Network, 30 March 2008. Blume, Stuart. “The Rhetoric and Counter Rhetoric of a “Bionic” Technology.” Science, Technology and Human Values 22.1 (1997): 31-56. Brueggemann, Brenda Jo. Deaf Subjects: Between Identities and Places. New York: New York UP, 2009. “Cochlear Implant Statistics.” ASL-Cochlear Implant Community. Blog. Citing Laurent Le Clerc National Deaf Education Center. Gallaudet University, 18 Mar. 2008. 29 Apr. 2010 ‹http:/ /aslci.blogspot.com/2008/03/cochlear-implant-statistics.html›. “Cures to Come.” Discover Presents the Brain (Spring 2010): 76. Fischman, Josh. “Bionics.” National Geographic Magazine 217 (2010). “House Divided.” Greg Yaitanes (dir.), Matthew V. Lewis (by), Hugh Laurie (perf.). House, Fox Network, 22 Apr. 2009. “Inside-Out.” Gina Lamar (dir.), Anthony Zuiker (by), David Caruso (perf.). CSI: Miami, CBS Network, 8 Oct. 2007. Krentz, Christopher. Writing Deafness: The Hearing Line in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Chapel Hill: UNC P, 2007. Ladd, Paddy. Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters Limited, 2002. Lane, Harlan. A Journey Into the Deaf-World. San Diego: DawnSignPress, 1996. “NAD Position Statement on the Cochlear Implant.” National Association of the Deaf. 6 Oct. 2000. 29 April 2010 ‹http://www.nad.org/issues/technology/assistive-listening/cochlear-implants›. Nussbaum, Debra. “Manufacturer Information.” Cochlear Implant Information Center. National Deaf Education Center. Gallaudet University. 29 Apr. 2010 < http://clerccenter.gallaudet.edu >. Shaw, Debra. Technoculture: The Key Concepts. Oxford: Berg, 2008. “Silent Night.” Rob Bailey (dir.), Anthony Zuiker (by), Gary Sinise (perf.). CSI: New York, CBS Network, 13 Dec. 2006. “Sweet Nothing in My Ear.” Joseph Sargent (dir.), Stephen Sachs (by), Jeff Daniels (perf.). Hallmark Hall of Fame Production, 20 Apr. 2008. TWIZ TV scripts. CSI: Miami, “Inside-Out.” “What Is the Surgery Like?” FAQ, University of Miami Cochlear Implant Center. 29 Apr. 2010 ‹http://cochlearimplants.med.miami.edu/faq/index.asp›.

This paper discusses the presentation of fame that can be identified through popular search terms. These terms reveal how the rapidly shifting interest in individual identities of ‘fame’ are cast against a continuous sequence of expected and unexpected events including movie releases, annual holidays, murders and terrorist attacks. The central claim of this paper is that fame is continuously reconstituted across a wide spectrum of cultural experiences and actions. Fame is attached to individuals as a personification of mainstream cultural fascination with specific events – whether manufactured or unexpected – and artefacts. This paper takes up the argument of Tyler (204) and Tomas (31) that promotes the potential of the Internet, and particularly the Web, as a ‘social laboratory’ that offers the means to rapidly and continuously identify the activities and interest of contemporary ‘everyday life’. This contrasts with positions that argue for the significance of the Internet in distinction and as a distinct space (Stone; Stallabrass; cf. Liff, Steward & Watts 97). However, this paper is not ‘another’ paper about the Internet or the Web. The data used in its discussion is admittedly gathered from this realm but is used as evidence into a wider framework of contemporary culture(s) that is media obsessed. This obsession both shapes and draws upon the transitory fame of individuals to frame and structure a form (or an illusion) of cultural continuity through a continuous presentation of events relating to ‘their’ fame. Fame is culturally achieved (Rojek 18) (manufactured) at various historical intersections of events and artefacts with their expression as a search term being just one indicator. Fame is not something that can be individually self-assumed as the (desperate) efforts in the UK of glamour model Jodie Marsh (Befuddle) (and others) often prove. Considered individually, the realisation of one’s fame can be seen as providence and the identification of ‘luck’ is an often cited basis for the possession of fame (Rojek 37). This is certainly a common explanation given by ‘famous people’ in ‘candid’ interviews. However, clear parallels can be seen in the analysis of invention (Boorstin 11). Inventions do not appear unexpectedly or in the absence of a need, they are a cultural response that occurs irrespective of the individual ‘genius’ of an inventor. The achievement of fame fulfills a similar cultural need at a particular historical moment. If Pamela Anderson had not achieved fame then – inevitably – another woman who could offer the contemporary idealised artefact of the female body would be available to be heavily represented through popular Web searches. The lists of search terms were gathered from wordtracker’s “Top 500 Search Terms” newsletter and represent the most popular search terms from September 2001 to February 2003. The terms that are found consistently at the top of the lists tend to be generic, for example ‘sex’, ‘autos’, ‘free music’ and ‘films’. Another predominant set of terms that repeatedly appear are the partial or full address of the most popular Web sites such as hotmail.com, yahoo.com and ebay.com. The lists of search terms also reveals the continuous importance of file sharing technologies, the commodification of women’s bodies through pornographic Web sites (MacKinnon in Mehta & Plaza 55) and the use of the Internet to gather copyrighted or even illicit goods for free such as music, software, warez and serialz. Fame – in the form that it can be identified through popular Web search terms – is heavily represented by individual media figures of either television or film. However, these people are not exclusively ‘mainstream’ actors. This is revealed through the public expression of ‘private’ cultural knowledges of ‘adult’ actors such as Tawny Kitaen or Tera Patrick. For the majority of these individuals who can be identified through popular search terms few receive a sustained level of interest beyond a few weeks blurring the observation of fleeting fame with that of momentary popularity. These brief expressions of interest are mechanical and even predictable forms of fame. Tera Patrick’s single appearance as a popular search terms occurred the day after she re-signed to host a Playboy Television program, “Nightcalls 411”. The surge of interest in Tawny Kitaen paralleled her arrest for spousal abuse and battery on her professional baseball playing husband. Interest in Natalie Portman and Orlando Bloom, two of the most popular ‘conventional’ actors observed in the lists of popular search terms (with Bloom as one of the few men regularly included in the lists) is more mundanely linked with the release of the films in which they appear. Outside of these specific events interest in these ‘younger’ actors does not rise to a significant level that is sufficient to appear within the lists of popular search terms. It is Pamela Anderson, however, who solely achieves sustained long-term individual search engine popularity. Anderson’s life (rather than her career) provides a continuous stream of moments and events that sustain attention in her as a popular search term. In November 2001, Anderson had a miscarriage and received a surge of interest as a search term; in March 2002 she announced that she had contracted Hepatitis C after sharing a tattoo needle with her former husband this was followed by a surge of interest as a search term. One month later she announced her engagement to Kid Rock which provoked another spike of interest. By June 2002 Anderson’s V.I.P. television series had been dropped by her network while she simultaneously announced involvement with a animation project called Stripperella, a combination that again peaked interest in her as a search term. Fame, in this context of celebrity and drawing upon these examples, can be seen as being as much related to negative moments in these individual’s lives as it is to success in their chosen field. This suggests that one parameter of search engine interest in fame revolves around revelations of the ‘normality’ of individuals such as Anderson. Bloom and Portman, in contrast, do not attract this attention possibly through their lack of ‘history’ but more plausibly by their adherence to the script of events manufactured ‘for them’ regarding their careers rather than ‘by them’ and about their ‘real’ lives. Baudrillard (41) observed that “in earlier time an event was something that happened – now it is something that is designed to happen. It occurs, therefore as a virtual artefact, as a reflection of pre-existing media-defined forms.” This observation is a harbinger to bin Laden’s spectacular manipulation of western mainstream media by bringing an apparently spontaneous event to the public gaze. The terms gathered from the Web search engine offer an alternative parameter for fame – achieved through the spectacle of unexpected public events. Most prominently is the identity (and misspellings) of Osama bin Laden however others also obtain fame through equally unexpected events (unexpected at least for those who experience it and for the mainstream media who act as an accomplice). Unexpected events, and arguably infamy or notoriety (Rojek 12), do not, however, necessarily ensure any greater persistence of fame. Osama bin Laden, perhaps the exception, as a consequence of his general identification as the architect of the 11 September 2001 bombings, is evident in popular search terms for a period of months after the attacks. This fame is evident in a different form to that of television, film or musically oriented fame. Osama bin Laden became an instant and dominating search term immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks. After this, interest in this event, and arguably bin Laden’s individual fame, gradually dropped away over a number of weeks until disappearing completely – echoing what Rojek observes as the inevitable evanescence of fame The notoriety of bin Laden was eventually subsumed and extinguished by mainstream US politics which encouraged a shift towards its own hegemonic agendas including – most notably – the political regime of Iraq. Other unexpected forms of fame are also related to specific moments of conflict, tension or aggression. Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, experienced a brief posthumous form of fame in May 2002 when he was beheaded in Afghanistan after being accused of spying. However, it was not the execution or the death of Pearl that primarily contributed to this sudden and unexpected interest. More significantly – for a Web enabled culture – was the relatively ready availability online of a video recording of the beheading. The motivation for the video being placed online, despite being formally banned by the US government, was a political action that defended the American belief in the right to freedom of speech. However, popular interest in this video is arguably more closely related to the perverse and voyeuristic cultural traits of contemporary mainstream culture (that is proved so regularly through many of the most popular search terms). The discovery of Chandra Levy’s body in a Washington D.C. park in May 2002 also offered brief posthumous fame. However, the interest in ‘Klingle Mansion’ – one of the last things Levy searched for on the Web before she disappeared 13 months earlier – suggests a perverse interest in the details of the murder, its peculiarities and Levy’s relationship to a Democrat senator rather than an expression of sympathy or grief for the murdered woman or her family. DeBord (thesis 60) claims that “media stars are spectacular representations of living human beings, distilling the essence of the spectacle’s banality into images of possible roles. Stardom is a diversification in the semblance of life.” In many respects identifying the difference between unexpected, ‘lived’ or manufactured fame offers little for extending the critical understanding of fame itself. Regular and unexpected events are not the sole determinant of fame, however, the close association between ‘being’ a popular search term and moments in one’s life suggests that this articulation of fame is closely driven by an ever-changing pastiche of personal, local and global events. Increasingly, these events are articulated through popular search terms revealing the role of the Web as a guide to broader mainstream cultural attitudes. “Our” interest with fame is a product of contemporary event-driven culture in all its variations. “Our” construction of fame is also produced by this same culture. The popular identification of individual fame shifts to meet prevailing cultural “needs”. These needs are expressed as, among other things, tabloid articles, ‘candid’ television interviews and Web search terms. References Baudrillard, J. The Transparency of Evil. Trans. J. Benedict. London: Verso, 1993. Befuddle. “Jodie Marsh Drunk Collection.” http://www.befuddle.co.uk/celebs/celebs_jodie_marsh.html>. Boorstin, D. Hidden History: Exploring Our Secret Past. New York: Vintage, 1989. DeBord, G. Society of the Spectacle. Trans. D.Nicholson-Smith. New York: Zone Books, 1994. Liff, S, F. Steward and P. Watts. “From the Social to the Virtual … and Back Again.” Virtual Society? Get Real! Ed. S Woolgar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. McLaren, C. “Celebs, Freaks, Media Lit: Interview with Joshua Gamson.” Stay Free! 15 (1998). http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/15/josh.html>. Mehta, M., and D. Plaza. “A Content Analysis of Pornographic Images on the Internet.” The Information Society 13.2 (1997): 153-61. Rojek, C. Celebrity. London: Reaktion Books, 2001. Stallabrass, J. “Empowering Technology: The Exploration of Cyberspace.” New Left Review 211 (1995): 3-32. Stone, A. “Will the Real Body Please Stand Up: Boundary Stories about Virtual Cultures.” Cyberspace: First Steps. Ed. M. Benedikt. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991. Tomas, D. “Old Ritual for New Spaces.” Cyberspace: First Steps. Ed. M. Benedikt. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991. Tyler, T. “Is the Internet Changing Social Life? It Seems the More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same.” Journal of Social Issues 58.1 (2002): 195-205. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Fletcher, Gordon. "An Index of Fame?: Critical Identifications of Fame in the 'Social Laboratory'." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/06-fletcher.php>. APA Style Fletcher, G. (Nov. 2004) "An Index of Fame?: Critical Identifications of Fame in the 'Social Laboratory'," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/06-fletcher.php>.

In the HBO series The Sopranos, Tony and his friends use “prosthetic memories” to anchor their ethnic and criminal identities. Prosthetic memories were theorised by Alison Landsberg in her book Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture. She argues that prosthetic memories are memories acquired through the mass media and do not come from a person’s lived experience in any sense (Landsberg 20). In this article, I will outline how The Sopranos television show and its characters interact with prosthetic memories. Extending Christopher Kocela’s work on The Sopranos and white ethnicities, I will show how characters use prosthetic memories to define their ethnicity while the show itself knowingly plays with this to provide comedic and critical commentary about the influence of gangster stereotypes. According to Landsberg, prosthetic memories are powerful memories of historical events or narratives that an individual was not present for. They are typically formed at the "interface between a personal and historical narrative about the past at an experiential site such as a movie theatre or museum" (2). It is at such a moment that a person can suture themselves into a larger history. Consequently, these memories do not just enhance an individual’s apprehension of a historical event. Rather, they create a deeply felt personal memory of a past event through which they did not live (Landsberg 4). Prosthetic memories are largely made available through the technologies of mass culture such as film, television and experiential places like museums. Their accessibility helps to differentiate them from other cultural strategies for passing on memories to future generations. Other strategies have typically been rooted in the cultural or racial status of an individual (Landsberg 22). In addition, Landsberg asserts that the successfulness of mnemotechnic rituals like the Jewish Passover Seder is dependent on ethnicity (26). Similarly, Walter Benn Michaels concludes that these rituals can only be effective if the individual has “some prior assumption of identity between you and them and this assumption is often racial” (680). Contrastingly, the perpetuation of prosthetic memories through mass media makes them widely accessible across racial lines. According to Landsberg, they are not “naturally- ethnically, racially or biologically- one’s intended inheritance” (26). Prosthetic memories introduce the possibility that memories can be acquired by anyone. The technologies of mass culture make these memories portable and as such, challenges the assumption that memory is “in anyway essential or organically grounded or the private property of a specific ethnic or racial group” (27). In The Sopranos, most characters are third or fourth generation Italian immigrants. Much like for many ‘real’ Italian migrants, time has severed familial connections to their homeland (see Landsberg 49-55). Landsberg suggests that immigrants initially became Americanised in order to escape persecution and being labelled as “other” (51). This meant that ethnically exclusive mnemotechnic rituals were not preserved for subsequent generations of immigrants. In order to sustain an ethnic identity, immigrants (and the characters in The Sopranos) have been forced to turn to more accessible tools like prosthetic memories. Christopher Kocela’s analysis of Italian-Americanness in The Sopranos, argues that characters maintain an Italian American ethnicity while still racially identifying as white. According to Colin Webster “white ethnicity” can be best exemplified through the long tradition of European immigration to America (295). With the influx of immigrants, there was a codification of the idea that “some whites are ‘whiter’ than others” (Webster 297). European working-class immigrants struggled to be afforded the same white “privileges” and membership to the white race. Instead, they were defined as being members of “other” white ethnicities. Roediger argued that such a denial of whiteness pushed European immigrants to insist on their own whiteness by defining themselves against other ethnic minorities like African Americans (8). Between 1890 and 1945, eventual assimilation saw white ethnicities become “fully white” (Roediger 8). Webster argues that: “In this sense, whiteness is nearly always salvageable in a way that black, Mexican, Asian, and Native American ethnicity is not (sic)” (Webster 297). In a similar vein, Kocela suggests that the assimilated characters in The Sopranos benefit from their white racial status while still maintaining an Italian ethnicity. This celebration of ethnic difference by Tony and his friends can serve as a smokescreen for the silent maintenance of whiteness (Kocela 14). Kocela suggests that the show critiques these types of responses that characters have to their ethnicity, stating that "we do not learn from The Sopranos the language of ethnic sons deprived of their Italian godfathers, but the language of racial misrecognition spoken by sons whose lost white fathers were never really their own" (16).Kocela’s article provides a useful discussion about the relationship that characters in The Sopranos have with their ethnicity. This article extends this discussion by showing how prosthetic memories and characters’ understanding of mass media are a crucial element in how such ethnic identities are formed. This will lead to a discussion about how The Sopranos comments on and treats these adopted stereotypes. “What do poor Italian-immigrants have to do with you?”: How Characters Interact with Prosthetic MemoriesCharacters in The Sopranos heavily rely upon stereotypes from gangster films to perform their version of Italian Americanness. A reliance on prosthetic memories from such films leads to the manifestation of violence being intertwined with the characters’ ethnic identities. Brian Faucette has discussed the inherent link between violence and gangster films from the 1930s-60s. He claims that “it was violence that enabled the upward mobility of these figures” (76). It is almost impossible to separate violence from the gangster films referenced in The Sopranos. As such, violence becomes part of the ritualistic ways prosthetic memories are created. This is evident in the pilot episode of The Sopranos when Christopher performs his first hit (kill). In the scene, he shoots rival gang member, Emil, in the back of the head at Satriales Pork Store. Before the hit, the pair are standing close together in front of a pinboard collage of “classic” Italian movie gangsters. As they both walk away in opposite directions the camera pulls out diagonally to follow Christopher. Throughout the duration of the shot, the collage is always placed behind Christopher. Finally, when the pan stops, Christopher is positioned in the foreground, with the collage behind him to the right. The placement of the collage gives it a front row seat to the ensuing murder while serving as a kind of script for it. It is not enough for Christopher to simply kill Emil, rather it is important that it is done in the presence of his idols in order to ensure his enhanced identification with them. Moreover, for Christopher, being an Italian American gangster and violence are inseparable. He must perform acts of extreme violence in order to suture himself into a larger, stereotypical narrative, that equates Italian-Americanness with the mafia. Through Landsberg’s theory, it is possible to see the intertwined relationship between performances of Italian-Americanness and violence. To enact their version of Italian-Americanism, characters follow the script of masculine-violence inherent to gangster films. As well as tools to perform Italian American identities, prosthetic memories can be used by characters to deny their whiteness. Kocela argues that Tony can deny or affirm his whiteness, depending on the situation. According to Kocela, Tony’s economic success is intrinsically linked to his racial status as a white man (16). However, this is not a view shared by characters in the show. In the episode From Where to Eternity Dr. Melfi asks Tony how he justifies his criminal lifestyle: Tony: When America opened the floodgates and let all us Italians in, what do you think they were doing it for? ... The Carnegies and the Rockefellers, they needed worker bees and there we were. But some of us didn't want to swarm around their hive and lose who we were. We wanted to stay Italian and preserve the things that meant something to us: honor, and family, and loyalty. ... Now we weren't educated like the Americans, but we had the balls to take what we wanted. And those other fucks, the J.P. Morgans, they were crooks and killers too, but that was the business, right? The American way.Dr. Melfi: That might all be true. But what do poor Italian immigrants have to do with you and what happens every morning when you step out of bed?Kocela describes Tony’s response as a “textbook recitation of the two-family myth of Italian-American identity in which criminal activities are justified in a need to resist assimilation” (28). It is evident that for Tony, being Italian American is defined by being ethnically different. To admit that whiteness contributes to his economic success would undermine the justification he gives for his criminal lifestyle and his self-perceived status as an Italian American. Despite this, Melfi’s statement rings true. The experience of “poor Italian immigrants” does not affect Tony’s daily lifestyle. Characters in The Sopranos do not face the same oppression and discrimination as first-generation migrants (Kocela 28). After decades of assimilation, Tony and his friends turn to the narratives of discrimination and ethnic difference present in gangster films. This is exemplified through Tony’s identification with Vito Corleone from The Godfather. Vito exemplifies Tony’s notion of Italian Americanism. He was a poor immigrant that turned to criminality to protect the Italian-American community and their way of life. Vito is also connected to Italy in a way that Tony admires. When Paulie asks Tony what his favourite scene from The Godfather is he responds with: Don Ciccio’s Villa, when Vito goes back to Sicily, the crickets, the great old house. Maybe it’s because I’m going over there, ya know? Gangster films and representations of Italian-Americanness often deliberately differentiate Italian families from “regular” white people (D’Acierno 566). According to D’Acierno, gangster narratives often involve two types of Italian families, one that has been left powerless by its assimilation to American culture and another that has resisted this through organised crime (D’Acierno 567). Tony and his friends tap into these narratives in their attempt to create prosthetic memories that differentiate their ethnicity and ultimately draw attention away from the whiteness which silently benefits them.The “inauthenticity” of these prosthetic memories is probably most pronounced in the episode Commendatori when Tony, Christopher and Paulie visit Italy. The trip shatters the expectations that the characters had of their homeland and sheds light on some of their delusions about what it means to be Italian. Paulie expects to love Italy and be greeted with open arms by the locals. Unfortunately, he dislikes it all because it is too foreign for him. At the banquet, Paulie finds the authentic Italian octopus uneatable and instead orders “spaghetti and gravy.” He is also unable to use the bathrooms because he is so used to American toilets. When at a local café he tries to initiate conversation with some local men using broken Italian. Even though they hear him, the group ignores him. Despite all this Paulie, pretends that it was a great trip:Big Pussy: So how was it?Paulie: Fabulous, I felt right at home… I feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t been … especially any Italian. The prosthetic memories that defined these characters’ perceptions of Italy are based on the American media’s portrayal of Italy. Commendatori thus exposes the differences between what is “authentically Italian” and the prosthetic memories about Italy generated by American gangster films. By the end of the episode it has become clear that these “inauthentic” prosthetic memories have forged an entirely different, hybrid ethnic identity.“Louis Brasi sleeps with the fishes”: How The Sopranos Treats Prosthetic MemoriesIntertextuality is an important way through which the audience can understand how The Sopranos treats prosthetic memories. The prosthetic memories generated by characters in The Sopranos are heavily based on stereotypes of Italian Americans. Papaleo states that the Italian stereotype is “composed of overreactions: after bowing, smiling and being funny, the Italian loses control” (93). Mafia films are crucial in defining the identity of Tony and his friends, and David Pattie suggests that they are a “symbolic framework within which Tony, Paulie, Christopher and Silvio attempt to find meaning and justification for their lives” (137). In a similar way, the audience is invited to use these same films as a frame for watching The Sopranos itself. Mafia stereotypes are one of the dominant ways that depict Italian Americans on screen. According to Larke-Walsh, this has perpetuated the belief that crime and Italian-Americanness are synonymous with each other (226). The show is obsessively referential and relies on the viewer’s knowledge of these films for much of its effect. Pattie describes how such use of intertextuality can be explained: "[there are] two ways of looking at self-referential programs: one in which readings of other media texts can be contained first of all within the film or program in which they occur; and a more covert type of referential work, which relies almost exclusively on the audience’s detailed, constantly-updated cultural intelligence" (137). The Sopranos operates on both levels as references that are simultaneously textual and meta-textual. This is evident through the way the show treats The Godfather films. They are by far the most frequently mentioned ones (Golden 95). According to Chris Messenger, the central link between the two is the acknowledgement that “America itself has been totally colonised by The Godfather” (Messenger 95). The Godfather is an urtext that frames how audiences are invited to view the show. As such, The Sopranos invites the viewer to use the Godfather as a lens to uncover extra layers of meaning. For example, The Sopranos uses the misguided ways in which its characters have taken on stereotypes from The Godfather as a source of humour. The series plays on the fact that characters will allow prosthetic memories derived from gangster films to dictate their behaviour. In the pilot episode, Christopher calls “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero to help him dispose of a body. Christopher informs Pussy that it’s his plan to leave the body at a garbage stop to be discovered by the rival Czechoslovakians. Christopher hoped this would emulate the “Luca Brasi situation” from The Godfather and intimidate the Czechoslovakians. When he explains this to Pussy, they have the following exchange. Pussy: The Kolar uncle is gonna find a kid dead on one of his bins and get on our fuckin’ business… no way!Christopher: Louis Brasi sleeps with the fishes.Pussy: Luca Brasi… Luca! There are differences Christopher… okay… from the Luca Brasi situation and this. Look, the Kolar’s know a kid is dead, it hardens their position... plus now the cops are lookin’ for a fuckin’ murderer!To members of the audience who are familiar with The Godfather, it immediately becomes clear that Christopher is comically misguided. In the Godfather, Luca Brasi was murdered because he was caught trying to infiltrate a powerful rival organisation. Fish wrapped in his bullet-proof vest were then sent back to the Corleones in order to notify them that their plan had been foiled (“Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes”). The “Luca Brasi situation” was a calculated and strategic move whereas Christopher’s situation amounts to a seemingly random, unauthorised killing. This sequence in The Sopranos uses this comparison for comedic effect and plays on the stereotype that all Italian Americans are mafioso and that all mafia behaviour is interchangeable. The symbolic language of the “Luca Brasi” scene is contrasted with explicit shots of a slumped, lifeless body. These shots are a source of macabre humour. The audience is invited to laugh at the contrast between the subtle, thoughtful nature of the Luca Brasi situation and the brash violence of Christopher’s own predicament. Through this comedic situation, The Sopranos critiques Christopher’s aspiration to be a godfather-esque gangster by showing his incompetence. Christopher’s misreading of the situation is further emphasised by his mistakenly referring to Luca Brasi as “Louis”. After Pussy says: “There are differences… from the Luca Brasi situation and this”, the dialogue pauses and the scene cuts to an immediate close up of Emil’s body falling to the side. This illustrates that part of the joke is that characters are willing to allow prosthetic memories derived from gangster films to dictate their behaviour, no matter how inappropriate. Therefore, Christopher is willing to refer to a scene from the Godfather that fails to account for the context of a situation without even consulting the knowledge of Big Pussy. This leads to a larger critique of the ways in which films like The Godfather are presented as a script for all Italian Americans to follow. Nevertheless, The Sopranos still has a role in perpetuating these same stereotypes. Tomasulo has argued that "despite its use of postclassical generic, narrative aesthetic devices, and its creation by an Italian American, The Sopranos relies heavily on demeaning tropes of ethnicity, class, sexuality and gender" (206). This results in a perpetuation of negative stereotypes about working class Italian Americans that affirm old Hollywood clichés. While The Sopranos has tried to transcend this through complex characterisation, irony and universalisation, Tomasulo asserts that most audiences “take The Sopranos as straight - that is a raw unvarnished anthropology of Americans of Italian descent” (206). The origin of characters’ anti-social personalities seems to stem directly from their ethnicity and their being Italian appears to constitute an explanation for their behaviour. In his article Kocela discusses the complicated relationship that characters have with their white ethnicity. Through an application of Landsberg’s theory it is possible to understand how these ethnicities are initially formed and how they continue to circulate. In response to assimilation, characters in The Sopranos have turned to mass media to generate prosthetic memories of their ethnic heritage. These memories generally originate in classic gangster films. They are used by characters in The Sopranos to deny their whiteness and justify their criminality. The Sopranos itself comments on the complex ways that characters interpret gangster film stereotypes for both comedic and critical commentary. In the epilogue of her book, Landsberg asks: “How can we be sure the politics inspired by prosthetic memories are progressive and ethical?” Prosthetic memories generated by gangster texts are almost inherently problematic. Scholars have criticised the hyper-aggressive masculinity and regressive gender roles that are rampant throughout the genre (Larke-Walsh 226). For Tony and his friends, these problematic gender politics have helped justify their criminal lifestyle and valorised violence as part of ethnic performance. Similarly, these stereotypes are not always circulated critically and are at times perpetuated for audience enjoyment. AcknowledgmentI would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Michelle Phillipov for providing constructive feedback on earlier drafts. References“Commendatori.” The Sopranos: The Complete Second Season. Writ. David Chase. Dir. Tim Van Patten. HBO, 2000. DVD.Coppola, Francis, and Mario Puzo. The Godfather. Hollywood, CA: Paramount Home Video, 1972.“D-Girl.” The Sopranos: The Complete Second Season. Writ. Todd A. Kessler. Dir. Allen Coulter. HBO, 2000. DVD.D'Acierno, Pellegrino. “Cinema Paradiso.” The Italian American Heritage: A Companion to Literature and Arts. New York: Garland, 1999. 563-690.Faucette, Brian. "Interrogations of Masculinity: Violence and the Retro-Gangster Cycle of the 60s." Atenea 28.1 (2008): 75-85.“From Where to Eternity.” The Sopranos: The Complete Second Season. Writ. Michael Imperioli. Dir. Henry Bronchtein. HBO, 2000. DVD. Golden, Cameron. "You're Annette Bening? Dreams and Hollywood Subtext in The Sopranos." Lavery, David. Reading The Sopranos: Hit TV from H.B.O. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006. 91-103.Kocela, Christopher. "Unmade Men: The Sopranos after Whiteness." Postmodern Culture 15.2 (2005). <http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.105/15.2kocela.html>.Landsberg, Alison. Prosthetic Memories: The Transformation of American Rememberance in the Age of Mass Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.Messenger, Christopher. Godfather and American Culture: How the Corleones Became Our Gang. New York: State University of New York Press, 2002.Michaels, Walter Ben. "Race into Culture: A Critical Geneology of Cultural Identity." Critical Inquiry 18.4 (1992): 655-85.Larke-Walsh, George. Screening the Mafia: Masculinity, Ethnicity and Mobsters from The Godfather to The Sopranos. Jefferson: McFarland, 2010.Papaleo, Joseph. "Ethnic Images and Ethnic Fate: The Media Image of Italian Americans." Ethnic Images in American Film and Television (1978): 44-95.Pattie, David. "Mobbed Up: The Sopranos and the Modern Gangster Film." Lavery, David. This Thing of Ours: Investigating The Sopranos. New York: Wallflower Press, 2002. 137-152.Roediger, D.R. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. London: Verso, 2007. Thorburn, D. "The Sopranos." In The Essential H.B.O Reader, eds. G. Edgerton and J. Jones. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2008. 61-70.Tomasulo, Frank. "The Guinea as Tragic Hero: The Complex Representation of Italian Americans." In The Essential Sopranos Reader, eds. David Lavery, Douglas Howard, and Paul Levinson. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2011. 196-207.“The Sopranos.” The Sopranos: The Complete First Season. Writ. David Chase. Dir. David Chase. HBO, 1999. DVD. “Walk like a Man.” The Sopranos: The Complete Sixth Season. Writ. Terence Winter. Dir. Terence Winter. HBO, 2007. DVD. Webster, Colin. "Marginalized White Ethnicity, Race and Crime." Theoretical Criminology 12 (2008): 293-312.

The latest reality program about weight loss makeover, Australian Channel Seven’s Bringing Sexy Back maintained the dominant frame of fat as bad, shameful and unsexy. Similar to other programs’ point of view, only slim bodies could claim to be healthy and sexy. Conversely the Fat Acceptance movement presents fat as beautiful, sexy, and healthy. But what did online audiences in 2014 think about Bringing Sexy Back? In this article online-viewer-generated comments are analysed to find out: a) whether audiences challenged and contested the dominant framing; and b) what phrases did they use to do this. The research task is a discourse analysis in which key words and phrases are highlighted and colour coded as categories and patterns begin to emerge. My intention is to represent the expressions of the participants responding to the articles and or online forums about the program. The focus is on the ‘language-in-use’ (Gee 34), in particular their gut reactions to the idea of whether only slim people can be sexy and their experience of viewing the program. Selected television websites, online television forums and blogs will be analysed. Introduction The latest makeover television program drawing on the obesity-epidemic discourse Bringing Sexy Back (BSB) promises the audience that by the end of the program participants will have bought their sexy back. Sexy in the program is equated with one’s younger and slimmer self; the program host Samantha Armytage (from Sunrise the national Australian morning show) tells viewers sexy can be reclaimed if participants (from their late 30s and up to 51 years) drop kilos, commit to a strenuous exercise regime, and re-style their wardrobe. Experts, the usual suspects, are bought in—the medical machinery, the personal trainer, the stylist, and the hairdresser etc.—to assess, admonish, advise and appraise the participants. At the final reveal the audience—made up of family, friends and the local community—show enthusiasm for the aesthetic desirability of the participants slimmer sexier body as evidenced by descriptors such as “wow”, and “oh my God” as well as an outpouring of emotion such as crying and squeals of delight. Previous researchers of fat-shaming television programs have found audience’s reactions divided: some audience members see it as motivating; others see it as humiliating; and others see it as what the contestants deserve (Holland, Blood and Thomas; Rodan, Ellis and Lebeck; Sender and Sullivan)! I want to find out if online and social media audiences of the relatively tame makeover program BSB, which features individual Australians and couples who are overweight and obese, challenge and contest the dominant framing. In my analysis of the phrases online audiences’ have used about BSB, posters mostly found the program inspiring and motivating. From this inauspicious first strike, I will push onto examine the phrases posters have used to respond to the program. The paper begins with a short background about the program. The key elements of the makeover television genre are then discussed. Following this, I provide an analysis of the program’s official BSB Facebook site, and unofficial viewer-generated sites, such as the bubhub, TVTONIGHT, MamaMia, The Hoopla and the hashtag #sexybackau on Twitter. Posters to these sites were regular, infrequent or intermittent viewers. My approach to the analysis of these online forums and social media sites is a discourse analysis that examines “language-in-use”—as well as other elements such as values, symbols, tools and thinking styles—so as to identify and track tacit knowledge—that is, meanings emerging from obesity-epidemic discourse (Gee 34, 40–41). Such a method is apt given its capacity to analyse contributors’ spontaneous statements of their feelings—in particular their gut reactions to the program and the participants. The paper ends with my findings and conclusions. Bringing Sexy Back: Background Information Screened in 2014, season one of BSB format consists of a host Samantha Armytage, fitness trainer Cameron Byrnes and stylist Jules Sebastian and her team of hairdresser, groomers etc. Undoubtedly, part of the program’s construction is to select participants who appeal to a broad range of viewers. Participants’ ages range from 21 years (Courney Gollings) to 51 years (Vicki Gollings). The individuals or couples who make up the series include: Ned (truck driver), Sam and Gary (parents of two boys), Lisa Wilson (single mother and hairdresser), Vicki and Courtney Golling (mother and daughter), Livio Caldarone (pizza/small restaurant owner), and Paula Beckton (mother of four), The first episode was aired on Australia’s Channel Seven on 12 August 2014 and the final episode on 13 January 2015. This particular series consisted of 9 episodes. In this paper I focus on the six episodes that were aired in 2014. Generally each individual episode consisted of: the intervention, presenting medical facts about participant’s weight; the helper figures setting training and diet regimes; the trials leading to transformation; and the happy ending evident in the reveal. Essentially, these segments illustrate that the program series is highly contrived and they also demonstrate the program’s method of challenging participants to lose weight. Makeover Television I now provide a further construct to assist the reader’s understanding of ‘what is going on’ in the BSB program, which fits within the genre of makeover program. As reflected in the literature, makeover television has some or all of the following ingredients: personal fitness trainer as expertstylist and grooming expertsfamily members and contestant’s reflexivity (reflect on their own behaviour)new self-celebrated photo shootscontestant winning challengessymbols, such as the dream outfit, and before and after photographstransformation before the ‘big reveal’ Moreover, makeover programs are about the ordinary person on television. According to Redden, identities on these programs are individual rather than collective in that they serve to show a type of “individuality” as if it exists irrespective of any social or cultural group (156). And what is the role of the expert? Redden points out the expert on makeover programs interprets the “life situation of the given person, who may represent a certain social category of ordinary person” (153). So while makeover programs purport to be about the ordinary person and make claims about the actuality of the ordinary person’s life (Skeggs and Wood 559; Stagi 138), they also depict a hierarchy of social categories. The participants’ class also features in makeover programs like BSB. Class is evident in that participants who are selected to be on the program are often from lower-middle class backgrounds. Most participants have non-professional occupations—truck driver (Ned), hairdresser (Lisa), pizza/small restaurant owner (Livio), body caster, a person who makes body casts (Paula). Similar to The Biggest Loser (2004–2014) on American NBC, and Australia Network Ten, the participants in BSB were also mainly from lower–middle class backgrounds (Rodan; Sender and Sullivan 575) Several researcher’s show that makeover television promises advancement for lower–middle class citizens (Fraser 188–189; Miller 589; Redden 155; Skeggs and Wood 561) based on the proposition that contestants have the power to transform themselves (Bratich 17; Ouellette and Hay 471–472; Lewis 443; Sender and Sullivan 581). Like other makeover programs BSB takes advantage of the aspirations of working and lower-middle class participants. And, not surprisingly, the desired transcendence is something most participants/viewers from lower-middle and working class backgrounds cannot strive to achieve without participating in the program (Miller 589). Transcendence in BSB comes from losing weight, and acquiring new gym equipment, gym clothing, access to a personal trainer, gym membership, holiday at a health retreat, new wardrobe, new haircut, and new gym clothes. These acts to transform oneself are often “presented” as the middle class “standard,” taste and specific ongoing “intimate practices” of the “middle class” (Skeggs and Wood 561; Redden 155). But clearly much of the sprucing up (such as a private gym at home, personal trainers) are expensive and beyond the budget of even an Australian middle-class family. Analysis Posters on the official BSB Channel Seven Facebook forum overall were the most positive about the program—they found the program motivating and inspiring. Several posters on Facebook asked how they might apply to be on the program. After the airing of the reveal, posters on all the online forums and social media analysed consistently used adjectives such as fantastic, awesome, congratulations, stunning, amazing, gorgeous, wow, incredible, look sensational, look hot, look great, champion effort, fabulous, impressive, beautiful, inspirational. Fat-Shaming In BSB fat-shaming works through the use of medical machines and imagery, which measure weight and body fat percentage (BMI) using the DXA scanner and X-ray machine. Even though many physicians object to BMI measurement, it has become an “infallible marker of dangerous risk-saturated obesity” (Morgan 205) in Health Department campaigns, insurance company policies and on makeover television. Participants’ current weight is compared to the weight of their 20 year-old self. The program also induces fat-shaming through visuals of food and drink stashes found in participant’s bedroom cupboards (Ned), remnants of take-away packaging in rubbish bins (Lisa), processed foods in pantry cupboards (Vicki and Courtney), and pizza cartons at work (Livio). Here food amounts are quantified for audiences to gasp with shock and horror reinforcing the stereotype that people are fat because they have insufficient willpower and overeat (Farrell 34), thus perpetuating the view that obese people are undisciplined, sloppy and “less likely to do productive work” (Greenberg et al.). Banners are produced of participants’ photographs in their 20s; the photographs chosen have been taken when participants were slim and looked hot at the beach or night clubbing. These banners are juxtaposed with a banner of participant’s current self—appearing overweight in unflattering short crop top and underwear. Both banners are flashed onto the screen during the program especially in the final reveal presumably as a visual measurement to shame participants for “letting themselves go”. Even though host Samantha provides reasons for participants gaining weight—such as the stress of being a single parent, having a busy life as a mother of four, work commitments etc—the visual banners powerfully signify more than the presenter’s dialogue. Katrina Dowd on Facebook suggests it is the banners that signified the truth about participants’ lifestyles when she comments: Absolutely. Amazing how people whom follow unhealthy eating patterns for years with lack of exercise get congratulated because they’ve lost weight. Should never have let yourself get to that stage. Using your children and work commitments as excuses for why you got that way is a big “fail”. Some social media participants on Twitter and online forum posters saw the participants as “Bogan” ( a white working-class person who lacks fashion sense, is uncouth unsophisticated and invokes disgust), lazy, slobs as represented in the following comments: “Bogan Hunters Makeover” (tvaddict); “STILL A FUCKING FAT BOGAN […] JUST STOP EATING” (Al_Mack); “Stop being a lazy bitch […] Seriously lazy slobs” (Dutchess of Tweet St); “learn to cook lazy cow” (Gidgit VonLaRue). Thus, for Katrina and the posters above, it is the “fat body” that is seen as the “uncivilized body” that lacks the self-control of the thin body (Richardson 80). Inspirational and Motivational I discovered that many online forum and social media participants found the program BSB inspiring and motivating. A similar finding to my study of The Biggest Loser online viewers (Rodan), as well as other researchers who interviewed audiences about The Biggest Loser (Readdy and Ebbeck). For instance, Twitter posters said the BSB inspires “everyday women” (Sharon@Shar0n) and “inspires me that I can do the same” (Sharon@KeepitRealV), “another great show #inspiring” (miss shadow). On Facebook most of the posters talked about how inspired they were by the show and or by the individual participants, for instance: Hi Lisa, I think I see a lot of me in you, I pretty much cried through the whole show. You have inspired me, much admiration for sharing your story with Australia. (Haigh) Many posters on Facebook identified with Lisa as a single mother (Jenkins) and her declaration that she was “an emotional eater” (McTavish). This may account for Lisa Wilson (5,824 likes) receiving the most likes on Facebook. There were those who identified with individual participants, such as Paula, who were attempting to lose weight. On the forum the bubhub, a forum for parents established in 2002, the administrator BH-bubhub started a thread titled “Need some motivation to shift those kilos? Our pal Paula is here to help hubbers!” Paula was the participant on BSB who lost the most weight, and was invited onto the forum to answer forum members’ questions. On this forum, disparaging, negative, demotivating comments were removed from public viewing (see caveat BH-bubhub). Overall, online forum posters on the bubhub expressed positive feelings about BSB as a weight loss program. Participants comments included “Awesome work Paula, I have no doubt you will inspire many and I look forward to hearing all your tips” (Mod-Uniquey) “and … you look fabulous” (BH-KatiesMum), “Wow, you must be so proud of yourself! That is an amazing effort and you look great” (Curby), “What an inspirational story!” (Mod-Nomsie). Facebook posters on the BSB official forum found the show motivating and evidence of others finding the same are: “I feel great after watching #sexybackau” (Freeburn), “an uplifting hour” (Hustwaite), “feeling motivated now to change a lot of things about myself” (McDonald). However, online posters rarely commented that the program inspired or motivated them to take specific actions about their own body size or lifestyle. For some, as other researchers have found about makeover programs, it is a form of televisual escapism (Holland, Blood and Thomas; Readdy and Ebbeck 585)—that is, the pleasure of watching others’ emotions in achieving their goal. For many others, identifying with the participants’ struggle, and seeing them overcome daily challenges and obstacles to losing weight, gave posters insights about themselves and how to change their own lifestyle. But maintaining weight-loss and a lifestyle that supports it—as Facebook posters frequently suggest—is very challenging for most people who are overweight. The transformations and reveals make for fairy-tale endings (the essence of makeover television), but the reality of losing weight is persistence, perseverance and hard work. Criticisms of the Program Posters on Facebook were censored more than some of the other online forums and social media. Facebook criticisms about the program BSB were dealt with swiftly by other posters—that is, posters were pressured to only express positive feelings about the program. For instance, Lynne Nicholas in response to Peter Thomson’s criticism that the program is “exploiting these people for cheap television entertainment” (Facebook, 14 August 2014) posted on Facebook: If you don’t like the show then don’t come on the page and comment. Channel 7 gives these people a chance to change their life and inspire others to do the same. (Facebook, 14 Aug. 2014) And in response to criticisms about the amount of processed food Cam discarded from participants Vicki and Courtney’s cupboard, Emily McCabe commented: If you don’t enjoy the concept of the program, feel free to change the channel and keep your negative comments to yourself. (Facebook, 2 Sep. 2014) Nevertheless, a lot of criticism appeared on the various online and social media outlets ranging from: the commercial aspects (matúš; Hales); the constant use of the word “fat” by the host (Spencer); the sponsorship and advertisements by a take-away food company (Daisy Murray; Patriot); the “irresponsible/unsafe training!” (M_Gardner; Ashton); the insufficient number of “diet tips” (Pedron-Peggs); and “sick of seeing all that food thrown away!!” (Barkla; Dunell; Robbie; Martin; Coupland). As noted above, some of the sites were censored. Criticisms of the program were only aired if the online forum and social media allowed people to vent their feelings and express their opinion. Allowing viewers to express their concerns about mainstream television programs such as BSB counters the argument made by other researchers suggesting that makeover programs do the work of audiences becoming “self-managing” and self-governing citizens (see Stagi; Ouellette and Hay 471-472; Sender and Sullivan 581; Ringrose and Walkerdine); and makeover programs perpetuate the myth that obesity is solely an individual behavioural problem (Yoo). Such critical comments (above) reveal that some viewers do question the show’s premises, and as a consequence they do not accept the dominant framing. Thus the hypothesis that all viewers of makeover programs are pliable and docile cannot be supported in my analysis. Findings and Conclusion Most BSB posters said they found the program inspiring and motivating. It seems many of the online posters identified with the participants’ struggle to lose their weight, and stay motivated to keep it off. So there was little fat-shaming from posters on Facebook and the online forums. The posters on Facebook expressed the most positive comments about the BSB program and the participants; however, the Facebook site was the official BSB social media site. It seems that many of the Facebook and online forum discussants were makeover television fans who had acquired a taste for the makeover genre – that is the transformation and the big reveal at the end, the re-styled self, the symbols as well as the tips, information and ideas about how to lose weight and change their lifestyle. Questions were often asked by posters about the participants’ eating plan, exercise regime, maintenance program etc., as well as how they (the posters) could apply to be on the show. Very few social media or online posters questioned and challenged the makeover genre, the advertising during the program, the quality and number of diet and nutrition tips, and the time as well as financial cost required to maintain the new self. References Al_Mack. “STILL A FUCKING FAT BOGAN.” 26 Aug. 2014, no time. Tweet. Al_Mack. “JUST STOP EATING.” 26 Aug. 2014, no time. Tweet. Ashton, Susan. “Bringing Sexy Back.” 13 Jan. 2015, 17:56. Facebook comment. Barkla, Michelle. “Bringing Sexy Back.” 9 Sep. 2014, 18:39. Facebook comment. BH-bubhub Administrator. “Need Some Motivation to Shift Those Kilos? Our Pal Paula Is Here to Help Hubbers!” The Bubhub 3 March 2015. 15:27. BH-KatiesMum. “Need Some Motivation to Shift Those Kilos? Our Pal Paula Is Here to Help Hubbers!” The Bubhub 3 Mar. 2015 19:26. Bratich, Jack Z. “Programming Reality: Control Societies, New Subjects and the Powers of Transformation.” Ed. Dana Heller. Makeover Television: Realities Remodelled. London: I.B. 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Biology teaches us that organisms adapt—or don’t; sociology claims that people adapt—or don’t. We know that ideas can adapt; sometimes even institutions can adapt. Or not. Various papers in this issue attest in exciting ways to precisely such adaptations and maladaptations. (See, for example, the articles in this issue by Lelia Green, Leesa Bonniface, and Tami McMahon, by Lexey A. Bartlett, and by Debra Ferreday.) Adaptation is a part of nature and culture, but it’s the latter alone that interests me here. (However, see the article by Hutcheon and Bortolotti for a discussion of nature and culture together.) It’s no news to anyone that not only adaptations, but all art is bred of other art, though sometimes artists seem to get carried away. My favourite example of excess of association or attribution can be found in the acknowledgements page to a verse drama called Beatrice Chancy by the self-defined “maximalist” (not minimalist) poet, novelist, librettist, and critic, George Elliot Clarke. His selected list of the incarnations of the story of Beatrice Cenci, a sixteenth-century Italian noblewoman put to death for the murder of her father, includes dramas, romances, chronicles, screenplays, parodies, sculptures, photographs, and operas: dramas by Vincenzo Pieracci (1816), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1819), Juliusz Slowacki (1843), Waldter Landor (1851), Antonin Artaud (1935) and Alberto Moravia (1958); the romances by Francesco Guerrazi (1854), Henri Pierangeli (1933), Philip Lindsay (1940), Frederic Prokosch (1955) and Susanne Kircher (1976); the chronicles by Stendhal (1839), Mary Shelley (1839), Alexandre Dumas, père (1939-40), Robert Browning (1864), Charles Swinburne (1883), Corrado Ricci (1923), Sir Lionel Cust (1929), Kurt Pfister (1946) and Irene Mitchell (1991); the film/screenplay by Bertrand Tavernier and Colo O’Hagan (1988); the parody by Kathy Acker (1993); the sculpture by Harriet Hosmer (1857); the photograph by Julia Ward Cameron (1866); and the operas by Guido Pannain (1942), Berthold Goldschmidt (1951, 1995) and Havergal Brian (1962). (Beatrice Chancy, 152) He concludes the list with: “These creators have dallied with Beatrice Cenci, but I have committed indiscretions” (152). An “intertextual feast”, by Clarke’s own admission, this rewriting of Beatrice’s story—especially Percy Bysshe Shelley’s own verse play, The Cenci—illustrates brilliantly what Northrop Frye offered as the first principle of the production of literature: “literature can only derive its form from itself” (15). But in the last several decades, what has come to be called intertextuality theory has shifted thinking away from looking at this phenomenon from the point of view of authorial influences on the writing of literature (and works like Harold Bloom’s famous study of the Anxiety of Influence) and toward considering our readerly associations with literature, the connections we (not the author) make—as we read. We, the readers, have become “empowered”, as we say, and we’ve become the object of academic study in our own right. Among the many associations we inevitably make, as readers, is with adaptations of the literature we read, be it of Jane Austin novels or Beowulf. Some of us may have seen the 2006 rock opera of Beowulf done by the Irish Repertory Theatre; others await the new Neil Gaiman animated film. Some may have played the Beowulf videogame. I personally plan to miss the upcoming updated version that makes Beowulf into the son of an African explorer. But I did see Sturla Gunnarsson’s Beowulf and Grendel film, and yearned to see the comic opera at the Lincoln Centre Festival in 2006 called Grendel, the Transcendence of the Great Big Bad. I am not really interested in whether these adaptations—all in the last year or so—signify Hollywood’s need for a new “monster of the week” or are just the sign of a desire to cash in on the success of The Lord of the Rings. For all I know they might well act as an ethical reminder of the human in the alien in a time of global strife (see McGee, A4). What interests me is the impact these multiple adaptations can have on the reader of literature as well as on the production of literature. Literature, like painting, is usually thought of as what Nelson Goodman (114) calls a one-stage art form: what we read (like what we see on a canvas) is what is put there by the originating artist. Several major consequences follow from this view. First, the implication is that the work is thus an original and new creation by that artist. However, even the most original of novelists—like Salman Rushdie—are the first to tell you that stories get told and retold over and over. Indeed his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses, takes this as a major theme. Works like the Thousand and One Nights are crucial references in all of his work. As he writes in Haroun and the Sea of Stories: “no story comes from nowhere; new stories are born of old” (86). But illusion of originality is only one of the implications of seeing literature as a one-stage art form. Another is the assumption that what the writer put on paper is what we read. But entire doctoral programs in literary production and book history have been set up to study how this is not the case, in fact. Editors influence, even change, what authors want to write. Designers control how we literally see the work of literature. Beatrice Chancy’s bookend maps of historical Acadia literally frame how we read the historical story of the title’s mixed-race offspring of an African slave and a white slave owner in colonial Nova Scotia in 1801. Media interest or fashion or academic ideological focus may provoke a publisher to foreground in the physical presentation different elements of a text like this—its stress on race, or gender, or sexuality. The fact that its author won Canada’s Governor General’s Award for poetry might mean that the fact that this is a verse play is emphasised. If the book goes into a second edition, will a new preface get added, changing the framework for the reader once again? As Katherine Larson has convincingly shown, the paratextual elements that surround a work of literature like this one become a major site of meaning generation. What if literature were not a one-stage an art form at all? What if it were, rather, what Goodman calls “two-stage” (114)? What if we accept that other artists, other creators, are needed to bring it to life—editors, publishers, and indeed readers? In a very real and literal sense, from our (audience) point of view, there may be no such thing as a one-stage art work. Just as the experience of literature is made possible for readers by the writer, in conjunction with a team of professional and creative people, so, arguably all art needs its audience to be art; the un-interpreted, un-experienced art work is not worth calling art. Goodman resists this move to considering literature a two-stage art, not at all sure that readings are end products the way that performance works are (114). Plays, films, television shows, or operas would be his prime examples of two-stage arts. In each of these, a text (a playtext, a screenplay, a score, a libretto) is moved from page to stage or screen and given life, by an entire team of creative individuals: directors, actors, designers, musicians, and so on. Literary adaptations to the screen or stage are usually considered as yet another form of this kind of transcription or transposition of a written text to a performance medium. But the verbal move from the “book” to the diminutive “libretto” (in Italian, little book or booklet) is indicative of a view that sees adaptation as a step downward, a move away from a primary literary “source”. In fact, an entire negative rhetoric of “infidelity” has developed in both journalistic reviewing and academic discourse about adaptations, and it is a morally loaded rhetoric that I find surprising in its intensity. Here is the wonderfully critical description of that rhetoric by the king of film adaptation critics, Robert Stam: Terms like “infidelity,” “betrayal,” “deformation,” “violation,” “bastardisation,” “vulgarisation,” and “desecration” proliferate in adaptation discourse, each word carrying its specific charge of opprobrium. “Infidelity” carries overtones of Victorian prudishness; “betrayal” evokes ethical perfidy; “bastardisation” connotes illegitimacy; “deformation” implies aesthetic disgust and monstrosity; “violation” calls to mind sexual violence; “vulgarisation” conjures up class degradation; and “desecration” intimates religious sacrilege and blasphemy. (3) I join many others today, like Stam, in challenging the persistence of this fidelity discourse in adaptation studies, thereby providing yet another example of what, in his article here called “The Persistence of Fidelity: Adaptation Theory Today,” John Connor has called the “fidelity reflex”—the call to end an obsession with fidelity as the sole criterion for judging the success of an adaptation. But here I want to come at this same issue of the relation of adaptation to the adapted text from another angle. When considering an adaptation of a literary work, there are other reasons why the literary “source” text might be privileged. Literature has historical priority as an art form, Stam claims, and so in some people’s eyes will always be superior to other forms. But does it actually have priority? What about even earlier performative forms like ritual and song? Or to look forward, instead of back, as Tim Barker urges us to do in his article here, what about the new media’s additions to our repertoire with the advent of electronic technology? How can we retain this hierarchy of artistic forms—with literature inevitably on top—in a world like ours today? How can both the Romantic ideology of original genius and the capitalist notion of individual authorship hold up in the face of the complex reality of the production of literature today (as well as in the past)? (In “Amen to That: Sampling and Adapting the Past”, Steve Collins shows how digital technology has changed the possibilities of musical creativity in adapting/sampling.) Like many other ages before our own, adaptation is rampant today, as director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman clearly realised in creating Adaptation, their meta-cinematic illustration-as-send-up film about adaptation. But rarely has a culture denigrated the adapter as a secondary and derivative creator as much as we do the screenwriter today—as Jonze explores with great irony. Michelle McMerrin and Sergio Rizzo helpfully explain in their pieces here that one of the reasons for this is the strength of auteur theory in film criticism. But we live in a world in which works of literature have been turned into more than films. We now have literary adaptations in the forms of interactive new media works and videogames; we have theme parks; and of course, we have the more common television series, radio and stage plays, musicals, dance works, and operas. And, of course, we now have novelisations of films—and they are not given the respect that originary novels are given: it is the adaptation as adaptation that is denigrated, as Deborah Allison shows in “Film/Print: Novelisations and Capricorn One”. Adaptations across media are inevitably fraught, and for complex and multiple reasons. The financing and distribution issues of these widely different media alone inevitably challenge older capitalist models. The need or desire to appeal to a global market has consequences for adaptations of literature, especially with regard to its regional and historical specificities. These particularities are what usually get adapted or “indigenised” for new audiences—be they the particularities of the Spanish gypsy Carmen (see Ioana Furnica, “Subverting the ‘Good, Old Tune’”), those of the Japanese samurai genre (see Kevin P. Eubanks, “Becoming-Samurai: Samurai [Films], Kung-Fu [Flicks] and Hip-Hop [Soundtracks]”), of American hip hop graffiti (see Kara-Jane Lombard, “‘To Us Writers, the Differences Are Obvious’: The Adaptation of Hip Hop Graffiti to an Australian Context”) or of Jane Austen’s fiction (see Suchitra Mathur, “From British ‘Pride’ to Indian ‘Bride’: Mapping the Contours of a Globalised (Post?)Colonialism”). What happens to the literary text that is being adapted, often multiple times? Rather than being displaced by the adaptation (as is often feared), it most frequently gets a new life: new editions of the book appear, with stills from the movie adaptation on its cover. But if I buy and read the book after seeing the movie, I read it differently than I would have before I had seen the film: in effect, the book, not the adaptation, has become the second and even secondary text for me. And as I read, I can only “see” characters as imagined by the director of the film; the cinematic version has taken over, has even colonised, my reader’s imagination. The literary “source” text, in my readerly, experiential terms, becomes the secondary work. It exists on an experiential continuum, in other words, with its adaptations. It may have been created before, but I only came to know it after. What if I have read the literary work first, and then see the movie? In my imagination, I have already cast the characters: I know what Gabriel and Gretta Conroy of James Joyce’s story, “The Dead,” look and sound like—in my imagination, at least. Then along comes John Huston’s lush period piece cinematic adaptation and the director superimposes his vision upon mine; his forcibly replaces mine. But, in this particular case, Huston still arguably needs my imagination, or at least my memory—though he may not have realised it fully in making the film. When, in a central scene in the narrative, Gabriel watches his wife listening, moved, to the singing of the Irish song, “The Lass of Aughrim,” what we see on screen is a concerned, intrigued, but in the end rather blank face: Gabriel doesn’t alter his expression as he listens and watches. His expression may not change—but I know exactly what he is thinking. Huston does not tell us; indeed, without the use of voice-over, he cannot. And since the song itself is important, voice-over is impossible. But I know exactly what he is thinking: I’ve read the book. I fill in the blank, so to speak. Gabriel looks at Gretta and thinks: There was grace and mystery in her attitude as if she were a symbol of something. He asked himself what is a woman standing on the stairs in the shadow, listening to distant music, a symbol of. If he were a painter he would paint her in that attitude. … Distant Music he would call the picture if he were a painter. (210) A few pages later the narrator will tell us: At last she turned towards them and Gabriel saw that there was colour on her cheeks and that her eyes were shining. A sudden tide of joy went leaping out of his heart. (212) This joy, of course, puts him in a very different—disastrously different—state of mind than his wife, who (we later learn) is remembering a young man who sang that song to her when she was a girl—and who died, for love of her. I know this—because I’ve read the book. Watching the movie, I interpret Gabriel’s blank expression in this knowledge. Just as the director’s vision can colonise my visual and aural imagination, so too can I, as reader, supplement the film’s silence with the literary text’s inner knowledge. The question, of course, is: should I have to do so? Because I have read the book, I will. But what if I haven’t read the book? Will I substitute my own ideas, from what I’ve seen in the rest of the film, or from what I’ve experienced in my own life? Filmmakers always have to deal with this problem, of course, since the camera is resolutely externalising, and actors must reveal their inner worlds through bodily gesture or facial expression for the camera to record and for the spectator to witness and comprehend. But film is not only a visual medium: it uses music and sound, and it also uses words—spoken words within the dramatic situation, words overheard on the street, on television, but also voice-over words, spoken by a narrating figure. Stephen Dedalus escapes from Ireland at the end of Joseph Strick’s 1978 adaptation of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man with the same words as he does in the novel, where they appear as Stephen’s diary entry: Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. … Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead. (253) The words from the novel also belong to the film as film, with its very different story, less about an artist than about a young Irishman finally able to escape his family, his religion and his country. What’s deliberately NOT in the movie is the irony of Joyce’s final, benign-looking textual signal to his reader: Dublin, 1904 Trieste, 1914 The first date is the time of Stephen’s leaving Dublin—and the time of his return, as we know from the novel Ulysses, the sequel, if you like, to this novel. The escape was short-lived! Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has an ironic structure that has primed its readers to expect not escape and triumph but something else. Each chapter of the novel has ended on this kind of personal triumphant high; the next has ironically opened with Stephen mired in the mundane and in failure. Stephen’s final words in both film and novel remind us that he really is an Icarus figure, following his “Old father, old artificer”, his namesake, Daedalus. And Icarus, we recall, takes a tumble. In the novel version, we are reminded that this is the portrait of the artist “as a young man”—later, in 1914, from the distance of Trieste (to which he has escaped) Joyce, writing this story, could take some ironic distance from his earlier persona. There is no such distance in the film version. However, it stands alone, on its own; Joyce’s irony is not appropriate in Strick’s vision. His is a different work, with its own message and its own, considerably more romantic and less ironic power. Literary adaptations are their own things—inspired by, based on an adapted text but something different, something other. I want to argue that these works adapted from literature are now part of our readerly experience of that literature, and for that reason deserve the same attention we give to the literary, and not only the same attention, but also the same respect. I am a literarily trained person. People like me who love words, already love plays, but shouldn’t we also love films—and operas, and musicals, and even videogames? There is no need to denigrate words that are heard (and visualised) in order to privilege words that are read. Works of literature can have afterlives in their adaptations and translations, just as they have pre-lives, in terms of influences and models, as George Eliot Clarke openly allows in those acknowledgements to Beatrice Chancy. I want to return to that Canadian work, because it raises for me many of the issues about adaptation and language that I see at the core of our literary distrust of the move away from the written, printed text. I ended my recent book on adaptation with a brief examination of this work, but I didn’t deal with this particular issue of language. So I want to return to it, as to unfinished business. Clarke is, by the way, clear in the verse drama as well as in articles and interviews that among the many intertexts to Beatrice Chancy, the most important are slave narratives, especially one called Celia, a Slave, and Shelley’s play, The Cenci. Both are stories of mistreated and subordinated women who fight back. Since Clarke himself has written at length about the slave narratives, I’m going to concentrate here on Shelley’s The Cenci. The distance from Shelley’s verse play to Clarke’s verse play is a temporal one, but it is also geographic and ideological one: from the old to the new world, and from a European to what Clarke calls an “Africadian” (African Canadian/African Acadian) perspective. Yet both poets were writing political protest plays against unjust authority and despotic power. And they have both become plays that are more read than performed—a sad fate, according to Clarke, for two works that are so concerned with voice. We know that Shelley sought to calibrate the stylistic registers of his work with various dramatic characters and effects to create a modern “mixed” style that was both a return to the ancients and offered a new drama of great range and flexibility where the expression fits what is being expressed (see Bruhn). His polemic against eighteenth-century European dramatic conventions has been seen as leading the way for realist drama later in the nineteenth century, with what has been called its “mixed style mimesis” (Bruhn) Clarke’s adaptation does not aim for Shelley’s perfect linguistic decorum. It mixes the elevated and the biblical with the idiomatic and the sensual—even the vulgar—the lushly poetic with the coarsely powerful. But perhaps Shelley’s idea of appropriate language fits, after all: Beatrice Chancy is a woman of mixed blood—the child of a slave woman and her slave owner; she has been educated by her white father in a convent school. Sometimes that educated, elevated discourse is heard; at other times, she uses the variety of discourses operative within slave society—from religious to colloquial. But all the time, words count—as in all printed and oral literature. Clarke’s verse drama was given a staged reading in Toronto in 1997, but the story’s, if not the book’s, real second life came when it was used as the basis for an opera libretto. Actually the libretto commission came first (from Queen of Puddings Theatre in Toronto), and Clarke started writing what was to be his first of many opera texts. Constantly frustrated by the art form’s demands for concision, he found himself writing two texts at once—a short libretto and a longer, five-act tragic verse play to be published separately. Since it takes considerably longer to sing than to speak (or read) a line of text, the composer James Rolfe keep asking for cuts—in the name of economy (too many singers), because of clarity of action for audience comprehension, or because of sheer length. Opera audiences have to sit in a theatre for a fixed length of time, unlike readers who can put a book down and return to it later. However, what was never sacrificed to length or to the demands of the music was the language. In fact, the double impact of the powerful mixed language and the equally potent music, increases the impact of the literary text when performed in its operatic adaptation. Here is the verse play version of the scene after Beatrice’s rape by her own father, Francis Chancey: I was black but comely. Don’t glance Upon me. This flesh is crumbling Like proved lies. I’m perfumed, ruddied Carrion. Assassinated. Screams of mucking juncos scrawled Over the chapel and my nerves, A stickiness, as when he finished Maculating my thighs and dress. My eyes seep pus; I can’t walk: the floors Are tizzy, dented by stout mauling. Suddenly I would like poison. The flesh limps from my spine. My inlets crimp. Vultures flutter, ghastly, without meaning. I can see lice swarming the air. … His scythe went shick shick shick and slashed My flowers; they lay, murdered, in heaps. (90) The biblical and the violent meet in the texture of the language. And none of that power gets lost in the opera adaptation, despite cuts and alterations for easier aural comprehension. I was black but comely. Don’t look Upon me: this flesh is dying. I’m perfumed, bleeding carrion, My eyes weep pus, my womb’s sopping With tears; I can hardly walk: the floors Are tizzy, the sick walls tumbling, Crumbling like proved lies. His scythe went shick shick shick and cut My flowers; they lay in heaps, murdered. (95) Clarke has said that he feels the libretto is less “literary” in his words than the verse play, for it removes the lines of French, Latin, Spanish and Italian that pepper the play as part of the author’s critique of the highly educated planter class in Nova Scotia: their education did not guarantee ethical behaviour (“Adaptation” 14). I have not concentrated on the music of the opera, because I wanted to keep the focus on the language. But I should say that the Rolfe’s score is as historically grounded as Clarke’s libretto: it is rooted in African Canadian music (from ring shouts to spirituals to blues) and in Scottish fiddle music and local reels of the time, not to mention bel canto Italian opera. However, the music consciously links black and white traditions in a way that Clarke’s words and story refuse: they remain stubbornly separate, set in deliberate tension with the music’s resolution. Beatrice will murder her father, and, at the very moment that Nova Scotia slaves are liberated, she and her co-conspirators will be hanged for that murder. Unlike the printed verse drama, the shorter opera libretto functions like a screenplay, if you will. It is not so much an autonomous work unto itself, but it points toward a potential enactment or embodiment in performance. Yet, even there, Clarke cannot resist the lure of words—even though they are words that no audience will ever hear. The stage directions for Act 3, scene 2 of the opera read: “The garden. Slaves, sunflowers, stars, sparks” (98). The printed verse play is full of these poetic associative stage directions, suggesting that despite his protestations to the contrary, Clarke may have thought of that version as one meant to be read by the eye. After Beatrice’s rape, the stage directions read: “A violin mopes. Invisible shovelsful of dirt thud upon the scene—as if those present were being buried alive—like ourselves” (91). Our imaginations—and emotions—go to work, assisted by the poet’s associations. There are many such textual helpers—epigraphs, photographs, notes—that we do not have when we watch and listen to the opera. We do have the music, the staged drama, the colours and sounds as well as the words of the text. As Clarke puts the difference: “as a chamber opera, Beatrice Chancy has ascended to television broadcast. But as a closet drama, it play only within the reader’s head” (“Adaptation” 14). Clarke’s work of literature, his verse drama, is a “situated utterance, produced in one medium and in one historical and social context,” to use Robert Stam’s terms. In the opera version, it was transformed into another “equally situated utterance, produced in a different context and relayed through a different medium” (45-6). I want to argue that both are worthy of study and respect by wordsmiths, by people like me. I realise I’ve loaded the dice: here neither the verse play nor the libretto is primary; neither is really the “source” text, for they were written at the same time and by the same person. But for readers and audiences (my focus and interest here), they exist on a continuum—depending on which we happen to experience first. As Ilana Shiloh explores here, the same is true about the short story and film of Memento. I am not alone in wanting to mount a defence of adaptations. Julie Sanders ends her new book called Adaptation and Appropriation with these words: “Adaptation and appropriation … are, endlessly and wonderfully, about seeing things come back to us in as many forms as possible” (160). The storytelling imagination is an adaptive mechanism—whether manifesting itself in print or on stage or on screen. The study of the production of literature should, I would like to argue, include those other forms taken by that storytelling drive. If I can be forgiven a move to the amusing—but still serious—in concluding, Terry Pratchett puts it beautifully in his fantasy story, Witches Abroad: “Stories, great flapping ribbons of shaped space-time, have been blowing and uncoiling around the universe since the beginning of time. And they have evolved. The weakest have died and the strongest have survived and they have grown fat on the retelling.” In biology as in culture, adaptations reign. References Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. Bruhn, Mark J. “’Prodigious Mixtures and Confusions Strange’: The Self-Subverting Mixed Style of The Cenci.” Poetics Today 22.4 (2001). Clarke, George Elliott. “Beatrice Chancy: A Libretto in Four Acts.” Canadian Theatre Review 96 (1998): 62-79. ———. Beatrice Chancy. Victoria, BC: Polestar, 1999. ———. “Adaptation: Love or Cannibalism? Some Personal Observations”, unpublished manuscript of article. Frye, Northrop. The Educated Imagination. Toronto: CBC, 1963. Goodman, Nelson. Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968. Hutcheon, Linda, and Gary R. Bortolotti. “On the Origin of Adaptations: Rethinking Fidelity Discourse and “Success”—Biologically.” New Literary History. Forthcoming. Joyce, James. Dubliners. 1916. New York: Viking, 1967. ———. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. 1916. Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1960. Larson, Katherine. “Resistance from the Margins in George Elliott Clarke’s Beatrice Chancy.” Canadian Literature 189 (2006): 103-118. McGee, Celia. “Beowulf on Demand.” New York Times, Arts and Leisure. 30 April 2006. A4. Rushdie, Salman. The Satanic Verses. New York: Viking, 1988. ———. Haroun and the Sea of Stories. London: Granta/Penguin, 1990. Sanders, Julie. Adaptation and Appropriation. London and New York: Routledge, 160. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Cenci. Ed. George Edward Woodberry. Boston and London: Heath, 1909. Stam, Robert. “Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation.” Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 1-52. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Hutcheon, Linda. "In Defence of Literary Adaptation as Cultural Production." M/C Journal 10.2 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/01-hutcheon.php>. APA Style Hutcheon, L. (May 2007) "In Defence of Literary Adaptation as Cultural Production," M/C Journal, 10(2). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/01-hutcheon.php>.

To listen to them talk, you'd think most Americans hate television. Everyday discourse about television abounds with condemnation of television content. Television is a wasteland, a stream of idiotic material insulting to the intelligence of the viewer. When people deem a particular program worth watching, they often articulate it in contradistinction to the vast majority of awful stuff out there. This almost universal discourse of condemnation does not mean Americans do not watch television, of course. They do, and they watch a great deal of it. Thus we have a conundrum. If it is so awful, why do people watch television? When Americans construct stories about themselves, they construct themselves as choice--making individuals (Polanyi). Sane, mature Americans are expected to be able to make intelligent choices and to live with the consequences of their choices. How, then, can Americans articulate themselves as television viewers, as individuals who choose to view what is clearly awful stuff? In this paper, I want to discuss 'veging out' as an American category of media viewing that resolves this conundrum. In framing their discourse about watching television in terms of 'veging out,' Americans are able to construct themselves as sensible, choice--making persons, and yet explain why they watch large amounts of television. I want to use this example to explore ways that media scholars might supplement explorations of the self as mediated by texts with attention to the ways the viewing self is articulated in everyday discourses about television by viewers. An American Folk Category of Pleasure I said I'm sorry this is late. I just couldn't work on it over the weekend. I just veged out in front of the TV the whole weekend. I realise that's not much of an excuse…but…I had my Arabic test Thursday and I was too burned out afterward to do anything. I had to let my brain recharge. [text one] Let's just veg out tonight. We both had a big lunch, let's just make some popcorn and watch whatever stupid stuff is on TV. Unless you want to get a video. [text two] God, we didn't do anything this weekend. We just sat in front of the TV. (laughs) It was a total veg out weekend, we ordered out every night. John was on the rig for two weeks and then he's had to work late every night since he's been back, and I've had this activity and that activity with the kids, and girl scouts and soccer... We really needed the break. [text three] In the interest of brevity, I offer only three texts here.1 Anyone who has listened to Americans talk about television can probably multiply these examples many times; most Americans of my generation or later have almost certainly been producers of such discourse at one time or another. Each of these examples is drawn from a different context: a student's explanation for handing in a late paper [text one], a wife's suggestion for evening plans [text two], a friend sharing information about her family [text three]. And each is part of the language of experience – the language people use to describe emotions, sensations, and thoughts and, in so doing, articulate a self. 'Veging out' -- the 'veg--' prefix is borrowed from the word 'vegetable' and pronounced with a soft g -- is a nice example of a local taxonomic category of pleasure and the way it is embedded in more complex discursive formations, which it both replicates and refracts. In American society, where sitting in front of the television when there are other things to do is condemned as a waste of time that makes one a 'couch potato,' 'veging out' allows actors to reconstitute 'being a vegetable' as an empowering choice, an intentional and temporary vegetative state one escapes into as a means to relax, reduce stress and 'get away' from one's troubles. Veging out involves escape but specifies that one is escaping to nowhere, that an avoidance of critical mental activity is precisely what is sought. The claim to be veging out thus accepts the general American public discourse of television as a wasteland – the 'waste' in particular involving waste of time -- and simultaneously challenges it by claiming, in essence, that one has a right to do nothing if one has been working 'too hard'. There is nothing fanciful or even insightful in this analysis; discourses in which Americans talk about their television viewing activity tend to be both straightforward and redundant. Americans who say they spent an evening veging out are likely to follow the statement with an explanation of why they are entitled to veg out -- a litany of stresses or labours -- and sometimes also assertions to confirm that the world they escaped to was indeed a place that involved minimal mental activity. For example, the student in Text One quoted above followed it up with the comment, 'There was absolutely nothing on worth watching'. The woman who produced Text Three commented a few lines later, 'It was practically all commercials, nothing could hold my interest because it was always being interrupted. I hardly ever watch TV, I hadn't realised how many commercials there are'. This latter comment also positions the activity as a rare one for this person, emphasising the strategic nature of veging out as a life choice and hence acceptable within American understandings of choice.2 People's own modes of articulation may thus even deny their motivations involve pleasure.3 Choosing to enter the wasteland of television certainly can be, and often is, constructed as a bad choice. As Beeman demonstrates in his analysis of the language of choice in American advertising, making a choice is often constituted as not enough -- one must make the 'right' choice. Discourse about 'veging out' partly forecloses the possibility of the instance described being a bad choice by embedding the choice in the matrix of suffering. Yet as Carbaugh discovers in his sociolinguistic appraisal of TV talk shows, doing something 'wrong' can nonetheless be valorised in America by its formulation as a deliberate exercise of one's right to choose. The moral wrongness of the particular choice is redeemed by the articulation of a self exercising its right to make its own choices, and taking responsibility for those choices. The power of 'veging out' as a representation of social action thus lies in its ability to simultaneously embrace the widespread discourse that 'television is a wasteland' while at the same time subsuming it under the important American discourse of choice. In so doing, it allows Americans to construct themselves as hard--working individuals who choose to waste time as a strategy for resolving the stresses and discomforts of hard work. One articulates a viewing self, that is, which is consonant with the fundamental values of American culture. The Viewing Self The 'viewing self' is that self, or that aspect of the self, constructed through experiences of viewing events and activities in which the person is not a participant. In the contemporary world, such viewing has increased as an activity, accommodated and mediated by film, television, video and other technologies. These technologies offer, among other things, the opportunity for virtual experiences, events and activities that we do not experience with our bodies but which nonetheless offer us comparable fodder for our cognitive processes (Drummond). Studies of the self as viewer have long been dominated in media studies by attention to these virtual experiences as internal. From the early argument that the self is 'interpellated' by the culture industry (Adorno), to the argument that the self is socially and politically positioned in dominated, negotiating or resistant ways (Hall), to the idea of the self as simultaneously occupying multiple (and shifting) spectator positions (Modleski, Williams, Clover, Caton), emphasis has long been on how the viewer experiences structured sets of symbols, appropriates them at various levels of cohesion, cognitively and affectively orders them with regard to pre--existing understandings of and feelings about the world, and uses them in the ongoing construction of the self. I am suggesting here the utility of turning our attention from internal to external articulations of self as viewer. I want to argue that in addition to engaging with the content of the viewing experience, people usually engage with the meaning of the viewing experience as an activity. The viewing experience is never just about engagement with content about what one watches. It is also about the activities of 'watching TV,' 'renting a video,' and 'going to the movies.' Each of these is an experience that must be internally evaluated with regard to one's pre--existing sense of self, and which may have to be verbally articulated in interaction with others. In the latter case, it provides yet more fodder for the construction of the self, as we see versions of ourselves mirrored in the responses of the other to our own self--performance. Given the plethora of media, genres, places and events in which visual media are watched, speaking with others about one's television viewing maps one onto a complex terrain of distinctions about one's taste. One's 'taste' is never innocent, because it ties in to a complex social code that relates it to class, gender, ethnicity, education, and other social categories (Bourdieu). To represent ourselves to others as viewers of any particular kind of media is to position ourselves as particular kinds of persons in relation to others. One can use this code to articulate oneself as a particular kind of person vis--à--vis those with whom one is interacting: an equal who shares common tastes, a superior who enjoys more refined discernment, a populist who revels in his or her common tastes. To speak of our viewing allows us to generate social contact on grounds of shared experience. It allows us to confirm our tastes with regard to the social others who serve as mirrors to our selves. Of course, persons are never omnicompetent in their self--presentations, and efforts to present the self in particular ways can backfire, so that instead of appearing as a woman of discernment one appears pompous; and instead of appearing as a common Joe, one comes across as vulgar. Talking about viewing, in other words, always involves risk. In examining how people manage this risk in their social interactions, as through framing their experience as 'veging out,' we can learn much about how people construct themselves as viewers. Conclusion 'Veging out' is not the only verbal strategy by means of which Americans solve the conundrum of the viewing self. Nor is there anything unique in this American conundrum. Ethnographic accounts clearly demonstrate that many societies offer public condemnatory discourses about television that are at odds with actual viewing practices. The content of television in Belize is 'destroying a whole generation' (Wilk), in Egypt it's a flood of 'moral pollution' (Armbrust), in the Netherlands it's 'an embarrassment' (Alasuutaari). People's ways of speaking about themselves as viewers are clearly often a result of an ambivalence born of their pleasure, on the one hand, and their understanding that one should not be getting pleasure from such stuff, on the other. The result is often discourse that expresses guilt, or embarrassment, as summed up by Alasuutari's informant who said 'I'm ashamed to admit it, but I watch Dallas.' Alasuutari's reliance on interviewing, though, captures the conundrum but not the cultural solutions. An interview with a sociologist is a very different kind of speech act from the quotidian contexts in which people construct themselves as television viewers in interaction with friends, family, the person sitting next to you at the bar, and so forth (Briggs). My objective in this brief exercise is to draw our attention away from interviewing toward ethnography, and away from attention to internal subjectivities to the interactive contexts in which the self is constructed in everyday life. Notes 1 These three examples were all collected among American expatriates while I was teaching at the American University in Cairo. 2 Individual performances of this discourse are always strategic, of course; their articulation shaped by the speakers understanding of the speech event in which they take place. 3 The American discomfort with spending one's leisure pleasurably has been long chronicled. As early as the 1920s the Lynds found the people of Middletown uncomfortable with talking about reading for pleasure rather than instruction and profit. People did not want to articulate themselves as persons who wasted time (Lynd and Lynd 1929: 225) References Adorno, Theodor. 'The Culture Industry Reconsidered.' The Adorno Reader. Ed. Brian O'Connor. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. 230-38. Alasuutari, Pertti. ''I'm Ashamed to Admit it, but I have Watched Dallas:' The Moral Hierarchy of Television Programmes.' Media, Culture and Society 14 (1992): 561-582. Armbrust, Walter. Mass Culture and Modernisation in Egypt. Cambridge: University Press, 1996. Beeman, William O. 'Freedom to Choose: Symbolic Values in American Advertising.' The Symbolisation of America. Ed. Herve Varenne. Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, 1986 Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1984. Briggs, Charles. Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social Science Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Carbaugh, Donal. Talking American: Cultural Discourses on Donahue. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1989. Caton, Steven C. Lawrence of Arabia: a Film's Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Clover, Carol. Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. Drummond, Lee. American Dreamtime: A Cultural Analysis of Popular Movies and Their Implications for a Science of Humanity. Lanham, MD: Littlefield Adams, 1995. Hall, Stuart. 'Culture, the Media and the 'Ideological Effect.' ' Mass Communication and Society. Ed. James Curran, Michael Gurevitch and Janet Woolacott. London: Edward Arnold, 1977. - - - . 'The Rediscovery of 'Ideology:' The Return of the Repressed in Media Studies. Culture, Society and the Media. Ed. Michael Gurevitch, T. Bennett, James Curran and Janet Woolacott. London: Methuen, 1982. Modleski, Tania. The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Analysis. New York: Routledge, 1988 Polanyi, Livia. Telling the American Story. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1989 Wilk, Richard. ''It's Destroying a Whole Generation:' Television and Moral Discourse in Belize.' Visual Anthropology 5 (1995): 229-44. Williams, Linda. Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the Frenzy of the Visible. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989. Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Peterson, Mark Allen. "Choosing the Wasteland" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5.5 (2002). [your date of access] < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Peterson.html &gt. Chicago Style Peterson, Mark Allen, "Choosing the Wasteland" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5, no. 5 (2002), < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Peterson.html &gt ([your date of access]). APA Style Peterson, Mark Allen. (2002) Choosing the Wasteland. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 5(5). < http://www.media-culture.org.au/mc/0210/Peterson.html &gt ([your date of access]).

1991 An afternoon in late 1991 found me on a Sydney bus reading Brett Easton Ellis’ American Psycho (1991). A disembarking passenger paused at my side and, as I glanced up, hissed, ‘I don’t know how you can read that filth’. As she continued to make her way to the front of the vehicle, I was as stunned as if she had struck me physically. There was real vehemence in both her words and how they were delivered, and I can still see her eyes squeezing into slits as she hesitated while curling her mouth around that final angry word: ‘filth’. Now, almost fifteen years later, the memory is remarkably vivid. As the event is also still remarkable; this comment remaining the only remark ever made to me by a stranger about anything I have been reading during three decades of travelling on public transport. That inflamed commuter summed up much of the furore that greeted the publication of American Psycho. More than this, and unusually, condemnation of the work both actually preceded, and affected, its publication. Although Ellis had been paid a substantial U.S. $300,000 advance by Simon & Schuster, pre-publication stories based on circulating galley proofs were so negative—offering assessments of the book as: ‘moronic … pointless … themeless … worthless (Rosenblatt 3), ‘superficial’, ‘a tapeworm narrative’ (Sheppard 100) and ‘vile … pornography, not literature … immoral, but also artless’ (Miner 43)—that the publisher cancelled the contract (forfeiting the advance) only months before the scheduled release date. CEO of Simon & Schuster, Richard E. Snyder, explained: ‘it was an error of judgement to put our name on a book of such questionable taste’ (quoted in McDowell, “Vintage” 13). American Psycho was, instead, published by Random House/Knopf in March 1991 under its prestige paperback imprint, Vintage Contemporary (Zaller; Freccero 48) – Sonny Mehta having signed the book to Random House some two days after Simon & Schuster withdrew from its agreement with Ellis. While many commented on the fact that Ellis was paid two substantial advances, it was rarely noted that Random House was a more prestigious publisher than Simon & Schuster (Iannone 52). After its release, American Psycho was almost universally vilified and denigrated by the American critical establishment. The work was criticised on both moral and aesthetic/literary/artistic grounds; that is, in terms of both what Ellis wrote and how he wrote it. Critics found it ‘meaningless’ (Lehmann-Haupt C18), ‘abysmally written … schlock’ (Kennedy 427), ‘repulsive, a bloodbath serving no purpose save that of morbidity, titillation and sensation … pure trash, as scummy and mean as anything it depicts, a dirty book by a dirty writer’ (Yardley B1) and ‘garbage’ (Gurley Brown 21). Mark Archer found that ‘the attempt to confuse style with content is callow’ (31), while Naomi Wolf wrote that: ‘overall, reading American Psycho holds the same fascination as watching a maladjusted 11-year-old draw on his desk’ (34). John Leo’s assessment sums up the passionate intensity of those critical of the work: ‘totally hateful … violent junk … no discernible plot, no believable characterization, no sensibility at work that comes anywhere close to making art out of all the blood and torture … Ellis displays little feel for narration, words, grammar or the rhythm of language’ (23). These reviews, as those printed pre-publication, were titled in similarly unequivocal language: ‘A Revolting Development’ (Sheppard 100), ‘Marketing Cynicism and Vulgarity’ (Leo 23), ‘Designer Porn’ (Manguel 46) and ‘Essence of Trash’ (Yardley B1). Perhaps the most unambiguous in its message was Roger Rosenblatt’s ‘Snuff this Book!’ (3). Of all works published in the U.S.A. at that time, including those clearly carrying X ratings, the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) selected American Psycho for special notice, stating that the book ‘legitimizes inhuman and savage violence masquerading as sexuality’ (NOW 114). Judging the book ‘the most misogynistic communication’ the organisation had ever encountered (NOW L.A. chapter president, Tammy Bruce, quoted in Kennedy 427) and, on the grounds that ‘violence against women in any form is no longer socially acceptable’ (McDowell, “NOW” C17), NOW called for a boycott of the entire Random House catalogue for the remainder of 1991. Naomi Wolf agreed, calling the novel ‘a violation not of obscenity standards, but of women’s civil rights, insofar as it results in conditioning male sexual response to female suffering or degradation’ (34). Later, the boycott was narrowed to Knopf and Vintage titles (Love 46), but also extended to all of the many products, companies, corporations, firms and brand names that are a feature of Ellis’s novel (Kauffman, “American” 41). There were other unexpected responses such as the Walt Disney Corporation barring Ellis from the opening of Euro Disney (Tyrnauer 101), although Ellis had already been driven from public view after receiving a number of death threats and did not undertake a book tour (Kennedy 427). Despite this, the book received significant publicity courtesy of the controversy and, although several national bookstore chains and numerous booksellers around the world refused to sell the book, more than 100,000 copies were sold in the U.S.A. in the fortnight after publication (Dwyer 55). Even this success had an unprecedented effect: when American Psycho became a bestseller, The New York Times announced that it would be removing the title from its bestseller lists because of the book’s content. In the days following publication in the U.S.A., Canadian customs announced that it was considering whether to allow the local arm of Random House to, first, import American Psycho for sale in Canada and, then, publish it in Canada (Kirchhoff, “Psycho” C1). Two weeks later, when the book was passed for sale (Kirchhoff, “Customs” C1), demonstrators protested the entrance of a shipment of the book. In May, the Canadian Defence Force made headlines when it withdrew copies of the book from the library shelves of a navy base in Halifax (Canadian Press C1). Also in May 1991, the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC), the federal agency that administers the classification scheme for all films, computer games and ‘submittable’ publications (including books) that are sold, hired or exhibited in Australia, announced that it had classified American Psycho as ‘Category 1 Restricted’ (W. Fraser, “Book” 5), to be sold sealed, to only those over 18 years of age. This was the first such classification of a mainstream literary work since the rating scheme was introduced (Graham), and the first time a work of literature had been restricted for sale since Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint in 1969. The chief censor, John Dickie, said the OFLC could not justify refusing the book classification (and essentially banning the work), and while ‘as a satire on yuppies it has a lot going for it’, personally he found the book ‘distasteful’ (quoted in W. Fraser, “Sensitive” 5). Moreover, while this ‘R’ classification was, and remains, a national classification, Australian States and Territories have their own sale and distribution regulation systems. Under this regime, American Psycho remains banned from sale in Queensland, as are all other books in this classification category (Vnuk). These various reactions led to a flood of articles published in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and the U.K., voicing passionate opinions on a range of issues including free speech and censorship, the corporate control of artistic thought and practice, and cynicism on the part of authors and their publishers about what works might attract publicity and (therefore) sell in large numbers (see, for instance, Hitchens 7; Irving 1). The relationship between violence in society and its representation in the media was a common theme, with only a few commentators (including Norman Mailer in a high profile Vanity Fair article) suggesting that, instead of inciting violence, the media largely reflected, and commented upon, societal violence. Elayne Rapping, an academic in the field of Communications, proposed that the media did actively glorify violence, but only because there was a market for such representations: ‘We, as a society love violence, thrive on violence as the very basis of our social stability, our ideological belief system … The problem, after all, is not media violence but real violence’ (36, 38). Many more commentators, however, agreed with NOW, Wolf and others and charged Ellis’s work with encouraging, and even instigating, violent acts, and especially those against women, calling American Psycho ‘a kind of advertising for violence against women’ (anthropologist Elliot Leyton quoted in Dwyer 55) and, even, a ‘how-to manual on the torture and dismemberment of women’ (Leo 23). Support for the book was difficult to find in the flood of vitriol directed against it, but a small number wrote in Ellis’s defence. Sonny Mehta, himself the target of death threats for acquiring the book for Random House, stood by this assessment, and was widely quoted in his belief that American Psycho was ‘a serious book by a serious writer’ and that Ellis was ‘remarkably talented’ (Knight-Ridder L10). Publishing director of Pan Macmillan Australia, James Fraser, defended his decision to release American Psycho on the grounds that the book told important truths about society, arguing: ‘A publisher’s office is a clearing house for ideas … the real issue for community debate [is] – to what extent does it want to hear the truth about itself, about individuals within the community and about the governments the community elects. If we care about the preservation of standards, there is none higher than this. Gore Vidal was among the very few who stated outright that he liked the book, finding it ‘really rather inspired … a wonderfully comic novel’ (quoted in Tyrnauer 73). Fay Weldon agreed, judging the book as ‘brilliant’, and focusing on the importance of Ellis’s message: ‘Bret Easton Ellis is a very good writer. He gets us to a ‘T’. And we can’t stand it. It’s our problem, not his. American Psycho is a beautifully controlled, careful, important novel that revolves around its own nasty bits’ (C1). Since 1991 As unlikely as this now seems, I first read American Psycho without any awareness of the controversy raging around its publication. I had read Ellis’s earlier works, Less than Zero (1985) and The Rules of Attraction (1987) and, with my energies fully engaged elsewhere, cannot now even remember how I acquired the book. Since that angry remark on the bus, however, I have followed American Psycho’s infamy and how it has remained in the public eye over the last decade and a half. Australian OFLC decisions can be reviewed and reversed – as when Pasolini’s final film Salo (1975), which was banned in Australia from the time of its release in 1975 until it was un-banned in 1993, was then banned again in 1998 – however, American Psycho’s initial classification has remained unchanged. In July 2006, I purchased a new paperback copy in rural New South Wales. It was shrink-wrapped in plastic and labelled: ‘R. Category One. Not available to persons under 18 years. Restricted’. While exact sales figures are difficult to ascertain, by working with U.S.A., U.K. and Australian figures, this copy was, I estimate, one of some 1.5 to 1.6 million sold since publication. In the U.S.A., backlist sales remain very strong, with some 22,000 copies sold annually (Holt and Abbott), while lifetime sales in the U.K. are just under 720,000 over five paperback editions. Sales in Australia are currently estimated by Pan MacMillan to total some 100,000, with a new printing of 5,000 copies recently ordered in Australia on the strength of the book being featured on the inaugural Australian Broadcasting Commission’s First Tuesday Book Club national television program (2006). Predictably, the controversy around the publication of American Psycho is regularly revisited by those reviewing Ellis’s subsequent works. A major article in Vanity Fair on Ellis’s next book, The Informers (1994), opened with a graphic description of the death threats Ellis received upon the publication of American Psycho (Tyrnauer 70) and then outlined the controversy in detail (70-71). Those writing about Ellis’s two most recent novels, Glamorama (1999) and Lunar Park (2005), have shared this narrative strategy, which also forms at least part of the frame of every interview article. American Psycho also, again predictably, became a major topic of discussion in relation to the contracting, making and then release of the eponymous film in 2000 as, for example, in Linda S. Kauffman’s extensive and considered review of the film, which spent the first third discussing the history of the book’s publication (“American” 41-45). Playing with this interest, Ellis continues his practice of reusing characters in subsequent works. Thus, American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, who first appeared in The Rules of Attraction as the elder brother of the main character, Sean – who, in turn, makes a brief appearance in American Psycho – also turns up in Glamorama with ‘strange stains’ on his Armani suit lapels, and again in Lunar Park. The book also continues to be regularly cited in discussions of censorship (see, for example, Dubin; Freccero) and has been included in a number of university-level courses about banned books. In these varied contexts, literary, cultural and other critics have also continued to disagree about the book’s impact upon readers, with some persisting in reading the novel as a pornographic incitement to violence. When Wade Frankum killed seven people in Sydney, many suggested a link between these murders and his consumption of X-rated videos, pornographic magazines and American Psycho (see, for example, Manne 11), although others argued against this (Wark 11). Prosecutors in the trial of Canadian murderer Paul Bernardo argued that American Psycho provided a ‘blueprint’ for Bernardo’s crimes (Canadian Press A5). Others have read Ellis’s work more positively, as for instance when Sonia Baelo Allué compares American Psycho favourably with Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs (1988) – arguing that Harris not only depicts more degrading treatment of women, but also makes Hannibal Lecter, his antihero monster, sexily attractive (7-24). Linda S. Kauffman posits that American Psycho is part of an ‘anti-aesthetic’ movement in art, whereby works that are revoltingly ugly and/or grotesque function to confront the repressed fears and desires of the audience and explore issues of identity and subjectivity (Bad Girls), while Patrick W. Shaw includes American Psycho in his work, The Modern American Novel of Violence because, in his opinion, the violence Ellis depicts is not gratuitous. Lost, however, in much of this often-impassioned debate and dialogue is the book itself – and what Ellis actually wrote. 21-years-old when Less than Zero was published, Ellis was still only 26 when American Psycho was released and his youth presented an obvious target. In 1991, Terry Teachout found ‘no moment in American Psycho where Bret Easton Ellis, who claims to be a serious artist, exhibits the workings of an adult moral imagination’ (45, 46), Brad Miner that it was ‘puerile – the very antithesis of good writing’ (43) and Carol Iannone that ‘the inclusion of the now famous offensive scenes reveals a staggering aesthetic and moral immaturity’ (54). Pagan Kennedy also ‘blamed’ the entire work on this immaturity, suggesting that instead of possessing a developed artistic sensibility, Ellis was reacting to (and, ironically, writing for the approval of) critics who had lauded the documentary realism of his violent and nihilistic teenage characters in Less than Zero, but then panned his less sensational story of campus life in The Rules of Attraction (427-428). Yet, in my opinion, there is not only a clear and coherent aesthetic vision driving Ellis’s oeuvre but, moreover, a profoundly moral imagination at work as well. This was my view upon first reading American Psycho, and part of the reason I was so shocked by that charge of filth on the bus. Once familiar with the controversy, I found this view shared by only a minority of commentators. Writing in the New Statesman & Society, Elizabeth J. Young asked: ‘Where have these people been? … Books of pornographic violence are nothing new … American Psycho outrages no contemporary taboos. Psychotic killers are everywhere’ (24). I was similarly aware that such murderers not only existed in reality, but also in many widely accessed works of literature and film – to the point where a few years later Joyce Carol Oates could suggest that the serial killer was an icon of popular culture (233). While a popular topic for writers of crime fiction and true crime narratives in both print and on film, a number of ‘serious’ literary writers – including Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Kate Millet, Margaret Atwood and Oates herself – have also written about serial killers, and even crossed over into the widely acknowledged as ‘low-brow’ true crime genre. Many of these works (both popular or more literary) are vivid and powerful and have, as American Psycho, taken a strong moral position towards their subject matter. Moreover, many books and films have far more disturbing content than American Psycho, yet have caused no such uproar (Young and Caveney 120). By now, the plot of American Psycho is well known, although the structure of the book, noted by Weldon above (C1), is rarely analysed or even commented upon. First person narrator, Patrick Bateman, a young, handsome stockbroker and stereotypical 1980s yuppie, is also a serial killer. The book is largely, and innovatively, structured around this seeming incompatibility – challenging readers’ expectations that such a depraved criminal can be a wealthy white professional – while vividly contrasting the banal, and meticulously detailed, emptiness of Bateman’s life as a New York über-consumer with the scenes where he humiliates, rapes, tortures, murders, mutilates, dismembers and cannibalises his victims. Although only comprising some 16 out of 399 pages in my Picador edition, these violent scenes are extreme and certainly make the work as a whole disgustingly confronting. But that is the entire point of Ellis’s work. Bateman’s violence is rendered so explicitly because its principal role in the novel is to be inescapably horrific. As noted by Baelo Allué, there is no shift in tone between the most banally described detail and the description of violence (17): ‘I’ve situated the body in front of the new Toshiba television set and in the VCR is an old tape and appearing on the screen is the last girl I filmed. I’m wearing a Joseph Abboud suit, a tie by Paul Stuart, shoes by J. Crew, a vest by someone Italian and I’m kneeling on the floor beside a corpse, eating the girl’s brain, gobbling it down, spreading Grey Poupon over hunks of the pink, fleshy meat’ (Ellis 328). In complete opposition to how pornography functions, Ellis leaves no room for the possible enjoyment of such a scene. Instead of revelling in the ‘spine chilling’ pleasures of classic horror narratives, there is only the real horror of imagining such an act. The effect, as Kauffman has observed is, rather than arousing, often so disgusting as to be emetic (Bad Girls 249). Ellis was surprised that his detractors did not understand that he was trying to be shocking, not offensive (Love 49), or that his overall aim was to symbolise ‘how desensitised our culture has become towards violence’ (quoted in Dwyer 55). Ellis was also understandably frustrated with readings that conflated not only the contents of the book and their meaning, but also the narrator and author: ‘The acts described in the book are truly, indisputably vile. The book itself is not. Patrick Bateman is a monster. I am not’ (quoted in Love 49). Like Fay Weldon, Norman Mailer understood that American Psycho posited ‘that the eighties were spiritually disgusting and the author’s presentation is the crystallization of such horror’ (129). Unlike Weldon, however, Mailer shied away from defending the novel by judging Ellis not accomplished enough a writer to achieve his ‘monstrous’ aims (182), failing because he did not situate Bateman within a moral universe, that is, ‘by having a murderer with enough inner life for us to comprehend him’ (182). Yet, the morality of Ellis’s project is evident. By viewing the world through the lens of a psychotic killer who, in many ways, personifies the American Dream – wealthy, powerful, intelligent, handsome, energetic and successful – and, yet, who gains no pleasure, satisfaction, coherent identity or sense of life’s meaning from his endless, selfish consumption, Ellis exposes the emptiness of both that world and that dream. As Bateman himself explains: ‘Surface, surface, surface was all that anyone found meaning in. This was civilisation as I saw it, colossal and jagged’ (Ellis 375). Ellis thus situates the responsibility for Bateman’s violence not in his individual moral vacuity, but in the barren values of the society that has shaped him – a selfish society that, in Ellis’s opinion, refused to address the most important issues of the day: corporate greed, mindless consumerism, poverty, homelessness and the prevalence of violent crime. Instead of pornographic, therefore, American Psycho is a profoundly political text: Ellis was never attempting to glorify or incite violence against anyone, but rather to expose the effects of apathy to these broad social problems, including the very kinds of violence the most vocal critics feared the book would engender. Fifteen years after the publication of American Psycho, although our societies are apparently growing in overall prosperity, the gap between rich and poor also continues to grow, more are permanently homeless, violence – whether domestic, random or institutionally-sanctioned – escalates, and yet general apathy has intensified to the point where even the ‘ethics’ of torture as government policy can be posited as a subject for rational debate. The real filth of the saga of American Psycho is, thus, how Ellis’s message was wilfully ignored. While critics and public intellectuals discussed the work at length in almost every prominent publication available, few attempted to think in any depth about what Ellis actually wrote about, or to use their powerful positions to raise any serious debate about the concerns he voiced. Some recent critical reappraisals have begun to appreciate how American Psycho is an ‘ethical denunciation, where the reader cannot but face the real horror behind the serial killer phenomenon’ (Baelo Allué 8), but Ellis, I believe, goes further, exposing the truly filthy causes that underlie the existence of such seemingly ‘senseless’ murder. But, Wait, There’s More It is ironic that American Psycho has, itself, generated a mini-industry of products. A decade after publication, a Canadian team – filmmaker Mary Harron, director of I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), working with scriptwriter, Guinevere Turner, and Vancouver-based Lions Gate Entertainment – adapted the book for a major film (Johnson). Starring Christian Bale, Chloë Sevigny, Willem Dafoe and Reese Witherspoon and, with an estimated budget of U.S.$8 million, the film made U.S.$15 million at the American box office. The soundtrack was released for the film’s opening, with video and DVDs to follow and the ‘Killer Collector’s Edition’ DVD – closed-captioned, in widescreen with surround sound – released in June 2005. Amazon.com lists four movie posters (including a Japanese language version) and, most unexpected of all, a series of film tie-in action dolls. The two most popular of these, judging by E-Bay, are the ‘Cult Classics Series 1: Patrick Bateman’ figure which, attired in a smart suit, comes with essential accoutrements of walkman with headphones, briefcase, Wall Street Journal, video tape and recorder, knife, cleaver, axe, nail gun, severed hand and a display base; and the 18” tall ‘motion activated sound’ edition – a larger version of the same doll with fewer accessories, but which plays sound bites from the movie. Thanks to Stephen Harris and Suzie Gibson (UNE) for stimulating conversations about this book, Stephen Harris for information about the recent Australian reprint of American Psycho and Mark Seebeck (Pan Macmillan) for sales information. References Archer, Mark. “The Funeral Baked Meats.” The Spectator 27 April 1991: 31. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. First Tuesday Book Club. First broadcast 1 August 2006. Baelo Allué, Sonia. “The Aesthetics of Serial Killing: Working against Ethics in The Silence of the Lambs (1988) and American Psycho (1991).” Atlantis 24.2 (Dec. 2002): 7-24. Canadian Press. “Navy Yanks American Psycho.” The Globe and Mail 17 May 1991: C1. Canadian Press. “Gruesome Novel Was Bedside Reading.” Kitchener-Waterloo Record 1 Sep. 1995: A5. Dubin, Steven C. “Art’s Enemies: Censors to the Right of Me, Censors to the Left of Me.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 28.4 (Winter 1994): 44-54. Dwyer, Victor. “Literary Firestorm: Canada Customs Scrutinizes a Brutal Novel.” Maclean’s April 1991: 55. Ellis, Bret Easton. American Psycho. London: Macmillan-Picador, 1991. ———. Glamorama. New York: Knopf, 1999. ———. The Informers. New York: Knopf, 1994. ———. Less than Zero. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985. ———. Lunar Park. New York: Knopf, 2005. ———. The Rules of Attraction. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987. Fraser, James. :The Case for Publishing.” The Bulletin 18 June 1991. Fraser, William. “Book May Go under Wraps.” The Sydney Morning Herald 23 May 1991: 5. ———. “The Sensitive Censor and the Psycho.” The Sydney Morning Herald 24 May 1991: 5. Freccero, Carla. “Historical Violence, Censorship, and the Serial Killer: The Case of American Psycho.” Diacritics: A Review of Contemporary Criticism 27.2 (Summer 1997): 44-58. Graham, I. “Australian Censorship History.” Libertus.net 9 Dec. 2001. 17 May 2006 http://libertus.net/censor/hist20on.html>. Gurley Brown, Helen. Commentary in “Editorial Judgement or Censorship?: The Case of American Psycho.” The Writer May 1991: 20-23. Harris, Thomas. The Silence of the Lambs. New York: St Martins Press, 1988. Harron, Mary (dir.). American Psycho [film]. Edward R. Pressman Film Corporation, Lions Gate Films, Muse Productions, P.P.S. Films, Quadra Entertainment, Universal Pictures, 2004. Hitchens, Christopher. “Minority Report.” The Nation 7-14 January 1991: 7. Holt, Karen, and Charlotte Abbott. “Lunar Park: The Novel.” Publishers Weekly 11 July 2005. 13 Aug. 2006 http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA624404.html? pubdate=7%2F11%2F2005&display=archive>. Iannone, Carol. “PC & the Ellis Affair.” Commentary Magazine July 1991: 52-4. Irving, John. “Pornography and the New Puritans.” The New York Times Book Review 29 March 1992: Section 7, 1. 13 Aug. 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/15/lifetimes/25665.html>. 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Love, Robert. “Psycho Analysis: Interview with Bret Easton Ellis.” Rolling Stone 4 April 1991: 45-46, 49-51. Mailer, Norman. “Children of the Pied Piper: Mailer on American Psycho.” Vanity Fair March 1991: 124-9, 182-3. Manguel, Alberto. “Designer Porn.” Saturday Night 106.6 (July 1991): 46-8. Manne, Robert. “Liberals Deny the Video Link.” The Australian 6 Jan. 1997: 11. McDowell, Edwin. “NOW Chapter Seeks Boycott of ‘Psycho’ Novel.” The New York Times 6 Dec. 1990: C17. ———. “Vintage Buys Violent Book Dropped by Simon & Schuster.” The New York Times 17 Nov. 1990: 13. Miner, Brad. “Random Notes.” National Review 31 Dec. 1990: 43. National Organization for Women. Library Journal 2.91 (1991): 114. Oates, Joyce Carol. “Three American Gothics.” Where I’ve Been, and Where I’m Going: Essays, Reviews and Prose. New York: Plume, 1999. 232-43. Rapping, Elayne. “The Uses of Violence.” Progressive 55 (1991): 36-8. Rosenblatt, Roger. “Snuff this Book!: Will Brett Easton Ellis Get Away with Murder?” New York Times Book Review 16 Dec. 1990: 3, 16. Roth, Philip. Portnoy’s Complaint. New York: Random House, 1969. Shaw, Patrick W. The Modern American Novel of Violence. Troy, NY: Whitson, 2000. Sheppard, R. Z. “A Revolting Development.” Time 29 Oct. 1990: 100. Teachout, Terry. “Applied Deconstruction.” National Review 24 June 1991: 45-6. Tyrnauer, Matthew. “Who’s Afraid of Bret Easton Ellis?” Vanity Fair 57.8 (Aug. 1994): 70-3, 100-1. Vnuk, Helen. “X-rated? Outdated.” The Age 21 Sep. 2003. 17 May 2006 http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/19/1063625202157.html>. Wark, McKenzie. “Video Link Is a Distorted View.” The Australian 8 Jan. 1997: 11. Weldon, Fay. “Now You’re Squeamish?: In a World as Sick as Ours, It’s Silly to Target American Psycho.” The Washington Post 28 April 1991: C1. Wolf, Naomi. “The Animals Speak.” New Statesman & Society 12 April 1991: 33-4. Yardley, Jonathan. “American Psycho: Essence of Trash.” The Washington Post 27 Feb. 1991: B1. Young, Elizabeth J. “Psycho Killers. Last Lines: How to Shock the English.” New Statesman & Society 5 April 1991: 24. Young, Elizabeth J., and Graham Caveney. Shopping in Space: Essays on American ‘Blank Generation’ Fiction. London: Serpent’s Tail, 1992. Zaller, Robert “American Psycho, American Censorship and the Dahmer Case.” Revue Francaise d’Etudes Americaines 16.56 (1993): 317-25. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Brien, Donna Lee. "The Real Filth in : A Critical Reassessment." M/C Journal 9.5 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0610/01-brien.php>. APA Style Brien, D. (Nov. 2006) "The Real Filth in American Psycho: A Critical Reassessment," M/C Journal, 9(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0610/01-brien.php>.

Blaise Pascal once offered the following advice to those perennially worried about knowing fact from fiction: “how few things can be demonstrated! Proofs only convince the mind; custom provides the strongest and most firmly held proofs” (148). The concern about whether or not God existed was for Pascal an unnecessary anxiety: the question couldn’t be answered by human knowledge, and so ultimately one just had to “wager” on whatever stood to be most beneficial, act as if this chosen answer was true, and the mind would eventually fall into line. For Pascal, if one stood to gain from believing in the truth of an idea then the great problems of epistemology could be reduced to a relatively simple and pragmatic calculation of benefit. Doubt, suspicion, and all the attendant epistemological worries would only count as wasted time.It might at first seem surprising that this somewhat antiquated idea of Pascal’s, conceived in seventeenth-century France, appears at the core of a novel by a writer considered to be the quintessential “modern” author, David Foster Wallace. But consider the following advice offered to a recovering drug addict in Wallace’s 1996 novelInfinite Jest. To reap the benefits of the AA program, Don Gately, one of the central characters of the novel, is told by resident counsellor Gene M to imagine he is holding a box of Betty Crocker Cake Mix. The box of cake mix represents Boston AA. Gately is advised that the “box came with directions on the side any eight-year-old could read”: Gene M. said all Gately had to do was for fuck’s sake give himself a break and relax and for once shut up and just follow the directions on the side of the fucking box. It didn’t matter one fuckola whether Gately like believed a cake would result, or whether he understood the like fucking baking-chemistry of howa cake would result: if he just followed the motherfucking directions, and had sense enough to get help from slightly more experienced bakers to keep from fucking the directions up if he got confused somehow, but basically the point was if he just followed the childish directions, a cake would result. He’d have his cake. (467) This advice indeed seems lifted from Pascal almost verbatim (plus or minus a few turns of phrase, of course):Learn from those who have been bound like you, and who now wager all they have. They are people who know the road you want to follow and have been cured of the affliction of which you want to be cured. Follow the way by which they began ... (Pascal 156).While the Pascalian influence on Wallace’s work is perhaps interesting in its own right, and there are certainly more extensive and capable analyses of it to be done than mine, I invoke it here to highlight a particular emphasis in Wallace’s work that I think exceeds the framework through which it is usually understood. Wallace’s fiction is commonly considered an attack on irony, being supposedly at the vanguard of a movement in recent American literature that Adam Kelly, in an illuminating analysis, has called the “New Sincerity” (131). But before anything else irony is a particular trope of understanding, a way of situating oneself in regards to an object of knowledge, and so Wallace’s work needs not only to be understood in terms of what a culture considers unhip, trite, and sentimental, but how it comes to decide upon those things at all, how it chooses to understand its reality. Inspired by the Pascalian influence apparent in Wallace’s portrayal of the Alcoholics Anonymous program, I intend to shift the focus away from issues of irony and sincerity and instead consider the importance of the epistemological tropes of suspicion and trust in reading Infinite Jest. More than anything else Wallace’s depiction of the AA program tells us he is interested, like Pascal, in the existential implications of suspicion, in what might be lost in following doubt to its most “radical” conclusions. I SuspicionIt is fruitful to view Western intellectual practice as exhibiting suspicious tendencies. From Descartes’s “hyperbolic doubt,” the “hermeneutics of suspicion” that Ricœur and Foucault see coming out of the legacy of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, to the endless “paranoia of the postmodern” that typifies recent academic trends (Bywater 79), the refusal to trust the veracity of surfaces has been a driving force in post-Enlightenment thought, becoming largely inextricable from how we understand the world. As a mode of critique, suspicion has a particular anxiety about the way fiction masquerades as truth. When a suspicious mind reads a given object, be it an advertisement, a novel, a film, a supermarket, or an egg carton, it most often proceeds by first separating the text into what Paul Ricœur calls an “architecture of meaning” (18), defining those elements it considers fictive and those it considers truer, more essential, in order to locate what it considers “the intentional structure of double meaning” (Ricœur 9). Beneath the fictive surface of a novel, for example, it might find hidden the “truer” forces of social repression and patriarchy. Behind the innocence of a bedtime tale it might discern the truth of the placating purpose of story, or the tyranny of naïve narrative closure, the fantasies of teleology and final consonance. And behind Pascal’s wager it might find a weak submission to ideological fictions, a confirmation of the processes of social conditioning.Over the years suspicion has doubtless proved itself a crucial resource for various politics of resistance, for challenging ossified structures of knowledge, and for exposing heinous fictions that definitely needed exposing. But some contend that these once fruitful intellectual practices have become so deeply entrenched that they are now the things to be suspiciously overcome. Rather than being a subversive tactic of liberation, the “routinisation” of suspicion can stand to mark a hermeneutic stasis. It can even, as Bruno Latour argues, mire important social and ecological issues in counterproductive doubt, the most obvious example being the tiresome “debates” about global warming:the danger would no longer be coming from an excessive confidence in ideological arguments posturing as matters of fact—as we have learned to combat so efficiently in the past—but from an excessive distrust of good matters of fact disguised as bad ideological biases! (Latour 227) The work of David Foster Wallace can be considered another example of such a discourse, one that definitely admits suspicion’s hermeneutic force, but is a little uneasy with its predominance. While Wallace’s work is most commonly understood in relation to irony, irony itself, as I have suggested, can in turn be understood as related to a subtending culture of suspicion and cynicism. In his 1993 essay “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction,” Wallace notes a complex interaction between knowledge, suspicion, art, and televisual culture, in which a particular rendering of irony—a mistrust in clichéd sentiment and all those words we now so confidently put between “shudder” quotes—is commoditised and exploited in order to constantly provide the psychological payoffs of knowingness, those feelings of superiority, safety, and power that come from suspiciously seeing through to the “truth” of things. In Wallace’s reading, ostensibly postmodern advertisements draw attention to their fictive layers to make viewers feel attuned to the supposed truth of their intent. But this access to the “truth” is itself just another fiction aimed to mislead them into commercial pliancy:[TV can] ease that painful tension between Joe’s need to transcend the crowd and his status as Audience member. For to the extent that TV can flatter Joe about “seeing through” the pretentiousness and hypocrisy of outdated values, it can induce in him precisely the feeling of canny superiority it’s taught him to crave, and can keep him dependent on the cynical TV-watching that alone affords this feeling. (Wallace 180) The ironic viewer who would stand above these deliberately naive appeals would then also, and perhaps before anything else, be a suspicious reader, someone predisposed to seeing through the “surface” of a text. Irony, in these examples, would even be alike to the effect gained from “successful” suspicion, something like its reward, rather than an epistemological mode in itself. While in his essay Wallace ultimately intends that his critique of such tendencies will highlight the way much contemporary fiction struggles to subvert this culture, and thus we cannot help but look to his own work to see how it supposedly “attacks” irony, it is also just as crucial to consider its embedded critique of suspicious hermeneutics.II Trust In Infinite Jest’s portrayal of Boston’s Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous programs, Wallace attempts to propose a kind of neo-Pascalian “wager.” And like Pascal’s, Wallace’s is based on the willed performance of that most critically maligned of concepts, trust: that is, a willingness to become, like Pascal, blasé with truth as long as it stands to be beneficial. Within the novel the fictitious Ennet Drug and Alcohol House, along with the adjacent Enfield Tennis Academy, is staged as a school of personal (re)development, dramatising approaches to self-help in the damaged landscape of the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment’s Boston. And it is here where Don Gately, the novel’s unlikely hero, has ended up on his quest to escape the “spider” of addiction. As it openly admits, Alcoholics Anonymous is an easy target for a suspicious mode of thought bent on locating fictions because it “literally makes no sense” (368). But like Pascal, Wallace’s AA submits the problem of truth and error to a more primary consideration of benefit, and celebrates the power of language and custom to create realities, rather than being suspicious of this process of linguistic mediation. So it is a system, like signification itself, that functions on “the carrot-and-donkey aspect of trudging to Meetings only to be told to trudge to still more Meetings” (1001); like any transcendental signifier, the revelations it hints at can never truly arrive. It is also based on assertions that “do not make anything resembling rational sense” (1002). For example, Joelle van Dyne battles with the AA precept “I’m Here But For the Grace of God.” She finds the phrase is literally senseless, and regardless of whether she hears it or not it’s meaningless, and that the foamy enthusiasm with which these folks can say what in fact means nothing at all makes her want to put her head in a Radarange. (366) But perhaps the strongest reason Joelle feels uncomfortable with the present example is that she senses in its obvious untruth the potential truth of all meaning’s fictitiousness, how all sense might just be made up of nonsense of one form or another. Within the AA program these words are a means to an end, rather than something to be resisted or deconstructed.To exist within Infinite Jest’s AA program is thus to be uncomfortably close to the linguistic production of reality, to work at meaning’s coalface, exposed to the flames of its fictitiousness, but all the while being forced to deny this very vista. So while AA is a process firmly against the mechanisms of denial (one of its favourite slogans is “Denial is not a river in Egypt” [272]), it is also based on a paradoxical imperative to deny the status of meaning as a production, as well as the denial of the significance of this paradox: For me, the slogan [Analysis-Paralysis] means there’s no set way to argue intellectual-type stuff about the Program [...] You can’t think about it like an intellectual thing [...] You can analyse it til you’re breaking tables with your forehead and find a cause to walk away, back Out There, where the Disease is. Or you can stay and hang in and do the best you can. (1002) Although it is common knowledge that its precepts are full of logical contradiction and impasse, that it is a blatantly fictitious enterprise, the difficulty which Wallace’s portrayal poses, both for his characters and for his readers schooled in suspicious hermeneutics, is that as a process of healing the AA program somehow seems to work with great efficacy. Enter the redemption of Don Gately.Despite his initial reluctance to embrace the program’s undertakings, much to his surprise Gately finds it having a definite effect: he “all of a sudden realised that quite a few days had gone by since he’d even thought about Demerol or Talwin or even weed” (467). The bracketing of the desire to know and interpret, and the willed trust in the efficacy of a process that one cannot know by necessity, initially frustrates him, and even makes him suspicious: “He couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t Grateful so much as kind of suspicious about it, the Removal [of his addiction]” (468). And all this can definitely be intellectually uncomfortable for a reader well-versed in suspicious hermeneutics, let alone the somewhat unintellectual Gately:It did, yes, tentatively seem maybe actually to be working, but Gately couldn’t for the life of him figure out how just sitting on haemorrhoid-hostile folding chairs every night looking at nose-pores and listening to clichés could work. Nobody’s ever been able to figure AA out, is another binding commonality. (349)Ultimately the AA program presents the novel’s hero and its readers with an impasse, a block to what one knows and can critique, refuting the basic assumption that links narrative progression and change with the acquisition of knowledge. While others in AA seek to understand and debunk it, they also significantly fail to achieve the kind of recovery experienced by Gately. As Elizabeth Freudenthal suggests, “despite the problems one may have with AA as a vehicle for healthy living, Gately’s mode of fighting addiction is the only one in the novel that actually works” (191). And while Freudenthal suggests that Gately’s success comes through a ritual “anti-interiority,” a “mode of identity founded in the material world of both objects and biological bodies and divested from an essentialist notion of inner emotional, psychological, and spiritual life” (192), to me it seems that were Gately unable to resist the pleasures of the suspicious mind then little of his “abiding” in the exterior world would be possible. Ultimately, what Gately achieves comes through a kind of epistemological “trust.”III Reading TrustfullyBy occupying such a central place in the narrative, this neo-Pascalian wager around which the novel’s AA program is built is obviously intended to bear not only on its characters, but on how the novel is read. So how might we also “learn” from such Pascalian gambits? How might we read the novel without suspicion? What might we gain by becoming Don Gately? What, on the other hand, might we lose? While this essay is far too short to conduct this kind of investigation in full, a few points might still be raised in lieu of a proper conclusion.By openly submitting to his ignorance of what his actions mean, Gately is able to approach success, conclusion, and fulfillment. What the novel’s ending has in store for him is another question altogether, but Freudenthal views Gately’s closing scenes as the apotheosis of his “anti-intellectual endeavor” (206). Gately’s narrative thus also presents a challenge to readers thoroughly led by suspicious hermeneutics, and encourages us, if we are to accept this notion that is key to Infinite Jest (but we can, of course, refuse not to), to place ourselves in the position of the AA attendee, as a subject of the text’s discourse, not in possession of knowledge through which to critique it and scale that “architecture of meaning.” Many aspects of the novel of course impel us to read suspiciously, to gather clues like detectives, to interrogate the veracity of claims. Consider, for example, the compounded conflicting accounts of whether Joelle van Dyne has been horribly disfigured by acid, or is sublimely beautiful (compare, for instance, the explanation given on 538 with that on 795). Yet ultimately, recalling the AA ethos, the narrative makes it difficult for us to successfully execute these suspicious reading practices. Similar to a text like Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, that for Brian McHale ultimately resists any attempt to answer the many questions it poses (90-91), Infinite Jest frequently invokes a logic of what we might call epistemological equivocation. Either the veil-wearing Joelle van Dyne is hideously and improbably deformed or is superlatively beautiful; either AA is a vapid institution of brainwashing or is the key to recovery from substance abuse; either the novel’s matriarch, Avril Incandenza, is a sinister “black widow” or a superlatively caring mother. The list goes on.To some extent, the plethora of conflicting accounts simply engages an “innocent” readerly curiosity. But regardless of the precise nature of this hermeneutic desire stimulated by the text, one cannot help but feel, as Marshall Boswell suggests, that “Wallace’s point seems to be that these issues are not the issue” (175). If we read the novel attempting to harmonise these elements, interrogating the reliability of the given textual evidence, we will be sorely disappointed, if not doomed to the “analysis paralysis” that is much feared in the novel’s AA program. While one of the pleasures Wallace’s novel offers readers is the encouragement to participate actively in the text, it is also something it is wary of. And this is where the rub of the book lies. Just like in AA, we can potentially keep analysing its ambiguities forever; it is indeed designed to be pleasurable in just this way. But it is also intended, at least so Wallace tells us, to resist the addictive nature of pure entertainment:The original title was A Failed Entertainment. The idea is that the book is structured as an entertainment that doesn’t work [...]. And the tension of the book is to try to make it at once extremely entertaining—and also sort of warped, and to sort of shake the reader awake about some of the things that are sinister in entertainment. (Wallace in Lipsky 79)If we consider what it might mean to view the book as a “Failed Entertainment,” and consider what it is we love to do when reading suspiciously, we can then see that it is perhaps intended to steer us away from trying to decode it, especially when it is constantly suggested to us that it is this effort of analysis that tends to move one out of the immediacy of a given moment. The fact that “nobody’s ever been able to figure AA out” (349), yet it still indubitably works, seems to suggests how we are to approach the novel.But what are we offered instead of these pleasures of suspicious reading? Perhaps, like the AA attendee, the novel wants us to learn to listen to what is already in front of us: for the AA member it is all those stories offered up at the “podium”; for us it is all the pain and joy written in the text. In place of a conclusive ending that gives us all that we want to know, that shows us everything that “happens,” in its final scene the novel instead tells the story of a man finding his “bottom,” his lowest ebb, waking up “flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand” (981). This man, of course, is Don Gately. If we see this final moment only as a frustration of narrative desire, as a turning away from full understanding, from a revelation of the “truth” the narrative has been withholding, then we perhaps fail the task Wallace’s text, like AA, constantly asks of us: to listen, to accept, to trust.ReferencesBoswell, Marshall. Understanding David Foster Wallace. Columbia, SC: U of South Carolina P, 2003.Bywater, William. “The Paranoia of Postmodernism.” Philosophy and Literature 14.1 (1990): 79–84. Foucault, Michel. “Nietzsche, Freud, Marx.” Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology: Essential Works of Foucault 1954–84, Volume 2. Ed. James Faubion. Trans. Robert Hurley et al. London: Penguin, 2000. 269–78. Freudenthal, Elizabeth. “Anti-Interiority: Compulsiveness, Objectification, and Identity in Infinite Jest.” New Literary History 41.1 (2010): 191–211. Kelly, Adam. “David Foster Wallace and the New Sincerity in American Fiction.” Consider David Foster Wallace: Critical Essays. Los Angeles: Sideshow Media Group Press, 2010. 131–46.Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30.2 (2004): 225–48.Lipsky, David. Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace. New York: Broadway Books, 2010.McHale, Brian. “Modernist Reading, Post-Modern Text: The Case of Gravity's Rainbow.” Poetics Today 1.1 (1979): 85–110.Pascal, Blaise. Pensées and Other Writings. Trans. Honor Levi. Ed.Anthony Levi. New York: Oxford UP, 1995.Ricœur, Paul. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. Trans. Denis Savage. New Haven: Yale UP, 1970.Wallace, David Foster. “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 13.2 (1993): 151–94. ---. Infinite Jest. New York: Back Bay Books, 1996.

No man [...] can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which one may be true. (Nathaniel Hawthorne Scarlet Letter – as seen and pondered by Tony Soprano at Bowdoin College, The Sopranos, Season 1, Episode 5: “College”)The fictitious is a particular and varied source of insight into the everyday world. The idea of seriality—with its variations of the serial, series, seriated—is very much connected to our patterns of entertainment. In this essay, I want to begin the process of testing what values and meanings can be drawn from the idea of seriality into comprehending the play of persona in contemporary culture. From a brief overview of the intersection of persona and seriality as well as a review of the deployment of seriality in popular culture, the article focuses on the character/ person-actor relationship to demonstrate how seriality produces persona. The French term for character—personnage—will be used to underline the clear relations between characterisation, person, and persona which have been developed by the recent work by Lenain and Wiame. Personnage, through its variation on the word person helps push the analysis into fully understanding the particular and integrated configuration between a public persona and the fictional role that an actor inhabits (Heinich).There are several qualities related to persona that allow this movement from the fictional world to the everyday world to be profitable. Persona, in terms of origins, in and of itself implies performance and display. Jung, for instance, calls persona a mask where one is “acting a role” (167); while Goffman considers that performance and roles are at the centre of everyday life and everyday forms and patterns of communication. In recent work, I have use persona to describe how online culture pushes most people to construct a public identity that resembles what celebrities have had to construct for their livelihood for at least the last century (“Persona”; “Self”). My work has expanded to an investigation of how online persona relates to individual agency (“Agency”) and professional postures and positioning (Barbour and Marshall).The fictive constructions then are intensified versions of what persona is addressing: the fabrication of a role for particular directions and ends. Characters or personnages are constructed personas for very directed ends. Their limitation to the study of persona as a dimension of public culture is that they are not real; however, when one thinks of the actor who takes on this fictive identity, there is clearly a relationship between the real personality and that of the character. Moreover, as Nayar’s analysis of highly famous characters that are fictitious reveals, these celebrated characters, such as Harry Potter or Wolverine, sometime take on a public presence in and of themselves. To capture this public movement of a fictional character, Nayar blends the terms celebrity with fiction and calls these semi-public/semi-real entities “celefiction”: the characters are famous, highly visible, and move across media, information, and cultural platforms with ease and speed (18-20). Their celebrity status underlines their power to move outside of their primary text into public discourse and through public spaces—an extra-textual movement which fundamentally defines what a celebrity embodies.Seriality has to be seen as fundamental to a personnage’s power of and extension into the public world. For instance with Harry Potter again, at least some of his recognition is dependent on the linking or seriating the related books and movies. Seriality helps organise our sense of affective connection to our popular culture. The familiarity of some element of repetition is both comforting for audiences and provides at least a sense of guarantee or warranty that they will enjoy the future text as much as they enjoyed the past related text. Seriality, though, also produces a myriad of other effects and affects which provides a useful background to understand its utility in both the understanding of character and its value in investigating contemporary public persona. Etymologically, the words “series” and seriality are from the Latin and refer to “succession” in classical usage and are identified with ancestry and the patterns of identification and linking descendants (Oxford English Dictionary). The original use of the seriality highlights its value in understanding the formation of the constitution of person and persona and how the past and ancestry connect in series to the current or contemporary self. Its current usage, however, has broadened metaphorically outwards to identify anything that is in sequence or linked or joined: it can be a series of lectures and arguments or a related mark of cars manufactured in a manner that are stylistically linked. It has since been deployed to capture the production process of various cultural forms and one of the key origins of this usage came from the 19th century novel. There are many examples where the 19th century novel was sold and presented in serial form that are too numerous to even summarise here. It is useful to use Dickens’ serial production as a defining example of how seriality moved into popular culture and the entertainment industry more broadly. Part of the reason for the sheer length of many of Charles Dickens’ works related to their original distribution as serials. In fact, all his novels were first distributed in chapters in monthly form in magazines or newspapers. A number of related consequences from Dickens’ serialisation are relevant to understanding seriality in entertainment culture more widely (Hayward). First, his novel serialisation established a continuous connection to his readers over years. Thus Dickens’ name itself became synonymous and connected to an international reading public. Second, his use of seriality established a production form that was seen to be more affordable to its audience: seriality has to be understood as a form that is closely connected to economies and markets as cultural commodities kneaded their way into the structure of everyday life. And third, seriality established through repetition not only the author’s name but also the name of the key characters that populated the cultural form. Although not wholly attributable to the serial nature of the delivery, the characters such as Oliver Twist, Ebenezer Scrooge or David Copperfield along with a host of other major and minor players in his many books become integrated into everyday discourse because of their ever-presence and delayed delivery over stories over time (see Allen 78-79). In the same way that newspapers became part of the vernacular of contemporary culture, fictional characters from novels lived for years at a time in the consciousness of this large reading public. The characters or personnages themselves became personalities that through usage became a way of describing other behaviours. One can think of Uriah Heep and his sheer obsequiousness in David Copperfield as a character-type that became part of popular culture thinking and expressing a clear negative sentiment about a personality trait. In the twentieth century, serials became associated much more with book series. One of the more successful serial genres was the murder mystery. It developed what could be described as recognisable personnages that were both fictional and real. Thus, the real Agatha Christie with her consistent and prodigious production of short who-dunnit novels was linked to her Belgian fictional detective Hercule Poirot. Variations of these serial constructions occurred in children’s fiction, the emerging science fiction genre, and westerns with authors and characters rising to related prominence.In a similar vein, early to mid-twentieth century film produced the film serial. In its production and exhibition, the film serial was a déclassé genre in its overt emphasis on the economic quality of seriality. Thus, the film serial was generally a filler genre that was interspersed before and after a feature film in screenings (Dixon). As well as producing a familiarity with characters such as Flash Gordon, it was also instrumental in producing actors with a public profile that grew from this repetition. Flash Gordon was not just a character; he was also the actor Buster Crabbe and, over time, the association became indissoluble for audiences and actor alike. Feature film serials also developed in the first half-century of American cinema in particular with child actors like Shirley Temple, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland often reprising variations of their previous roles. Seriality more or less became the standard form of delivery of broadcast media for most of the last 70 years and this was driven by the economies of production it developed. Whether the production was news, comedy, or drama, most radio and television forms were and are variation of serials. As well as being the zenith of seriality, television serials have been the most studied form of seriality of all cultural forms and are thus the greatest source of research into what serials actually produced. The classic serial that began on radio and migrated to television was the soap opera. Although most of the long-running soap operas have now disappeared, many have endured for more than 30 years with the American series The Guiding Light lasting 72 years and the British soap Coronation Street now in its 64th year. Australian nighttime soap operas have managed a similar longevity: Neighbours is in its 30th year, while Home and Away is in its 27th year. Much of the analyses of soap operas and serials deals with the narrative and the potential long narrative arcs related to characters and storylines. In contrast to most evening television serials historically, soap operas maintain the continuity from one episode to the next in an unbroken continuity narrative. Evening television serials, such as situation comedies, while maintaining long arcs over their run are episodic in nature: the structure of the story is generally concluded in the given episode with at least partial closure in a manner that is never engaged with in the never-ending soap opera serials.Although there are other cultural forms that deploy seriality in their structures—one can think of comic books and manga as two obvious other connected and highly visible serial sources—online and video games represent the other key media platform of serials in contemporary culture. Once again, a “horizon of expectation” (Jauss and De Man 23) motivates the iteration of new versions of games by the industry. New versions of games are designed to build on gamer loyalties while augmenting the quality and possibilities of the particular game. Game culture and gamers have a different structural relationship to serials which at least Denson and Jahn-Sudmann describe as digital seriality: a new version of a game is also imagined to be technologically more sophisticated in its production values and this transformation of the similitude of game structure with innovation drives the economy of what are often described as “franchises.” New versions of Minecraft as online upgrades or Call of Duty launches draw the literal reinvestment of the gamer. New consoles provide a further push to serialisation of games as they accentuate some transformed quality in gameplay, interaction, or quality of animated graphics. Sports franchises are perhaps the most serialised form of game: to replicate new professional seasons in each major sport, the sports game transforms with a new coterie of players each year.From these various venues, one can see the centrality of seriality in cultural forms. There is no question that one of the dimensions of seriality that transcends these cultural forms is its coordination and intersection with the development of the industrialisation of culture and this understanding of the economic motivation behind series has been explored from some of the earliest analyses of seriality (see Hagedorn; Browne). Also, seriality has been mined extensively in terms of its production of the pleasure of repetition and transformation. The exploration of the popular, whether in studies of readers of romance fiction (Radway), or fans of science fiction television (Tulloch and Jenkins; Jenkins), serials have provided the resource for the exploration of the power of the audience to connect, engage and reconstruct texts.The analysis of the serialisation of character—the production of a public personnage—and its relation to persona surprisingly has been understudied. While certain writers have remarked on the longevity of a certain character, such as Vicky Lord’s 40 year character on the soap opera One Life to Live, and the interesting capacity to maintain both complicated and hidden storylines (de Kosnik), and fan audience studies have looked at the parasocial-familiar relationship that fan and character construct, less has been developed about the relationship of the serial character, the actor and a form of twinned public identity. Seriality does produce a patterning of personnage, a structure of familiarity for the audience, but also a structure of performance for the actor. For instance, in a longitudinal analysis of the character of Fu Manchu, Mayer is able to discern how a patterning of iconic form shapes, replicates, and reiterates the look of Fu Manchu across decades of films (Mayer). Similarly, there has been a certain work on the “taxonomy of character” where the serial character of a television program is analysed in terms of 6 parts: physical traits/appearance; speech patterns, psychological traits/habitual behaviours; interaction with other characters; environment; biography (Pearson quoted in Lotz).From seriality what emerges is a particular kind of “type-casting” where the actor becomes wedded to the specific iteration of the taxonomy of performance. As with other elements related to seriality, serial character performance is also closely aligned to the economic. Previously I have described this economic patterning of performance the “John Wayne Syndrome.” Wayne’s career developed into a form of serial performance where the individual born as Marion Morrison becomes structured into a cultural and economic category that determines the next film role. The economic weight of type also constructs the limits and range of the actor. Type or typage as a form of casting has always been an element of film and theatrical performance; but it is the seriality of performance—the actual construction of a personnage that flows between the fictional and real person—that allows an actor to claim a persona that can be exchanged within the industry. Even 15 years after his death, Wayne remained one of the most popular performers in the United States, his status unrivalled in its close definition of American value that became wedded with a conservative masculinity and politics (Wills).Type and typecasting have an interesting relationship to seriality. From Eisenstein’s original use of the term typage, where the character is chosen to fit into the meaning of the film and the image was placed into its sequence to make that meaning, it generally describes the circumscribing of the actor into their look. As Wojcik’s analysis reveals, typecasting in various periods of theatre and film acting has been seen as something to be fought for by actors (in the 1850s) and actively resisted in Hollywood in 1950 by the Screen Actors Guild in support of more range of roles for each actor. It is also seen as something that leads to cultural stereotypes that can reinforce the racial profiling that has haunted diverse cultures and the dangers of law enforcement for centuries (Wojcik 169-71). Early writers in the study of film acting, emphasised that its difference from theatre was that in film the actor and character converged in terms of connected reality and a physicality: the film actor was less a mask and more a sense of “being”(Kracauer). Cavell’s work suggested film over stage performance allowed an individuality over type to emerge (34). Thompson’s semiotic “commutation” test was another way of assessing the power of the individual “star” actor to be seen as elemental to the construction and meaning of the film role Television produced with regularity character-actors where performance and identity became indissoluble partly because of the sheer repetition and the massive visibility of these seriated performances.One of the most typecast individuals in television history was Leonard Nimoy as Spock in Star Trek: although the original Star Trek series ran for only three seasons, the physical caricature of Spock in the series as a half-Vulcan and half-human made it difficult for the actor Nimoy to exit the role (Laws). Indeed, his famous autobiography riffed on this mis-identity with the forceful but still economically powerful title I am Not Spock in 1975. When Nimoy perceived that his fans thought that he was unhappy in his role as Spock, he published a further tome—I Am Spock—that righted his relationship to his fictional identity and its continued source of roles for the previous 30 years. Although it is usually perceived as quite different in its constitution of a public identity, a very similar structure of persona developed around the American CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite. With his status as anchor confirmed in its power and centrality to American culture in his desk reportage of the assassination and death of President Kennedy in November 1963, Cronkite went on to inhabit a persona as the most trusted man in the United States by the sheer gravitas of hosting the Evening News stripped across every weeknight at 6:30pm for the next 19 years. In contrast to Nimoy, Cronkite became Cronkite the television news anchor, where persona, actor, and professional identity merged—at least in terms of almost all forms of the man’s visibility.From this vantage point of understanding the seriality of character/personnage and how it informs the idea of the actor, I want to provide a longer conclusion about how seriality informs the concept of persona in the contemporary moment. First of all, what this study reveals is the way in which the production of identity is overlaid onto any conception of identity itself. If we can understand persona not in any negative formulation, but rather as a form of productive performance of a public self, then it becomes very useful to see that these very visible public blendings of performance and the actor-self can make sense more generally as to how the public self is produced and constituted. My final and concluding examples will try and elucidate this insight further.In 2013, Netflix launched into the production of original drama with its release of House of Cards. The series itself was remarkable for a number of reasons. First among them, it was positioned as a quality series and clearly connected to the lineage of recent American subscription television programs such as The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Dexter, Madmen, The Wire, Deadwood, and True Blood among a few others. House of Cards was an Americanised version of a celebrated British mini-series. In the American version, an ambitious party whip, Frank Underwood, manoeuvres with ruthlessness and the calculating support of his wife closer to the presidency and the heart and soul of American power. How the series expressed quality was at least partially in its choice of actors. The role of Frank Underwood was played by the respected film actor Kevin Spacey. His wife, Clare, was played by the equally high profile Robin Warren. Quality was also expressed through the connection of the audience of viewers to an anti-hero: a personnage that was not filled with virtue but moved with Machiavellian acuity towards his objective of ultimate power. This idea of quality emerged in many ways from the successful construction of the character of Tony Soprano by James Gandolfini in the acclaimed HBO television series The Sopranos that reconstructed the very conception of the family in organised crime. Tony Soprano was enacted as complex and conflicted with a sense of right and justice, but embedded in the personnage were psychological tropes and scars, and an understanding of the need for violence to maintain influence power and a perverse but natural sense of order (Martin).The new television serial character now embodied a larger code and coterie of acting: from The Sopranos, there is the underlying sense and sensibility of method acting (see Vineberg; Stanislavski). Gandolfini inhabited the role of Tony Soprano and used the inner and hidden drives and motivations to become the source for the display of the character. Likewise, Spacey inhabits Frank Underwood. In that new habitus of television character, the actor becomes subsumed by the role. Gandolfini becomes both over-determined by the role and his own identity as an actor becomes melded to the role. Kevin Spacey, despite his longer and highly visible history as a film actor is overwhelmed by the televisual role of Frank Underwood. Its serial power, where audiences connect for hours and hours, where the actor commits to weeks and weeks of shoots, and years and years of being the character—a serious character with emotional depth, with psychological motivation that rivals the most visceral of film roles—transforms the actor into a blended public person and the related personnage.This blend of fictional and public life is complex as much for the producing actor as it is for the audience that makes the habitus real. What Kevin Spacey/Frank Underwood inhabit is a blended persona, whose power is dependent on the constructed identity that is at source the actor’s production as much as any institutional form or any writer or director connected to making House of Cards “real.” There is no question that this serial public identity will be difficult for Kevin Spacey to disentangle when the series ends; in many ways it will be an elemental part of his continuing public identity. This is the economic power and risk of seriality.One can see similar blendings in the persona in popular music and its own form of contemporary seriality in performance. For example, Eminem is a stage name for a person sometimes called Marshall Mathers; but Eminem takes this a step further and produces beyond a character in its integration of the personal—a real personnage, Slim Shady, to inhabit his music and its stories. To further complexify this construction, Eminem relies on the production of his stories with elements that appear to be from his everyday life (Dawkins). His characterisations because of the emotional depth he inhabits through his rapped stories betray a connection to his own psychological state. Following in the history of popular music performance where the singer-songwriter’s work is seen by all to present a version of the public self that is closer emotionally to the private self, we once again see how the seriality of performance begins to produce a blended public persona. Rap music has inherited this seriality of produced identity from twentieth century icons of the singer/songwriter and its display of the public/private self—in reverse order from grunge to punk, from folk to blues.Finally, it is worthwhile to think of online culture in similar ways in the production of public personas. Seriality is elemental to online culture. Social media encourage the production of public identities through forms of repetition of that identity. In order to establish a public profile, social media users establish an identity with some consistency over time. The everydayness in the production of the public self online thus resembles the production and performance of seriality in fiction. Professional social media sites such as LinkedIn encourage the consistency of public identity and this is very important in understanding the new versions of the public self that are deployed in contemporary culture. However, much like the new psychological depth that is part of the meaning of serial characters such as Frank Underwood in House of Cards, Slim Shady in Eminem, or Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, social media seriality also encourages greater revelations of the private self via Instagram and Facebook walls and images. We are collectively reconstituted as personas online, seriated by the continuing presence of our online sites and regularly drawn to reveal more and greater depths of our character. In other words, the online persona resembles the new depth of the quality television serial personnage with elaborate arcs and great complexity. Seriality in our public identity is also uncovered in the production of our game avatars where, in order to develop trust and connection to friends in online settings, we maintain our identity and our patterns of gameplay. At the core of this online identity is a desire for visibility, and we are drawn to be “picked up” and shared in some repeatable form across what we each perceive as a meaningful dimension of culture. Through the circulation of viral images, texts, and videos we engage in a circulation and repetition of meaning that feeds back into the constancy and value of an online identity. Through memes we replicate and seriate content that at some level seriates personas in terms of humour, connection and value.Seriality is central to understanding the formation of our masks of public identity and is at least one valuable analytical way to understand the development of the contemporary persona. This essay represents the first foray in thinking through the relationship between seriality and persona.ReferencesBarbour, Kim, and P. David Marshall. “The Academic Online Constructing Persona.” First Monday 17.9 (2012).Browne, Nick. “The Political Economy of the (Super)Text.” Quarterly Review of Film Studies 9.3 (1984): 174-82. Cavell, Stanley. “Reflections on the Ontology of Film.” Movie Acting: The Film Reader. Ed. Wojcik and Pamela Robertson. 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When we think of disability today in the Western world, Christopher Reeve most likely comes to mind. A film star who captured people’s imagination as Superman, Reeve was already a celebrity before he took the fall that would lead to his new position in the fame game: the role of super-crip. As a person with acquired quadriplegia, Christopher Reeve has become both the epitome of disability in Western culture — the powerful cultural myth of disability as tragedy and catastrophe — and, in an intimately related way, the icon for the high-technology quest for cure. The case of Reeve is fascinating, yet critical discussion of Christopher Reeve in terms of fame, celebrity and his performance of disability is conspicuously lacking (for a rare exception see McRuer). To some extent this reflects the comparative lack of engagement of media and cultural studies with disability (Goggin). To redress this lacuna, we draw upon theories of celebrity (Dyer; Marshall; Turner, Bonner, & Marshall; Turner) to explore the production of Reeve as celebrity, as well as bringing accounts of celebrity into dialogue with critical disability studies. Reeve is a cultural icon, not just because of the economy, industrial processes, semiotics, and contemporary consumption of celebrity, outlined in Turner’s 2004 framework. Fame and celebrity are crucial systems in the construction of disability; and the circulation of Reeve-as-celebrity only makes sense if we understand the centrality of disability to culture and media. Reeve plays an enormously important (if ambiguous) function in the social relations of disability, at the heart of the discursive underpinning of the otherness of disability and the construction of normal sexed and gendered bodies (the normate) in everyday life. What is distinctive and especially powerful about this instance of fame and disability is how authenticity plays through the body of the celebrity Reeve; how his saintly numinosity is received by fans and admirers with passion, pathos, pleasure; and how this process places people with disabilities in an oppressive social system, so making them subject(s). An Accidental Star Born September 25, 1952, Christopher Reeve became famous for his roles in the 1978 movie Superman, and the subsequent three sequels (Superman II, III, IV), as well as his role in other films such as Monsignor. As well as becoming a well-known actor, Reeve gained a profile for his activism on human rights, solidarity, environmental, and other issues. In May 1995 Reeve acquired a disability in a riding accident. In the ensuing months, Reeve’s situation attracted a great deal of international attention. He spent six months in the Kessler Rehabilitation Institute in New Jersey, and there gave a high-rating interview on US television personality Barbara Walters’ 20/20 program. In 1996, Reeve appeared at the Academy Awards, was a host at the 1996 Paralympic Games, and was invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention. In the same year Reeve narrated a film about the lives of people living with disabilities (Mierendorf). In 1998 his memoir Still Me was published, followed in 2002 by another book Nothing Is Impossible. Reeve’s active fashioning of an image and ‘new life’ (to use his phrase) stands in stark contrast with most people with disabilities, who find it difficult to enter into the industry and system of celebrity, because they are most often taken to be the opposite of glamorous or important. They are objects of pity, or freaks to be stared at (Mitchell & Synder; Thomson), rather than assuming other attributes of stars. Reeve became famous for his disability, indeed very early on he was acclaimed as the pre-eminent American with disability — as in the phrase ‘President of Disability’, an appellation he attracted. Reeve was quickly positioned in the celebrity industry, not least because his example, image, and texts were avidly consumed by viewers and readers. For millions of people — as evident in the letters compiled in the 1999 book Care Packages by his wife, Dana Reeve — Christopher Reeve is a hero, renowned for his courage in doing battle with his disability and his quest for a cure. Part of the creation of Reeve as celebrity has been a conscious fashioning of his life as an instructive fable. A number of biographies have now been published (Havill; Hughes; Oleksy; Wren). Variations on a theme, these tend to the hagiographic: Christopher Reeve: Triumph over Tragedy (Alter). Those interested in Reeve’s life and work can turn also to fan websites. Most tellingly perhaps is the number of books, fables really, aimed at children, again, on a characteristic theme: Learning about Courage from the Life of Christopher Reeve (Kosek; see also Abraham; Howard). The construction, but especially the consumption, of Reeve as disabled celebrity, is consonant with powerful cultural myths and tropes of disability. In many Western cultures, disability is predominantly understood a tragedy, something that comes from the defects and lack of our bodies, whether through accidents of birth or life. Those ‘suffering’ with disability, according to this cultural myth, need to come to terms with this bitter tragedy, and show courage in heroically overcoming their lot while they bide their time for the cure that will come. The protagonist for this this script is typically the ‘brave’ person with disability; or, as this figure is colloquially known in critical disability studies and the disability movement — the super-crip. This discourse of disability exerts a strong force today, and is known as the ‘medical’ model. It interacts with a prior, but still active charity discourse of disability (Fulcher). There is a deep cultural history of disability being seen as something that needs to be dealt with by charity. In late modernity, charity is very big business indeed, and celebrities play an important role in representing the good works bestowed on people with disabilities by rich donors. Those managing celebrities often suggest that the star finds a charity to gain favourable publicity, a routine for which people with disabilities are generally the pathetic but handy extras. Charity dinners and events do not just reinforce the tragedy of disability, but they also leave unexamined the structural nature of disability, and its associated disadvantage. Those critiquing the medical and charitable discourses of disability, and the oppressive power relations of disability that it represents, point to the social and cultural shaping of disability, most famously in the British ‘social’ model of disability — but also from a range of other perspectives (Corker and Thomas). Those formulating these critiques point to the crucial function that the trope of the super-crip plays in the policing of people with disabilities in contemporary culture and society. Indeed how the figure of the super-crip is also very much bound up with the construction of the ‘normal’ body, a general economy of representation that affects everyone. Superman Flies Again The celebrity of Christopher Reeve and what it reveals for an understanding of fame and disability can be seen with great clarity in his 2002 visit to Australia. In 2002 there had been a heated national debate on the ethics of use of embryonic stem cells for research. In an analysis of three months of the print media coverage of these debates, we have suggested that disability was repeatedly, almost obsessively, invoked in these debates (‘Uniting the Nation’). Yet the dominant representation of disability here was the cultural myth of disability as tragedy, requiring cure at all cost, and that this trope was central to the way that biotechnology was constructed as requiring an urgent, united national response. Significantly, in these debates, people with disabilities were often talked about but very rarely licensed to speak. Only one person with disability was, and remains, a central figure in these Australian stem cell and biotechnology policy conversations: Christopher Reeve. As an outspoken advocate of research on embryonic stem-cells in the quest for a cure for spinal injuries, as well as other diseases, Reeve’s support was enlisted by various protagonists. The current affairs show Sixty Minutes (modelled after its American counterpart) presented Reeve in debate with Australian critics: PRESENTER: Stem cell research is leading to perhaps the greatest medical breakthroughs of all time… Imagine a world where paraplegics could walk or the blind could see … But it’s a breakthrough some passionately oppose. A breakthrough that’s caused a fierce personal debate between those like actor Christopher Reeve, who sees this technology as a miracle, and those who regard it as murder. (‘Miracle or Murder?’) Sixty Minutes starkly portrays the debate in Manichean terms: lunatics standing in the way of technological progress versus Christopher Reeve flying again tomorrow. Christopher presents the debate in utilitarian terms: CHRISTOPHER REEVE: The purpose of government, really in a free society, is to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people. And that question should always be in the forefront of legislators’ minds. (‘Miracle or Murder?’) No criticism of Reeve’s position was offered, despite the fierce debate over the implications of such utilitarian rhetoric for minorities such as people with disabilities (including himself!). Yet this utilitarian stance on disability has been elaborated by philosopher Peter Singer, and trenchantly critiqued by the international disability rights movement. Later in 2002, the Premier of New South Wales, Bob Carr, invited Reeve to visit Australia to participate in the New South Wales Spinal Cord Forum. A journalist by training, and skilled media practitioner, Carr had been the most outspoken Australian state premier urging the Federal government to permit the use of embryonic stem cells for research. Carr’s reasons were as much as industrial as benevolent, boosting the stocks of biotechnology as a clean, green, boom industry. Carr cleverly and repeated enlisted stereotypes of disability in the service of his cause. Christopher Reeve was flown into Australia on a specially modified Boeing 747, free of charge courtesy of an Australian airline, and was paid a hefty appearance fee. Not only did Reeve’s fee hugely contrast with meagre disability support pensions many Australians with disabilities live on, he was literally the only voice and image of disability given any publicity. Consuming Celebrity, Contesting Crips As our analysis of Reeve’s antipodean career suggests, if disability were a republic, and Reeve its leader, its polity would look more plutocracy than democracy; as befits modern celebrity with its constitutive tensions between the demotic and democratic (Turner). For his part, Reeve has criticised the treatment of people with disabilities, and how they are stereotyped, not least the narrow concept of the ‘normal’ in mainstream films. This is something that has directly effected his career, which has become limited to narration or certain types of television and film work. Reeve’s reprise on his culture’s notion of disability comes with his starring role in an ironic, high-tech 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (Bleckner), a movie that in the original featured a photojournalist injured and temporarily using a wheelchair. Reeve has also been a strong advocate, lobbyist, and force in the politics of disability. His activism, however, has been far more strongly focussed on finding a cure for people with spinal injuries — rather than seeking to redress inequality and discrimination of all people with disabilities. Yet Reeve’s success in the notoriously fickle star system that allows disability to be understood and mapped in popular culture is mostly an unexplored paradox. As we note above, the construction of Reeve as celebrity, celebrating his individual resilience and resourcefulness, and his authenticity, functions precisely to sustain the ‘truth’ and the power relations of disability. Reeve’s celebrity plays an ideological role, knitting together a set of discourses: individualism; consumerism; democratic capitalism; and the primacy of the able body (Marshall; Turner). The nature of this cultural function of Reeve’s celebrity is revealed in the largely unpublicised contests over his fame. At the same time Reeve was gaining fame with his traditional approach to disability and reinforcement of the continuing catastrophe of his life, he was attracting an infamy within certain sections of the international disability rights movement. In a 1996 US debate disability scholar David T Mitchell put it this way: ‘He’s [Reeve] the good guy — the supercrip, the Superman, and those of us who can live with who we are with our disabilities, but who cannot live with, and in fact, protest and retaliate against the oppression we confront every second of our lives are the bad guys’ (Mitchell, quoted in Brown). Many feel, like Mitchell, that Reeve’s focus on a cure ignores the unmet needs of people with disabilities for daily access to support services and for the ending of their brutal, dehumanising, daily experience as other (Goggin & Newell, Disability in Australia). In her book Make Them Go Away Mary Johnson points to the conservative forces that Christopher Reeve is associated with and the way in which these forces have been working to oppose the acceptance of disability rights. Johnson documents the way in which fame can work in a variety of ways to claw back the rights of Americans with disabilities granted in the Americans with Disabilities Act, documenting the association of Reeve and, in a different fashion, Clint Eastwood as stars who have actively worked to limit the applicability of civil rights legislation to people with disabilities. Like other successful celebrities, Reeve has been assiduous in managing his image, through the use of celebrity professionals including public relations professionals. In his Australian encounters, for example, Reeve gave a variety of media interviews to Australian journalists and yet the editor of the Australian disability rights magazine Link was unable to obtain an interview. Despite this, critiques of the super-crip celebrity function of Reeve by people with disabilities did circulate at the margins of mainstream media during his Australian visit, not least in disability media and the Internet (Leipoldt, Newell, and Corcoran, 2003). Infamous Disability Like the lives of saints, it is deeply offensive to many to criticise Christopher Reeve. So deeply engrained are the cultural myths of the catastrophe of disability and the creation of Reeve as icon that any critique runs the risk of being received as sacrilege, as one rare iconoclastic website provocatively prefigures (Maddox). In this highly charged context, we wish to acknowledge his contribution in highlighting some aspects of contemporary disability, and emphasise our desire not to play Reeve the person — rather to explore the cultural and media dimensions of fame and disability. In Christopher Reeve we find a remarkable exception as someone with disability who is celebrated in our culture. We welcome a wider debate over what is at stake in this celebrity and how Reeve’s renown differs from other disabled stars, as, for example, in Robert McRuer reflection that: ... at the beginning of the last century the most famous person with disabilities in the world, despite her participation in an ‘overcoming’ narrative, was a socialist who understood that disability disproportionately impacted workers and the power[less]; Helen Keller knew that blindness and deafness, for instance, often resulted from industrial accidents. At the beginning of this century, the most famous person with disabilities in the world is allowing his image to be used in commercials … (McRuer 230) For our part, we think Reeve’s celebrity plays an important contemporary role because it binds together a constellation of economic, political, and social institutions and discourses — namely science, biotechnology, and national competitiveness. In the second half of 2004, the stem cell debate is once again prominent in American debates as a presidential election issue. Reeve figures disability in national culture in his own country and internationally, as the case of the currency of his celebrity in Australia demonstrates. In this light, we have only just begun to register, let alone explore and debate, what is entailed for us all in the production of this disabled fame and infamy. Epilogue to “Fame and Disability” Christopher Reeve died on Sunday 10 October 2004, shortly after this article was accepted for publication. His death occasioned an outpouring of condolences, mourning, and reflection. We share that sense of loss. How Reeve will be remembered is still unfolding. The early weeks of public mourning have emphasised his celebrity as the very embodiment and exemplar of disabled identity: ‘The death of Christopher Reeve leaves embryonic-stem-cell activism without one of its star generals’ (Newsweek); ‘He Never Gave Up: What actor and activist Christopher Reeve taught scientists about the treatment of spinal-cord injury’ (Time); ‘Incredible Journey: Facing tragedy, Christopher Reeve inspired the world with hope and a lesson in courage’ (People); ‘Superman’s Legacy’ (The Express); ‘Reeve, the Real Superman’ (Hindustani Times). In his tribute New South Wales Premier Bob Carr called Reeve the ‘most impressive person I have ever met’, and lamented ‘Humankind has lost an advocate and friend’ (Carr). The figure of Reeve remains central to how disability is represented. In our culture, death is often closely entwined with disability (as in the saying ‘better dead than disabled’), something Reeve reflected upon himself often. How Reeve’s ‘global mourning’ partakes and shapes in this dense knots of associations, and how it transforms his celebrity, is something that requires further work (Ang et. al.). The political and analytical engagement with Reeve’s celebrity and mourning at this time serves to underscore our exploration of fame and disability in this article. Already there is his posthumous enlistment in the United States Presidential elections, where disability is both central and yet marginal, people with disability talked about rather than listened to. The ethics of stem cell research was an election issue before Reeve’s untimely passing, with Democratic presidential contender John Kerry sharply marking his difference on this issue with President Bush. After Reeve’s death his widow Dana joined the podium on the Kerry campaign in Columbus, Ohio, to put the case herself; for his part, Kerry compared Bush’s opposition to stem cell research as akin to favouring the candle lobby over electricity. As we write, the US polls are a week away, but the cultural representation of disability — and the intensely political role celebrity plays in it — appears even more palpably implicated in the government of society itself. References Abraham, Philip. Christopher Reeve. New York: Children’s Press, 2002. Alter, Judy. Christopher Reeve: Triumph over Tragedy. Danbury, Conn.: Franklin Watts, 2000. Ang, Ien, Ruth Barcan, Helen Grace, Elaine Lally, Justine Lloyd, and Zoe Sofoulis (eds.) Planet Diana: Cultural Studies and Global Mourning. Sydney: Research Centre in Intercommunal Studies, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, 1997. Bleckner, Jeff, dir. Rear Window. 1998. Brown, Steven E. “Super Duper? The (Unfortunate) Ascendancy of Christopher Reeve.” Mainstream: Magazine of the Able-Disabled, October 1996. Repr. 10 Aug. 2004 http://www.independentliving.org/docs3/brown96c.html>. Carr, Bob. “A Class Act of Grace and Courage.” Sydney Morning Herald. 12 Oct. 2004: 14. Corker, Mairian and Carol Thomas. “A Journey around the Social Model.” Disability/Postmodernity: Embodying Disability Theory. Ed. Mairian Corker and Tom Shakespeare. London and New York: Continuum, 2000. Donner, Richard, dir. Superman. 1978. Dyer, Richard. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. London: BFI Macmillan, 1986. Fulcher, Gillian. Disabling Policies? London: Falmer Press, 1989. Furie, Sidney J., dir. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. 1987. Finn, Margaret L. Christopher Reeve. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1997. Gilmer, Tim. “The Missionary Reeve.” New Mobility. November 2002. 13 Aug. 2004 http://www.newmobility.com/>. Goggin, Gerard. “Media Studies’ Disability.” Media International Australia 108 (Aug. 2003): 157-68. Goggin, Gerard, and Christopher Newell. Disability in Australia: Exposing a Social Apartheid. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2005. —. “Uniting the Nation?: Disability, Stem Cells, and the Australian Media.” Disability & Society 19 (2004): 47-60. Havill, Adrian. Man of Steel: The Career and Courage of Christopher Reeve. New York, N.Y.: Signet, 1996. Howard, Megan. Christopher Reeve. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1999. Hughes, Libby. Christopher Reeve. Parsippany, NJ.: Dillon Press, 1998. Johnson, Mary. Make Them Go Away: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Reeve and the Case Against Disability Rights. Louisville : Advocado Press, 2003. Kosek, Jane Kelly. Learning about Courage from the Life of Christopher Reeve. 1st ed. New York : PowerKids Press, 1999. Leipoldt, Erik, Christopher Newell, and Maurice Corcoran. “Christopher Reeve and Bob Carr Dehumanise Disability — Stem Cell Research Not the Best Solution.” Online Opinion 27 Jan. 2003. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=510>. Lester, Richard (dir.) Superman II. 1980. —. Superman III. 1983. Maddox. “Christopher Reeve Is an Asshole.” 12 Aug. 2004 http://maddox.xmission.com/c.cgi?u=creeve>. Marshall, P. David. Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture. Minneapolis and London: U of Minnesota P, 1997. Mierendorf, Michael, dir. Without Pity: A Film about Abilities. Narr. Christopher Reeve. 1996. “Miracle or Murder?” Sixty Minutes. Channel 9, Australia. March 17, 2002. 15 June 2002 http://news.ninemsn.com.au/sixtyminutes/stories/2002_03_17/story_532.asp>. Mitchell, David, and Synder, Sharon, eds. The Body and Physical Difference. Ann Arbor, U of Michigan, 1997. McRuer, Robert. “Critical Investments: AIDS, Christopher Reeve, and Queer/Disability Studies.” Journal of Medical Humanities 23 (2002): 221-37. Oleksy, Walter G. Christopher Reeve. San Diego, CA: Lucent, 2000. Reeve, Christopher. Nothing Is Impossible: Reflections on a New Life. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 2002. —. Still Me. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 1998. Reeve, Dana, comp. Care Packages: Letters to Christopher Reeve from Strangers and Other Friends. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 1999. Reeve, Matthew (dir.) Christopher Reeve: Courageous Steps. Television documentary, 2002. Thomson, Rosemary Garland, ed. Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body. New York: New York UP, 1996. Turner, Graeme. Understanding Celebrity. Thousands Oak, CA: Sage, 2004. Turner, Graeme, Frances Bonner, and David P Marshall. Fame Games: The Production of Celebrity in Australia. Melbourne: Cambridge UP, 2000. Wren, Laura Lee. Christopher Reeve: Hollywood’s Man of Courage. Berkeley Heights, NJ : Enslow, 1999. Younis, Steve. “Christopher Reeve Homepage.” 12 Aug. 2004 http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/greatsleep/1023/main.html>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Goggin, Gerard & Newell, Christopher. "Fame and Disability: Christopher Reeve, Super Crips, and Infamous Celebrity." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/02-goggin.php>. APA Style Goggin, G. & Newell, C. (Nov. 2004) "Fame and Disability: Christopher Reeve, Super Crips, and Infamous Celebrity," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/02-goggin.php>.

In Showtime’s Yellowjackets (2021-present), ‘magic’ (referred to by the characters as “It”) has an overwhelming presence. Supernatural visions, clairvoyance, and occult iconography are laden throughout each episode. However, the audience is often left uncertain if magic is, in fact, ‘real’ or conjured in the imagination of the show’s characters. Yellowjackets follows a women’s high-school soccer team (named the Yellowjackets) who survive a plane crash deep in the North American wilderness. The show explores the team’s struggle for survival and the present adult lives of those who survived. In this article, we draw from Caroline Bainbridge’s understanding of television as a psychical object to investigate the role of magic in Yellowjackets’ exploration of grief and trauma. We provide a close textual reading and an analysis of online fan discourse to explore the ambiguity of magic and its capacity to generate meaning. We argue that it is precisely through the ambiguity surrounding the ‘realness’ of magic that Yellowjackets can effectively explore grief, trauma, and empathy. Ultimately, we contend that the ambiguity of magic in Yellowjackets helps viewers empathise with the trauma and grief experienced by the characters. The Ambiguity of Magic in Yellowjackets Magic has often been seen by scholars as an effective artistic tool to explore trauma and grief narratives (Bowers). As Maggie Ann Bowers puts it, magic helps create a space where the “unrepresentable can be expressed” (77). Scholarship surrounding the literary genre of magical realism offers a particularly useful exploration of exactly how magic can be an effective avenue to explore such themes (Arva; Abdulla and Abu). Beatrice Chanady defines magical realism as the amalgamation of realist and supernatural/magical elements. In her understanding of this genre, both realism and magic are “equally autonomous and coherent” (18). In a similar vein, Wendy Faris observes that the narratives of magical realism “merge two different realms”, and as a result the reader may “experience some unsettling doubts in the effort to reconcile two contradictory understandings of events” (101). Indeed, it is the merging of these two worlds that allows for the symbolic exploration of trauma narratives. In the case of Yellowjackets, these elements of magical realism certainly come into play. As we will explore throughout this article, the tension between realism and the supernatural is precisely what allows Yellowjackets to “say what cannot be said” (Mrack 3). The idea of magic is a constant presence throughout both seasons of Yellowjackets. However, the realness of this magic is always ambiguous and up for debate. Much like The X-Files (1993-2002), the textual features of Yellowjackets can allow for both ‘sceptic’ and ‘believer’ readings of the show that are not expressly affirmed or denied (Goode). Magic is first hinted at in the opening sequence of the pilot episode when an unnamed character (referred to affectionately by fans as “pit girl”) is chased into a crude spike trap. The sequence is laden with occult imagery—there are mysterious eye symbols carved into the trees and the other girls are wearing ritualistic masks made from animal skin and antlers. As the show progresses, the other characters start to openly speculate about the supernatural magic of the wilderness. One of the central characters, Lottie Mathews, starts having ‘visions’ that seemingly align with the strange occurrences of the forest. As she starts to surrender to the call of the wilderness her magic appears to grow stronger. In the season one finale, “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi” (S1E9), a bear threatens the Yellowjacket’s camp. Lottie steps forward to face the bear armed with only a small knife. Through seemingly accepting the call of the wilderness, the bear lies down and submits to her without a fight. For many of the other characters, this affirms Lottie’s magic powers, and they anoint her the “Antler Queen”. Of course, these instances of ‘magic’ can just as easily be explained as coincidence. Lottie is shown to have an established history of mental illness and magic is never clearly shown—it is just alluded to an entity that has an invisible presence. The uncertain allusion of magic has a divisive effect on the girls in Yellowjackets. The survivors organise themselves into pseudo-factions depending on their belief in the supernatural powers of the wilderness. Characters in the wider group including Shauna, Natalie, Taissa, and Misty are quick to reveal their scepticism toward Lottie and the existence of magic. To begin with, this group tension is relatively minor—the sceptics find the believers silly and dismiss Lottie as simply being “crazy”. However, group tension becomes more significant as it starts to influence the decision-making of the whole group. After another group member, Javi, goes missing, Travis (Javi’s older brother) and Natalie spend hours each day searching for him in the freezing cold. This search is resource-consuming and dangerous because the pair could easily get lost or succumb to frostbite. Natalie quickly realises the search is futile, as it is extremely unlikely that Javi could have survived on his own. In the episode “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” (S2E1) she is on the verge of convincing Travis to give up when Lottie mentions that she had a vision about Javi and is certain that he is alive, inspiring Travis to continue the search. Frustrated, Natalie confronts Lottie: Natalie: What the fuck was that!? Javi is… Look giving him false hope is just going to make things worse.Lottie: There’s no such thing as false hope. There is just hope.Natalie: Did you read that in a fucking fortune cookie?Lottie: What do you want from me Nat? I said what I felt.Natalie: I want you to say less, Lottie, a lot fucking less! As situations like this become more common, relations between the believer and sceptic factions in Yellowjackets become more fractured. It quickly becomes clear that magic and its ambiguity in the show is a divisive source of conflict. The impact that magic has on the characters in Yellowjackets is seemingly mirrored in fan communities—particularly the r/Yellowjackets subreddit. As outlined by Victor Costello and Barbara Moore, online fandoms have the capacity to transform the private act of viewing into a communal activity that significantly enhances one’s emotional involvement with a text (124). Meaningful exchanges in online discussions empowers fans to “organise en masse as resistors and shapers of commercial television narratives” (Costello and Moore 124). On the r/Yellowjackets subreddit debate about ‘magic’ and whether the supernatural is a real force is a central theme, one poll that received over 800 responses asked users whether there were “supernatural/dark powers lurking, or no? Is it just mass hysteria with the perfect storm of events” (Reddit). There was nearly a complete split in the vote, with 401 users agreeing that there is an ancient, evil magic impacting on the characters and 460 indicating that there is no magic in the show. The lack of consensus in the fandom has led to countless disagreements within posts as users enthusiastically debate the legitimacy of magic. As seen in Figure 1, users on the subreddit can select a ‘flair’ (a tag of text that appears under usernames to give additional context to a post or perspective) to denote their allegiance to “Team Rational” or “Team Supernatural”. Users adopt these flairs to place their opinions and arguments into a particular context of thinking. Intense arguments erupt as a result of the ambiguity surrounding magic, with fans speculating using clues from the text. Will Brooker has suggested that debates can be a source of pleasure in fan communities and are what allows them to “thrive” (113). In the case of r/Yellowjackets, the debate about magic is a form of productive conflict that is very much part of the fun of watching the show (Brooker). It encourages fans to sleuth for specific textual evidence that both supports their position and shapes their interpretation of the Yellowjackets narrative (Costello & Moore 124). Forum identity is heavily connected to the implied supernatural elements of Yellowjackets, and this uncertainty results in factional splits much like the groupings displayed on the show itself. Fig. 1: Available Flairs on r/Yellowjackets subreddit (2023). How the users of r/Yellowjackets interrogate and draw their conclusions about the authenticity of magic in Yellowjackets impacts on their perceptions of the show’s paratextual discourse (Gray). As the show is ambiguous in its messaging to do with the supernatural, users have many different wells of meaning to draw from. These include specific characters they trust (like Lottie and Nat), the communication tools of the text (shots, audio, lighting, mise-en-scène, etc.) and the show's creators. Some users trust the legitimacy of Lottie as a true clairvoyant who “consistently has visions of the future” (Reddit). Others rely more on what the audience has been told about the characters, particularly regarding Lottie’s schizophrenia. One user questions whether they are “the only one who didn't really pick up on occult?” and continued that they had read “everything more as Lotti [sic] slipping into whatever mental illness she has and pulling others into her delusions when nothing supernatural is actually happening. More cult than occult” (Reddit). Many fans on the subreddit implicitly trust the writers’ paratextual discussions about the show. Series creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson frequently comment on and confirm previously ambiguous elements of the show (Chaney). Actors like Christina Ricci (who plays an older Misty on the show) have also debunked audience theories (Weiss). One user argues they “trust” the writers on questions of ambiguity. Statements like “writers have confirmed” become commonplace in these debates, with users citing writers' comments as to why much of the supernatural is merely a figment of the characters’ imagination. Other posters are sceptical of writer discourses, preferring to trust the texts themselves rather than rely on creators who either may not know the answer or who benefit from ambiguity. Whatever and whoever fans believe influences their perception of the show and who to trust, users look to varied show elements as the locus of meaning and truth regarding magic, and whom they choose to believe changes their perspectives and impacts on their engagement with the show and the characters. ‘Who the fuck is Lottie Mathews?’ Magic, Meaning and Empathy Yellowjackets’ textual exploration of grief and trauma is so often mediated through the idea of magic. As Yellowjackets progresses, the girls find themselves in increasingly hopeless situations. Characters die, freezing weather confines them to a cabin, and their food supply becomes almost completely exhausted. The girls are often forced into impossible situations where they must choose between cannibalism and starvation. These declining conditions are what lead many of the ‘believer’ characters (Van, Mari, and Travis) to their intense faith in Lottie as a human conduit upon which the wilderness has bestowed magic powers. Magic offers some meaning to the brutality and hopelessness of their situation. As things get worse for the girls in season two, ‘sceptic’ characters slowly start to accept the idea of magic. Nat starts receiving blessings from Lottie, Taissa begins attending Lottie’s prayer circle, and Shauna allows prayer during the birth of her child. When faced with dire situations, ‘magic’ offers the characters a way to confront their violent actions and absolve themselves of responsibility for horrible decisions. For example, in the season two episode “It Chooses” (S2E8) the Yellowjackets decide that they must resort to killing and eating one of their teammates in order to survive. The group agrees that, through the magic red queen ritual designed by Lottie, the wilderness will decide who is to be ‘sacrificed’. In this instance, the idea of magic is used by the girls as a psychological tool to distance themselves from the trauma and grief that are inherent to their situation. Throughout Yellowjackets the characters in the present timeline are shown to still suffer from the intense trauma and guilt of their time in the wilderness. For example, Natalie is in and out of rehab programs and Taissa suffers dissociative sleep-walking episodes. Most notable in this regard is the character of adult Lottie. In the opening montage of “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” (S2E1) we see the range of psychological treatments that Lottie has gone through since returning from the wilderness. For the first few episodes of season two, it appears as though adult Lottie has managed to heal and move on from the past. She has set up a ‘commune’ that is seemingly having a positive influence on the lives of new characters like Lisa and (to an extent) former Yellowjackets like Nat and Misty. However, soon after her old Yellowjackets teammates re-enter her life, we see Lottie become increasingly unstable. She is frequently shown to be having intrusive thoughts and violent visions about her time in the wilderness. In this sense, Lottie’s reunification with the other Yellowjackets is a trigger for her repressed grief and trauma. As season two progresses, there are several scenes of Lottie receiving therapy from an unnamed psychiatrist. While these sessions start off relatively innocuous, they gradually become more sinister as Lottie opens up about her time in the wilderness, and finally her feeling of “It” returning: Therapist: Lottie, when does self-repression ever serve us? It could be that this reunion strikes a primal chord with you because in the past when you were with those other women you were free. You were your truest, most authentic self. What is standing in the way of you embracing that again?Lottie: We hurt each other. People died.Therapist: Tell me, is there anything of value in this life that doesn’t come with risk? Or loss? Or consequence?Lottie: Are you saying what I think you’re saying? At this moment the therapist transforms into the antler queen, dressed in a white ceremonial robe that is adorned with bones and symbols of the wilderness and it is revealed that Lottie has been hallucinating the entire session. The scene concludes with the therapist (in the form of the antler queen) telling Lottie: “You tell me, does a hunt that has no violence feed anyone?” From this moment, adult Lottie embraces the magic of the wilderness again. It is the only way she can find meaning in and confront the trauma and grief that she still holds from her time in the wilderness. This ultimately leads to Lottie convincing Shauna, Van, Misty, and Taissa to believe in the supernatural magic of the wilderness again and perform the deadly Red Queen hunting ritual as adults. Giving in to magic allows the characters a chance to escape the trauma and grief and give meaning to their violent actions in the wilderness. In this sense ‘magic’ in Yellowjackets is somewhat of a psychological sleight of hand for characters to artificially separate themselves from their past. Caroline Bainbridge has emphasised how the immersive environments created by a television program allow audiences to work through themes in very personal ways. According to Bainbridge, complex story worlds can be critical tools to help viewers work through complicated issues. In essence, audiences may “internalise drama as an object of the mind but also put it to work in their everyday life” (300). She argues that we should begin to understand how a television show can become a psychical object, available for use in terms of unconscious interrogation of one’s sense of selfhood and one’s immersion in a complex ideological environment. (300) Understanding long-form television as this type of object allows us to recognise a similar potential within Yellowjackets. Leaving magic as an ambiguous feature allows audiences to empathise and engage with the characters’ uncertainty; just as they are left to wonder about the state of reality and magic, so too are the fans on forums. One user explores how the characters’ uncertainty creates discussion and debate within a group of people ‘trapped’ together: what I really like is the way the potential for paranormal is implied in the girls’ situation by these odd coincidences, adding to the group psychosis and shared trauma… they’re scared shitless at the drop of a pin out there, and questioning everything they see (or don’t see), which adds to the anxiety. (Reddit) Much like the characters on the show, the fans have become a group trying to make sense of ‘odd coincidences’ and are ‘questioning’ everything they can see (on the show) and everything they ‘don’t’ see (writer and cast interviews). This ambiguity has led some fans to connect more closely with the character of Lottie, who seems to truly believe her visions are real, with some even “defending” her decisions and perspectives throughout the show (Reddit). Others are also impacted upon by the possibility of magic in the show, but rather react like Shauna and Nat—if there is magic it might not be helpful. One user identifies a kind of meta-experience fans are having thanks to the possibility of magic in the show: when [the writers] were asked if the show believes in the supernatural they kind of paused and started talking about the concept of believing in the supernatural, without saying if it definitely exists within the realm of the show. Which is kind of meta, as we're all discussing whether we believe in the supernatural existing within the show or not. (Reddit) As outlined by Mittell, Andrejevic, and Bainbridge, participation in TV fan communities allows for fundamentally different engagements with a text. In the case of r/Yellowjackets, it “significantly enhances” fans’ emotional involvement with the show (Costello and Moore) and brings new textual experiences to the fore. It is only through fan debate and community participation that fans can experience this ‘meta-narrative’ of magic. In this context, magic in Yellowjackets operates as a tool to connect audiences with the experiences of their characters. The consequences of unknown supernaturality and magical elements cause strife throughout fan communities much like in the community of the cabin in the show. Fans are shown how characters might ostracise, argue, deflect, and rationalise when their reality is questioned, much like the Yellowjackets themselves. Magic, therefore, is effective at encouraging empathy and understanding of perspectives and beliefs in televisual texts. Supernatural horror has often been understood in relation to trauma and grief. According to Becky Millar and Johnny Lee, it is particularly suited to represent these feelings because the disruption of the supernatural “mirror the core experience of disruption that accompanies bereavement” (171). Moreover, magic and the supernatural offer ways in which the experience of grief can “be contained and regulated and in doing so, may offer psychological benefits to the bereaved” (171). In the case of Yellowjackets, such connections are very much amplified by the ‘meta-experience’ facilitated by the show’s fan community. For some, these discussions on magic as reality or fiction are useful to help grieve the perceived loss of quality of the show across season two. Many expressed anger, sadness, dissolution, and disconnection with the show as a whole. Some took this as an opportunity to walk away claiming the “magic” of the show had been lost for them, and that they had “never seen such a dramatic drop in quality in a tv show … I think I’m done” (Reddit). One user turned to wishing for the occult and for magic, citing that “at this point, I'm quite content with this going full supernatural, since it could bring back Laura or Nat which would be impossible otherwise” (Reddit). Magic and supernatural are something that users, much like the characters of the show, have started to wish for as an escape from their experience. In a way, the discussions around the ambiguity of magic offers a sense of control. Sometimes audiences take pleasure in rationalising and making sense of a show for fun. In the case of Yellowjackets, though, we argue that audiences are using the uncertainty of magic to cope with a decline and navigate community and trauma. Some users explain that magic is not real as a way to demonstrate the show is still salvageable, others hope magic is real because that will make it salvageable. Much like the characters in Yellowjackets, some audience members are experiencing and working through a kind of ‘grief’ using the discussion of magic as a space to work through these ideas. References Arva, Eugene. “The Analogical Legacy of Ground Zero: Magical Realism in Post-9/11 Literary and Filmic Trauma Narratives.” The Palgrave Handbook of Magical Realism in the Twenty-First Century. Eds. Richard Perez and Victoria A. Chevalier. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. Abdula, Shanid, and Md. Abu. “Heavy Silence and Horrible Grief: Reconstructing the Past and Securing the Future through Magical Realism in Joseph Skibell’s A Blessing on the Moon.” Ostrava Journal of English Philosophy 12.1 (2020). Andrejevic, Mark. “Watching Television without Pity: The Productivity of Online Fans.” Television and New Media 9.1 (2008): 24-46. Bainbridge, Caroline. “Television as Osychical Object: Mad Men and the Value of Psychoanalysis for Television Scholarship.” Critical Studies in Television 14.3 (2019): 289-206. Brooker, Will. Using the Force: Creativity, Community and Star Wars Fans. London: Continuum, 2002. Bowers, Maggie Ann. Magic(al) Realism. London: Routledge, 2004. Costello, Victor, and Barbara Moore. “Cultural Outlaws: An Examination of Audience Activity and Online Television Fandom.” Television and New Media 8.2 (2007): 124-143. Chanady, Amaryll Beatrice. Magical Realism and the Fantastic. New York: Garland, 1985. Chaney, Jen. “The Yellowjackets Creators Answer All Our Post-Finale Questions.” Vulture, 16 Jan. 2022. <https://www.vulture.com/article/yellowjackets-season-1-finale-explained-showrunners-interview.html>. Faris, Wendy B. “The Question of the Other: Cultural Critiques of Magical Realism.” Janus Head 5.2 (2002): 101-119. “Friends, Romans, Countrymen.” Yellowjackets. Writ. Ashely Lyle and Bart Nickerson. Dir. Daisy von Scherler Mayer. Showtime, 2023. Gray, Jonathan. Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers and Other Media Paratexts. New York: NYU Press. 2010. Goode, Erich. “Why Was the X-Files So Appealing?” Sceptical Enquirer 4 (2002): 9. “It Chooses.” Yellowjackets. Writ. Sarah Thompson and Liz Phang. Dir. Daisy von Scherler Mayer. Showtime, 2023. Mrak, Anja. "Trauma and Memory in Magical Realism: Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach as Trauma Narrative.” Politics of Memory 3.2 (2013): 1-15. Millar, Becky, and Johnny Lee. “Horror Films and Grief.” Emotion Review 13.3 (2021): 171-182. Mittell, Jason. “Sites of Participation: Wiki Fandom and the Case of Lostpedia.” Transformative Works and Cultures 3.3 (2009): 1-10. “Pilot.” Yellowjackets. Writ. Ashely Lyle and Bart Nickerson. Dir. Karyn Kusama. Showtime, 2021. r/Yellowjackets. Reddit. 30 July 2023 <https://www.reddit.com/r/Yellowjackets/>. “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.” Yellowjackets. Writ. Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson, and Katherine Kearns. Dir. Eduardo Sanchez. Showtime, 2021. Wiess, Josh. “Season 2 of Showtime’s Yellowjackets Could Sting Again Sooner than Expected with 2022 Return.” SYFY, 18 Jan. 2022. <https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/yellowjackets-season-2-could-premiere-in-2022>.

The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) Family Network show Switched at Birth tells two stories—one which follows the unique plot of the show, and one about the new openness of television executives toward integrating more people with a variety of visible and invisible physical embodiments, such as hearing loss, into television content. It first aired in 2011 and in 2017 aired its fifth and final season.The show focuses on two teen girls in Kansas City who find out they were switched due to a hospital error on the day of their birth and who grew up with parents who were not biologically related to them. One, Bay Kennish (Vanessa Marano), lives with her wealthy parents—a stay-at-home mom Kathryn (Lea Thompson) and a former professional baseball player, now businessman, father John (D.W. Moffett). She has an older brother Toby (Lucas Grabeel) who is into music. In her high school science class, Bay learns about blood types and discovers her parents’ blood types could not have produced her. The family has professional genetic tests done and discovers the switch (ABC Family, “This Is Not a Pipe”).In the pilot episode, Bay’s parents find out that deaf teen, Daphne Vasquez (Katie Leclerc), is actually their daughter. She lives in a working class Hispanic neighbourhood with her hairdresser single mother Regina (Constance Marie) and grandmother Adrianna (Ivonne Coll), both of whom are of Puerto Rican ancestry. Daphne is deaf due to a case of meningitis when she was three, which the rich Kennishes feel happened because of inadequate healthcare provided by working class Regina. Daphne attends an all-deaf school, Carlton.The man who was thought to be her biological father, Angelo Sorrento (Gilles Marini), doesn’t appear in the show until episode 10 but becomes a series regular in season 2. It becomes apparent that Daphne believes her father left because of her deafness; however, as the first season progresses, the real reasons begin to emerge. From the pilot onwards, the show dives into clashes of language, culture, ethnicity, class, and even physical appearance—in one scene in the pilot, the waspy Kennishes ask Regina if she is “Mexican.” As later episodes reveal, many of these physical appearance issues are revealed to have fractured the Vasquez family early on—Daphne is a freckled, strawberry blonde, and her father (who is French and Italian) suspected infidelity.The two families merge when the Kennishes ask Daphne and her mother to move into their guest house in order get to know their daughter better. That forces the Kennishes into the world of deafness, and throughout the show this hearing family therefore becomes a surrogate for a hearing audience’s immersion into Deaf culture.Cultural Inclusivity: The Way ForwardShow creator Lizzy Weiss explained that it was actually the ABC Family network that “suggested making one of the kids disabled” (Academy of Television Arts & Sciences). Weiss was familiar with American Sign Language (ASL) because she had a “classical theatre of the Deaf” course in college. She said, “I had in the back of my head a little bit of background at least about how beautiful the language was. So I said, ‘What if one of the girls is deaf?’” The network thought it was wonderful idea, so she began researching the Deaf community, including spending time at a deaf high school in Los Angeles called Marlton, on which she modelled the Switched at Birth school, Carlton. Weiss (Academy of Television Arts & Sciences) says of the school visit experience:I learned so much that day and spoke to dozens of deaf teenagers about their lives and their experiences. And so, this is, of course, in the middle of writing the pilot, and I said to the network, you know, deaf kids wouldn’t voice orally. We would have to have those scenes only in ASL, and no sound and they said, ‘Great. Let’s do it.’ And frankly, we just kind of grew and grew from there.To accommodate the narrative structure of a television drama, Weiss said it became clear from the beginning that the show would need to use SimCom (simultaneous communication or sign supported speech) for the hearing or deaf characters who were signing so they could speak and sign at the same time. She knew this wasn’t the norm for two actual people communicating in ASL, but the production team worried about having a show that was heavily captioned as this might distance its key—overwhelmingly hearing—teen audience who would have to pay attention to the screen during captioned scenes. However, this did not appear to be the case—instead, viewers were drawn to the show because of its unique sign language-influenced television narrative structure. The show became popular very quickly and, with 3.3 million viewers, became the highest-rated premiere ever on the ABC Family network (Barney).Switched at Birth also received much praise from the media for allowing its deaf actors to communicate using sign language. The Huffington Post television critic Maureen Ryan said, “Allowing deaf characters to talk to each other directly—without a hearing person or a translator present—is a savvy strategy that allows the show to dig deeper into deaf culture and also to treat deaf characters as it would anyone else”. Importantly, it allowed the show to be unique in a way that was found nowhere else on television. “It’s practically avant-garde for television, despite the conventional teen-soap look of the show,” said Ryan.Usually a show’s success is garnered by audience numbers and media critique—by this measure Switched at Birth was a hit. However, programs that portray a disability—in any form—are often the target of criticism, particularly from the communities they attempting to represent. It should be noted that, while actress Katie Leclerc, who plays Daphne, has a condition, Meniere’s disease, which causes hearing loss and vertigo on an intermittent basis, she does not identify as a deaf actress and must use a deaf accent to portray Daphne. However, she is ASL fluent, learning it in high school (Orangejack). This meant her qualifications met the original casting call which said “actress must be deaf or hard of hearing and must speak English well, American Sign Language preferred” (Paz, 2010) Leclerc likens her role to that of any actor to who has to affect body and vocal changes for a role—she gives the example of Hugh Laurie in House, who is British with no limp, but was an American who uses a cane in that show (Bibel).As such, initially, some in the Deaf community complained about her casting though an online petition with 140 signatures (Nielson). Yet many in the Deaf community softened any criticism of the show when they saw the production’s ongoing attention to Deaf cultural details (Grushkin). Finally, any lingering criticisms from the Deaf community were quieted by the many deaf actors hired for the show who perform using ASL. This includes Sean Berdy, who plays Daphne’s best friend Emmett, his onscreen mother, played by actress Marlee Matlin, and Anthony Natale who plays his father; their characters both sign and vocalize in the show. The Emmett character only communicates in ASL and does not vocalise until he falls in love with the hearing character Bay—even then he rarely uses his voice.This seemingly all-round “acceptance” of the show gave the production team more freedom to be innovative—by season 3 the audience was deemed to be so comfortable with captions that the shows began to feature less SimCom and more all-captioned scenes. This lead to the full episode in ASL, a first on American mainstream television.For an Hour, Welcome to Our WorldSwitched at Birth writer Chad Fiveash explained that when the production team came up with the idea for a captioned all-ASL episode, they “didn’t want to do the ASL episode as a gimmick. It needed to be thematically resonant”. As a result, they decided to link the episode to the most significant event in American Deaf history, an event that solidified its status as a cultural community—the 1988 Deaf President Now (DPN) protest at Gallaudet University in Washington. This protest inspired the March 2013 episode for Switched at Birth and aired 25 years to the week that the actual DPN protest happened. This episode makes it clear the show is trying to completely embrace Deaf culture and wants its audience to better understand Deaf identity.DPN was a pivotal moment for Deaf people—it truly solidified members of a global Deaf community who felt more empowered to fight for their rights. Students demanded that Gallaudet—as the premier university for deaf and hard-of-hearing students—no longer have a hearing person as its president. The Gallaudet board of trustees, the majority of whom were hearing, tried to force students and faculty to accept a hearing president; their attitude was that they knew what was best for the deaf persons there. For eight days, deaf people across America and the world rallied around the student protestors, refusing to give in until a deaf president was appointed. Their success came in the form of I. King Jordan, a deaf man who had served as dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the time of the protest.The event was covered by media around the world, giving the American Deaf community international attention. Indeed, Gallaudet University says the DPN protest symbolized more than just the hiring of a Deaf president; it brought Deaf issues before the public and “raised the nation’s consciousness of the rights and abilities of deaf and hard of hearing people” (Gallaudet University).The activities of the students and their supporters showed dramatically that in the 1980s deaf people could be galvanized to unite around a common issue, particularly one of great symbolic meaning, such as the Gallaudet presidency. Gallaudet University represents the pinnacle of education for deaf people, not only in the United States but throughout the world. The assumption of its presidency by a person himself deaf announced to the world that deaf Americans were now a mature minority (Van Cleve and Crouch, 172).Deaf people were throwing off the oppression of the hearing world by demanding that their university have someone from their community at its helm. Jankowski (Deaf Empowerment; A Metaphorical Analysis of Conflict) studied the Gallaudet protest within the framework of a metaphor. She found a recurring theme during the DPN protest to be Gallaudet as “plantation”—which metaphorically refers to deaf persons as slaves trying to break free from the grip of the dominant mastery of the hearing world—and she parallels the civil rights movement of African Americans in the 1960s. As an example, Gallaudet was referred to as the “Selma of the Deaf” during the protest, and protest signs used the language of Martin Luther King such as “we still have a dream.” For deaf Americans, the presidency of Gallaudet became a symbol of hope for the future. As Jankowski attests:deaf people perceived themselves as possessing the ability to manage their own kind, pointing to black-managed organization, women-managed organizations, etc., struggling for that same right. They argued that it was a fight for their basic human rights, a struggle to free themselves, to release the hold their ‘masters’ held on them. (“A Metaphorical Analysis”)The creators of the Switched at Birth episode wanted to ensure of these emotions, as well as historical and cultural references, were prevalent in the modern-day, all-ASL episode, titled Uprising. That show therefore wanted to represent both the 1988 DPN protest as well as a current issue in the US—the closing of deaf schools (Anderson). The storyline focuses on the deaf students at the fictitious Carlton School for the Deaf seizing one of the school buildings to stage a protest because the school board has decided to shut down the school and mainstream the deaf students into hearing schools. When the deaf students try to come up with a list of demands, conflicts arise about what the demands should be and whether a pilot program—allowing hearing kids who sign to attend the deaf school—should remain.This show accomplished multiple things with its reach into Deaf history and identity, but it also did something technologically unique for the modern world—it made people pay attention. Because captioning translated the sign language for viewers, Lizzy Weiss, the creator of the series, said, “Every single viewer—deaf or hearing—was forced to put away their phones and iPads and anything else distracting … and focus … you had to read … you couldn’t do anything else. And that made you get into it more. It drew you in” (Stelter). The point, Weiss said, “was about revealing something new to the viewer—what does it feel like to be an outsider? What does it feel like to have to read and focus for an entire episode, like deaf viewers do all the time?” (Stelter). As one deaf reviewer of the Uprising episode said, “For an hour, welcome to our world! A world that’s inconvenient, but one most of us wouldn’t leave if offered a magic pill” (DR_Staff).This episode, more than any other, afforded hearing television viewers an experience perhaps similar to deaf viewers. The New York Times reported that “Deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers commented by the thousands after the show, with many saying in effect, “Yes! That’s what it feels like” (Stelter).Continued ResonancesWhat is also unique about the episode is that in teaching the hearing viewers more about the Deaf community, it also reinforced Deaf community pride and even taught young deaf people a bit of their own history. The Deaf community and Gallaudet were very pleased with their history showing up on a television show—the university produced a 30-second commercial which aired within the episode, and held viewing parties. Gallaudet also forwarded the 35 pages of Facebook comments they’d received about the episode to ABC Family and Gallaudet President T. Alan Hurwitz said of the episode (Yahr), “Over the past 25 years, [DPN] has symbolised self-determination and empowerment for deaf and hard of hearing people around the world”. The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) also lauded the episode, describing it as “phenomenal and groundbreaking, saying the situation is very real to us” (Stelter)—NAD had been vocally against budget cuts and closings of US deaf schools.Deaf individuals all over the Internet and social media also spoke out about the episode, with overwhelmingly favourable opinions. Deaf blogger Amy Cohen Efron, who participated in 1988′s DPN movement, said that DPN was “a turning point of my life, forcing me to re-examine my own personal identity, and develop self-determinism as a Deaf person” and led to her becoming an activist.When she watched the Uprising episode, she said the symbolic and historical representations in the show resonated with her. In the episode, a huge sign is unfurled on the side of the Carlton School for the Deaf with a girl with a fist in the air under the slogan “Take Back Carlton.” During the DPN protest, the deaf student protesters unfurled a sign that said “Deaf President Now” with the US Capitol in the background; this image has become an iconic symbol of modern Deaf culture. Efron says the image in the television episode was much more militant than the actual DPN sign. However, it could be argued that society now sees the Deaf community as much more militant because of the DPN protest, and that the imagery in the Uprising episode played into that connection. Efron also acknowledged the episode’s strong nod to the Gallaudet student protestors who defied the hearing community’s expectations by practising civil disobedience. As Efron explained, “Society expected that the Deaf people are submissive and accept to whatever decision done by the majority without any of our input and/or participation in the process.”She also argues that the episode educated more than just the hearing community. In addition to DPN, Uprising was filled with other references to Deaf history. For example a glass door to the room at Carlton was covered with posters about people like Helen Keller and Jean-Ferdinand Berthier, a deaf educator in 19th century France who promoted the concept of deaf identity and culture—Efron says most people in the Deaf community have never heard of him. She also claims that the younger Deaf community may also not be aware of the 1988 DPN protest—“It was not in high school textbooks available for students. Many deaf and hard of hearing students are mainstreamed and they have not the slightest idea about the DPN movement, even about the Deaf Community’s ongoing fight against discrimination, prejudice and oppression, along with our victories”.Long before the Uprising episode aired, the Deaf community had been watching Switched at Birth carefully to make sure Deaf culture was accurately represented. Throughout season 3 David Martin created weekly videos in sign language that were an ASL/Deaf cultural analysis of Switched at Birth. He highlighted content he liked and signs that were incorrect, a kind of a Deaf culture/ASL fact checker. From the Uprising episode, he said he thought this quote from Marlee Matlin’s character said it all, “Until hearing people walk a day in our shoes they will never understand” (Martin). That succinctly states what the all-ASL episode was trying to capture—creating an awareness of Deaf people’s cultural experience and their oppression in hearing society.Even a deaf person who was an early critic of Switched at Birth because of the hiring of Katie Leclerc and the use of SimCom admitted he was impressed with the all-ASL episode (Grushkin):all too often, we see media accounts of Deaf people which play into our society’s perceptions of Deaf people: as helpless, handicapped individuals who are in need of fixes such as cochlear implants in order to “restore” us to society. Almost never do we see accounts of Deaf people as healthy, capable individuals who live ordinary, successful lives without necessarily conforming to the Hearing ‘script’ for how we should be. And important issues such as language rights or school closings are too often virtually ignored by the general media.In addition to the episode being widely discussed within the Deaf community, the mainstream news media also covered Uprising intensely, seeing it as a meaningful cultural moment, not just for the Deaf community but for popular culture in general. Lacob wrote that he realises that hearing viewers probably won’t understand what it means to be a deaf person in modern America, but he believes that the episodeposits that there are moments of understanding, commonalities, and potential bridge-building between these two communities. And the desire for understanding is the first step toward a more inclusive and broad-minded future.He continues:the significance of this moment can’t be undervalued, nor can the show’s rich embrace of deaf history, manifested here in the form of Gallaudet and the historical figures whose photographs and stories are papered on the windows of Carlton during the student protest. What we’re seeing on screen—within the confines of a teen drama, no less—is an engaged exploration of a culture and a civil rights movement brought to life with all of the color and passion it deserves. It may be 25 years since Gallaudet, but the dreams of those protesters haven’t faded. And they—and the ideals of identity and equality that they express—are most definitely being heard.Lacob’s analysis was praised by several Deaf people—by a Deaf graduate student who teaches a Disability in Popular Culture course and by a Gallaudet student who said, “From someone who is deaf, and not ashamed of it either, let me say right here and now: that was the most eloquent piece of writing by someone hearing I have ever seen” (Emma72). The power of the Uprising episode illustrated a political space where “groups actively fuse and blend their culture with the mainstream culture” (Foley 119, as cited in Chang 3). Switched at Birth—specifically the Uprising episode—has indeed fused Deaf culture and ASL into a place in mainstream television culture.ReferencesABC Family. “Switched at Birth Deaf Actor Search.” Facebook (2010). <https://www.facebook.com/SwitchedSearch>.———. “This Is Not a Pipe.” Switched at Birth. Pilot episode. 6 June 2011. <http://freeform.go.com/shows/switched-at-birth>.———. “Not Hearing Loss, Deaf Gain.” Switched at Birth. YouTube video, 11 Feb. 2013. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5W604uSkrk>.Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. “Talking Diversity: ABC Family’s Switched at Birth.” Emmys.com (Feb. 2012). <http://www.emmys.com/content/webcast-talking-diversity-abc-familys-switched-birth>.Anderson, G. “‘Switched at Birth’ Celebrates 25th Anniversary of ‘Deaf President Now’.” Pop-topia (5 Mar. 2013). <http://www.pop-topia.com/switched-at-birth-celebrates-25th-anniversary-of-deaf-president-now/>.Barney, C. “’Switched at Birth’ Another Winner for ABC Family.” Contra Costa News (29 June 2011). <http://www.mercurynews.com/tv/ci_18369762>.Bibel, S. “‘Switched at Birth’s Katie LeClerc Is Proud to Represent the Deaf Community.” Xfinity TV blog (20 June 2011). <http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/tv/2011/06/20/switched-at-births-katie-leclerc-is-proud-to-represent-the-deaf-community/>.Chang, H. “Re-Examining the Rhetoric of the ‘Cultural Border’.” Essay presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, Dec. 1988.DR_Staff. “Switched at Birth: How #TakeBackCarlton Made History.” deafReview (6 Mar. 2013). <http://deafreview.com/deafreview-news/switched-at-birth-how-takebackcarlton-made-history/>.Efron, Amy Cohen. “Switched At Birth: Uprising – Deaf Adult’s Commentary.” Deaf World as I See It (Mar. 2013). <http://www.deafeyeseeit.com/2013/03/05/sabcommentary/>.Emma72. “ABC Family’s ‘Switched at Birth’ ASL Episode Recalls Gallaudet Protest.” Comment. The Daily Beast (28 Feb. 2013). <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/28/abc-family-s-switched-at-birth-asl-episode-recalls-gallaudet-protest.html>.Fiveash, Chad. Personal interview. 17 Jan. 2014.Gallaudet University. “The Issues.” Deaf President Now (2013). <http://www.gallaudet.edu/dpn_home/issues.html>.Grushkin, D. “A Cultural Review. ASL Challenged.” Switched at Birth Facebook page. Facebook (2013). <https://www.facebook.com/SwitchedatBirth/posts/508748905835658>.Jankowski, K.A. Deaf Empowerment: Emergence, Struggle, and Rhetoric. Washington: Gallaudet UP, 1997.———. “A Metaphorical Analysis of Conflict at the Gallaudet Protest.” Unpublished seminar paper presented at the University of Maryland, 1990.Lacob, J. “ABC Family’s ‘Switched at Birth’ ASL Episode Recalls Gallaudet Protest.” The Daily Beast 28 Feb. 2013. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/28/abc-family-s-switched-at-birth-asl-episode-recalls-gallaudet-protest.html>.Martin, D. “Switched at Birth Season 2 Episode 9 ‘Uprising’ ASL/Deaf Cultural Analysis.” David Martin YouTube channel (6 Mar. 2013). <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA0vqCysoVU>.Nielson, R. “Petitioned ABC Family and the ‘Switched at Birth’ Series, Create Responsible, Accurate, and Family-Oriented TV Programming.” Change.org (2011). <http://www.change.org/p/abc-family-and-the-switched-at-birth-series-create-responsible-accurate-and-family-oriented-tv-programming>.Orangejack. “Details about Katie Leclerc’s Hearing Loss.” My ASL Journey Blog (29 June 2011). <http://asl.orangejack.com/details-about-katie-leclercs-hearing-loss>.Paz, G. “Casting Call: Open Auditions for Switched at Birth by ABC Family.” Series & TV (3 Oct. 2010). <http://seriesandtv.com/casting-call-open-auditions-for-switched-at-birth-by-abc-family/4034>.Ryan, Maureen. “‘Switched at Birth’ Season 1.5 Has More Drama and Subversive Soapiness.” The Huffington Post (31 Aug. 2012). <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maureen-ryan/switched-at-birth-season-1_b_1844957.html>.Stelter, B. “Teaching Viewers to Hear with Their Eyes Only.” The New York Times 8 Mar. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/arts/television/teaching-viewers-to-hear-the-tv-with-eyes-only.html>.Van Cleve, J.V., and B.A. Crouch. A Place of Their Own: Creating the Deaf Community in America. DC: Gallaudet University Press, 1989.Yahr, E. “Gallaudet University Uses All-Sign Language Episode of ‘Switched at Birth’ to Air New Commercial.” The Washington Post 3 Mar. 2013 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/gallaudet-university-uses-all-sign-language-episode-of-switched-at-birth-to-air-new-commercial/2013/03/04/0017a45a-8508-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394_blog.html>.

I sat alone on the beach under the shade of a big umbrella. My husband, Bill, and our three children were in the condo taking a break from the Florida sunshine. Dreamily, I gazed at the vast Gulf of Mexico, the brilliant blue sky stretching endlessly above. I was sitting about 50 feet from the surf, but I couldn't actually see the waves hitting the beach; I was almost blind. It was a windy day in late May and I loved feeling the ocean breeze sweeping over me. I imagined I could hear the waves crashing onto the surf, but the sound was only a memory. I was totally deaf. Although I had a cochlear implant and could hear the waves, the cry of sea gulls, and many other sounds with the technology, I wasn't wearing it at the moment and everything I heard was in my mind. As a child, my understanding of speech was better and my vision was clearer. My diagnosis was optic atrophy at age 5 and my vision gradually degenerated over the years. For unknown reasons, nerve damage caused hearing loss and during my teens, my hearing grew worse and worse until by the time I was ready for college, I was profoundly deaf. I chose to attend Gallaudet University because my high school teachers and my parents felt I would receive better services as a deaf and blind student. I feel it was a very good decision; when I entered Gallaudet, it was like entering a new and exhilarating world. Before attending Gallaudet, while I struggled to cope with hearing loss combined with severely low vision, my world grew smaller and smaller, not being able to communicate efficiently with others. At Gallaudet, I suddenly found I could communicate with almost anybody I met on campus using sign language. Thus, my self-confidence and independence grew as I proceeded to get a college education.It wasn't an easy route to follow. I didn't know Braille at the time and depended on using a CCTV (closed captioned television) electronic aid which magnified text, enabling me to read all my college books. I also relied on the assistance of a class aid who interpreted all my teachers' lectures and class discussions because I was unable to see people's signing unless they signed right in front of my face. It was slow going and often frustrating, trying to keep involved socially and keeping up with my coursework but when I was 13 years old, my vision specialist teacher who had worked with me from 5th grade until I graduated from high school, wrote a note for me saying, "Anything worthwhile seldom comes easy." The phrase stuck in my mind and I tried to follow this philosophy. In 1989 after 7 years of persistence, I graduated with a Bachelor's of Arts degree in psychology. With the B.A. in hand and having developed good communication skills with deaf and deaf-blind people using sign language and ASL (American Sign Language), I was ready to face the world. But I wasn't exactly ready; I knew I wanted a professional job working with deaf-blind people and the way to get there was to earn a master's degree. I applied for admission into Gallaudet's graduate school and was accepted into the vocational rehabilitation counselling program. While I thoroughly enjoyed graduate school experience, I got to work with my class mates one-on-one more often and there were a lot more hands-on activities, it became obvious to me that I wasn't prepared for graduate school. I needed to learn Braille and how to use Braille technology; my vision had worsened a lot since starting college. In addition, I needed a break from school and needed to gain experience in the working world. After completing one and a half years and earning 15 credit hours in the master's program, I left Gallaudet and found a job in Baltimore, Maryland.The job was with a new program for adults who were visually and hearing impaired and mentally disabled. My job was assisting the clients with independent living and work related skills. Most of the other staff were deaf, communicating via ASL. By then, I was skilled using tactile signing, putting my hand on the back of the signer's hand to follow movements by touch, and I made friends with co-workers. I felt grown up and independent working full-time, living in my own apartment, using the subway train and bus to travel to and from work. I didn't have any serious problems living on my own. There was a supermarket up the road to which I could walk or ride a bus. But I needed a taxi ride back to the apartment when I had more groceries than I could carry. I would leave a sign I made out of cardboard and wrote my address in big black numbers, on my apartment door to help the driver find my place. I used a white cane and upon moving to Baltimore, an Orientation and Mobility (O and M) teacher who worked with blind people, showing them how to travel in the city, taught me the route to my work place using the subway and bus. Thus, I was independent and knew my way to work as well as to a nearby shopping mall. One day as I stood on the subway station platform holding my white cane, waiting for my train, the opposite train pulled in. As I stood watching passengers hurrying to board, knowing my train would arrive soon on the other side, a woman ran up to me and started pulling my arm. I handed her my notebook and black marker I used for communicating with people in the public, telling her I couldn't hear and would she please write in large print? She frantically scribbled something, but I couldn't read the note. She then gave me back the pen and pad, grabbed my arm again and started pulling me towards the train. I refused to budge, gesturing towards the opposite tracks, clearly indicating I was waiting for the other train. Finally, she let go, dashed into the train before the doors closed. I watched the train pull away, sadly reflecting that some people who wanted to help, just didn't understand how to approach disabled people. As a deaf-blind traveller, it was my duty to help educate the general public how to assist disabled persons in a humane way. After I established my new life for a few months, Bill was offered a position in the same program and moved to Baltimore to join me. He had worked at the Helen Keller National Centre in New York where I met him while doing a summer internship there three years before. I was thrilled when he got the job working beside me and we got to know each other on a daily basis. We had been dating since we met although I was in college and he was working and living in New York and then Cleveland, Ohio. Bill being hearing and sighted, was skilled in sign language and communication techniques with deaf-blind people. He had a wonderful attitude towards disabled people and made me feel like a normal person who was capable of doing things. We shared a lot and were very comfortable with each other. After nearly six months together in Baltimore, we married in May 1992, several weeks before my 28th birthday.After our first year of marriage living in Maryland, Bill and I moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. We wanted to live closer to my family and parents, Ron and Judy Cummings, who lived in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 176 miles north of Little Rock. I wanted to go back to school and entered the deaf education program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with the goal of becoming a teacher for deaf-blind students. I never dreamed I would have a deaf-blind child of my own one day. My vision and hearing loss were caused by nerve damage and no one else in my family nor Bill's had a similar disability.I was pregnant with our first child when I entered UALR. In spite of my growing belly, I enjoyed the teacher training experience. I worked with a deaf-blind 12-year-old student and her teacher at the Arkansas School for the Deaf; observed two energetic four-year-olds in the pre-school program. But when my son, Joe was born in June 1994, my world changed once again. School became less important and motherhood became the ultimate. As a deaf-blind person, I wanted to be the best mom within my abilities.I decided that establishing good communication with my child was an important aspect of being a deaf-blind mom. Bill was in full agreement and we would set Joe on the kitchen table in his infant carrier, reciting together in sign language, "The three Bears". I could see Joe's tiny fists and feet wave excitedly in the air as he watched us signing children's stories. I would encourage Joe to hold my fingers while I signed to him, trying to establish a tactile signing relationship. But he was almost two years old when he finally understood that he needed to sign into my hands. We were sitting at the table and I had a bag of cookies. I refused to give him one until he made the sign for "cookie" in my hand. I quickly rewarded him with a cookie and he got three or four each time he made the sign in my hand. Today at 16, Joe is an expert finger speller and can effectively communicate with me and his younger deaf-blind brother, Ben.When Joe was two and a half, I decided to explore a cochlear implant. It was 1996 and we were living in Poplar Bluff by then. My cousin, who was studying audiology, told me that people using cochlear implants were able to understand sound so well they didn't need good vision. I made an appointment with the St. Louis cochlear implant program and after being evaluated, I decided to go ahead. I am glad I have a cochlear implant. After months of practice I learned to use the new sound and was eventually able to understand many environmental sounds. I never regained the ability of understanding speech, though, but I could hear people's voices very clearly, the sound of laughter, birds singing, and many more. Being able to hear my children's voices is especially wonderful, even when they get noisy and I get a headache. That fall I went to Leader Dogs School for the Blind (LDSB) where I met Milo, a large yellow Labrador retriever. At LDSB I learned how to care for and work with a dog guide. Having Milo as my companion and guide was like stepping into another new and wonderful world of independence. With Milo, I could walk briskly and feel secure. Milo was a big help as a deaf-blind mom, too. With Milo's guiding help, it was wonderful following my children while they rode tricycles or bikes and the whole family enjoyed going out for walks together. Our second son, Ben, was born in February 1999. He was a perfectly healthy little boy and Bill and I were looking forward to raising two sons. Joe was four and a half years old when Ben was born and was fascinated in his new brother. But when Ben was 5 months old, he was diagnosed with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH), a rare childhood disease and in some cases, fatal. It was a long, scary road we followed as Ben received treatment at the children's hospital in St. Louis which involved making the 150 mile trip almost weekly for chemotherapy and doctor check-ups. Through it all, Ben was a happy little boy, in spite of the terrible rash that affected his scalp and diaper area, a symptom of LCH. Bill and I knew that we had to do everything possible to help Ben. When he was a year old, his condition seemed stable enough for me to feel comfortable leaving my family for two months to study Braille and learn new technology skills at a program in Kansas City. My vision had deteriorated to a point where I could no longer use a CCTV.Bill's mom, Marie Reid, who lived in Cleveland, Ohio, made a special trip to stay at our home in Poplar Bluff to help Bill with the boys while I was gone. I was successful at the program, learning Braille, making a change from magnification to Braille technology. Upon returning home, I began looking for a job and found employment as a deaf-blind specialist in a new project in Mississippi. The job was in Tupelo and we moved to northern Mississippi, settling into a new life. We transferred Ben's treatment to St. Judes Children's hospital located in Memphis, 94 miles west of Tupelo. I went to work and Bill stayed home with the boys, which worked well. When Ben had to go to St. Judes every three weeks for chemotherapy, Bill was able to drive him. The treatment was successful, the rash had disappeared and there were no traces of LCH in Ben's blood tests. But when he was almost 3 years old, he was diagnosed with optic atrophy, the same eye disease I suffered from and an audiologist detected signs of inner ear hearing loss.Shocked at the news that our little son would grow up legally blind and perhaps become deaf, Bill and I had to rethink our future. We knew we wanted Ben to have a good life and as a deaf-blind child, he needed quality services. We chose to move to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania because I knew there were good services for deaf-blind people and I could function independently as a stay-home mom. In addition, Cleveland, Ohio, where Marie Reid and several of Bill's siblings lived, was a two hour's drive from Pittsburgh and living near family was important to us. With regret, I left my job opportunity and new friends and we re-located to Pittsburgh. We lived on a quiet street near Squirrel Hill and enrolled Joe into a near-by Catholic school. Ben received excellent early intervention services through the Pittsburgh public school, beginning Braille, using a white cane and tactile signing. The Pennsylvania services for the blind generously purchased a wonderful computer system and Braille display for me to use at home. I was able to communicate with Joe's and Ben's teachers and other contacts using e-mail. Ben's Braille teacher provided us with several print/Braille books which I read to the boys while Ben touched the tactile pictures. I made friends in the deaf and deaf-blind community and our family attended social events. Besides the social benefits of a deaf community, Pittsburgh offered a wonderful interpreting service and I was able to take Ben to doctor appointments knowing an interpreter would meet me at the hospital to assist with communication. I also found people who were willing to help me as volunteer SSPs (support Service Providers), persons whose role is to assist a deaf-blind person in any way, such as shopping, going to the bank, etc. Thus, I was able to function quite independently while Bill worked. Perhaps Bill and I were a bit crazy; after all, we had enough on our plate with a deaf-blind son and a deaf-blind mom, but love is a mysterious thing. In October 2003, Tim was born and our family was complete. Having two school-aged children and a baby on my hands was too much for me to handle alone. Bill was working and busy with culinary arts school. We realized we needed more help with the children, plus the high cost of living in the city was a struggle for us. We decided for the family's best interest, it would be better to move back to Poplar Bluff. After Joe and Ben were out of school in June, my mom flew out to Pittsburgh to escort them back to her home while Bill finished his externship for his culinary arts degree and in the late summer of 2004, we packed up our apartment, said good-bye to Pittsburgh, and drove to Missouri. The move was a good decision in many ways. Poplar Bluff, a rural town in south-eastern Missouri, has been my hometown since I was 10 years old. My extended family live there and the boys are thriving growing up among their cousins. Ben is receiving Braille and sign language services at public school and reads Braille faster than me!While both Bill and I are deeply satisfied knowing our children are happy, we have made personal sacrifices. Bill has given up his career satisfaction as a professional cook, needing to help look after the children and house. I have given up the benefits of city life such as interpreting and SSP services, not to mention the social benefits of a deaf community. But the children's well-being comes first, and I have found ways to fulfil my needs by getting involved with on-line groups for deaf-blind people, including writers and poets. I have taken a great interest in writing, especially children's stories and hope to establish a career as a writer. While I work on my computer, Bill keeps busy engaging the boys in various projects. They have built a screened-in tree house in the backyard where Ben and Tim like to sleep during warm summer nights.“It's almost 5 o'clock," Bill signed into my hand, rousing me from my thoughts. Time to prepare for our homeward journey the next day to Poplar Bluff, Missouri.Christy and Family

According to the ABC television program Four Corners, “Parliament House in Canberra is a hotbed of political intrigue and high tension … . It’s known as the ‘Canberra Bubble’ and it operates in an atmosphere that seems far removed from how modern Australian workplaces are expected to function.” The term “Canberra Bubble” morphed to its current definition from 2001, although it existed in other forms before this. Its use has increased since 2015, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison regularly referring to it when attempting to deflect from turmoil within, or focus on, his Coalition government (Gwynn). “Canberra Bubble” was selected as the 2018 “Word of the Year” by the Australian National Dictionary Centre, defined as “referring to the idea that federal politicians, bureaucracy, and political journalists are obsessed with the goings-on in Canberra (rather than the everyday concerns of Australians)” (Gwynn). In November 2020, Four Corners aired an investigation into the behaviour of top government ministers, including Attorney-General Christian Porter, Minister Alan Tudge, and former Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party Barnaby Joyce; entitled “Inside the Canberra Bubble”. The program’s reporter, Louise Milligan, observed: there’s a strong but unofficial tradition in federal politics of what happens in Canberra, stays in Canberra. Politicians, political staff and media operate in what’s known as ‘The Canberra Bubble’. Along with the political gamesmanship, there’s a heady, permissive culture and that culture can be toxic for women. The program acknowledged that parliamentary culture included the belief that politicians’ private lives were not open to public scrutiny. However, this leaves many women working in Parliament House feeling that such silence allows inappropriate behaviour and sexism to “thrive” in the “culture of silence” (Four Corners). Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was interviewed for the Four Corners program, acknowledged: “there is always a power imbalance between the boss and somebody who works for them, the younger and more junior they are, the more extreme that power imbalance is. And of course, Ministers essentially have the power to hire and fire their staff, so they’ve got enormous power.” He equates this to past culture in large corporations; a culture that has seen changes in business, but not in the federal parliament. It is the latter place that is a toxic bubble for women. A Woman Problem in the Bubble Louise Milligan reported: “the Liberal Party has been grappling with what’s been described as a ‘women problem’ for several years, with accusations of endemic sexism.” The underrepresentation of women in the current government sees them holding only seven of the 30 current ministerial positions. The Liberal Party has fewer women in the House of Representatives now than it did 20 years ago, while the Labor Party has doubled the number of women in its ranks. When asked his view on the “woman problem”, Malcolm Turnbull replied: “well I think women have got a problem with the Liberal Party. It’s probably a better way of putting it … . The party does not have enough women MPs and Senators … . It is seen as being very blokey.” Current Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in March 2019: “we want to see women rise. But we don’t want to see women rise, only on the basis of others doing worse” (Four Corners); with “others” seen as a reference to men. The Liberal Party’s “woman problem” has been widely discussed in recent years, both in relation to the low numbers of women in its parliamentary representation and in its behaviour towards women. These claims were evident in an article highlighting allegations of bullying by Member of Parliament (MP) Julia Banks, which led to her resignation from the Liberal Party in 2018. Banks’s move to the crossbench as an Independent was followed by the departure from politics of senior Liberal MP and former Deputy Leader Julie Bishop and three other female Liberal MPs prior to the 2019 federal election. For resigning Liberal MP Linda Reynolds, the tumultuous change of leadership in the Liberal Party on 24 August 2018, when Scott Morrison replaced Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister, left her to say: “I do not recognise my party at the moment. I do not recognise the values. I do not recognise the bullying and intimidation that has gone on.” Bishop observed on 5 September: “it’s evident that there is an acceptance of a level of behaviour in Canberra that would not be tolerated in any other workplace.” And in her resignation speech on 27 November, Banks stated: “Often, when good women call out or are subjected to bad behaviour, the reprisals, backlash and commentary portrays them as the bad ones – the liar, the troublemaker, the emotionally unstable or weak, or someone who should be silenced” (Four Corners). Rachel Miller is a former senior Liberal staffer who worked for nine years in Parliament House. She admitted to having a consensual relationship with MP Alan Tudge. Both were married at the time. Her reason for “blowing the whistle” was not about the relationship itself, rather the culture built on an imbalance of power that she experienced and witnessed, particularly when endeavouring to end the relationship with Tudge. This saw her moving from Tudge’s office to that of Michaelia Cash, eventually being demoted and finally resigning. Miller refused to accept the Canberra bubble “culture of just putting your head down and not getting involved”. The Four Corners story also highlighted the historical behaviour of Attorney-General Christian Porter and his attitude towards women over several decades. Milligan reported: in the course of this investigation, Four Corners has spoken to dozens of former and currently serving staffers, politicians, and members of the legal profession. Many have worked within, or voted for, the Liberal Party. And many have volunteered examples of what they believe is inappropriate conduct by Christian Porter – including being drunk in public and making unwanted advances to women. Lawyer Josh Bornstein told Four Corners that the role of Attorney-General “occupies a unique role … as the first law officer of the country”, having a position in both the legal system and in politics. It is his view that this comes with a requirement for the Attorney-General “to be impeccable in terms of personal and political behaviour”. Milligan asserts that Porter’s role as “the nation’s chief law officer, includes implementing rules to protect women”. A historical review of Porter’s behaviour and attitude towards women was provided to Four Corners by barrister Kathleen Foley and debating colleague from 1987, Jo Dyer. Dyer described Porter as “very charming … very confident … Christian was quite slick … he had an air of entitlement … that I think was born of the privilege from which he came”. Foley has known Porter since she was sixteen, including at university and later when both were at the State Solicitors’ Office in Western Australia, and her impression was that Porter possessed a “dominant personality”. She said that many expected him to become a “powerful person one day” partly due to his father being “a Liberal Party powerbroker”, and that Porter had aspirations to become Prime Minister. She observed: “I’ve known him to be someone who was in my opinion, and based on what I saw, deeply sexist and actually misogynist in his treatment of women, in the way that he spoke about women.” Foley added: “for a long time, Christian has benefited from the silence around his conduct and his behaviour, and the silence has meant that his behaviour has been tolerated … . I’m here because I don’t think that his behaviour should be tolerated, and it is not acceptable.” Miller told the Four Corners program that she and others, including journalists, had observed Porter being “very intimate” with a young woman. Milligan noted that Porter “had a wife and toddler at home in Perth”, while Miller found the incident “quite confronting … in such a public space … . I was quite surprised by the behaviour and … it was definitely a step too far”. The incident was confirmed to Four Corners by “five other people, including Coalition staffers”. However, in 2017 the “Public Bar incident remained inside the Canberra bubble – it never leaked”, reports Milligan. In response to the exposure of Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce’s relationship with a member of his staff, Malcolm Turnbull changed the Code of Ministerial Standards (February 2018) for members of the Coalition Government (Liberal and National Parties). Labelled by many media as the “bonk ban”, the new code banned sexual relationships between ministers and their staff. Turnbull stopped short of asking Joyce to resign (Yaxley), however, Joyce stepped down as Leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime Minister shortly after the code was amended. Turnbull has conceded that the Joyce affair was the catalyst for implementing changes to ministerial standards (Four Corners). He was also aware of other incidents, including the behaviour of Christian Porter and claims he spoke with Porter in 2017, when concerns were raised about Porter’s behaviour. In what Turnbull acknowledges to be a stressful working environment, the ‘Canberra bubble’ is exacerbated by long hours, alcohol, and being away from family; this leads some members to a loss of standards in behaviour, particularly in relation to how women are viewed. This seems to blame the ‘bubble’ rather than acknowledge poor behaviour. Despite the allegations of improper behaviour against Porter, in 2017 Turnbull appointed Porter Attorney-General. Describing the atmosphere in the Canberra bubble, Miller concedes that not “all men are predators and [not] all women are victims”. She adds that a “work hard, play hard … gung ho mentality” in a “highly sexualised environment” sees senior men not being called out for behaviour, creating the perception that they are “almost beyond reproach [and it’s] something they can get away with”. Turnbull observes: “the attitudes to women and the lack of respect … of women in many quarters … reminds me of the corporate scene … 40 years ago. It’s just not modern Australia” (Four Corners). In a disclaimer about the program, Milligan stated: Four Corners does not suggest only Liberal politicians cross this line. But the Liberal Party is in government. And the Liberal politicians in question are Ministers of the Crown. All ministers must now abide by Ministerial Standards set down by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in 2018. They say: ‘Serving the Australian people as Ministers ... is an honour and comes with expectations to act at all times to the highest possible standards of probity.’ They also prohibit Ministers from having sexual relations with staff. Both Tudge and Porter were sent requests by Four Corners for interviews and answers to detailed questions prior to the program going to air. Tudge did not respond and Porter provided a brief statement in regards to his meeting with Malcolm Turnbull, denying that he had been questioned about allegations of his conduct as reported by Four Corners and that other matters had been discussed. Reactions to the Four Corners Program Responses to the program via mainstream media and on social media were intense, ranging from outrage at the behaviour of ministers on the program, to outrage that the program had aired the private lives of government ministers, with questions as to whether this was in the public interest. Porter himself disputed allegations of his behaviour aired in the program, labelling the claims as “totally false” and said he was considering legal options for “defamation” (Maiden). However, in a subsequent radio interview, Porter said “he did not want a legal battle to distract from his role” as a government minister (Moore). Commenting on the meeting he had with Turnbull in 2017, Porter asserted that Turnbull had not spoken to him about the alleged behaviour and that Turnbull “often summoned ministers in frustration about the amount of detail leaking from his Cabinet.” Porter also questioned the comments made by Dyer and Foley, saying he had not had contact with them “for decades” (Maiden). Yet, in a statement provided to the West Australian after the program aired, Porter admitted that Turnbull had raised the rumours of an incident and Porter had assured him they were unfounded. In a statement he again denied the allegations made in the Four Corners program, but admitted that he had “failed to be a good husband” (Moore). In a brief media release following the program, Tudge stated: “I regret my actions immensely and the hurt it caused my family. I also regret the hurt that Ms. Miller has experienced” (Grattan). Following the Four Corners story, Scott Morrison and Anne Ruston, the Minister for Families and Social Services, held a media conference to respond to the allegations raised by the program. Ruston was asked about her views of the treatment of women within the Liberal Party. However, she was cut off by Morrison who aired his grievance about the use of the term “bonk ban” by journalists, when referring to the ban on ministers having sexual relations with their staff. This interruption of a female minister responding to a question directed at her about allegations of misogyny drew world-wide attention. Ruston went on to reply that she felt “wholly supported” as a member of the party and in her Cabinet position. The video of the incident resulted in a backlash on social media. Ruston was asked about being cut off by the Prime Minister at subsequent media interviews and said she believed it to be “an entirely appropriate intervention” and reiterated her own experiences of being fully supported by other members of the Liberal Party (Maasdorp). Attempts to Silence the ABC A series of actions by government staff and ministers prior to, and following, the Four Corners program airing confirmed the assumption suggested by Milligan that “what happens in Canberra, stays in Canberra”. In the days leading to the airing of the Four Corners program, members of the federal government contacted ABC Chair Ita Buttrose, ABC Managing Director David Anderson, and other senior staff, criticising the program’s content before its release and questioning whether it was in the public interest. The Executive Producer for the program, Sally Neighbour, tweeted about the attempts to have the program cancelled on the day it was to air, and praised ABC management for not acceding to the demands. Anderson raised his concerns about the emails and calls to ABC senior staff while appearing at Senate estimates and said he found it “extraordinary” (Murphy & Davies). Buttrose also voiced her concerns and presented a lecture reinforcing the importance of “the ABC, democracy and the importance of press freedom”. As the public broadcaster, the ABC has a charter under the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act (1983) (ABC Act), which includes its right to media independence. The attempt by the federal government to influence programming at the ABC was seen as countering this independence. Following the airing of the Four Corners program, the Morrison Government, via Communications Minister Paul Fletcher, again contacted Ita Buttrose by letter, asking how reporting allegations of inappropriate behaviour by ministers was “in the public interest”. Fletcher made the letter public via his Twitter account on the same day. The letter “posed 15 questions to the ABC board requesting an explanation within 14 days as to how the episode complied with the ABC’s code of practice and its statutory obligations to provide accurate and impartial journalism”. Fletcher also admitted that a senior member of his staff had contacted a member of the ABC board prior to the show airing but denied this was “an attempt to lobby the board”. Reportedly the ABC was “considering a response to what it believes is a further attack on its independence” (Visentin & Samios). A Case of Double Standards Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells told Milligan (Four Corners) that she believes “values and beliefs are very important” when standing for political office, with a responsibility to electors to “abide by those values and beliefs because ultimately we will be judged by them”. It is her view that “there is an expectation that in service of the Australian public, [politicians] abide by the highest possible conduct and integrity”. Porter has portrayed himself as being a family man, and an advocate for people affected by sexual harassment and concerned about domestic violence. Four Corners included two videos of Porter, the first from June 2020, where he stated: “no-one should have to suffer sexual harassment at work or in any other part of their lives … . The Commonwealth Government takes it very seriously”. In the second recording, from 2015, Porter spoke on the topic of domestic violence, where he advocated ensuring “that young boys understand what a respectful relationship is … what is acceptable and … go on to be good fathers and good husbands”. Tudge and Joyce hold a conservative view of traditional marriage as being between a man and a woman. They made this very evident during the plebiscite on legalising same-sex marriage in 2017. One of Tudge’s statements during the public debate was shown on the Four Corners program, where he said that he had “reservations about changing the Marriage Act to include same-sex couples” as he viewed “marriage as an institution … primarily about creating a bond for the creation, love and care of children. And … if the definition is changed … then the institution itself would potentially be weakened”. Miller responded by confirming that this was the public image Tudge portrayed, however, she was upset, surprised and believed it to be hypocrisy “to hear him … speak in parliament … and express a view that for children to have the right upbringing they need to have a mother and father and a traditional kind of family environment” (Four Corners). Following the outcome to the plebiscite in favour of marriage equality (Evershed), both Tudge and Porter voted to pass the legislation, in line with their electorates, while Joyce abstained from voting on the legislation (against the wishes of his electorate), along with nine other MPs including Scott Morrison (Henderson). Turnbull told Milligan: there’s no question that some of the most trenchant opponents of same-sex marriage, all in the name of traditional marriage, were at the same time enthusiastic practitioners of traditional adultery. As I said many times, this issue of the controversy over same-sex marriage was dripping with hypocrisy and the pools were deepest at the feet of the sanctimonious. The Bubble Threatens to Burst On 25 January 2021, the advocate for survivors of sexual assault, Grace Tame, was announced as Australian of the Year. This began a series of events that has the Canberra bubble showing signs of potentially rupturing, or perhaps even imploding, as further allegations of sexual assault emerge. Inspired by the speech of Grace Tame at the awards ceremony and the fact that the Prime Minister was standing beside her, on 15 February 2021, former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins disclosed to journalist Samantha Maiden the allegation that she had been raped by a senior staffer in March 2019. Higgins also appeared in a television interview with Lisa Wilkinson that evening. The assault allegedly occurred after hours in the office of her boss, then Minister for Defence Industry and current Minister for Defence, Senator Linda Reynolds. Higgins said she reported what had occurred to the Minister and other staff, but felt she was being made to choose between her job and taking the matter to police. The 2019 federal election was called a few weeks later. Although Higgins wanted to continue in her “dream job” at Parliament House, she resigned prior to her disclosure in February 2021. Reynolds and Morrison were questioned extensively on the matter, in parliament and by the media, as to what they knew and when they were informed. Public outrage at the allegations was heightened by conflicting stories of these timelines and of who else knew. Although Reynolds had declared to the Senate that her office had provided full support to Higgins, it was revealed that her original response to the allegations to those in her office on the day of the media publication was to call Higgins a “lying cow”. After another public and media outcry, Reynolds apologised to Higgins (Hitch). Initially avoiding addressing the Higgins allegation directly, Morrison finally stated his empathy for Higgins in a doorstop media interview, reflecting advice he had received from his wife: Jenny and I spoke last night, and she said to me, "You have to think about this as a father first. What would you want to happen if it were our girls?" Jenny has a way of clarifying things, always has. On 3 March 2021, Grace Tame presented a powerful speech to the National Press Club. She was asked her view on the Prime Minister referring to his role as a father in the case of Brittany Higgins. Morrison’s statement had already enraged the public and certain members of the media, including many female journalists. Tame considered her response, then replied: “It shouldn’t take having children to have a conscience. [pause] And actually, on top of that, having children doesn’t guarantee a conscience.” The statement was met by applause from the gallery and received public acclaim. A further allegation of rape was made public on 27 February 2021, when friends of a deceased woman sent the Prime Minister a full statement from the woman that a current unnamed Cabinet Minister had raped her in 1988, when she was 16 years old (Yu). Morrison was asked whether he had spoken with the Minister, and stated that the Minister had denied the allegations and he saw no need to take further action, and would leave it to the police. New South Wales police subsequently announced that in light of the woman’s death last year, they could not proceed with an investigation and the matter was closed. The name of the woman has not been officially disclosed, however, on the afternoon of 3 March 2021 Attorney-General Christian Porter held a press conference naming himself as the Minister in question and vehemently denied the allegations. In light of the latest allegations, coverage by some journalists has shown the propensity to be complicit in protecting the Canberra bubble, while others (mainly women) endeavour to provide investigative journalistic coverage. The Outcome to Date Focus on the behaviour highlighted by “Inside the Canberra Bubble” in November 2020 waned quickly, with journalist Sean Kelly observing: since ABC’s Four Corners broadcast an episode exploring entrenched sexism in Parliament House, and more specifically within the Liberal Party, male politicians have said very, very, very little about it … . The episode in question was broadcast three weeks ago. It’s old news. But in this case that’s the point: every time the issue of sexism in Canberra is raised, it’s quickly rushed past, then forgotten (by men). Nothing happens. As noted earlier, Rachel Miller resigned from her position at Parliament House following the affair with Tudge. Barrister Kathleen Foley had held a position on the Victorian Bar Council, however three days after the Four Corners program went to air, Foley was voted off the council. According to Matilda Boseley from The Guardian, the change of council members was seen more broadly as an effort to remove progressives. Foley has also been vocal about gender issues within the legal profession. With the implementation of the new council, five members held their positions and 16 were replaced, seeing a change from 62 per cent female representation to 32 per cent (Boseley). No action was taken by the Prime Minister in light of the revelations by Four Corners: Christian Porter maintained his position as Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations, and Leader of the House; and Alan Tudge continued as a member of the Federal Cabinet, currently as Minister for Education and Youth. Despite ongoing calls for an independent enquiry into the most recent allegations, and for Porter to stand aside, he continues as Attorney-General, although he has taken sick leave to address mental health impacts of the allegations (ABC News). Reynolds continues to hold the position of Defence Minister following the Higgins allegations, and has also taken sick leave on the advice of her specialist, now extended to after the March 2021 sitting of parliament (Doran). While Scott Morrison stands in support of Porter amid the allegations against him, he has called for an enquiry into the workplace culture of Parliament House. This appears to be in response to claims that a fourth woman was assaulted, allegedly by Higgins’s perpetrator. The enquiry, to be led by Kate Jenkins, Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, is focussed on “how to change the culture, how to change the practices, and how to ensure that, in future, we do have the best possible environment for prevention and response” (Murphy). By focussing the narrative of the enquiry on the “culture” of Parliament House, it diverts attention from the allegations of rape by Higgins and against Porter. While the enquiry is broadly welcomed, any outcomes will require more than changes to the workplace: they will require a much broader social change in attitudes towards women. The rage of women, in light of the current gendered political culture, has evolved into a call to action. An initial protest march, planned for outside Parliament House on 15 March 2021, has expanded to rallies in all capital cities and many other towns and cities in Australia. Entitled Women’s March 4 Justice, thousands of people, both women and men, have indicated their intention to participate. It is acknowledged that many residents of Canberra have objected to their entire city being encompassed in the term “Canberra Bubble”. However, the term’s relevance to this current state of affairs reflects the culture of those working in and for the Australian parliament, rather than residents of the city. It also describes the way that those who work in all things related to the federal government carry an apparent assumption that the bubble offers them immunity from the usual behaviour and accountability required of those outside the bubble. It this “bubble” that needs to burst. With a Prime Minister seemingly unable to recognise the hypocrisy of Ministers allegedly acting in ways contrary to “good character”, and for Porter, with ongoing allegations of improper behaviour, as expected for the country’s highest law officer, and in his mishandling of Higgins claims as called out by Tame, the bursting of the “Canberra bubble” may cost him government. References ABC News. “Christian Porter Denies Historical Rape Allegation.” Transcript. 4 Mar. 2021. 4 Mar. 2021 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-03/christian-porter-press-conference-transcript/13212054>. Boseley, Matilda. “Barrister on Four Corners' Christian Porter Episode Loses Victorian Bar Council Seat.” The Guardian 11 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/nov/12/barrister-on-four-corners-christian-porter-episode-loses-victorian-bar-council-seat>. Buttrose, Ita. “The ABC, Democracy and the Importance of Press Freedom.” Lecture. Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. 12 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <http://about.abc.net.au/speeches/the-abc-democracy-and-the-importance-of-press-freedom/>. Doran, Matthew. “Linda Reynolds Extends Her Leave.” ABC News 7 Mar. 2021. 7 Mar. 2021 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-07/linda-reynolds-extends-her-leave-following-rape-allegation/13224824>. Evershed, Nick. “Full Results of Australia's Vote for Same-Sex Marriage.” The Guardian 15 Nov. 2017. 10 Dec. 2020. <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/datablog/ng-interactive/2017/nov/15/same-sex-marriage-survey-how-australia-voted-electorate-by-electorate>. Four Corners. “Inside the Canberra Bubble.” ABC Television 9 Nov. 2020. 20 Nov. 2020 <https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/inside-the-canberra-bubble/12864676>. Grattan, Michelle. “Porter Rejects Allegations of Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour and Threatens Legal Action.” The Conversation 10 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://theconversation.com/porter-rejects-allegations-149774>. Gwynn, Mark. “Australian National Dictionary Centre’s Word of the Year 2018.” Ozwords 13 Dec. 2018. 10 Dec 2020 <http://ozwords.org/?p=8643#more-8643>. Henderson, Anna. “Same-Sex Marriage: This Is Everyone Who Didn't Vote to Support the Bill.” ABC News 8 Dec. 2017. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-08/same-sex-marriage-who-didnt-vote/9240584>. Heurich, Angelika. “Women in Australian Politics: Maintaining the Rage against the Political Machine”. M/C Journal 22.1 (2019). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1498. Hitch, Georgia. “Defence Minister Linda Reynolds Apologises to Brittany Higgins.” ABC News 5 Mar. 2021. 5 Mar. 2021 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-05/linda-reynolds-apologises-to-brittany-higgins-lying-cow/13219796>. Kelly, Sean. “Morrison Should Heed His Own Advice – and Fix His Culture Problem.” Sydney Morning Herald 29 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-should-heed-his-own-advice-and-fix-his-culture-problem-20201129-p56iwn.html>. Maasdorp, James. “Scott Morrison Cops Backlash after Interrupting Anne Ruston.” ABC News 11 Nov. 2020. 10 Dec. 2020 <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-11/scott-morrison-anne-ruston-liberal-party-government/12873158>. 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IntroductionIn July 1997, the Mackay campus of Central Queensland University hosted a conference with the theme Regional Australia: Visions of Mackay. It was the first academic conference to be held at the young campus, and its aim was to provide an opportunity for academics, business people, government officials, and other interested parties to discuss their visions for the development of Mackay, a regional community of 75,000 people situated on the Central Queensland coast (Danaher). I delivered a presentation at that conference and authored a chapter in the book that emerged from its proceedings. The chapter entitled “Mackay Online” explored the potential impact that the Internet could have on the Mackay region, particularly in the areas of regional business, education, health, and entertainment (Pace). Two decades later, how does the reality compare with that vision?Broadband BluesAt the time of the Visions of Mackay conference, public commercial use of the Internet was in its infancy. Many Internet services and technologies that users take for granted today were uncommon or non-existent then. Examples include online video, video-conferencing, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), blogs, social media, peer-to-peer file sharing, payment gateways, content management systems, wireless data communications, smartphones, mobile applications, and tablet computers. In 1997, most users connected to the Internet using slow dial-up modems with speeds ranging from 28.8 Kbps to 33.6 Kbps. 56 Kbps modems had just become available. Lamenting these slow data transmission speeds, I looked forward to a time when widespread availability of high-bandwidth networks would allow the Internet’s services to “expand to include electronic commerce, home entertainment and desktop video-conferencing” (Pace 103). Although that future eventually arrived, I incorrectly anticipated how it would arrive.In 1997, Optus and Telstra were engaged in the rollout of hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) networks in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane for the Optus Vision and Foxtel pay TV services (Meredith). These HFC networks had a large amount of unused bandwidth, which both Telstra and Optus planned to use to provide broadband Internet services. Telstra's Big Pond Cable broadband service was already available to approximately one million households in Sydney and Melbourne (Taylor), and Optus was considering extending its cable network into regional Australia through partnerships with smaller regional telecommunications companies (Lewis). These promising developments seemed to point the way forward to a future high-bandwidth network, but that was not the case. A short time after the Visions of Mackay conference, Telstra and Optus ceased the rollout of their HFC networks in response to the invention of Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), a technology that increases the bandwidth of copper wire and enables Internet connections of up to 6 Mbps over the existing phone network. ADSL was significantly faster than a dial-up service, it was broadly available to homes and businesses across the country, and it did not require enormous investment in infrastructure. However, ADSL could not offer speeds anywhere near the 27 Mbps of the HFC networks. When it came to broadband provision, Australia seemed destined to continue playing catch-up with the rest of the world. According to data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in 2009 Australia ranked 18th in the world for broadband penetration, with 24.1 percent of Australians having a fixed-line broadband subscription. Statistics like these eventually prompted the federal government to commit to the deployment of a National Broadband Network (NBN). In 2009, the Kevin Rudd Government announced that the NBN would combine fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), fixed wireless, and satellite technologies to deliver Internet speeds of up to 100 Mbps to 90 percent of Australian homes, schools, and workplaces (Rudd).The rollout of the NBN in Mackay commenced in 2013 and continued, suburb by suburb, until its completion in 2017 (Frost, “Mackay”; Garvey). The rollout was anything but smooth. After a change of government in 2013, the NBN was redesigned to reduce costs. A mixed copper/optical technology known as fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) replaced FTTP as the preferred approach for providing most NBN connections. The resulting connection speeds were significantly slower than the 100 Mbps that was originally proposed. Many Mackay premises could only achieve a maximum speed of 40 Mbps, which led to some overcharging by Internet service providers, and subsequent compensation for failing to deliver services they had promised (“Optus”). Some Mackay residents even complained that their new NBN connections were slower than their former ADSL connections. NBN Co representatives claimed that the problems were due to “service providers not buying enough space in the network to provide the service they had promised to customers” (“Telcos”). Unsurprisingly, the number of complaints about the NBN that were lodged with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman skyrocketed during the last six months of 2017. Queensland complaints increased by approximately 40 percent when compared with the same period during the previous year (“Qld”).Despite the challenges presented by infrastructure limitations, the rollout of the NBN was a boost for the Mackay region. For some rural residents, it meant having reliable Internet access for the first time. Frost, for example, reports on the experiences of a Mackay couple who could not get an ADSL service at their rural home because it was too far away from the nearest telephone exchange. Unreliable 3G mobile broadband was the only option for operating their air-conditioning business. All of that changed with the arrival of the NBN. “It’s so fast we can run a number of things at the same time”, the couple reported (“NBN”).Networking the NationOne factor that contributed to the uptake of Internet services in the Mackay region after the Visions of Mackay conference was the Australian Government’s Networking the Nation (NTN) program. When the national telecommunications carrier Telstra was partially privatised in 1997, and further sold in 1999, proceeds from the sale were used to fund an ambitious communications infrastructure program named Networking the Nation (Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts). The program funded projects that improved the availability, accessibility, affordability, and use of communications facilities and services throughout regional Australia. Eligibility for funding was limited to not-for-profit organisations, including local councils, regional development organisations, community groups, local government associations, and state and territory governments.In 1998, the Mackay region received $930,000 in Networking the Nation funding for Mackay Regionlink, a project that aimed to provide equitable community access to online services, skills development for local residents, an affordable online presence for local business and community organisations, and increased external awareness of the Mackay region (Jewell et al.). One element of the project was a training program that provided basic Internet skills to 2,168 people across the region over a period of two years. A second element of the project involved the establishment of 20 public Internet access centres in locations throughout the region, such as libraries, community centres, and tourist information centres. The centres provided free Internet access to users and encouraged local participation and skill development. More than 9,200 users were recorded in these centres during the first year of the project, and the facilities remained active until 2006. A third element of the project was a regional web portal that provided a free easily-updated online presence for community organisations. The project aimed to have every business and community group in the Mackay region represented on the website, with hosting fees for the business web pages funding its ongoing operation and development. More than 6,000 organisations were listed on the site, and the project remained financially viable until 2005.The availability, affordability and use of communications facilities and services in Mackay increased significantly during the period of the Regionlink project. Changes in technology, services, markets, competition, and many other factors contributed to this increase, so it is difficult to ascertain the extent to which Mackay Regionlink fostered those outcomes. However, the large number of people who participated in the Regionlink training program and made use of the public Internet access centres, suggests that the project had a positive influence on digital literacy in the Mackay region.The Impact on BusinessThe Internet has transformed regional business for both consumers and business owners alike since the Visions of Mackay conference. When Mackay residents made a purchase in 1997, their choice of suppliers was limited to a few local businesses. Today they can shop online in a global market. Security concerns were initially a major obstacle to the growth of electronic commerce. Consumers were slow to adopt the Internet as a place for doing business, fearing that their credit card details would be vulnerable to hackers once they were placed online. After observing the efforts that finance and software companies were making to eliminate those obstacles, I anticipated that it would only be a matter of time before online transactions became commonplace:Consumers seeking a particular product will be able to quickly find the names of suitable suppliers around the world, compare their prices, and place an order with the one that can deliver the product at the cheapest price. (Pace 106)This expectation was soon fulfilled by the arrival of online payment systems such as PayPal in 1998, and online shopping services such as eBay in 1997. eBay is a global online auction and shopping website where individuals and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide. The eBay service is free to use for buyers, but sellers are charged modest fees when they make a sale. It exemplifies the notion of “friction-free capitalism” articulated by Gates (157).In 1997, regional Australian business owners were largely sceptical about the potential benefits the Internet could bring to their businesses. Only 11 percent of Australian businesses had some form of web presence, and less than 35 percent of those early adopters felt that their website was significant to their business (Department of Industry, Science and Tourism). Anticipating the significant opportunities that the Internet offered Mackay businesses to compete in new markets, I recommended that they work “towards the goal of providing products and services that meet the needs of international consumers as well as local ones” (107). In the two decades that have passed since that time, many Mackay businesses have been doing just that. One prime example is Big on Shoes (bigonshoes.com.au), a retailer of ladies’ shoes from sizes five to fifteen (Plane). Big on Shoes has physical shopfronts in Mackay and Moranbah, an online store that has been operating since 2009, and more than 12,000 followers on Facebook. This speciality store caters for women who have traditionally been unable to find shoes in their size. As the store’s customer base has grown within Australia and internationally, an unexpected transgender market has also emerged. In 2018 Big on Shoes was one of 30 regional businesses featured in the first Facebook and Instagram Annual Gift Guide, and it continues to build on its strengths (Cureton).The Impact on HealthThe growth of the Internet has improved the availability of specialist health services for people in the Mackay region. Traditionally, access to surgical services in Mackay has been much more limited than in metropolitan areas because of the shortage of specialists willing to practise in regional areas (Green). In 2003, a senior informant from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons bluntly described the Central Queensland region from Mackay to Gladstone as “a black hole in terms of surgery” (Birrell et al. 15). In 1997 I anticipated that, although the Internet would never completely replace a visit to a local doctor or hospital, it would provide tools that improve the availability of specialist medical services for people living in regional areas. Using these tools, doctors would be able to “analyse medical images captured from patients living in remote locations” and “diagnose patients at a distance” (Pace 108).These expectations have been realised in the form of Queensland Health’s Telehealth initiative, which permits medical specialists in Brisbane and Townsville to conduct consultations with patients at the Mackay Base Hospital using video-conference technology. Telehealth reduces the need for patients to travel for specialist advice, and it provides health professionals with access to peer support. Averill (7), for example, reports on the experience of a breast cancer patient at the Mackay Base Hospital who was able to participate in a drug trial with a Townsville oncologist through the Telehealth network. Mackay health professionals organised the patient’s scans, administered blood tests, and checked her lymph nodes, blood pressure and weight. Townsville health professionals then used this information to advise the Mackay team about her ongoing treatment. The patient expressed appreciation that the service allowed her to avoid the lengthy round-trip to Townsville. Prior to being offered the Telehealth option, she had refused to participate in the trial because “the trip was just too much of a stumbling block” (Averill 7).The Impact on Media and EntertainmentThe field of media and entertainment is another aspect of regional life that has been reshaped by the Internet since the Visions of Mackay conference. Most of these changes have been equally apparent in both regional and metropolitan areas. Over the past decade, the way individuals consume media has been transformed by new online services offering user-generated video, video-on-demand, and catch-up TV. These developments were among the changes I anticipated in 1997:The convergence of television and the Internet will stimulate the creation of new services such as video-on-demand. Today television is a synchronous media—programs are usually viewed while they are being broadcast. When high-quality video can be transmitted over the information superhighway, users will be able to watch what they want, when and where they like. […] Newly released movies will continue to be rented, but probably not from stores. Instead, consumers will shop on the information superhighway for movies that can be delivered on demand.In the mid-2000s, free online video-sharing services such as YouTube and Vimeo began to emerge. These websites allow users to freely upload, view, share, comment on, and curate online videos. Subscription-based streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime have also become increasingly popular since that time. These services offer online streaming of a library of films and television programs for a fee of less than 20 dollars per month. Computers, smart TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, mobile phones, tablets, and other devices provide a multitude of ways of accessing streaming services. Some of these devices cost less than 100 dollars, while higher-end electronic devices include the capability as a bundled feature. Netflix became available in Mackay at the time of its Australian launch in 2015. The growth of streaming services greatly reduced the demand for video rental shops in the region, and all closed down as a result. The last remaining video rental store in Mackay closed its doors in 2018 after trading for 26 years (“Last”).Some of the most dramatic transformations that have occurred the field of media and entertainment were not anticipated in 1997. The rise of mobile technology, including wireless data communications, smartphones, mobile applications, and tablet computers, was largely unforeseen at that time. Some Internet luminaries such as Vinton Cerf expected that mobile access to the Internet via laptop computers would become commonplace (Lange), but this view did not encompass the evolution of smartphones, and it was not widely held. Similarly, the rise of social media services and the impact they have had on the way people share content and communicate was generally unexpected. In some respects, these phenomena resemble the Black Swan events described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (xvii)—surprising events with a major effect that are often inappropriately rationalised after the fact. They remind us of how difficult it is to predict the future media landscape by extrapolating from things we know, while failing to take into consideration what we do not know.The Challenge for MackayIn 1997, when exploring the potential impact that the Internet could have on the Mackay region, I identified a special challenge that the community faced if it wanted to be competitive in this new environment:The region has traditionally prospered from industries that control physical resources such as coal, sugar and tourism, but over the last two decades there has been a global ‘shift away from physical assets and towards information as the principal driver of wealth creation’ (Petre and Harrington 1996). The risk for Mackay is that its residents may be inclined to believe that wealth can only be created by means of industries that control physical assets. The community must realise that its value-added information is at least as precious as its abundant natural resources. (110)The Mackay region has not responded well to this challenge, as evidenced by measures such as the Knowledge City Index (KCI), a collection of six indicators that assess how well a city is positioned to grow and advance in today’s technology-driven, knowledge-based economy. A 2017 study used the KCI to conduct a comparative analysis of 25 Australian cities (Pratchett, Hu, Walsh, and Tuli). Mackay rated reasonably well in the areas of Income and Digital Access. But the city’s ratings were “very limited across all the other measures of the KCI”: Knowledge Capacity, Knowledge Mobility, Knowledge Industries and Smart Work (44).The need to be competitive in a technology-driven, knowledge-based economy is likely to become even more pressing in the years ahead. The 2017 World Energy Outlook Report estimated that China’s coal use is likely to have peaked in 2013 amid a rapid shift toward renewable energy, which means that demand for Mackay’s coal will continue to decline (International Energy Agency). The sugar industry is in crisis, finding itself unable to diversify its revenue base or increase production enough to offset falling global sugar prices (Rynne). The region’s biggest tourism drawcard, the Great Barrier Reef, continues to be degraded by mass coral bleaching events and ongoing threats posed by climate change and poor water quality (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority). All of these developments have disturbing implications for Mackay’s regional economy and its reliance on coal, sugar, and tourism. Diversifying the local economy through the introduction of new knowledge industries would be one way of preparing the Mackay region for the impact of new technologies and the economic challenges that lie ahead.ReferencesAverill, Zizi. “Webcam Consultations.” Daily Mercury 22 Nov. 2018: 7.Birrell, Bob, Lesleyanne Hawthorne, and Virginia Rapson. The Outlook for Surgical Services in Australasia. Melbourne: Monash University Centre for Population and Urban Research, 2003.Cureton, Aidan. “Big Shoes, Big Ideas.” Daily Mercury 8 Dec. 2018: 12.Danaher, Geoff. Ed. Visions of Mackay: Conference Papers. Rockhampton: Central Queensland UP, 1998.Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. Networking the Nation: Evaluation of Outcomes and Impacts. Canberra: Australian Government, 2005.Department of Industry, Science and Tourism. Electronic Commerce in Australia. Canberra: Australian Government, 1998.Frost, Pamela. “Mackay Is Up with Switch to Speed to NBN.” Daily Mercury 15 Aug. 2013: 8.———. “NBN Boost to Business.” Daily Mercury 29 Oct. 2013: 3.Gates, Bill. The Road Ahead. New York: Viking Penguin, 1995.Garvey, Cas. “NBN Rollout Hit, Miss in Mackay.” Daily Mercury 11 Jul. 2017: 6.Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. Reef Blueprint: Great Barrier Reef Blueprint for Resilience. Townsville: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, 2017.Green, Anthony. “Surgical Services and Referrals in Rural and Remote Australia.” Medical Journal of Australia 177.2 (2002): 110–11.International Energy Agency. World Energy Outlook 2017. France: IEA Publications, 2017.Jewell, Roderick, Mary O’Flynn, Fiorella De Cindio, and Margaret Cameron. “RCM and MRL—A Reflection on Two Approaches to Constructing Communication Memory.” Constructing and Sharing Memory: Community Informatics, Identity and Empowerment. Eds. Larry Stillman and Graeme Johanson. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. 73–86.Lange, Larry. “The Internet: Where’s It All Going?” Information Week 17 Jul. 1995: 30.“Last Man Standing Shuts Doors after 26 Years of Trade.” Daily Mercury 28 Aug. 2018: 7.Lewis, Steve. “Optus Plans to Share Cost Burden.” Australian Financial Review 22 May 1997: 26.Meredith, Helen. “Time Short for Cable Modem.” Australian Financial Review 10 Apr. 1997: 42Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York: Random House, 2007.“Optus Offers Comp for Slow NBN.” Daily Mercury 10 Nov. 2017: 15.Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. “Fixed Broadband Subscriptions.” OECD Data, n.d. <https://data.oecd.org/broadband/fixed-broadband-subscriptions.htm>.Pace, Steven. “Mackay Online.” Visions of Mackay: Conference Papers. Ed. Geoff Danaher. Rockhampton: Central Queensland University Press, 1998. 111–19.Petre, Daniel and David Harrington. The Clever Country? Australia’s Digital Future. Sydney: Lansdown Publishing, 1996.Plane, Melanie. “A Shoe-In for Big Success.” Daily Mercury 9 Sep. 2017: 6.Pratchett, Lawrence, Richard Hu, Michael Walsh, and Sajeda Tuli. The Knowledge City Index: A Tale of 25 Cities in Australia. Canberra: University of Canberra neXus Research Centre, 2017.“Qld Customers NB-uN Happy Complaints about NBN Service Double in 12 Months.” Daily Mercury 17 Apr. 2018: 1.Rudd, Kevin. “Media Release: New National Broadband Network.” Parliament of Australia Press Release, 7 Apr. 2009 <https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id:"media/pressrel/PS8T6">.Rynne, David. “Revitalising the Sugar Industry.” Sugar Policy Insights Feb. 2019: 2–3.Taylor, Emma. “A Dip in the Pond.” Sydney Morning Herald 16 Aug. 1997: 12.“Telcos and NBN Co in a Crisis.” Daily Mercury 27 Jul. 2017: 6.

Refereed publications (also known as peer-reviewed) are the currency of academia, yet many PhD theses in Australia result in only one or two such papers. Typically, a doctoral thesis requires the candidate to present (and pass) a public Confirmation Seminar, around nine to twelve months into candidacy, in which a panel of the candidate’s supervisors and invited experts adjudicate upon whether the work is likely to continue and ultimately succeed in the goal of a coherent and original contribution to knowledge. A Final Seminar, also public and sometimes involving the traditional viva voce or oral defence of the thesis, is presented two or three months before approval is given to send the 80,000 to 100,000 word tome off for external examination. And that soul-destroying or elation-releasing examiner’s verdict can be many months in the delivery: a limbo-like period during which the candidate’s status as a student is ended and her or his receipt of any scholarship or funding guerdon is terminated with perfunctory speed. This is the only time most students spend seriously writing up their research for publication although, naturally, many are more involved in job hunting as they pin their hopes on passing the thesis examination.There is, however, a slightly more palatable alternative to this nail-biting process of the traditional PhD, and that is the PhD by Published Papers (also known as PhD by Publications or PhD by Published Works). The form of my own soon-to-be-submitted thesis, it permits the submission for examination of a collection of papers that have been refereed and accepted (or are in the process of being refereed) for publication in academic journals or books. Apart from the obvious benefits in getting published early in one’s (hopefully) burgeoning academic career, it also takes away a lot of the stress come final submission time. After all, I try to assure myself, the thesis examiners can’t really discredit the process of double-blind, peer-review the bulk of the thesis has already undergone: their job is to examine how well I’ve unified the papers into a cohesive thesis … right? But perhaps they should at least be wary, because, unfortunately, the requirements for this kind of PhD vary considerably from institution to institution and there have been some cases where the submitted work is of questionable quality compared to that produced by graduates from more demanding universities. Hence, this paper argues that in my subject area of interest—film and television studies—there is a huge range in the set requirements for doctorates, from universities that award the degree to film artists for prior published work that has undergone little or no academic scrutiny and has involved little or no on-campus participation to at least three Australian universities that require candidates be enrolled for a minimum period of full-time study and only submit scholarly work generated and published (or submitted for publication) during candidature. I would also suggest that uncertainty about where a graduate’s work rests on this continuum risks confusing a hard-won PhD by Published Papers with the sometimes risible honorary doctorate. Let’s begin by dredging the depths of those murky, quasi-academic waters to examine the occasionally less-than-salubrious honorary doctorate. The conferring of this degree is generally a recognition of an individual’s body of (usually published) work but is often conferred for contributions to knowledge or society in general that are not even remotely academic. The honorary doctorate does not usually carry with it the right to use the title “Dr” (although many self-aggrandising recipients in the non-academic world flout this unwritten code of conduct, and, indeed, Monash University’s Monash Magazine had no hesitation in describing its 2008 recipient, musician, screenwriter, and art-school-dropout Nick Cave, as “Dr Cave” (O’Loughlin)). Some shady universities even offer such degrees for sale or ‘donation’ and thus do great damage to that institution’s credibility as well as to the credibility of the degree itself. Such overseas “diploma mills”—including Ashwood University, Belford University, Glendale University and Suffield University—are identified by their advertising of “Life Experience Degrees,” for which a curriculum vitae outlining the prospective graduand’s oeuvre is accepted on face value as long as their credit cards are not rejected. An aspiring screen auteur simply specifies film and television as their major and before you can shout “Cut!” there’s a degree in the mail. Most of these pseudo-universities are not based in Australia but are perfectly happy to confer their ‘titles’ to any well-heeled, vanity-driven Australians capable of completing the online form. Nevertheless, many academics fear a similarly disreputable marketplace might develop here, and Norfolk Island-based Greenwich University presents a particularly illuminating example. Previously empowered by an Act of Parliament consented to by Senator Ian Macdonald, the then Minister for Territories, this “university” had the legal right to confer honorary degrees from 1998. The Act was eventually overridden by legislation passed in 2002, after a concerted effort by the Australian Universities Quality Agency Ltd. and the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee to force the accreditation requirements of the Australian Qualifications Framework upon the institution in question, thus preventing it from making degrees available for purchase over the Internet. Greenwich University did not seek re-approval and soon relocated to its original home of Hawaii (Brown). But even real universities flounder in similarly muddy waters when, unsolicited, they make dubious decisions to grant degrees to individuals they hold in high esteem. Although meaning well by not courting pecuniary gain, they nevertheless invite criticism over their choice of recipient for their honoris causa, despite the decision usually only being reached after a process of debate and discussion by university committees. Often people are rewarded, it seems, as much for their fame as for their achievements or publications. One such example of a celebrity who has had his onscreen renown recognised by an honorary doctorate is film and television actor/comedian Billy Connolly who was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by The University of Glasgow in 2006, prompting Stuart Jeffries to complain that “something has gone terribly wrong in British academia” (Jeffries). Eileen McNamara also bemoans the levels to which some institutions will sink to in search of media attention and exposure, when she writes of St Andrews University in Scotland conferring an honorary doctorate to film actor and producer, Michael Douglas: “What was designed to acknowledge intellectual achievement has devolved into a publicity grab with universities competing for celebrity honorees” (McNamara). Fame as an actor (and the list gets even weirder when the scope of enquiry is widened beyond the field of film and television), seems to be an achievement worth recognising with an honorary doctorate, according to some universities, and this kind of discredit is best avoided by Australian institutions of higher learning if they are to maintain credibility. Certainly, universities down under would do well to follow elsewhere than in the footprints of Long Island University’s Southampton College. Perhaps the height of academic prostitution of parchments for the attention of mass media occurred when in 1996 this US school bestowed an Honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters upon that mop-like puppet of film and television fame known as the “muppet,” Kermit the Frog. Indeed, this polystyrene and cloth creation with an anonymous hand operating its mouth had its acceptance speech duly published (see “Kermit’s Acceptance Speech”) and the Long Island University’s Southampton College received much valuable press. After all, any publicity is good publicity. Or perhaps this furry frog’s honorary degree was a cynical stunt meant to highlight the ridiculousness of the practice? In 1986 a similar example, much closer to my own home, occurred when in anticipation and condemnation of the conferral of an honorary doctorate upon Prince Philip by Monash University in Melbourne, the “Members of the Monash Association of Students had earlier given a 21-month-old Chihuahua an honorary science degree” (Jeffries), effectively suggesting that the honorary doctorate is, in fact, a dog of a degree. On a more serious note, there have been honorary doctorates conferred upon far more worthy recipients in the field of film and television by some Australian universities. Indigenous film-maker Tracey Moffatt was awarded an honorary doctorate by Griffith University in November of 2004. Moffatt was a graduate of the Griffith University’s film school and had an excellent body of work including the films Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1990) and beDevil (1993). Acclaimed playwright and screenwriter David Williamson was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by The University of Queensland in December of 2004. His work had previously picked up four Australian Film Institute awards for best screenplay. An Honorary Doctorate of Visual and Performing Arts was given to film director Fred Schepisi AO by The University of Melbourne in May of 2006. His films had also been earlier recognised with Australian Film Institute awards as well as the Golden Globe Best Miniseries or Television Movie award for Empire Falls in 2006. Director George Miller was crowned with an Honorary Doctorate in Film from the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School in April 2007, although he already had a medical doctor’s testamur on his wall. In May of this year, filmmaker George Gittoes, a fine arts dropout from The University of Sydney, received an honorary doctorate by The University of New South Wales. His documentaries, Soundtrack to War (2005) and Rampage (2006), screened at the Sydney and Berlin film festivals, and he has been employed by the Australian Government as an official war artist. Interestingly, the high quality screen work recognised by these Australian universities may have earned the recipients ‘real’ PhDs had they sought the qualification. Many of these film artists could have just as easily submitted their work for the degree of PhD by Published Papers at several universities that accept prior work in lieu of an original exegesis, and where a film is equated with a book or journal article. But such universities still invite comparisons of their PhDs by Published Papers with honorary doctorates due to rather too-easy-to-meet criteria. The privately funded Bond University, for example, recommends a minimum full-time enrolment of just three months and certainly seems more lax in its regulations than other Antipodean institution: a healthy curriculum vitae and payment of the prescribed fee (currently AUD$24,500 per annum) are the only requirements. Restricting my enquiries once again to the field of my own research, film and television, I note that Dr. Ingo Petzke achieved his 2004 PhD by Published Works based upon films produced in Germany well before enrolling at Bond, contextualized within a discussion of the history of avant-garde film-making in that country. Might not a cynic enquire as to how this PhD significantly differs from an honorary doctorate? Although Petzke undoubtedly paid his fees and met all of Bond’s requirements for his thesis entitled Slow Motion: Thirty Years in Film, one cannot criticise that cynic for wondering if Petzke’s films are indeed equivalent to a collection of refereed papers. It should be noted that Bond is not alone when it comes to awarding candidates the PhD by Published Papers for work published or screened in the distant past. Although yet to grant it in the area of film or television, Swinburne University of Technology (SUT) is an institution that distinctly specifies its PhD by Publications is to be awarded for “research which has been carried out prior to admission to candidature” (8). Similarly, the Griffith Law School states: “The PhD (by publications) is awarded to established researchers who have an international reputation based on already published works” (1). It appears that Bond is no solitary voice in the academic wilderness, for SUT and the Griffith Law School also apparently consider the usual milestones of Confirmation and Final Seminars to be unnecessary if the so-called candidate is already well published. Like Bond, Griffith University (GU) is prepared to consider a collection of films to be equivalent to a number of refereed papers. Dr Ian Lang’s 2002 PhD (by Publication) thesis entitled Conditional Truths: Remapping Paths To Documentary ‘Independence’ contains not refereed, scholarly articles but the following videos: Wheels Across the Himalaya (1981); Yallambee, People of Hope (1986); This Is What I Call Living (1988); The Art of Place: Hanoi Brisbane Art Exchange (1995); and Millennium Shift: The Search for New World Art (1997). While this is a most impressive body of work, and is well unified by appropriate discussion within the thesis, the cynic who raised eyebrows at Petzke’s thesis might also be questioning this thesis: Dr Lang’s videos all preceded enrolment at GU and none have been refereed or acknowledged with major prizes. Certainly, the act of releasing a film for distribution has much in common with book publishing, but should these videos be considered to be on a par with academic papers published in, say, the prestigious and demanding journal Screen? While recognition at awards ceremonies might arguably correlate with peer review there is still the question as to how scholarly a film actually is. Of course, documentary films such as those in Lang’s thesis can be shown to be addressing gaps in the literature, as is the expectation of any research paper, but the onus remains on the author/film-maker to demonstrate this via a detailed contextual review and a well-written, erudite argument that unifies the works into a cohesive thesis. This Lang has done, to the extent that suspicious cynic might wonder why he chose not to present his work for a standard PhD award. Another issue unaddressed by most institutions is the possibility that the publications have been self-refereed or refereed by the candidate’s editorial colleagues in a case wherein the papers appear in a book the candidate has edited or co-edited. Dr Gillian Swanson’s 2004 GU thesis Towards a Cultural History of Private Life: Sexual Character, Consuming Practices and Cultural Knowledge, which addresses amongst many other cultural artefacts the film Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean 1962), has nine publications: five of which come from two books she co-edited, Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and Cinema in Britain in World War Two, (Gledhill and Swanson 1996) and Deciphering Culture: Ordinary Curiosities and Subjective Narratives (Crisp et al 2000). While few would dispute the quality of Swanson’s work, the persistent cynic might wonder if these five papers really qualify as refereed publications. The tacit understanding of a refereed publication is that it is blind reviewed i.e. the contributor’s name is removed from the document. Such a system is used to prevent bias and favouritism but this level of anonymity might be absent when the contributor to a book is also one of the book’s editors. Of course, Dr Swanson probably took great care to distance herself from the refereeing process undertaken by her co-editors, but without an inbuilt check, allegations of cronyism from unfriendly cynics may well result. A related factor in making comparisons of different university’s PhDs by Published Papers is the requirements different universities have about the standard of the journal the paper is published in. It used to be a simple matter in Australia: the government’s Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) held a Register of Refereed Journals. If your benefactor in disseminating your work was on the list, your publications were of near-unquestionable quality. Not any more: DEST will no longer accept nominations for listing on the Register and will not undertake to rule on whether a particular journal article meets the HERDC [Higher Education Research Data Collection] requirements for inclusion in publication counts. HEPs [Higher Education Providers] have always had the discretion to determine if a publication produced in a journal meets the requirements for inclusion in the HERDC regardless of whether or not the journal was included on the Register of Refereed Journals. As stated in the HERDC specifications, the Register is not an exhaustive list of all journals which satisfy the peer-review requirements (DEST). The last listing for the DEST Register of Refereed Journals was the 3rd of February 2006, making way for a new tiered list of academic journals, which is currently under review in the Australian tertiary education sector (see discussion of this development in the Redden and Mitchell articles in this issue). In the interim, some university faculties created their own rankings of journals, but not the Faculty of Creative Industries at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) where I am studying for my PhD by Published Papers. Although QUT does not have a list of ranked journals for a candidate to submit papers to, it is otherwise quite strict in its requirements. The QUT University Regulations state, “Papers submitted as a PhD thesis must be closely related in terms of subject matter and form a cohesive research narrative” (QUT PhD regulation 14.1.2). Thus there is the requirement at QUT that apart from the usual introduction, methodology and literature review, an argument must be made as to how the papers present a sustained research project via “an overarching discussion of the main features linking the publications” (14.2.12). It is also therein stated that it should be an “account of research progress linking the research papers” (4.2.6). In other words, a unifying essay must make an argument for consideration of the sometimes diversely published papers as a cohesive body of work, undertaken in a deliberate journey of research. In my own case, an aural auteur analysis of sound in the films of Rolf de Heer, I argue that my published papers (eight in total) represent a journey from genre analysis (one paper) to standard auteur analysis (three papers) to an argument that sound should be considered in auteur analysis (one paper) to the major innovation of the thesis, aural auteur analysis (three papers). It should also be noted that unlike Bond, GU or SUT, the QUT regulations for the standard PhD still apply: a Confirmation Seminar, Final Seminar and a minimum two years of full-time enrolment (with a minimum of three months residency in Brisbane) are all compulsory. Such milestones and sine qua non ensure the candidate’s academic progress and intellectual development such that she or he is able to confidently engage in meaningful quodlibets regarding the thesis’s topic. Another interesting and significant feature of the QUT guidelines for this type of degree is the edict that papers submitted must be “published, accepted or submitted during the period of candidature” (14.1.1). Similarly, the University of Canberra (UC) states “The articles or other published material must be prepared during the period of candidature” (10). Likewise, Edith Cowan University (ECU) will confer its PhD by Publications to those candidates whose thesis consists of “only papers published in refereed scholarly media during the period of enrolment” (2). In other words, one cannot simply front up to ECU, QUT, or UC with a résumé of articles or films published over a lifetime of writing or film-making and ask for a PhD by Published Papers. Publications of the candidate prepared prior to commencement of candidature are simply not acceptable at these institutions and such PhDs by Published Papers from QUT, UC and ECU are entirely different to those offered by Bond, GU and SUT. Furthermore, without a requirement for a substantial period of enrolment and residency, recipients of PhDs by Published Papers from Bond, GU, or SUT are unlikely to have participated significantly in the research environment of their relevant faculty and peers. Such newly minted doctors may be as unfamiliar with the campus and its research activities as the recipient of an honorary doctorate usually is, as he or she poses for the media’s cameras en route to the glamorous awards ceremony. Much of my argument in this paper is built upon the assumption that the process of refereeing a paper (or for that matter, a film) guarantees a high level of academic rigour, but I confess that this premise is patently naïve, if not actually flawed. Refereeing can result in the rejection of new ideas that conflict with the established opinions of the referees. Interdisciplinary collaboration can be impeded and the lack of referee’s accountability is a potential problem, too. It can also be no less nail-biting a process than the examination of a finished thesis, given that some journals take over a year to complete the refereeing process, and some journal’s editorial committees have recognised this shortcoming. Despite being a mainstay of its editorial approach since 1869, the prestigious science journal, Nature, which only publishes about 7% of its submissions, has led the way with regard to varying the procedure of refereeing, implementing in 2006 a four-month trial period of ‘Open Peer Review’. Their website states, Authors could choose to have their submissions posted on a preprint server for open comments, in parallel with the conventional peer review process. Anyone in the field could then post comments, provided they were prepared to identify themselves. Once the usual confidential peer review process is complete, the public ‘open peer review’ process was closed and the editors made their decision about publication with the help of all reports and comments (Campbell). Unfortunately, the experiment was unpopular with both authors and online peer reviewers. What the Nature experiment does demonstrate, however, is that the traditional process of blind refereeing is not yet perfected and can possibly evolve into something less problematic in the future. Until then, refereeing continues to be the best system there is for applying structured academic scrutiny to submitted papers. With the reforms of the higher education sector, including forced mergers of universities and colleges of advanced education and the re-introduction of university fees (carried out under the aegis of John Dawkins, Minister for Employment, Education and Training from 1987 to 1991), and the subsequent rationing of monies according to research dividends (calculated according to numbers of research degree conferrals and publications), there has been a veritable explosion in the number of institutions offering PhDs in Australia. But the general public may not always be capable of differentiating between legitimately accredited programs and diploma mills, given that the requirements for the first differ substantially. From relatively easily obtainable PhDs by Published Papers at Bond, GU and SUT to more rigorous requirements at ECU, QUT and UC, there is undoubtedly a huge range in the demands of degrees that recognise a candidate’s published body of work. The cynical reader may assume that with this paper I am simply trying to shore up my own forthcoming graduation with a PhD by Published papers from potential criticisms that it is on par with a ‘purchased’ doctorate. Perhaps they are right, for this is a new degree in QUT’s Creative Industries faculty and has only been awarded to one other candidate (Dr Marcus Foth for his 2006 thesis entitled Towards a Design Methodology to Support Social Networks of Residents in Inner-City Apartment Buildings). But I believe QUT is setting a benchmark, along with ECU and UC, to which other universities should aspire. In conclusion, I believe further efforts should be undertaken to heighten the differences in status between PhDs by Published Papers generated during enrolment, PhDs by Published Papers generated before enrolment and honorary doctorates awarded for non-academic published work. Failure to do so courts cynical comparison of all PhD by Published Papers with unearnt doctorates bought from Internet shysters. References Brown, George. “Protecting Australia’s Higher Education System: A Proactive Versus Reactive Approach in Review (1999–2004).” Proceedings of the Australian Universities Quality Forum 2004. Australian Universities Quality Agency, 2004. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.auqa.edu.au/auqf/2004/program/papers/Brown.pdf>. Campbell, Philip. “Nature Peer Review Trial and Debate.” Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science. December 2006. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/> Crisp, Jane, Kay Ferres, and Gillian Swanson, eds. Deciphering Culture: Ordinary Curiosities and Subjective Narratives. London: Routledge, 2000. Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST). “Closed—Register of Refereed Journals.” Higher Education Research Data Collection, 2008. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/research_sector/online_forms_services/ higher_education_research_data_ collection.htm>. Edith Cowan University. “Policy Content.” Postgraduate Research: Thesis by Publication, 2003. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.ecu.edu.au/GPPS/policies_db/tmp/ac063.pdf>. Gledhill, Christine, and Gillian Swanson, eds. Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and Cinema in Britain in World War Two. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1996. Griffith Law School, Griffith University. Handbook for Research Higher Degree Students. 24 March 2004. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.griffith.edu.au/centre/slrc/pdf/rhdhandbook.pdf>. Jeffries, Stuart. “I’m a celebrity, get me an honorary degree!” The Guardian 6 July 2006. 11 June 2008 ‹http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,1813525,00.html>. Kermit the Frog. “Kermit’s Commencement Address at Southampton Graduate Campus.” Long Island University News 19 May 1996. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.southampton.liu.edu/news/commence/1996/kermit.htm>. McNamara, Eileen. “Honorary senselessness.” The Boston Globe 7 May 2006. ‹http://www. boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/05/07/honorary_senselessness/>. O’Loughlin, Shaunnagh. “Doctor Cave.” Monash Magazine 21 (May 2008). 13 Aug. 2008 ‹http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/monmag/issue21-2008/alumni/cave.html>. Queensland University of Technology. “Presentation of PhD Theses by Published Papers.” Queensland University of Technology Doctor of Philosophy Regulations (IF49). 12 Oct. 2007. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.mopp.qut.edu.au/Appendix/appendix09.jsp#14%20Presentation %20of%20PhD%20Theses>. Swinburne University of Technology. Research Higher Degrees and Policies. 14 Nov. 2007. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.swinburne.edu.au/corporate/registrar/ppd/docs/RHDpolicy& procedure.pdf>. University of Canberra. Higher Degrees by Research: Policy and Procedures (The Gold Book). 7.3.3.27 (a). 15 Nov. 2004. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.canberra.edu.au/research/attachments/ goldbook/Pt207_AB20approved3220arp07.pdf>.

IntroductionThe existential question today is not whether to be or not to be, but how one can become what one truly is. (Golomb 200)In contemporary Western culture the ideal of living authentically, of being “true to yourself,” is ubiquitous. Authenticity is “taken for granted” as an absolute value in a multitude of areas, from music, to travel to identity (Lindholm 1). A core component of authentic selfhood is to find an occupation that is a “passion:” work that is “really you.” This article draws on recent qualitative interviews with Australians from a range of occupations about work, identity and meaning (James). It will demonstrate that for these contemporary individuals, occupation is often closely linked to perceptions of authentic selfhood. I begin by overviewing the significance and presence of authenticity as a value in contemporary culture through discussions of reality television and self-help literature focussed on careers. This is followed by a discussion of sociological theories of authenticity, drawing out the connections between the authentic self, modernity and work. The final section uses examples from the interviews to argue that the ideal of work being an extension of the authentic self is compelling because in providing direction and purpose, it helps the individual avoid anomie, disenchantment and other modern malaises (Taylor).The Authentic Self and Career Guidance in Contemporary Popular CultureThe prevalence of authenticity in contemporary Western popular culture can be seen in reality television programs like Master Chef (a cooking competition) and The Voice (a singing competition). Generally, contestants take part in the show in order to “follow their dreams” and pursue the career they feel they were “destined” for. When elimination is immanent, those at risk of departure are given one last chance to tell the judges what being in the competition means to them. This usually takes the form of a tearful monologue in which the contestant explains that the past few weeks have been the best of their life, that they finally feel “alive” and that they have found their “passion.” In these shows, finding work that is “really you”—that is an extension of your authentic-self—is portrayed as being a fundamental component of fulfillment and self-actualization.The same message is delivered in self-help media and texts. Since the 1970s, “finding your passion” and “finding yourself” have been popular subjects for the genre. The best known of these books is perhaps Richard Bolles’s What Color is Your Parachute?: a job-hunting manual aimed primarily at people looking for a career change. First published in 1970, a new edition has been released every year and there are over 10 million copies in print. In 1995 it was included in the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book’s 25 Books That Have Shaped Readers’ Lives, placing Bolles in the company of Cervantes and Tolstoy (Bolles).Bolles’s book and similar career guidance titles generally follow a pattern of providing exercises for the reader to help them discover the “real you,” which then becomes the basis for choosing the “right” occupation, or as Bolles puts it, “first deciding who you are before deciding the kind of work you want to pursue.” Another best-selling self-help writer is Phil McGraw or “Dr. Phil,” better known for his television program than his books. In his Self Matters—Creating Your Life from the Inside Out, McGraw begins bytelling the story of his own search for his authentic “passion.” Before moving into television, McGraw spent ten years working as a practicing psychiatrist. He recalls:So much of what I did—while totally okay if it had been what I had a passion for—was as unnatural for me as it would be for a dog. It didn’t come from the heart. It wasn’t something that sprang from who I really was ... I wasn’t doing what was meaningful for me. I wasn’t doing what I was good at and therefore was not pursuing my mission in life, my purpose for being here … You and everyone else has a mission, a purpose in life that cannot be denied if you are to live fully. If you have no purpose, you have no passion. If you have no passion, you have sold yourself out (7–12).McGraw connects living authentically with living meaningfully. Working in an occupation that is in accordance with the authentic self gives one’s life purpose. This is the same message Oprah Winfrey chose to deliver in the final episode of the The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was watched by more than 16 million viewers in the U.S. alone. Rather than following the usual pattern of the show and interview celebrity guests, Winfrey chose to talk directly to her viewers about what matters in life:Everybody has a calling, and your real job in life is to figure out what that is and get about the business of doing it. Every time we have seen a person on this stage who is a success in their life, they spoke of the job, and they spoke of the juice that they receive from doing what they knew they were meant to be doing [...] Because that is what a calling is. It lights you up and it lets you know that you are exactly where you're supposed to be, doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. And that is what I want for all of you and hope that you will take from this show. To live from the heart of yourself.Like McGraw, Winfrey draws a link between living authentically—living “from the heart”—and finding a “calling.” The message here is that the person whose career is in accordance with their authentic self can live with certainty, direction and purpose. Authenticity may act as a buffer against the anomie and disenchantment that arguably plague individuals in late modernity (Elliott & du Gay).Disenchantment, Modernity and Authenticity For many sociologists, most famously Max Weber, finding something that gives life purpose is the great challenge for individuals in the modern West. In a disenchanted society, without religion or other “mysterious incalculable forces” to provide direction, individuals may struggle to work out what they should do with their lives (149). For Weber the answer is to find your calling. Each individual must discover the “demon who holds the fibers of his very life” and obey its demands (156).Following Weber, John Carroll has argued that in modern secular societies, individuals must draw on their inner resources to find answers to life’s “fundamental questions” (Ego 3–4). As Carroll stresses, it is not that the religious impulse has disappeared from contemporary society, but it is expressed in new ways. Individuals still yearn for a sense of purpose but they are “more likely to pursue their quests for meaning on their own, in experimental ways and with their main resource being their ontological qualities” (Carroll, Beauty 221).Other Australian academics, like Gary Bouma and David Tacey, argue that rather than a decline in religiosity in Australia, what we are seeing is a change in the way people pursue the spiritual. Tacey suggests that while many Australians may “slink away” from the idea of God as something external to our lives, they may find more resonance with a conception of God as a “core dimension” of the person (167). Contemporary Australians continue to yearn for guidance, but they are more likely to look within to find it.There is a clear link between this process of turning inward to pursue the spiritual, the prevalence of authenticity in contemporary Western culture, and modernity. With the breakdown of traditional structures, individuals become more “free to self-create” (Bauman, Identity 3). As Charles Lindholm describes it: “The inclination toward a spontaneous mode of expressive self-revelation correlates with the collapse of reliable and sacralised institutional frameworks that once offered meaning and succour” (65–66).For Charles Taylor, the origins of this “massive subjective turn of modern culture” (26) lie in the 18th-century romantic period with the idea that each individual has an intuitive moral sense. To determine what is right, the individual must be in touch with their “inner voice” and act in accordance with it. It is in this notion that Taylor identifies the background to the belief, which is so prominent today, that “There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else’s” (28–29). Lindholm points to Rousseau as the “inventor” of this ideal, with his revelatory Confessions becoming “the harbinger of a new ideal in which exploring and revealing one’s essential nature was taken as an absolute good” (8). According to Rousseau, social norms suppress the individual’s true nature, and so it is only possible for one to be authentic if they break these chains and act in accordance with their inner depths. For employees in today’s service-oriented knowledge economy, there are significant risks involved in following Rousseau’s advice and expressing one’s “true feelings.” As many researchers have noted, in the new capitalism, workers are increasingly required to regulate their emotions and present themselves as calm, agreeable and above all positive (Hochschild; Sennett; Ehrenreich). To offer criticism or express frustration, to drop the “mask of cooperativeness” (Sennett 112), may mean risking one’s employment.Nevertheless, while it is arguably becoming more difficult to express authentic feeling at work, for contemporary workers, choice of occupation is still often closely linked to perceptions of authentic selfhood. In fact, in a time of increasingly fragmented careers and short-term, episodic work, it becomes more necessary to create a meaningful narrative to link numerous and varied jobs to a core sense of self. As Richard Sennett argues, today’s flexible employees—frequently moving from one workplace to the next—are at risk of “drift:” a sensation of aimless movement (30). To counter this, individuals must create a convincing story that provides a rationale for career changes and can thereby “form their characters into sustained narratives” (31).In the next section, drawing on recent empirical research, I argue that linking authentic selfhood to work provides individuals with a way to make sense of the trajectory of their work lives and to accept change. Today’s employees are able to interpret even the most unexpected career changes as a beneficial occurrence—something that was “meant to be”—by rationalising that such changes are part of a process of finding work that is an expression of the authentic self.The Authentic Self at Work: Being True to Your EssenceThe following discussion focuses on how authenticity as an ideal influences individuals’s work identity and career aspirations. It draws examples from recent qualitative interviews with Australian workers from a range of occupations (James 2012). A number of interviewees described a search for an occupation that was authentically “them,” a task that was well-suited to their capabilities and came “naturally:”I have a feeling that I was sort of a natural teacher. (Teacher, 60)Medical is what I like, that’s me. (Paramedic, 49)I found my thing, I stick to it. (Farrier, 27) These beliefs are quite clearly influenced by the idea of vocation, in that there is a particular task the individual is most suited to, but they do not invoke the sense of duty that a religious “calling” entails. Often, the interviewees had discovered the occupation that was “really them” by working in other jobs that were not their “true passion.” Realising that performing a particular role felt inauthentic helped them to define their authentic self and encouraged them to pursue more fulfilling work. This process often required experimentation, since “one knows what one is only after realising what one is not” (Golomb 201).For instance, Olivia, a 33-year old lawyer had begun her career in a corporate law firm. She had never felt comfortable in the corporate environment: “I always thought, ‘They know I don’t belong here’.” Her performance at work felt inauthentic: “I was never good at smiling and saying yes.” This experience led her to move into human rights, which she found more fulfilling. Similarly Hazel, a 50 year-old social worker, had started her career in what she described as “boring administration jobs.” Although she had “always wanted” to work in the “caring sector” her family’s expectations and her low self-confidence had stopped her from applying for university. When she finally quit the administration work and began to study it was liberating: “a weight had come out off my shoulders.” In her occupation as a social worker she felt that her work fitted with her authentic self: “the kind of person I am,” and for the first time in her life she looked forward to going to work. Both of these women, and many of the other interviewees, rationalised their decision to work in a particular field by appealing to narratives of authentic selfhood.Similarly, in explaining why they enjoyed their work, a number of interviewees looked back to their childhood for signs of what was “meant to be.” For instance, Tim, a 27 year-old farrier, justified his work with horses: “Mum came from a farming background, every school holidays I was up there…I followed my grandpa around like a little dog, annoyed and pestered him and asked him ‘Why’ and How?’ I’ve always been like that … So I think from an early age I was destined to do something like this.” Ken, a 50 year-old electrician, had a similar explanation for his choice of occupation: “Even as a little kid I was always mucking around with batteries and getting lights to work and things like that, so I think it was just a natural progression.”This tendency to associate childhood interests with authentic selfhood is perhaps due to the belief that childhood is a time of innocence and freedom, where the individual had not yet been moulded by society. As Duschinsky argues, childhood is often connected with an “originary natural essence.” We are close here to Rousseau’s “sentiment of being,” or its contemporary manifestation the “real you.” Of course, the idea that the child is free from external influence is problematised by ideas of socialisation. From birth the infant learns by copying “significant others” and self-conception is formed through interaction (Cooley; Mead). Therefore, from the very beginning, an individual’s interests, dispositions and tastes are influenced by family and culture.Shane, a 29 year-old real estate agent, had resisted working in property because it was the family business and he “didn’t want to be as boring as to follow in Dad’s footsteps.” He saw himself as “academic” and “creative” and for a number of years worked as a writer. Eventually though he decided that writing was not his calling: it was “not actually me … I categorise myself as someone who has the ability to write but not naturally.” When Shane began working in real-estate however, it felt almost automatic. Like the other members of his family he had the right skills and traits to thrive in the business and was immediately successful. Interestingly, Shane’s conception of his authenticity includes both a belief in an essential, pre-social “true” self and at the same time an understanding of the importance of the influence of family in the formation of the self.Regardless of whether the idea of a natural, inner-essence discernable in childhood pastimes can be disproven, it is clear that the understanding of authentic selfhood as an “immediate expression of our essence” continues to influence how individuals conceive of their work identities. However, at the same time, the interviewees’ accounts of authenticity also acknowledged the role of parents in influencing traits and dispositions. In these narratives of the self, authenticity encompasses opposing understandings of childhood as being both free from social influences and highly influenced by primary agents of socialisation. That individuals are willing to do the necessary mental and emotional work to maintain these contradictory beliefs suggests that there is a strong incentive to frame work identity as an expression of authentic selfhood.Authenticity Provides PurposeThe great benefit of being able to convincingly rationalise one’s work as a manifestation of the true self is that it gives the individual direction and purpose. Work then provides answers to Carroll’s fundamental questions: “who am I?” and “What should I do with my life?” A number of the interviewees recalled their attempts to secure a sense of purpose by linking their current occupation to their inner essence. As Greg, a 36-year-old fitness consultant described it:You just gotta think ‘What do you really wanna do, what makes you happy, what are you about?’ … I guess the strengthening and conditioning work, the fitness, has been the constant right the way through. It’s probably the core of what I’ve done over the years, seeing individuals and teams get fit. It’s what I do. That’s my role, if you put it in a nutshell. That’s what I’m about … I was sort of floating around a little bit … I need to go ‘This is what I am.’ By identifying his authentic self and linking it to his work, Greg was able to make sense of his past. He had once been a professional runner and after an injury was forced to redefine himself. He now rationalised that his ability to run had led him into the fitness field: You look at what is your life mission and basically what are you out here for … with athletics it’s allowed me to deal with any sport, made me flexible in my career … if I was, therefore born to run? Yeah, quite possibly, there had to be a reason. Like many of the interviewees, Greg had been forced to change his plans, but he was able to rationalise that this change was positive by forming a narrative that connected both his current and previous occupations to his perception of his authentic self. As Sennett describes it, he is able to from his character into a “sustained narrative” (31). Similarly, Trish, a 42 year-old retail coordinator, connected both her work as a chef and her job in a hardware store back to her sense of authentic self. Both occupations, she thought, were “down and dirty” and she linked this to her family “roots” and her identity as a “country girl.” In interpreting these two substantially different occupations as an expression of her true self, Trish is able to create a narrative in which unexpected career changes are as seen as something beneficial that was “meant to be.” These accounts of career trajectories suggest that linking authenticity to work identity is a strategy individuals employ to cope with the disorienting effects of fragmented work lives. Even jobs that are unfulfilling and feel inauthentic can be made meaningful by interpreting them as necessary steps leading towards the discovery of one’s “ true passion”. This is quite different to the ideal of a life-long calling in one occupation, which as Bauman has noted, has become a “privilege of the few” in late-modernity (Work 34). In an era of insecure and fragmented work, the narrative of an authentic self becomes particularly appealing as it allows the individual to create a meaningful work-narrative that can accommodate the numerous twists and turns of contemporary “liquid” existence (Bauman, Identity 5) and avoid “drift” (Sennett). Conclusion Drawing on qualitative research, this paper has analysed the connections between authenticity, work and modern selfhood. I have shown that in an era of flexible and fragmented working lives, work-identities are often closely tied to understandings of authentic selfhood. Interpreting particular kinds of work as being expressions of the authentic self provides individuals with a sense of purpose and in some cases assists them in coming to terms with unexpected career changes. A meaningful career narrative acts as a buffer against disorientation, disenchantment and anomie. It is therefore no wonder that authentic selfhood is such a prominent theme in reality television, self-help and other forms of popular culture, since it is taps into an existential need for a sense of purpose that becomes increasingly elusive in late-modernity. It is clear from the accounts presented in this paper that the pursuit of authenticity is not merely a narcissistic endeavor, and is employed by individuals to work through fundamental existential questions. Future work in this area should continue to make use of empirical research to add depth and complexity to theoretical accounts of authentic selfhood. References Bauman, Zygmunt. “Identity in the Globalizing World.” Identity in Question. Ed. Anthony Elliott and Paul du Gay. London: Sage, 2009. 1–12. Bauman, Zygmunt. Work, Consumerism and the New Poor. Buckingham: Open UP, 1998. Bolles, Richard. What Colour Is Your Parachute 2015. 23 Jan. 2015 ‹http://www.jobhuntersbible.com/books/view/what-color-is-your-parachute-2015›. Bolles, Richard. What Colour Is Your Parachute. Berkley: Ten Speed, 1970. Bouma, Gary. Australian Soul: Religion and Spirituality in the 21st Century. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. Carroll, John. “Beauty contra God: Has Aesthetics Replaced Religion in Modernity?” Journal of Sociology 48.2 (2012): 206–23. Carroll, John. Ego and Soul: The Modern West in Search of Meaning. Melbourne: Scribe, 2008. Cooley, Charles Horton. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner’s, 1902. Duschinsky, Robbie. “Childhood Innocence: Essence, Education, and Performativity.” Textual Practice 27.5 (2013): 763–81. Elliott, Anthony, and Paul du Gay. “Editors’ Introduction.” Identity in Question. Eds. Anthony Elliott and Paul du Gay. London: Sage, 2009. xi–xxi. Ehrenreich, Barbara. Bright-Sided : How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. New York: Henry Holt, 2009. Golomb, Jacob. In Search of Authenticity: From Kierkegaard to Camus. London: Routledge, 1995. Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart: Commercialization Human Feeling. Berkeley: U of California P, 1983. James, Sara. “Making a Living, Making a Life: Contemporary Narratives of Work, Vocation and Meaning.” PhD Thesis. La Trobe U, 2012. Lindholm, Charles. Culture and Authenticity. Malden: Blackwell, 2008. McGraw, Phil. Self Matters—Creating Your Life from the Inside Out. London: Simon and Schuster, 2001. Mead, George Herbert. Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1934. Sennett, Richard. The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism, New York: WW Norton, 1998. Tacey, David. Edge of the Sacred: Jung, Psyche, Earth. Sydney: Daimon, 2008. Taylor, Charles. Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1991. Weber, Max. “Science as a Vocation.” From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Ed. Hans Heinrich Gerth and Charles Wright Mills. London: Routledge, 1991. 129–56. Winfrey, Oprah. The Oprah Winfrey Show Finale. 23 Jan. 2015 ‹http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/The-Oprah-Winfrey-Show-Finale_1#ixzz3PbhBrdBs›.

While exploring the virtual world Second Life one day, I received a group message across the in-world communication system – “there’s a griefer on the beach. Stay away from the beach till we catch him.” There was no need to explain; everyone receiving the message knew what a griefer was and had a general idea of the kinds of things that could be happening. We’d all seen griefers at work before – someone monopolising the chat channel so no one else can communicate, people being “caged” at random, or even weapons fire causing so much “overhead” that all activity in the area slows to a crawl. These kinds of attacks are not limited to virtual worlds. Most people have experienced griefing in their everyday lives, which might best be defined as having fun at someone else’s expense. More commonly seen examples of this in the real world include teasing, bullying, and harassment; playground bullies have long made other children’s free time miserable. More destructive griefing includes arson and theft. Griefing activities happen in all kinds of games and virtual worlds. Griefers who laugh at new users and “yell” (so that all players can hear) that they stink, have followed new users of Disney’s tween-popular ToonTown. Griefers pose as friendly, helpful players who offer to show new users a path through difficult parts of a game, but then who abandon the new user in a spot where he or she does not have the skills to proceed. In World of Warcraft, a popular massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) created by Blizzard with more than seven million registered, if not active, users, griefers engage in what is known as corpse camping; they sit by a corpse, killing it over and over every time the player tries to get back into the game. The griefer gets a small number of experience points; the player being killed gets aggravated and has to wait out the griefing to play the game again (Warner & Raiter). Griefing in World of Warcraft was featured in an award nominated episode of the television program South Park, in which one character killed every other player he met. This paper considers different types of griefing, both in online games and virtual worlds, and then looks at the actions other players, those being griefed, take against griefers. A variety of examples from Second Life are considered because of the open-structure of the world and its developing nature. Definitions and Types Griefing in online environments such as video games and virtual worlds has been defined as “purposefully engaging in activities to disrupt the gaming experience of other players” (Mulligan & Patrovsky 250). The “purposeful” part of the definition means that accidental bumping and pushing, behaviours often exhibited by new users, are not griefing (Warner & Raiter). Rossingol defines a griefer as, “a player of malign intentions. They will hurt, humiliate and dishevel the average gamer through bending and breaking the rules of online games. ...They want glory, gain or just to partake in a malignant joy at the misfortune of others.” Davis, who maintains a gaming blog, describes Second Life as being populated by “those who build things and those who like to tear them down,” with the latter being the griefers who may be drawn to the unstructured anything-goes nature of the virtual world (qtd. in Girard). Definitions of griefing differ based on context. For instance, griefing has been examined in a variety of multi-player online games. These games often feature missions where players have to kill other players (PvP), behaviour that in other contexts such as virtual worlds would be considered griefing. Putting a monster on the trail of a player considered rude or unskilled might be a way to teach a lesson, but also an example of griefing (Taylor). Foo and Koivisto define griefing in MMORPGs as “play styles that disrupt another player’s gaming experience, usually with specific intention. When the act is not specifically intended to disrupt and yet the actor is the sole beneficiary, it is greed play, a subtle form of grief play” (11). Greed play usually involves actions that disrupt the game play of others but without technically breaking any game rules. A different way of looking at griefing is that it is a sign that the player understands the game or virtual world deeply enough to take advantage of ambiguities in the rules by changing the game to something new (Koster). Many games have a follow option; griefers pick a victim, stand near them, get as naked as possible, and then just follow them around without talking or explaining their actions (Walker). Another example is the memorial service in World of Warcraft for a player who died in real life. The service was interrupted by an attack from another clan; everyone at the memorial service was killed. It is not clear cut who the griefers actually were in this case – the mourners who chose to have their peaceful service in an area marked for player combat or the attackers following the rules for that area and working to earn points and progress in the game. In the case of the mourners, they were changing the rules of the game to suit them, to create something unique – a shared space to mourn a common friend. But they were definitely not playing by the rules. The attackers, considered griefers by many both in and outside of the game, did nothing that broke any rules of the game, though perhaps they broke rules of common decency (“World”); what they did does not fit into the definition of griefing, as much as do the actions of the mourners (Kotaku). Reshaping the game can be done to embed a new, sometimes political, message into the game. A group named Velvet Strike formed to protest US military action. They went into Counter Strike to bring a “message of peace, love and happiness to online shooters by any means necessary” (King). They placed spray painted graphics containing anti-war messages into the game; when confronted with people from other teams the Velvet Strike members refused to shoot (King). The group website contains “recipes” for non-violent game play. One “recipe” involved the Velvet Strike member hiding at the beginning of a mission and not moving for the rest of the game. The other players would shoot each other and then be forced to spend the rest of the game looking for the last survivor in order to get credit for the win. Similar behaviour has been tried inside the game America’s Army. Beginning March, 2006, deLappe, an artist who opposes the U.S. government’s involvement in Iraq, engaged in griefing behaviour by filling (spamming) the in-game text channel with the names of the people killed in the war; no one else can communicate on that channel. Even his character name, dead-in-Iraq, is an anti-war protest (deLappe). “I do not participate in the proscribed mayhem. Rather, I stand in position and type until I am killed. After death, I hover over my dead avatar’s body and continue to type. Upon being re-incarnated in the next round, I continue the cycle” (deLappe n.p.). What about these games and virtual worlds might lead people to even consider griefing? For one thing, they seem anonymous, which can lead to irresponsible behaviour. Players use fake names. Characters on the screen do not seem real. Another reason may be that rules can be broken in videogames and virtual worlds with few consequences, and in fact the premise of the game often seems to encourage such rule breaking. The rules are not always clearly laid out. Each game or world has a Terms of Service agreement that set out basic acceptable behaviour. Second Life defines griefing in terms of the Terms of Service that all users agree to when opening accounts. Abuse is when someone consciously and with malicious intent violates those terms. On top of that limited set of guidelines, each landowner in a virtual world such as Second Life can also set rules for their own property, from dress code, to use of weapons, to allowable conversation topics. To better understand griefing, it is necessary to consider the motivations of the people involved. Early work on categorising player types was completed by Bartle, who studied users of virtual worlds, specifically MUDs, and identified four player types: killers, achievers, socialisers, and explorers. Killers and achievers seem most relevant in a discussion about griefing. Killers enjoy using other players to get ahead. They want to do things to other people (not for or with others), and they get the most pleasure if they can act without the consent of the other player. Knowing about a game or a virtual world gives no power unless that knowledge can be used to gain some advantage over others and to enhance your standing in the game. Achievers want power and dominance in a game so they can do things to the game and master it. Griefing could help them feel a sense of power if they got people to do their will to stop the griefing behavior. Yee studied the motivations of people who play MMORPGs. He found that people who engage in griefing actually scored high in being motivated to play by both achieving and competition (“Facets”). Griefers often want attention. They may want to show off their scripting skills in the hope of earning respect among other coders and possibly be hired to program for others. But many players are motivated by a desire to compete and to win; these categories do not seem to be adequate for understanding the different types of griefing (Yee, “Faces of Grief”). The research on griefing in games has also suggested ways to categorise griefers in virtual worlds. Suler divides griefers into two types (qtd. in Becker). The first is those who grief in order to make trouble for authority figures, including the people who create the worlds. A few of the more spectacular griefing incidents seem designed to cause trouble for Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life. Groups attacked the servers that run Second Life, known as the grid, in October of 2005; this became known as the “gray goo attack” (Second Life; Wallace). Servers were flooded with objects and Second Life had to be taken off line to be restored from backups. More organised groups, such as the W-hats, the SL Liberation Army, and Patriotic Nigas engage in more large scale and public griefing. Some groups hope to draw attention to the group’s goals. The SL Liberation Army wants Linden Lab to open up the governance of the virtual world so that users can vote on changes and policies being implemented and limit corporate movement into Second Life (MarketingVox). Patriotic Nigas, with about 35 active members, want to slow the entry of corporations into Second Life (Cabron, “Who are Second Life’s”). One often discussed griefer attack in Second Life included a flood of pink flying penises directed against land owner and the first person to have made a profit of more than one million United States dollars in a virtual world, Anshe Chung, during a well-publicised and attended interview in world with technology news outlet CNET (Walsh, “Second Life Millionaire” ). The second type proposed by Suler is the griefer who wants to hurt and victimise others (qtd. in Becker). Individual players often go naked into PG-rated areas to cause trouble. Weapons are used in areas where weapons are banned. Second Life publishes a police blotter, which lists examples of minor griefing and assigned punishment, including incidents of disturbing the peace and violating community standards for which warnings and short bans have been issued. These are the actions of individuals for the most part, as were the people who exploited security holes to enter the property uninvited during the grand opening of Endemol’s Big Brother island in Second Life; guests to the opening were firebombed and caged. One of the griefers explained her involvement: Well I’m from The Netherlands, and as you might know the tv concept of big brother was invented here, and it was in all the newspapers in Holland. So I thought It would be this huge event with lots of media. Then I kinda got the idea ‘hey I could ruin this and it might make the newspaper or tv. So that’s what set me off, lol. (qtd. in Sklar) Some groups do grief just to annoy. The Patriotic Nigas claim to have attacked the John Edwards headquarters inside SL wearing Bush ‘08 buttons (Cabron, “John Edwards Attackers”), but it was not a political attack. The group’s founder, Mudkips Acronym (the name of his avatar in SL) said, “I’m currently rooting for Obama, but that doesn’t mean we won’t raid him or anything. We’ll hit anyone if it’s funny, and if the guy I want to be president in 2008’s campaign provides the lulz, we’ll certainly not cross him off our list” (qtd. in Cabron, “John Edwards Attackers”). If they disrupt a high profile event or site, the attack will be covered by media that can amplify the thrill of the attack, enhance their reputation among other griefers, and add to their enjoyment of the griefing. Part of the definition of griefing is that the griefer enjoys causing other players pain and disrupting their game. One resident posted on the SL blog, “Griefers, for the most part, have no other agenda other than the thrill of sneaking one past and causing a big noise. Until a spokesperson comes forward with a manifesto, we can safely assume that this is the work of the “Jackass” generation, out to disrupt things to show that they can“ (Scarborough). Usually to have fun, griefers go after individuals, rather than the owners and administrators of the virtual world and so fit into Suler’s second type of griefing. These griefers enjoy seeing others get angry and frustrated. As one griefer said: Understanding the griefer mindset begins with this: We don’t take the game seriously at all. It continues with this: It’s fun because you react. Lastly: We do it because we’re jerks and like to laugh at you. I am the fly that kamikazes into your soup. I am the reason you can’t have nice things … . If I make you cry, you’ve made my day. (Drake) They have fun by making the other players mad. “Causing grief is the name of his game. His objective is simple: Make life hell for anyone unlucky enough to be playing with him. He’s a griefer. A griefer is a player bent on purposely frustrating others during a multiplayer game” (G4). “I’m a griefer. It’s what I do,” the griefer says. “And, man, people get so pissed off. It’s great” (G4). Taking Action against Griefers Understanding griefing from the griefer point of view leads us to examine the actions of those being griefed. Suler suggests several pairs of opposing actions that can be taken against griefers, based on his experience in an early social environment called Palace. Many of the steps still being used fit into these types. He first describes preventative versus remedial action. Preventative steps include design features to minimise griefing. The Second Life interface includes the ability to build 3D models and to create software; it also includes a menu for land owners to block those features at will, a design feature that helps prevent much griefing. Remedial actions are those taken by the administrators to deal with the effects of griefing; Linden Lab administrators can shut down whole islands to keep griefer activities from spreading to nearby islands. The second pair is interpersonal versus technical; interpersonal steps involve talking to the griefers to get them to stop ruining the game for others, while technical steps prevent griefers from re-entering the world. The elven community in Second Life strongly supports interpersonal steps; they have a category of members in their community known as guardians who receive special training in how to talk to people bent on destroying the peacefulness of the community or disturbing an event. The creators of Camp Darfur on Better World island also created a force of supporters to fend off griefer attacks after the island was destroyed twice in a week in 2006 (Kenzo). Linden Lab also makes use of technical methods; they cancel accounts so known griefers can not reenter. There were even reports that they had created a prison island where griefers whose antics were not bad enough to be totally banned would be sent via a one-way teleporter (Walsh, “Hidden Virtual World Prison”). Some users of Second Life favour technical steps; they believe that new users should be held a fixed amount of time on the Orientation island which would stop banned users from coming back into the world immediately. The third is to create tools for average users or super users (administrators); both involve software features, some of which are available to all users to help them make the game good for them while others are available only to people with administrator privileges. Average users who own land have a variety of tools available to limit griefing behaviour on their own property. In Second Life, the land owner is often blamed because he or she did not use the tools provided to landowners by Linden Lab; they can ban individual users, remove users from the land, mute their conversation, return items left on the property, and prevent people from building or running scripts. As one landowner said, “With the newbies coming in there, I’ve seen their properties just littered with crap because they don’t know protective measures you need to take as far as understanding land control and access rights” (qtd. in Girard). Super users, those who work for Linden Lab, can remove a player from the game for a various lengths of time based on their behaviour patterns. Responses to griefers can also be examined as either individual or joint actions. Individual actions include those that land owners can take against individual griefers. Individual users, regardless of account type, can file abuse reports against other individuals; Linden Lab investigates these reports and takes appropriate action. Quick and consistent reporting of all griefing, no matter how small, is advocated by most game companies and user groups as fairly successful. Strangely, some types of joint actions have been not so successful. Landowners have tried to form the Second Life Anti-Griefing Guild, but it folded because of lack of involvement. Groups providing security services have formed; many event organisers use this kind of service. (Hoffman). More successful efforts have included the creation of software, such as SLBanLink.com, Karma, and TrustNet that read lists of banned users into the banned list on all participating property. A last category of actions to be taken against griefers, and a category used by most residents of virtual worlds, is to leave them alone—to ignore them, to tolerate their actions. The thinking is that, as with many bullies in real life, griefers want attention; when deprived of that, they will move on to find other amusements. Yelling and screaming at griefers just reinforces their bad behaviour. Users simply teleport to other locations or log off. They warn others of the griefing behaviour using the various in-world communication tools so they too can stay away from the griefers. Most of the actions described above are not useful against griefers for whom a bad reputation is part of their credibility in the griefer community. The users of Second Life who staged the Gray Goo denial of service attack in October, 2005 fit into that category. They did nothing to hide the fact that they wanted to cause massive trouble; they named the self-replicating object that they created Grief Spawn and discussed ways to bring down the world on griefer forums (Wallace) Conclusion The most effective griefing usually involves an individual or small group who are only looking to have fun at someone else’s expense. It’s a small goal, and as long as there are any other users, it is easy to obtain the desired effect. In fact, as word spreads of the griefing and users feel compelled to change their behaviour to stave off future griefer attacks, the griefers have fun and achieve their goal. The key point here is that everyone has the same goal – have fun. Unfortunately, for one group – the griefers – achieving their goal precludes other users from reaching theirs. Political griefers are less successful in achieving their goals. Political creative play as griefing, like other kinds of griefing, is not particularly effective, which is another aspect of griefing as error. Other players react with frustration and violence to the actions of griefers such as deLappe and Velvet-Strike. If griefing activity makes people upset, they are less open to considering the political or economic motives of the griefers. Some complaints are relatively mild; “I’m all for creative protest and what not, but this is stupid. It’s not meaningful art or speaking out or anything of the type, its just annoying people who are never going to change their minds about how awesome they think war is” (Borkingchikapa). Others are more negative: “Somebody really needs to go find where that asshole lives and beat the shit out of him. Yeah, it’s a free country and he can legally pull this crap, but that same freedom extends to some patriot kicking the living shit out of him” (Reynolds). In this type of griefing no one’s goals for using the game are satisfied. The regular users can not have fun, but neither do they seem to be open to or accepting of the political griefer’s message. This pattern of success and failure may explain why there are so many examples of griefing to disrupt rather then the politically motivated kind. It may also suggest why efforts to curb griefing have been so ineffective in the past. Griefers who seek to disrupt for fun would see it as a personal triumph if others organised against them. Even if they found themselves banned from one area, they could quickly move somewhere else to have their fun since whom or where they harass does not really matter. Perhaps not all griefing is in error, rather, only those griefing activities motivated by any other goal than have fun. People invest their time and energy in creating their characters and developing skills. The behaviour of people in these virtual environments has a definite bearing on the real world. And perhaps that explains why people in these virtual worlds react so strongly to the behaviour. So, remember, stay off the beach until they catch the griefers, and if you want to make up the game as you go along, be ready for the other players to point at you and say “Bad, Bad Avatar.” References Bartle, Richard. “Players Who Suit MUDs.” Journal of MUD Research 1.1 (June 1996). 10 Sep. 2007 http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm>. Becker, David. Inflicting Pain on “Griefers.” 13 Dec. 2004. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www.news.com/Inflicting-pain-on-griefers/2100-1043_3-5488403.html>. Borkingchikapa. Playing America’s Army. 30 May 2006. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.metafilter.com/51938/playing-Americas-Army>. Cabron, Lou. John Edwards Attackers Unmasked. 5 Mar. 2007. 29 Apr. 2007 http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/03/05/john-edwards-virtual-attackers-unmasked/>. Cabron, Lou. 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What strikes me about the habits of the people who spend so much time on the Net—well, it’s so new that we don't know what will come next—is in fact precisely how niche in character it is. You ask people what nets they are on, and they’re all so specialised! The Argentines on the Argentine Net and so forth. And it’s particularly the Argentines who are not in Argentina. (Anderson, in Gower, par. 5) The preceding quotation, taken from his 1996 interview with Eric Gower, sees Benedict Anderson reflecting on the formation of imagined, transnational communities on the Internet. Anderson is, of course, famous for his work on how nationalism, as an “imagined community,” gets constructed through the shared consumption of print media (6-7, 26-27); although its readers will never all see each other face to face, people consuming a newspaper or novel in a shared language perceive themselves as members of a collective. In this more recent interview, Anderson recognised the specific groupings of people in online communities: Argentines who find themselves outside of Argentina link up online in an imagined diaspora community. Over the course of the last decade and a half since Anderson spoke about Argentinian migrants and diaspora communities, we have witnessed an exponential growth of new forms of digital communication, including social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), Weblogs, micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter), and video-sharing sites (e.g. YouTube). Alongside these new means of communication, our current epoch of globalisation is also characterised by migration flows across, and between, all continents. In his book Modernity at Large, Arjun Appadurai recognised that “the twin forces of mass migration and electronic mediation” have altered the ways the imagination operates. Furthermore, these two pillars, human motion and digital mediation, are in constant “flux” (44). The circulation of people and digitally mediatised content proceeds across and beyond boundaries of the nation-state and provides ground for alternative community and identity formations. Appadurai’s intervention has resulted in increasing awareness of local, transnational, and global networking flows of people, ideas, and culturally hybrid artefacts. In this article, we analyse the various innovative tactics taken up by migrant youth to imagine digital diasporas. Inspired by scholars such as Appadurai, Avtar Brah and Paul Gilroy, we tease out—from a postcolonial perspective—how digital diasporas have evolved over time from a more traditional understanding as constituted either by a vertical relationship to a distant homeland or a horizontal connection to the scattered transnational community (see Safran, Cohen) to move towards a notion of “hypertextual diaspora.” With hypertextual diaspora, these central axes which constitute the understanding of diaspora are reshuffled in favour of more rhizomatic formations where affiliations, locations, and spaces are constantly destabilised and renegotiated. Needless to say, diasporas are not homogeneous and resist generalisation, but in this article we highlight common ways in which young migrant Internet users renew the practices around diaspora connections. Drawing from research on various migrant populations around the globe, we distinguish three common strategies: (1) the forging of transnational public spheres, based on maintaining virtual social relations by people scattered across the globe; (2) new forms of digital diasporic youth branding; and (3) the cultural production of innovative hypertexts in the context of more rhizomatic digital diaspora formations. Before turning to discuss these three strategies, the potential of a postcolonial framework to recognise multiple intersections of diaspora and digital mediation is elaborated. Hypertext as a Postcolonial Figuration Postcolonial scholars, Appadurai, Gilroy, and Brah among others, have been attentive to diasporic experiences, but they have paid little attention to the specificity of digitally mediated diaspora experiences. As Maria Fernández observes, postcolonial studies have been “notoriously absent from electronic media practice, theory, and criticism” (59). Our exploration of what happens when diasporic youth go online is a first step towards addressing this gap. Conceptually, this is clearly an urgent need since diasporas and the digital inform each other in the most profound and dynamic of ways: “the Internet virtually recreates all those sites which have metaphorically been eroded by living in the diaspora” (Ponzanesi, “Diasporic Narratives” 396). Writings on the Internet tend to favour either the “gold-rush” mentality, seeing the Web as a great equaliser and bringer of neoliberal progress for all, or the more pessimistic/technophobic approach, claiming that technologically determined spaces are exclusionary, white by default, masculine-oriented, and heteronormative (Everett 30, Van Doorn and Van Zoonen 261). For example, the recent study by Ito et al. shows that young people are not interested in merely performing a fiction in a parallel online world; rather, the Internet gets embedded in their everyday reality (Ito et al. 19-24). Real-life commercial incentives, power hierarchies, and hegemonies also get extended to the digital realm (Schäfer 167-74). Online interaction remains pre-structured, based on programmers’ decisions and value-laden algorithms: “people do not need a passport to travel in cyberspace but they certainly do need to play by the rules in order to function electronically” (Ponzanesi, “Diasporic Narratives” 405). We began our article with a statement by Benedict Anderson, stressing how people in the Argentinian diaspora find their space on the Internet. Online avenues increasingly allow users to traverse and add hyperlinks to their personal websites in the forms of profile pages, the publishing of preferences, and possibilities of participating in and affiliating with interest-based communities. Online journals, social networking sites, streaming audio/video pages, and online forums are all dynamic hypertexts based on Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) coding. HTML is the protocol of documents that refer to each other, constituting the backbone of the Web; every text that you find on the Internet is connected to a web of other texts through hyperlinks. These links are in essence at equal distance from each other. As well as being a technological device, hypertext is also a metaphor to think with. Figuratively speaking, hypertext can be understood as a non-hierarchical and a-centred modality. Hypertext incorporates multiplicity; different pathways are possible simultaneously, as it has “multiple entryways and exits” and it “connects any point to any other point” (Landow 58-61). Feminist theorist Donna Haraway recognised the dynamic character of hypertext: “the metaphor of hypertext insists on making connections as practice.” However, she adds, “the trope does not suggest which connections make sense for which purposes and which patches we might want to follow or avoid.” We can begin to see the value of approaching the Internet from the perspective of hypertext to make an “inquiry into which connections matter, why, and for whom” (128-30). Postcolonial scholar Jaishree K. Odin theorised how hypertextual webs might benefit subjects “living at the borders.” She describes how subaltern subjects, by weaving their own hypertextual path, can express their multivocality and negotiate cultural differences. She connects the figure of hypertext with that of the postcolonial: The hypertextual and the postcolonial are thus part of the changing topology that maps the constantly shifting, interpenetrating, and folding relations that bodies and texts experience in information culture. Both discourses are characterised by multivocality, multilinearity, openendedness, active encounter, and traversal. (599) These conceptions of cyberspace and its hypertextual foundations coalesce with understandings of “in-between”, “third”, and “diaspora media space” as set out by postcolonial theorists such as Bhabha and Brah. Bhabha elaborates on diaspora as a space where different experiences can be articulated: “These ‘in-between’ spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood—singular or communal—that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation (4). (Dis-)located between the local and the global, Brah adds: “diaspora space is the point at which boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, of belonging and otherness, of ‘us’ and ‘them,’ are contested” (205). As youths who were born in the diaspora have begun to manifest themselves online, digital diasporas have evolved from transnational public spheres to differential hypertexts. First, we describe how transnational public spheres form one dimension of the mediation of diasporic experiences. Subsequently, we focus on diasporic forms of youth branding and hypertext aesthetics to show how digitally mediated practices can go beyond and transgress traditional formations of diasporas as vertically connected to a homeland and horizontally distributed in the creation of transnational public spheres. Digital Diasporas as Diasporic Public Spheres Mass migration and digital mediation have led to a situation where relationships are maintained over large geographical distances, beyond national boundaries. The Internet is used to create transnational imagined audiences formed by dispersed people, which Appadurai describes as “diasporic public spheres”. He observes that, as digital media “increasingly link producers and audiences across national boundaries, and as these audiences themselves start new conversations between those who move and those who stay, we find a growing number of diasporic public spheres” (22). Media and communication researchers have paid a lot of attention to this transnational dimension of the networking of dispersed people (see Brinkerhoff, Alonso and Oiarzabal). We focus here on three examples from three different continents. Most famously, media ethnographers Daniel Miller and Don Slater focused on the Trinidadian diaspora. They describe how “de Rumshop Lime”, a collective online chat room, is used by young people at home and abroad to “lime”, meaning to chat and hang out. Describing the users of the chat, “the webmaster [a Trini living away] proudly proclaimed them to have come from 40 different countries” (though massively dominated by North America) (88). Writing about people in the Greek diaspora, communication researcher Myria Georgiou traced how its mediation evolved from letters, word of mouth, and bulletins to satellite television, telephone, and the Internet (147). From the introduction of the Web, globally dispersed people went online to get in contact with each other. Meanwhile, feminist film scholar Anna Everett draws on the case of Naijanet, the virtual community of “Nigerians Living Abroad”. She shows how Nigerians living in the diaspora from the 1990s onwards connected in global transnational communities, forging “new black public spheres” (35). These studies point at how diasporic people have turned to the Internet to establish and maintain social relations, give and receive support, and share general concerns. Establishing transnational communicative networks allows users to imagine shared audiences of fellow diasporians. Diasporic imagination, however, goes beyond singular notions of this more traditional idea of the transnational public sphere, as it “has nowadays acquired a great figurative flexibility which mostly refers to practices of transgression and hybridisation” (Ponzanesi, “Diasporic Subjects” 208). Below we recognise another dimension of digital diasporas: the articulation of diasporic attachment for branding oneself. Mocro and Nikkei: Diasporic Attachments as a Way to Brand Oneself In this section, we consider how hybrid cultural practices are carried out over geographical distances. Across spaces on the Web, young migrants express new forms of belonging in their dealing with the oppositional motivations of continuity and change. The generational specificity of this experience can be drawn out on the basis of the distinction between “roots” and “routes” made by Paul Gilroy. In his seminal book The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, Gilroy writes about black populations on both sides of the Atlantic. The double consciousness of migrant subjects is reflected by affiliating roots and routes as part of a complex cultural identification (19 and 190). As two sides of the same coin, roots refer to the stable and continuing elements of identities, while routes refer to disruption and change. Gilroy criticises those who are “more interested in the relationship of identity to roots and rootedness than in seeing identity as a process of movement and mediation which is more appropriately approached via the homonym routes” (19). He stresses the importance of not just focusing on one of either roots or routes but argues for an examination of their interplay. Forming a response to discrimination and exclusion, young migrants in online networks turn to more positive experiences such as identification with one’s heritage inspired by generational specific cultural affiliations. Here, we focus on two examples that cross two continents, showing routed online attachments to “be(com)ing Mocro”, and “be(coming) Nikkei”. Figure 1. “Leipe Mocro Flavour” music video (Ali B) The first example, being and becoming “Mocro”, refers to a local, bi-national consciousness. The term Mocro originated on the streets of the Netherlands during the late 1990s and is now commonly understood as a Dutch honorary nickname for youths with Moroccan roots living in the Netherlands and Belgium. A 2003 song, Leipe mocro flavour (“Crazy Mocro Flavour”) by Moroccan-Dutch rapper Ali B, familiarised a larger group of people with the label (see Figure 1). Ali B’s song is exemplary for a wider community of youngsters who have come to identify themselves as Mocros. One example is the Marokkanen met Brainz – Hyves (Mo), a community page within the Dutch social networking site Hyves. On this page, 2,200 youths who identify as Mocro get together to push against common stereotypes of Moroccan-Dutch boys as troublemakers and thieves and Islamic Moroccan-Dutch girls as veiled carriers of backward traditions (Leurs, forthcoming). Its description reads, “I assume that this Hyves will be the largest [Mocro community]. Because logically Moroccans have brains” (our translation): What can you find here? Discussions about politics, religion, current affairs, history, love and relationships. News about Moroccan/Arabic Parties. And whatever you want to tell others. Use your brains. Second, “Nikkei” directs our attention to Japanese migrants and their descendants. The Discover Nikkei website, set up by the Japanese American National Museum, provides a revealing description of being and becoming Nikkei: As Nikkei communities form in Japan and throughout the world, the process of community formation reveals the ongoing fluidity of Nikkei populations, the evasive nature of Nikkei identity, and the transnational dimensions of their community formations and what it means to be Nikkei. (Japanese American National Museum) This site was set up by the Japanese American National Museum for Nikkei in the global diaspora to connect and share stories. Nikkei youths of course also connect elsewhere. In her ethnographic online study, Shana Aoyama found that the social networking site Hi5 is taken up in Peru by young people of Japanese heritage as an avenue for identity exploration. She found group confirmation based on the performance of Nikkei-ness, as well as expressions of individuality. She writes, “instead of heading in one specific direction, the Internet use of Nikkei creates a starburst shape of identity construction and negotiation” (119). Mocro-ness and Nikkei-ness are common collective identification markers that are not just straightforward nationalisms. They refer back to different homelands, while simultaneously they also clearly mark one’s situation of being routed outside of this homeland. Mocro stems from postcolonial migratory flows from the Global South to the West. Nikkei-ness relates to the interesting case of the Japanese diaspora, which is little accounted for, although there are many Japanese communities present in North and South America from before the Second World War. The context of Peru is revealing, as it was the first South American country to accept Japanese migrants. It now hosts the second largest South American Japanese diaspora after Brazil (Lama), and Peru’s former president, Alberto Fujimoro, is also of Japanese origin. We can see how the importance of the nation-state gets blurred as diasporic youth, through cultural hybridisation of youth culture and ethnic ties, initiates subcultures and offers resistance to mainstream western cultural forms. Digital spaces are used to exert youthful diaspora branding. Networked branding includes expressing cultural identities that are communal and individual but also both local and global, illustrative of how “by virtue of being global the Internet can gift people back their sense of themselves as special and particular” (Miller and Slater 115). In the next section, we set out how youthful diaspora branding is part of a larger, more rhizomatic formation of multivocal hypertext aesthetics. Hypertext Aesthetics In this section, we set out how an in-between, or “liminal”, position, in postcolonial theory terms, can be a source of differential and multivocal cultural production. Appadurai, Bhabha, and Gilroy recognise that liminal positions increasingly leave their mark on the global and local flows of cultural objects, such as food, cinema, music, and fashion. Here, our focus is on how migrant youths turn to hypertextual forms of cultural production for a differential expression of digital diasporas. Hypertexts are textual fields made up of hyperlinks. Odin states that travelling through cyberspace by clicking and forging hypertext links is a form of multivocal digital diaspora aesthetics: The perpetual negotiation of difference that the border subject engages in creates a new space that demands its own aesthetic. This new aesthetic, which I term “hypertext” or “postcolonial,” represents the need to switch from the linear, univocal, closed, authoritative aesthetic involving passive encounters characterising the performance of the same to that of non-linear, multivocal, open, non-hierarchical aesthetic involving active encounters that are marked by repetition of the same with and in difference. (Cited in Landow 356-7) On their profile pages, migrant youth digitally author themselves in distinct ways by linking up to various sites. They craft their personal hypertext. These hypertexts display multivocal diaspora aesthetics which are personal and specific; they display personal intersections of affiliations that are not easily generalisable. In several Dutch-language online spaces, subjects from Dutch-Moroccan backgrounds have taken up the label Mocro as an identity marker. Across social networking sites such as Hyves and Facebook, the term gets included in nicknames and community pages. Think of nicknames such as “My own Mocro styly”, “Mocro-licious”, “Mocro-chick”. The term Mocro itself is often already multilayered, as it is often combined with age, gender, sexual preference, religion, sport, music, and generationally specific cultural affiliations. Furthermore, youths connect to a variety of groups ranging from feminist interests (“Women in Charge”), Dutch nationalism (“I Love Holland”), ethnic affiliations (“The Moroccan Kitchen”) to clothing (the brand H&M), and global junk food (McDonalds). These diverse affiliations—that are advertised online simultaneously—add nuance to the typical, one-dimensional stereotype about migrant youth, integration, and Islam in the context of Europe and Netherlands (Leurs, forthcoming). On the online social networking site Hi5, Nikkei youths in Peru, just like any other teenagers, express their individuality by decorating their personal profile page with texts, audio, photos, and videos. Besides personal information such as age, gender, and school information, Aoyama found that “a starburst” of diverse affiliations is published, including those that signal Japanese-ness such as the Hello Kitty brand, anime videos, Kanji writing, kimonos, and celebrities. Also Nikkei hyperlink to elements that can be identified as “Latino” and “Chino” (Chinese) (104-10). Furthermore, users can show their multiple affiliations by joining different “groups” (after which a hyperlink to the group community appears on the profile page). Aoyama writes “these groups stretch across a large and varied scope of topics, including that of national, racial/ethnic, and cultural identities” (2). These examples illustrate how digital diasporas encompass personalised multivocal hypertexts. With the widely accepted adagio “you are what you link” (Adamic and Adar), hypertextual webs can be understood as productions that reveal how diasporic youths choose to express themselves as individuals through complex sets of non-homogeneous identifications. Migrant youth connects to ethnic origin and global networks in eclectic and creative ways. The concept of “digital diaspora” therefore encapsulates both material and virtual (dis)connections that are identifiable through common traits, strategies, and aesthetics. Yet these hypertextual connections are also highly personalised and unique, offering a testimony to the fluid negotiations and intersections between the local and the global, the rooted and the diasporic. Conclusions In this article, we have argued that migrant youths render digital diasporas more complex by including branding and hypertextual aesthetics in transnational public spheres. Digital diasporas may no longer be understood simply in terms of their vertical relations to a homeland or place of origin or as horizontally connected to a clearly marked transnational community; rather, they must also be seen as engaging in rhizomatic digital practices, which reshuffle traditional understandings of origin and belonging. Contemporary youthful digital diasporas are therefore far more complex in their engagement with digital media than most existing theory allows: connections are hybridised, and affiliations are turned into practices of diasporic branding and becoming. There is a generational specificity to multivocal diaspora aesthetics; this specificity lies in the ways migrant youths show communal recognition and express their individuality through hypertext which combines affiliation to their national/ethnic “roots” with an embrace of other youth subcultures, many of them transnational. These two axes are constantly reshuffled and renegotiated online where, thanks to the technological possibilities of HTML hypertext, a whole range of identities and identifications may be brought together at any given time. We trust that these insights will be of interest in future discussion of online networks, transnational communities, identity formation, and hypertext aesthetics where much urgent and topical work remains to be done. References Adamic, Lada A., and Eytan Adar. “You Are What You Link.” 2001 Tenth International World Wide Web Conference, Hong Kong. 26 Apr. 2010. ‹http://www10.org/program/society/yawyl/YouAreWhatYouLink.htm›. Ali B. “Leipe Mocro Flavour.” ALIB.NL / SPEC Entertainment. 2007. 4 Oct. 2010 ‹http://www3.alib.nl/popupAlibtv.php?catId=42&contentId=544›. Alonso, Andoni, and Pedro J. Oiarzabal. Diasporas in the New Media Age. Reno: U of Nevada P, 2010. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. 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The negative implications of children’s use of the Internet, particularly their loss of innocence through access to pornography, is a topic frequently addressed in public discussions and debate. These debates often take on a technologically determinist point of view and assume that technology directly influences children, usually in a harmful fashion. But what is really happening in the Australian family home? Are parents fearful of these risks, and if so what are they doing about it? A recent exploration of the everyday Internet lives of Australian families indicates that families manage these perceived risks in a variety of ways and are not overly troubled about this issue. Findings from the research project indicate that Australian parents are more concerned about some children’s excessive use of the Internet than about pornography. They construct the Internet as interfering with time available to carry out homework, chores, getting adequate sleep or participating in outdoor (fresh air) activities. This disparity, between public discourse regarding the protection of children in the online environment and the actual significance of this issue in the everyday lives of Australian families, reflects the domestic dynamics within the “moral economy of the household” (Silverstone et al. 15) whereby family relationships and household practices inform the manner in which technology is consumed within any given household. The research project described here (Family Internet: Theorising Domestic Internet Consumption, Production and Use Within Australian Families) is funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant and investigates Internet use within Australian homes with specific reference to families with school-aged children. It explores how individual family members make sense of their family’s engagement with the Internet and investigates ways in which the Internet is integrated within Australian family life. Public Debates The relationship between children and technology is often addressed in public debates regarding children’s health, safety, social and educational development. Within these debates technology is usually held responsible for a variety of harmful consequences to children. These technological ‘effects’ range from the decline of children’s social relationships (with both peers and family); through sedentary lifestyles which impinge on fitness levels and the weight (body mass index) of children; to the corruption of children (and their loss of innocence) through access to unsuitable materials. These unsuitable texts include “soft and hardcore porn, Neo Nazi groups, paedophiles, racial and ethnic hatred” (Valentine et al. 157). Other digital technologies, such as computer and video games, are sometimes seen as exacerbating these problems and raise the spectre of the ‘Nintendo kid’, friendless and withdrawn (Marshall 73), lacking in social skills and unable to relate to others except through multi-player games – although this caricature appears far removed from children’s normal experience of computer gaming (Aisbett: Durkin and Aisbett). Such debates about the negative implications of the Internet and video games run simultaneously alongside government, educational and commercial promotion of these technologies, and the positioning of digital skills and connectivity as the key to children’s future education and employment. In this pro-technology discourse the family: …is being constructed as an entry point for the development of new computer-related literacies and social practices in young people … what is discursively produced within the global cultural economy as digital fun and games for young people, is simultaneously constructed as serious business for parents (Nixon 23). Thus, two conflicting discourses about children’s Internet use exist simultaneously whereby children are considered both “technically competent and at risk from their technical skills” (Valentine et al. 157). This anxiety is further exacerbated by the fear that parents are losing control of their children’s Internet activities because their own (the parents’) technical competencies are being surpassed by their children. Such fear may well be based on misleading information, particularly in the Australian context. The Australian Broadcasting Authority’s 2001 Internet@ home report “challenges the popular belief that parents lag behind their children in their interest and proficiency with online technology. Most often the household Internet ‘expert’ is an adult” (Aisbett 4). Nonetheless, this public anxiety is underscored by a concern that parents may not be sufficiently Internet-savvy to prevent their children’s access to pornography and other undesirable Internet content. This leads to the fundamental anxiety that parents’ natural power base will be diminished (Valentine et al. 157). In the case of children’s access to Internet porn it may well be that: although parents still occupy the role of initiated with regard to sexuality, if they are uninitiated technologically then they lose the power base from which to set the markers for progressive socialisation (Evans and Butkus 68). These popular fears do not take into consideration the context of Internet use in the real world—of children’s and parents’ actual experiences with and uses of the Internet. Parents have developed a variety of ways to manage these perceived risks in the home and are not usually overly concerned about their children’s exposure to unsuitable or inappropriate content on the Internet. Families’ everyday experiences of Internet consumption The home Internet is one site where most parents exercise some degree of care and control of their children, supervising both the quantity and quality of their children’s Internet experiences. When supervising their children’s access to particular Internet sites, parents in this study use a variety of strategies and approaches. These approaches range from a child-empowering ‘autonomous’ approach (which recognises children’s autonomy and competencies) to more authoritarian approaches (with the use of more direct supervision in order to restrict and protect children). At the same time children may use the Internet to affirm their autonomy or independence from their parents, as parents in this study affirm: He used to let me see the [onscreen] conversations but he won’t let me see them now. But that’s fine. If I come up and talk to him, he clicks the button and takes the screen off. (Kathy, pseudonyms used for interviewee contributions) Parents who tend to favour a child-empowering approach recognise their children’s autonomy, while at the same time having relatively high expectations of their children’s psychosocial competence and ability to handle a variety of media texts in a relatively sophisticated manner. When asked about her son’s access to adult Internet content, single mum Lisa indicated that Henry (17) had openly accessed Internet pornography a few years earlier. She expected (and allowed for) some exploration by her son. At the same time, she was not overly concerned that these materials would corrupt or harm him as she expected these explorations to be a transitory phase in his life: It doesn’t bother me at all. If he wants to do that then he can do it because he’ll get sick of it and I think initially it was ‘let’s see what we can do’. I remember once, he called me in and says ‘Mum, come and look at her boobs’ and I looked at it and I said ‘it’s disgusting’ or something and walked away and he laughed his head off. But I’ve never come in [lately] and found him looking at that stuff … It’s just not something that I’m … really worried about. It’s up to him (Lisa). As with this exchange, families often use media texts as tools in the socialisation of children. The provision of shared topics of conversation allows for discussions between generations: Such materials serve an agenda-setting role … [playing] an important role in providing a socioemotional context for the household within which learning takes place. Technoculture is consequently a critical tool for socialisation … ICTs also construct a framework on/with which to differentiate one member from another, to differentiate between generations, and to differentiate ways in which power and control can be asserted (Green 58). In this case, Lisa’s comment to her teenage son (‘it’s disgusting’) and her actions (in walking away) doubtlessly provided Henry with a social cue, an alternative attitude to his choice of online content. Further, in initiating this exchange with his mother, Henry is likely to have been making a statement about his own autonomy and transition into (heterosexual) manhood. In his interview, Henry openly acknowledged his earlier exploration of adult porn sites but (as his mother anticipated) he seems to have moved on from this particular phase. When asked whether he visited adult sites on the Internet Henry responded in his own succinct manner: Henry: Like porn and stuff? Not really. I probably did when I was a bit younger but it’s not really very exciting. Interviewer: That was when you first got it [the Internet] or when? Henry: Yeah, [two to three years earlier] all your friends come around and you check out the sites. It’s nothing exciting anymore. Sexual experiences and knowledge are an important currency within teenage boy culture (Holland et al. 1998) and like other teenage boys, Henry and his friends are likely to have used this technology in order to “negotiate their masculinity within the heterosexual economy of [their] peer group social relations”(Valentine et al. 160). In this case, it seemed to be a transitory stage within Henry’s peer (or community of interest) group and became less important as the teenagers grew into maturity. Many children and young people are also exploring the social world of Internet chat, with the potential risk of unwanted (and unsafe) face-to-face contact. Leonie, mother of teenage girls, explained her daughters’ ability to negotiate these potentially unsafe contacts: I suppose you just get a bit concerned about the chat lines and who they’re talking to sometimes but really they usually tell me … [to 17-year old daughter in the room] Like on the chat lines you, when, had that idiot … that one that was going to come over here. Just some idiots on there. A lot of the kids are teenagers. I know Shani’s [14] gotten on there a few times on the chat line and there’s been obviously someone asking them lewd questions and she’s usually blocked them and cut them off …(Leonie). Daughter Shani also discusses her experiences with unsafe (unwanted) Internet contact: “They go on about stuff that you don’t really want to talk about and it’s just ‘No, I don’t think so’” (Shani, 14). Shani went on to explain that she now prefers to use instant messaging with known (offline) friends—a preference now taken up by many teenagers (Holloway and Green: Livingstone and Bober). Electronic media play an important role in children’s transition to adulthood. The ubiquitousness of the World Wide Web, however, makes restriction and protection of children increasingly difficult to realise (Buckingham 84-5). Instead, many parents in this study are placing more importance on openness, consultation and discussion with their children about the media texts they encounter, rather than imposing restriction and regulation which these parents believe may well be “counter-productive” (Nightingale et al. 19). Of greater disquiet to many parents in this study than their children’s access to unsuitable online content is concern about their children’s possible excessive use of the Internet. Parents were typically more concerned about the amount of time some of their children were spending chatting to friends and playing online games. One mother explains: They [my daughters] started to use MSN whilst they were doing school work and obviously kids are able to listen to music, watch television, do a project. They can multi-task without all the confusion that I [would have] but we actually now, they’re not able to do MSN during the school week at all … so we now said to them, “if you want to ring somebody, give them a call, that’s fine, we don’t mind, but during the week no MSN” … we’ve actually restricted them (Stephanie). Parental concern about children’s excessive use of the Internet was most marked for parents of teenage children: adolescence being a time when “rules about media consumption can be an early site of resistance for young adults keen to take more power for themselves and their own lives” (Green 30). Father of two, Xavier, expressed his concern about (what he perceived as) his teenage son’s excessive use of the Internet: Well I think there’s far too much time … Gavin’ll spend a whole day on it. I try to get him to come to the footy on Sunday. No. He’s available for friends [for online gaming and chat on the Internet]. He’ll spend all day on the computer (Xavier). Son Gavin (16), in a separate interview, anticipated that this criticism had been made and felt compelled to counter it: Well he [dad] makes comments like saying I’m not fit enough ‘cause I spent too much time on the computer but I play soccer a lot. Like, I do sport perhaps everyday at school … I mean, I think, such a piece of crap (Gavin). Thus, the incorporation of the Internet into the domestic sphere often sees previously established boundaries (who uses what, when, where and for how long) redefined, challenged, resisted and defended by various family members. In this way the Internet (and other new media) helps shape (and is shaped by) the temporal and spatial boundaries within the home. Conclusion While all parents in the Family Internet study construct the Internet as a site which requires some level of care and control over their children’s online use, they use a variety of approaches when carrying out this supervisory role. Some parents tend to allow for children’s free exploration of the Internet and are relatively confident that their children are able to negotiate adult texts such as pornography in a comparatively sophisticated manner. Other parents, those inclined to protect their children from the dangers of adult content and unsafe Internet contact, choose to monitor and restrict their children’s access to the Internet to varying degrees. More consistent is parental concern about excessive use of the Internet, and the assumption that this displaces constructive use of children’s time. Public anxieties about children’s use of the Internet make assumptions about children’s media practices. Children (and their families) are often assumed to be less able to differentiate between suitable and unsuitable Internet texts and to deal with these potential dangers in a sensible manner. These fears presuppose a variety of negative impacts on children’s and young peoples’ lives which may have little to do with daily reality. Our exploration of families’ everyday experiences of Internet consumption highlights the disparity between public anxieties about Internet use and the importance of these anxieties in the everyday lives of families. The major concern of families – ill-disciplined and excessive Internet use – barely registers on the same scale as the public moral panic over children’s possible access to online pornography. These findings say less about the Internet as a locale in cyberspace than they do about the domestic dynamics of the household, parenting styles, relationships between parent(s) and children, and the sociocultural context of family life. References Aisbett, Kate. The Internet at Home: A Report on Internet Use in the Home. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Authority, 2001. Buckingham, David. After the Death of Childhood: Growing up in the Age of Electronic Media. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2000. Durkin, Kevin and Kate Aisbett. Computer Games and Australians Today. Sydney: Office of Film and Literature Classification, 1999. Evans, Mark and Clarice Butkus. “Regulating the Emergent: Cyberporn and the Traditional Media.” Media International Australia 85 (1997): 62-9. Green, Lelia. Technoculture: >From Alphabet to Cybersex. Crows Nest Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2002. Holland, Janet and Caroline Ramazanoglu, Sue Sharpe and Rachel Thomson. The Male in the Head: Young People, Heterosexuality and Power. London: Tufnell Press, 1998. Holloway, Donell and Lelia Green. “Home Is Where You Hang Your @: Australian Women on the Net.” Communications Research Forum. Canberra: Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, 2003. Livingstone, Sonia and Magdalena Bober. UK Children Go Online: Listening to Young People’s Experiences. London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 2003. Marshall, P. David. “Technophobia: Video Games, Computer Hacks and Cybernetics.” Media International Australia 85 (1997): 70-8. Nightingale, Virginia, Dianne Dickenson and Catherine Griff. “Harm: Children’s Views About Media Harm and Program Classification.” Forum. Sydney, Australia, 2000. Nixon, Helen. “Fun and Games Are Serious Business.” Digital Diversions: Youth Culture in the Age of Multi-Media. Ed. J Sefton-Green. London: UCL Press, 1998. Silverstone, Roger, Eric Hirsch and David Morley. “Information and Communication and the Moral Economy of the Household.” Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. Eds. Roger Silverstone and Eric Hirsch. London: Routledge, 1992. 17-31. Valentine, Gill, Sarah Holloway and Nick Bingham. “Transforming Cyberspace: Children’s Interventions in the New Public Sphere.” Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning. Eds. Sarah L. Holloway and Gill Valentine. London: Routledge, 2000. 156 – 93. MLA Style Holloway, Donell, Lelia Green & Robyn Quin. "What Porn?: Children and the Family Internet." M/C Journal 7.4 (2004). 10 October 2004 <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0410/02_children.php>. APA Style Holloway, D., Green, L. & Quin, R. (2004 Oct 11). What Porn?: Children and the Family Internet, M/C Journal, 7(4). Retrieved Oct 10 2004 from <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0410/02_children.php>

IntroductionI have been studying the creation of Metro style train travel in Sydney for over a decade. My focus has been on the impact that media has had on the process (see Richardson, “Curatorial”; “Upheaval”; “Making”). Through extensive expert, public, and media research, I have investigated the coalitions and alliances that have formed (and disintegrated) between political, bureaucratic, news media, and public actors and the influences at work within these actor-networks. As part of this project, I visited an underground Métro turning fifty in Montreal, Canada. After many years studying the development of a train that wasn’t yet tangible, I wanted to ask a functional train the simple ethnomethodological/Latourian style question, “what do you do for a city and its people?” (de Vries). Therefore, in addition to research conducted in Montreal, I spent ten days wandering through many of the entrances, tunnels, staircases, escalators, mezzanines, platforms, doorways, and carriages of which the Métro system consists. The purpose was to observe the train in situ in order to broaden potential conceptualisations of what a train does for a city such as Montreal, with a view of improving the ideas and messages that would be used to “sell” future rapid rail projects in other cities such as Sydney. This article outlines a selection of the pathways wandered, not only to illustrate the power of social research based on physical wandering, but also the potential power the metaphorical and conceptual wandering an Actor-Network Theory (ANT) assemblage affords social research for media communications.Context, Purpose, and ApproachANT is a hybrid theory/method for studying an arena of the social, such as the significance of a train to a city like Montreal. This type of study is undertaken by following the actors (Latour, Reassembling 12). In ANT, actors do something, as the term suggests. These actions have affects and effects. These might be contrived and deliberate influences or completely circumstantial and accidental impacts. Actors can be people as we are most commonly used to understanding them, and they can also be texts, technological devices, software programs, natural phenomena, or random occurrences. Most significantly though, actors are their “relations” (Harman 17). This means that they are only present if they are relating to others. These relations and the resulting influences and impacts are called networks. A network in the ANT sense is not as simple as the lines that connect train stations on a rail map. Without actions, relations, influences, and impacts, there are no actors. Hence the hyphen in actor-network; the actor and the network are symbiotic. The network, rendered visible through actor associations, consists of the tenuous connections that “shuttle back and forth” between actors even in spite of the fact their areas of knowledge and reality may be completely separate (Latour Modern 3). ANT, therefore, may be considered an empirical practice of tracing the actors and the network of influences and impacts that they both help to shape and are themselves shaped by. To do this, central ANT theorist Bruno Latour employs a simple research question: “what do you do?” This is because in the process of doing, somebody or something is observed to be affecting other people or things and an actor-network becomes identifiable. Latour later learned that his approach shared many parallels with ethnomethodology. This was a discovery that more concretely set the trajectory of his work away from a social science that sought explanations “about why something happens, to ontological ones, that is, questions about what is going on” (de Vries). So, in order to make sense of people’s actions and relations, the focus of research became asking the deceptively simple question while refraining as much as possible “from offering descriptions and explanations of actions in terms of schemes taught in social theory classes” (14).In answering this central ANT question, studies typically wander in a metaphorical sense through an array or assemblage (Law) of research methods such as formal and informal interviews, ethnographic style observation, as well as the content analysis of primary and secondary texts (see Latour, Aramis). These were the methods adopted for my Montreal research—in addition to fifteen in-depth expert and public interviews conducted in October 2017, ten days were spent physically wandering and observing the train in action. I hoped that in understanding what the train does for the city and its people, the actor-network within which the train is situated would be revealed. Of course, “what do you do?” is a very broad question. It requires context. In following the influence of news media in the circuitous development of rapid rail transit in Sydney, I have been struck by the limited tropes through which the potential for rapid rail is discussed. These tropes focus on technological, functional, and/or operational aspects (see Budd; Faruqi; Hasham), costs, funding and return on investment (see Martin and O’Sullivan; Saulwick), and the potential to alleviate peak hour congestion (see Clennell; West). As an expert respondent in my Sydney research, a leading Australian architect and planner, states, “How boring and unexciting […] I mean in Singapore it is the most exciting […] the trains are fantastic […] that wasn’t sold to the [Sydney] public.” So, the purpose of the Montreal research is to expand conceptualisations of the potential for rapid rail infrastructure to influence a city and improve communications used to sell projects in the future, as well as to test the role of both physical and metaphorical ANT style wanderings in doing so. Montreal was chosen for three reasons. First, the Métro had recently turned fifty, which made the comparison between the fledgling and mature systems topical. Second, the Métro was preceded by decades of media discussion (Gilbert and Poitras), which parallels the development of rapid transit in Sydney. Finally, a different architect designed each station and most stations feature art installations (Magder). Therefore, the Métro appeared to have transcended the aforementioned functional and numerically focused tropes used to justify the Sydney system. Could such a train be considered a long-term success?Wandering and PathwaysIn ten days I rode the Montreal Métro from end to end. I stopped at all the stations. I wandered around. I treated wandering not just as a physical research activity, but also as an illustrative metaphor for an assemblage of research practices. This assemblage culminates in testimony, anecdotes, stories, and descriptions through which an actor-network may be glimpsed. Of course, it is incomplete—what I have outlined below represents only a few pathways. However, to think that an actor-network can ever be traversed in its entirety is to miss the point. Completion is a fallacy. Wandering doesn’t end at a finish line. There are always pathways left untrodden. I have attempted not to overanalyse. I have left contradictions unresolved. I have avoided the temptation to link paths through tenuous byways. Some might consider that I have meandered, but an actor-network is never linear. I can only hope that my wanderings, as curtailed as they may be, prove nuanced, colourful, and rich—if not compelling. ANT encourages us to rethink social research (Latour, Reassembling). Central to this is acknowledging (and becoming comfortable with) our own role as researcher in the illumination of the actor-network itself.Here are some of the Montreal pathways wandered:First Impressions I arrive at Montreal airport late afternoon. The apartment I have rented is conveniently located between two Métro stations—Mont Royal and Sherbrooke. I use my phone and seek directions by public transport. To my surprise, the only option is the bus. Too tired to work out connections, I decide instead to follow the signs to the taxi rank. Here, I queue. We are underway twenty minutes later. Travelling around peak traffic, we move from one traffic jam to the next. The trip is slow. Finally ensconced in the apartment, I reflect on how different the trip into Montreal had been, from what I had envisaged. The Métro I had travelled to visit was conspicuous in its total absence.FloatingIt is a feeling of floating that first strikes me when riding the Métro. It runs on rubber tyres. The explanation for the choice of this technology differs. There are reports that it was the brainchild of strong-willed mayor, Jean Drapeau, who believed the new technology would showcase Montreal as a modern world-scale metropolis (Gilbert and Poitras). However, John Martins-Manteiga provides a less romantic account, stating that the decision was made because tyres were cheaper (47). I assume the rubber tyres create the floating sensation. Add to this the famous warmth of the system (Magder; Hazan, Hot) and it has a thoroughly calming, even lulling, effect.Originally, I am planning to spend two whole days riding the Métro in its entirety. I make handwritten notes. On the first day, at mid-morning, nausea develops. I am suffering motion sickness. This is a surprise. I have always been fine to read and write on trains, unlike in a car or bus. It causes a moment of realisation. I am effectively riding a bus. This is an unexpected side-effect. My research program changes—I ride for a maximum of two hours at a time and my note taking becomes more circumspect. The train as actor is influencing the research program and the data being recorded in unexpected ways. ArtThe stained-glass collage at Berri-Uquam, by Pierre Gaboriau and Pierre Osterrath, is grand in scale, intricately detailed and beautiful. It sits above the tunnel from which the trains enter and leave the platform. It somehow seems wholly connected to the train as a result—it frames and announces arrivals and departures. Other striking pieces include the colourful, tiled circles from the mezzanine above the platform at station Peel and the beautiful stained-glass panels on the escalator at station Charlevoix. As a public respondent visiting from Chicago contends, “I just got a sense of exploration—that I wanted to have a look around”.Urban FormAn urban planner asserts that the Métro is responsible for the identity and diversity of urban culture that Montreal is famous for. As everyone cannot live right above a Métro station, there are streets around stations where people walk to the train. As there is less need for cars, these streets are made friendlier for walkers, precipitating a cycle. Furthermore, pedestrian-friendly streets promote local village style commerce such as shops, cafes, bars, and restaurants. So, there is not only more access on foot, but also more incentive to access. The walking that the Métro induces improves the dynamism and social aspects of neighbourhoods, a by-product of which is a distinct urban form and culture for different pockets of the city. The actor-network broadens. In following the actors, I now have to wander beyond the physical limits of the system itself. The streets I walk around station Mont Royal are shopping and restaurant strips, rich with foot traffic at all times of day; it is a vibrant and enticing place to wander.Find DiningThe popular MTL blog published a map of the best restaurants the Métro provides access to (Hazan, Restaurant).ArchitectureStation De La Savane resembles a retro medieval dungeon. It evokes thoughts of the television series Game of Thrones. Art and architecture work in perfect harmony. The sculpture in the foyer by Maurice Lemieux resembles a deconstructed metal mace hanging on a brutalist concrete wall. It towers above a grand staircase and abuts a fence that might ring a medieval keep. Up close I realise it is polished, precisely cut cylindrical steel. A modern fence referencing another time and place. Descending to the platform, craggy concrete walls are pitted with holes. I get the sense of peering through these into the hidden chambers of a crypt. Overlaying all of this is a strikingly modern series of regular and irregular, bold vertical striations cut deeply into the concrete. They run from floor to ceiling to add to a cathedral-like sense of scale. It’s warming to think that such a whimsical train station exists anywhere in the world. Time WarpA public respondent describes the Métro:It’s a little bit like a time machine. It’s a piece of the past and piece of history […] still alive now. I think that it brings art or form or beauty into everyday life. […] You’re going from one place to the next, but because of the history and the story of it you could stop and breathe and take it in a little bit more.Hold ups and HostagesA frustrated General Manager of a transport advocacy group states in an interview:Two minutes of stopping in the Métro is like Armageddon in Montreal—you see it on every media, on every smartphone [...] We are so captive in the Métro [there is a] loss of control.Further, a transport modelling expert asserts:You’re a hostage when you’re in transportation. If the Métro goes out, then you really are stuck. Unfortunately, it does go out often enough. If you lose faith in a mode of transportation, it’s going to be very hard to get you back.CommutingIt took me a good week before I started to notice how tired some of the Métro stations had grown. I felt my enthusiasm dip when I saw the estimated arrival time lengthen on the electronic noticeboard. Anger rose as a young man pushed past me from behind to get out of a train before I had a chance to exit. These tendrils of the actor-network were not evident to me in the first few days. Most interview respondents state that after a period of time passengers take less notice of the interesting and artistic aspects of the Métro. They become commuters. Timeliness and consistency become the most important aspects of the system.FinaleI deliberately visit station Champ-de-Mars last. Photos convince me that I am going to end my Métro exploration with an experience to savour. The station entry and gallery is iconic. Martins-Manteiga writes, “The stained-glass artwork by Marcelle Ferron is almost a religious experience; it floods in and splashes down below” (306). My timing is off though. On this day, the soaring stained-glass windows are mostly hidden behind protective wadding. The station is undergoing restoration. Travelling for the last time back towards station Mont Royal, my mood lightens. Although I had been anticipating this station for some time, in many respects this is a revealing conclusion to my Métro wanderings.What Do You Do?When asked what the train does, many respondents took a while to answer or began with common tropes around moving people. As a transport project manager asserts, “in the world of public transport, the perfect trip is the one you don’t notice”. A journalist gives the most considered and interesting answer. He contends:I think it would say, “I hold the city together culturally, economically, physically, logistically—that’s what I do […] I’m the connective tissue of this city”. […] How else do you describe infrastructure that connects poor neighbourhoods to rich neighbourhoods, downtown to outlying areas, that supports all sorts of businesses both inside it and immediately adjacent to it and has created these axes around the city that pull in almost everybody [...] And of course, everyone takes it for granted […] We get pissed off when it’s late.ConclusionNo matter how real a transportation system may be, it can always be made a little less real. Today, for example, the Paris metro is on strike for the third week in a row. Millions of Parisians are learning to get along without it, by taking their cars or walking […] You see? These enormous hundred-year-old technological monsters are no more real than the four-year-old Aramis is unreal: They all need allies, friends […] There’s no inertia, no irreversibility; there’s no autonomy to keep them alive. (Latour, Aramis 86)Through ANT-based physical and metaphorical wanderings, we find many pathways that illuminate what a train does. We learn from various actors in the actor-network through which the train exists. We seek out its “allies” and “friends”. We wander, piecing together as much of the network as we can. The Métro does lots of things. It has many influences and it influences many. It is undeniably an actor in an actor-network. Transport planners would like it to appear seamless—commuters entering and leaving without really noticing the in-between. And sometimes it appears this way. However, when the commuter is delayed, this appearance is shattered. If a signal fails or an engine falters, the Métro, through a process mediated by word of mouth and/or social and mainstream media, is suddenly rendered tired and obsolete. Or is it historic and quaint? Is the train a technical problem for the city of Montreal or is it characterful and integral to the city’s identity? It is all these things and many more. The actor-network is illusive and elusive. Pathways are extensive. The train floats. The train is late. The train makes us walk. The train has seeded many unique villages, much loved. The train is broken. The train is healthy for its age. The train is all that is right with Montreal. The train is all that is wrong with Montreal. The artwork and architecture mean nothing. The artwork and architecture mean everything. Is the train overly limited by the tyres that keep it underground? Of course, it is. Of course, it isn’t. Does 50 years of history matter? Of course, it does. Of course, it doesn’t. It thrives. It’s tired. It connects. It divides. It’s functional. It’s dirty. It’s beautiful. It’s something to be proud of. It’s embarrassing. A train offers many complex and fascinating pathways. It is never simply an object; it lives and breathes in the network because we live and breathe around it. It stops being effective. It starts becoming affective. Sydney must learn from this. My wanderings demonstrate that the Métro cannot be extricated from what Montreal has become over the last half century. In May 2019, Sydney finally opened its first Metro rail link. And yet, this link and other ongoing metro projects continue to be discussed through statistics and practicalities (Sydney Metro). This offers no affective sense of the pathways that are, and will one day be, created. By selecting and appropriating relevant pathways from cities such as Montreal, and through our own wanderings and imaginings, we can make projections of what a train will do for a city like Sydney. We can project a rich and vibrant actor-network through the media in more emotive and powerful ways. Or, can we not at least supplement the economic, functional, or technocratic accounts with other wanderings? Of course, we can’t. Of course, we can. 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Introduction: Our current obsession with the lives of others “Biography—that is to say, our creative and non-fictional output devoted to recording and interpreting real lives—has enjoyed an extraordinary renaissance in recent years,” writes Nigel Hamilton in Biography: A Brief History (1). Ian Donaldson agrees that biography is back in fashion: “Once neglected within the academy and relegated to the dustier recesses of public bookstores, biography has made a notable return over recent years, emerging, somewhat surprisingly, as a new cultural phenomenon, and a new academic adventure” (23). For over a decade now, commentators having been making similar observations about our obsession with the intimacies of individual people’s lives. In a lecture in 1994, Justin Kaplan asserted the West was “a culture of biography” (qtd. in Salwak 1) and more recent research findings by John Feather and Hazel Woodbridge affirm that “the undiminished human curiosity about other peoples lives is clearly reflected in the popularity of autobiographies and biographies” (218). At least in relation to television, this assertion seems valid. In Australia, as in the USA and the UK, reality and other biographically based television shows have taken over from drama in both the numbers of shows produced and the viewers these shows attract, and these forms are also popular in Canada (see, for instance, Morreale on The Osbournes). In 2007, the program Biography celebrated its twentieth anniversary season to become one of the longest running documentary series on American television; so successful that in 1999 it was spun off into its own eponymous channel (Rak; Dempsey). Premiered in May 1996, Australian Story—which aims to utilise a “personal approach” to biographical storytelling—has won a significant viewership, critical acclaim and professional recognition (ABC). It can also be posited that the real home movies viewers submit to such programs as Australia’s Favourite Home Videos, and “chat” or “confessional” television are further reflections of a general mania for biographical detail (see Douglas), no matter how fragmented, sensationalized, or even inane and cruel. A recent example of the latter, the USA-produced The Moment of Truth, has contestants answering personal questions under polygraph examination and then again in front of an audience including close relatives and friends—the more “truthful” their answers (and often, the more humiliated and/or distressed contestants are willing to be), the more money they can win. Away from television, but offering further evidence of this interest are the growing readerships for personally oriented weblogs and networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook (Grossman), individual profiles and interviews in periodical publications, and the recently widely revived newspaper obituary column (Starck). Adult and community education organisations run short courses on researching and writing auto/biographical forms and, across Western countries, the family history/genealogy sections of many local, state, and national libraries have been upgraded to meet the increasing demand for these services. Academically, journals and e-mail discussion lists have been established on the topics of biography and autobiography, and North American, British, and Australian universities offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in life writing. The commonly aired wisdom is that published life writing in its many text-based forms (biography, autobiography, memoir, diaries, and collections of personal letters) is enjoying unprecedented popularity. It is our purpose to examine this proposition. Methodological problems There are a number of problems involved in investigating genre popularity, growth, and decline in publishing. Firstly, it is not easy to gain access to detailed statistics, which are usually only available within the industry. Secondly, it is difficult to ascertain how publishing statistics are gathered and what they report (Eliot). There is the question of whether bestselling booklists reflect actual book sales or are manipulated marketing tools (Miller), although the move from surveys of booksellers to electronic reporting at point of sale in new publishing lists such as BookScan will hopefully obviate this problem. Thirdly, some publishing lists categorise by subject and form, some by subject only, and some do not categorise at all. This means that in any analysis of these statistics, a decision has to be made whether to use the publishing list’s system or impose a different mode. If the publishing list is taken at face value, the question arises of whether to use categorisation by form or by subject. Fourthly, there is the bedeviling issue of terminology. Traditionally, there reigned a simple dualism in the terminology applied to forms of telling the true story of an actual life: biography and autobiography. Publishing lists that categorise their books, such as BookScan, have retained it. But with postmodern recognition of the presence of the biographer in a biography and of the presence of other subjects in an autobiography, the dichotomy proves false. There is the further problem of how to categorise memoirs, diaries, and letters. In the academic arena, the term “life writing” has emerged to describe the field as a whole. Within the genre of life writing, there are, however, still recognised sub-genres. Academic definitions vary, but generally a biography is understood to be a scholarly study of a subject who is not the writer; an autobiography is the story of a entire life written by its subject; while a memoir is a segment or particular focus of that life told, again, by its own subject. These terms are, however, often used interchangeably even by significant institutions such the USA Library of Congress, which utilises the term “biography” for all. Different commentators also use differing definitions. Hamilton uses the term “biography” to include all forms of life writing. Donaldson discusses how the term has been co-opted to include biographies of place such as Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography (2000) and of things such as Lizzie Collingham’s Curry: A Biography (2005). This reflects, of course, a writing/publishing world in which non-fiction stories of places, creatures, and even foodstuffs are called biographies, presumably in the belief that this will make them more saleable. The situation is further complicated by the emergence of hybrid publishing forms such as, for instance, the “memoir-with-recipes” or “food memoir” (Brien, Rutherford and Williamson). Are such books to be classified as autobiography or put in the “cookery/food & drink” category? We mention in passing the further confusion caused by novels with a subtitle of The Biography such as Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. The fifth methodological problem that needs to be mentioned is the increasing globalisation of the publishing industry, which raises questions about the validity of the majority of studies available (including those cited herein) which are nationally based. Whether book sales reflect what is actually read (and by whom), raises of course another set of questions altogether. Methodology In our exploration, we were fundamentally concerned with two questions. Is life writing as popular as claimed? And, if it is, is this a new phenomenon? To answer these questions, we examined a range of available sources. We began with the non-fiction bestseller lists in Publishers Weekly (a respected American trade magazine aimed at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents that claims to be international in scope) from their inception in 1912 to the present time. We hoped that this data could provide a longitudinal perspective. The term bestseller was coined by Publishers Weekly when it began publishing its lists in 1912; although the first list of popular American books actually appeared in The Bookman (New York) in 1895, based itself on lists appearing in London’s The Bookman since 1891 (Bassett and Walter 206). The Publishers Weekly lists are the best source of longitudinal information as the currently widely cited New York Times listings did not appear till 1942, with the Wall Street Journal a late entry into the field in 1994. We then examined a number of sources of more recent statistics. We looked at the bestseller lists from the USA-based Amazon.com online bookseller; recent research on bestsellers in Britain; and lists from Nielsen BookScan Australia, which claims to tally some 85% or more of books sold in Australia, wherever they are published. In addition to the reservations expressed above, caveats must be aired in relation to these sources. While Publishers Weekly claims to be an international publication, it largely reflects the North American publishing scene and especially that of the USA. Although available internationally, Amazon.com also has its own national sites—such as Amazon.co.uk—not considered here. It also caters to a “specific computer-literate, credit-able clientele” (Gutjahr: 219) and has an unashamedly commercial focus, within which all the information generated must be considered. In our analysis of the material studied, we will use “life writing” as a genre term. When it comes to analysis of the lists, we have broken down the genre of life writing into biography and autobiography, incorporating memoir, letters, and diaries under autobiography. This is consistent with the use of the terminology in BookScan. Although we have broken down the genre in this way, it is the overall picture with regard to life writing that is our concern. It is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a detailed analysis of whether, within life writing, further distinctions should be drawn. Publishers Weekly: 1912 to 2006 1912 saw the first list of the 10 bestselling non-fiction titles in Publishers Weekly. It featured two life writing texts, being headed by an autobiography, The Promised Land by Russian Jewish immigrant Mary Antin, and concluding with Albert Bigelow Paine’s six-volume biography, Mark Twain. The Publishers Weekly lists do not categorise non-fiction titles by either form or subject, so the classifications below are our own with memoir classified as autobiography. In a decade-by-decade tally of these listings, there were 3 biographies and 20 autobiographies in the lists between 1912 and 1919; 24 biographies and 21 autobiographies in the 1920s; 13 biographies and 40 autobiographies in the 1930s; 8 biographies and 46 biographies in the 1940s; 4 biographies and 14 autobiographies in the 1950s; 11 biographies and 13 autobiographies in the 1960s; 6 biographies and 11 autobiographies in the 1970s; 3 biographies and 19 autobiographies in the 1980s; 5 biographies and 17 autobiographies in the 1990s; and 2 biographies and 7 autobiographies from 2000 up until the end of 2006. See Appendix 1 for the relevant titles and authors. Breaking down the most recent figures for 1990–2006, we find a not radically different range of figures and trends across years in the contemporary environment. The validity of looking only at the top ten books sold in any year is, of course, questionable, as are all the issues regarding sources discussed above. But one thing is certain in terms of our inquiry. There is no upwards curve obvious here. If anything, the decade break-down suggests that sales are trending downwards. This is in keeping with the findings of Michael Korda, in his history of twentieth-century bestsellers. He suggests a consistent longitudinal picture across all genres: In every decade, from 1900 to the end of the twentieth century, people have been reliably attracted to the same kind of books […] Certain kinds of popular fiction always do well, as do diet books […] self-help books, celebrity memoirs, sensationalist scientific or religious speculation, stories about pets, medical advice (particularly on the subjects of sex, longevity, and child rearing), folksy wisdom and/or humour, and the American Civil War (xvii). Amazon.com since 2000 The USA-based Amazon.com online bookselling site provides listings of its own top 50 bestsellers since 2000, although only the top 14 bestsellers are recorded for 2001. As fiction and non-fiction are not separated out on these lists and no genre categories are specified, we have again made our own decisions about what books fall into the category of life writing. Generally, we erred on the side of inclusion. (See Appendix 2.) However, when it came to books dealing with political events, we excluded books dealing with specific aspects of political practice/policy. This meant excluding books on, for instance, George Bush’s so-called ‘war on terror,’ of which there were a number of bestsellers listed. In summary, these listings reveal that of the top 364 books sold by Amazon from 2000 to 2007, 46 (or some 12.6%) were, according to our judgment, either biographical or autobiographical texts. This is not far from the 10% of the 1912 Publishers Weekly listing, although, as above, the proportion of bestsellers that can be classified as life writing varied dramatically from year to year, with no discernible pattern of peaks and troughs. This proportion tallied to 4% auto/biographies in 2000, 14% in 2001, 10% in 2002, 18% in 2003 and 2004, 4% in 2005, 14% in 2006 and 20% in 2007. This could suggest a rising trend, although it does not offer any consistent trend data to suggest sales figures may either continue to grow, or fall again, in 2008 or afterwards. Looking at the particular texts in these lists (see Appendix 2) also suggests that there is no general trend in the popularity of life writing in relation to other genres. For instance, in these listings in Amazon.com, life writing texts only rarely figure in the top 10 books sold in any year. So rarely indeed, that from 2001 there were only five in this category. In 2001, John Adams by David McCullough was the best selling book of the year; in 2003, Hillary Clinton’s autobiographical Living History was 7th; in 2004, My Life by Bill Clinton reached number 1; in 2006, Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman was 9th; and in 2007, Ishmael Beah’s discredited A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier came in at 8th. Apart from McCulloch’s biography of Adams, all the above are autobiographical texts, while the focus on leading political figures is notable. Britain: Feather and Woodbridge With regard to the British situation, we did not have actual lists and relied on recent analysis. John Feather and Hazel Woodbridge find considerably higher levels for life writing in Britain than above with, from 1998 to 2005, 28% of British published non-fiction comprising autobiography, while 8% of hardback and 5% of paperback non-fiction was biography (2007). Furthermore, although Feather and Woodbridge agree with commentators that life writing is currently popular, they do not agree that this is a growth state, finding the popularity of life writing “essentially unchanged” since their previous study, which covered 1979 to the early 1990s (Feather and Reid). Australia: Nielsen BookScan 2006 and 2007 In the Australian publishing industry, where producing books remains an ‘expensive, risky endeavour which is increasingly market driven’ (Galligan 36) and ‘an inherently complex activity’ (Carter and Galligan 4), the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal that the total numbers of books sold in Australia has remained relatively static over the past decade (130.6 million in the financial year 1995–96 and 128.8 million in 2003–04) (ABS). During this time, however, sales volumes of non-fiction publications have grown markedly, with a trend towards “non-fiction, mass market and predictable” books (Corporall 41) resulting in general non-fiction sales in 2003–2004 outselling general fiction by factors as high as ten depending on the format—hard- or paperback, and trade or mass market paperback (ABS 2005). However, while non-fiction has increased in popularity in Australia, the same does not seem to hold true for life writing. Here, in utilising data for the top 5,000 selling non-fiction books in both 2006 and 2007, we are relying on Nielsen BookScan’s categorisation of texts as either biography or autobiography. In 2006, no works of life writing made the top 10 books sold in Australia. In looking at the top 100 books sold for 2006, in some cases the subjects of these works vary markedly from those extracted from the Amazon.com listings. In Australia in 2006, life writing makes its first appearance at number 14 with convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby’s My Story. This is followed by another My Story at 25, this time by retired Australian army chief, Peter Cosgrove. Jonestown: The Power and Myth of Alan Jones comes in at 34 for the Australian broadcaster’s biographer Chris Masters; the biography, The Innocent Man by John Grisham at 38 and Li Cunxin’s autobiographical Mao’s Last Dancer at 45. Australian Susan Duncan’s memoir of coping with personal loss, Salvation Creek: An Unexpected Life makes 50; bestselling USA travel writer Bill Bryson’s autobiographical memoir of his childhood The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid 69; Mandela: The Authorised Portrait by Rosalind Coward, 79; and Joanne Lees’s memoir of dealing with her kidnapping, the murder of her partner and the justice system in Australia’s Northern Territory, No Turning Back, 89. These books reveal a market preference for autobiographical writing, and an almost even split between Australian and overseas subjects in 2006. 2007 similarly saw no life writing in the top 10. The books in the top 100 sales reveal a downward trend, with fewer titles making this band overall. In 2007, Terri Irwin’s memoir of life with her famous husband, wildlife warrior Steve Irwin, My Steve, came in at number 26; musician Andrew Johns’s memoir of mental illness, The Two of Me, at 37; Ayaan Hirst Ali’s autobiography Infidel at 39; John Grogan’s biography/memoir, Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog, at 42; Sally Collings’s biography of the inspirational young survivor Sophie Delezio, Sophie’s Journey, at 51; and Elizabeth Gilbert’s hybrid food, self-help and travel memoir, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything at 82. Mao’s Last Dancer, published the year before, remained in the top 100 in 2007 at 87. When moving to a consideration of the top 5,000 books sold in Australia in 2006, BookScan reveals only 62 books categorised as life writing in the top 1,000, and only 222 in the top 5,000 (with 34 titles between 1,000 and 1,999, 45 between 2,000 and 2,999, 48 between 3,000 and 3,999, and 33 between 4,000 and 5,000). 2007 shows a similar total of 235 life writing texts in the top 5,000 bestselling books (75 titles in the first 1,000, 27 between 1,000 and 1,999, 51 between 2,000 and 2,999, 39 between 3,000 and 3,999, and 43 between 4,000 and 5,000). In both years, 2006 and 2007, life writing thus not only constituted only some 4% of the bestselling 5,000 titles in Australia, it also showed only minimal change between these years and, therefore, no significant growth. Conclusions Our investigation using various instruments that claim to reflect levels of book sales reveals that Western readers’ willingness to purchase published life writing has not changed significantly over the past century. We find no evidence of either a short, or longer, term growth or boom in sales in such books. Instead, it appears that what has been widely heralded as a new golden age of life writing may well be more the result of an expanded understanding of what is included in the genre than an increased interest in it by either book readers or publishers. What recent years do appear to have seen, however, is a significantly increased interest by public commentators, critics, and academics in this genre of writing. We have also discovered that the issue of our current obsession with the lives of others tends to be discussed in academic as well as popular fora as if what applies to one sub-genre or production form applies to another: if biography is popular, then autobiography will also be, and vice versa. If reality television programming is attracting viewers, then readers will be flocking to life writing as well. Our investigation reveals that such propositions are questionable, and that there is significant research to be completed in mapping such audiences against each other. This work has also highlighted the difficulty of separating out the categories of written texts in publishing studies, firstly in terms of determining what falls within the category of life writing as distinct from other forms of non-fiction (the hybrid problem) and, secondly, in terms of separating out the categories within life writing. Although we have continued to use the terms biography and autobiography as sub-genres, we are aware that they are less useful as descriptors than they are often assumed to be. In order to obtain a more complete and accurate picture, publishing categories may need to be agreed upon, redefined and utilised across the publishing industry and within academia. This is of particular importance in the light of the suggestions (from total sales volumes) that the audiences for books are limited, and therefore the rise of one sub-genre may be directly responsible for the fall of another. Bair argues, for example, that in the 1980s and 1990s, the popularity of what she categorises as memoir had direct repercussions on the numbers of birth-to-death biographies that were commissioned, contracted, and published as “sales and marketing staffs conclude[d] that readers don’t want a full-scale life any more” (17). Finally, although we have highlighted the difficulty of using publishing statistics when there is no common understanding as to what such data is reporting, we hope this study shows that the utilisation of such material does add a depth to such enquiries, especially in interrogating the anecdotal evidence that is often quoted as data in publishing and other studies. Appendix 1 Publishers Weekly listings 1990–1999 1990 included two autobiographies, Bo Knows Bo by professional athlete Bo Jackson (with Dick Schaap) and Ronald Reagan’s An America Life: An Autobiography. In 1991, there were further examples of life writing with unimaginative titles, Me: Stories of My Life by Katherine Hepburn, Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography by Kitty Kelley, and Under Fire: An American Story by Oliver North with William Novak; as indeed there were again in 1992 with It Doesn’t Take a Hero: The Autobiography of Norman Schwarzkopf, Sam Walton: Made in America, the autobiography of the founder of Wal-Mart, Diana: Her True Story by Andrew Morton, Every Living Thing, yet another veterinary outpouring from James Herriot, and Truman by David McCullough. In 1993, radio shock-jock Howard Stern was successful with the autobiographical Private Parts, as was Betty Eadie with her detailed recounting of her alleged near-death experience, Embraced by the Light. Eadie’s book remained on the list in 1994 next to Don’t Stand too Close to a Naked Man, comedian Tim Allen’s autobiography. Flag-waving titles continue in 1995 with Colin Powell’s My American Journey, and Miss America, Howard Stern’s follow-up to Private Parts. 1996 saw two autobiographical works, basketball superstar Dennis Rodman’s Bad as I Wanna Be and figure-skater, Ekaterina Gordeeva’s (with EM Swift) My Sergei: A Love Story. In 1997, Diana: Her True Story returns to the top 10, joining Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and prolific biographer Kitty Kelly’s The Royals, while in 1998, there is only the part-autobiography, part travel-writing A Pirate Looks at Fifty, by musician Jimmy Buffet. There is no biography or autobiography included in either the 1999 or 2000 top 10 lists in Publishers Weekly, nor in that for 2005. In 2001, David McCullough’s biography John Adams and Jack Welch’s business memoir Jack: Straight from the Gut featured. In 2002, Let’s Roll! Lisa Beamer’s tribute to her husband, one of the heroes of 9/11, written with Ken Abraham, joined Rudolph Giuliani’s autobiography, Leadership. 2003 saw Hillary Clinton’s autobiography Living History and Paul Burrell’s memoir of his time as Princess Diana’s butler, A Royal Duty, on the list. In 2004, it was Bill Clinton’s turn with My Life. In 2006, we find John Grisham’s true crime (arguably a biography), The Innocent Man, at the top, Grogan’s Marley and Me at number three, and the autobiographical The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama in fourth place. Appendix 2 Amazon.com listings since 2000 In 2000, there were only two auto/biographies in the top Amazon 50 bestsellers with Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life about his battle with cancer at 20, and Dave Eggers’s self-consciously fictionalised memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius at 32. In 2001, only the top 14 bestsellers were recorded. At number 1 is John Adams by David McCullough and, at 11, Jack: Straight from the Gut by USA golfer Jack Welch. In 2002, Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani was at 12; Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro at 29; Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper by Patricia Cornwell at 42; Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock at 48; and Louis Gerstner’s autobiographical Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance: Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround at 50. In 2003, Living History by Hillary Clinton was 7th; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson 14th; Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How President Bill Clinton Endangered America’s Long-Term National Security by Robert Patterson 20th; Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer 32nd; Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor of Jordan 33rd; Kate Remembered, Scott Berg’s biography of Katharine Hepburn, 37th; Who’s your Caddy?: Looping for the Great, Near Great and Reprobates of Golf by Rick Reilly 39th; The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship about a winning baseball team by David Halberstam 42nd; and Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong 49th. In 2004, My Life by Bill Clinton was the best selling book of the year; American Soldier by General Tommy Franks was 16th; Kevin Phillips’s American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush 18th; Timothy Russert’s Big Russ and Me: Father and Son. Lessons of Life 20th; Tony Hendra’s Father Joe: The Man who Saved my Soul 23rd; Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton 27th; Cokie Roberts’s Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised our Nation 31st; Kitty Kelley’s The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty 42nd; and Chronicles, Volume 1 by Bob Dylan was 43rd. In 2005, auto/biographical texts were well down the list with only The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion at 45 and The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls at 49. In 2006, there was a resurgence of life writing with Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman at 9; Grisham’s The Innocent Man at 12; Bill Buford’s food memoir Heat: an Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany at 23; more food writing with Julia Child’s My Life in France at 29; Immaculée Ilibagiza’s Left to Tell: Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust at 30; CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters and Survival at 43; and Isabella Hatkoff’s Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship (between a baby hippo and a giant tortoise) at 44. In 2007, Ishmael Beah’s discredited A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier came in at 8; Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe 13; Ayaan Hirst Ali’s autobiography of her life in Muslim society, Infidel, 18; The Reagan Diaries 25; Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI 29; Mother Teresa: Come be my Light 36; Clapton: The Autobiography 40; Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles 45; Tony Dungy’s Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices & Priorities of a Winning Life 47; and Daniel Tammet’s Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant at 49. Acknowledgements A sincere thank you to Michael Webster at RMIT for assistance with access to Nielsen BookScan statistics, and to the reviewers of this article for their insightful comments. Any errors are, of course, our own. References Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). “About Us.” Australian Story 2008. 1 June 2008. ‹http://www.abc.net.au/austory/aboutus.htm>. 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Introduction Films with deaf characters often do not focus on the condition of deafness at all. Rather, the characters seem to satisfy a role in the story that either furthers the plot or the audience’s understanding of other hearing characters. The deaf characters can be symbolic, for example as a metaphor for isolation representative of ‘those without a voice’ in a society. The deaf characters’ misunderstanding of auditory cues can lead to comic circumstances, and their knowledge can save them in the case of perilous ones. Sign language, because of its unique linguistic properties and its lack of comprehension by hearing people, can save the day in a story line. Deaf characters are shown in different eras and in different countries, providing a fictional window into their possible experiences. Films shape and reflect cultural attitudes and can serve as a potent force in influencing the attitudes and assumptions of those members of the hearing world who have had few, if any, encounters with deaf people. This article explores categories of literary function as identified by the author, providing examples and suggestions of other films for readers to explore. Searching for Deaf Characters in Film I am a sign language interpreter. Several years ago, I started noticing how deaf characters are used in films. I made a concerted effort to find as many as I could. I referred to John Shuchman’s exhaustive book about deaf actors and subject matter, Hollywood Speaks; I scouted video rental guides (key words were ‘deaf’ or ‘disabled’); and I also plugged in the key words ‘deaf in film’ on Google’s search engine. I decided to ignore the issue of whether or not the actors were actually deaf—a political hot potato in the Deaf community which has been discussed extensively. Similarly, the linguistic or cultural accuracy of the type of sign language used or super-human lip-reading talent did not concern me. What was I looking for? I noticed that few story lines involving deaf characters provide any discussion or plot information related to that character’s deafness. I was puzzled. Why is there signing in the elevator in Jerry Maguire? Why does the guy in Grand Canyon have a deaf daughter? Why would the psychosomatic response to a trauma—as in Psych Out—be deafness rather than blindness? I concluded that not being able to hear carried some special meaning or fulfilled a particular need intrinsic to the plot of the story. I also observed that the functions of deaf characters seem to fall into several categories. Some deaf characters fit into more than one category, serving two or more symbolic purposes at the same time. By viewing and analysing the representations of deafness and deaf characters in forty-six films, I have come up with the following classifications: Deafness as a plot device Deaf characters as protagonist informants Deaf characters as a parallel to the protagonist Sign language as ‘hero’ Stories about deaf/hearing relationships A-normal-guy-or-gal-who-just-happens-to-be-deaf Deafness as a psychosomatic response to trauma Deafness as metaphor Deafness as a symbolic commentary on society Let your fingers do the ‘talking’ Deafness as Plot Device Every element of a film is a device, but when the plot hinges on one character being deaf, the story succeeds because of that particular character having that particular condition. The limitations or advantages of a deaf person functioning within the hearing world establish the tension, the comedy, or the events which create the story. In Hear No Evil (1993), Jillian learns from her hearing boyfriend which mechanical devices cause ear-splitting noises (he has insomnia and every morning she accidentally wakes him in very loud ways, eg., she burns the toast, thus setting off the smoke detector; she drops a metal spoon down the garbage disposal unit). When she is pursued by a murderer she uses a fire alarm, an alarm/sprinkler system, and a stereo turned on full blast to mask the sounds of her movements as she attempts to hide. Jillian and her boyfriend survive, she learns about sound, her boyfriend learns about deafness, and she teaches him the sign for orgasm. Life is good! The potential comic aspects of deafness may seem in this day and age to be shockingly politically incorrect. While the slapstick aspect is often innocent and means no overt harm or insult to the Deaf as a population, deafness functions as the visual banana peel over which the characters figuratively stumble in the plot. The film, See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989), pairing Gene Wilder with Richard Pryor as deaf and blind respectively, is a constant sight gag of lip-reading miscues and lack-of-sight gags. Wilder can speak, and is able to speech read almost perfectly, almost all of the time (a stereotype often perpetuated in films). It is mind-boggling to imagine the detail of the choreography required for the two actors to convince the audience of their authenticity. Other films in this category include: Suspect It’s a Wonderful Life Murder by Death Huck Finn One Flew over the Cuckoo’s NestThe Shop on Main StreetRead My Lips The Quiet Deaf Characters as Protagonist Informants Often a deaf character’s primary function to the story is to give the audience more information about, or form more of an affinity with, the hearing protagonist. The deaf character may be fascinating in his or her own right, but generally the deafness is a marginal point of interest. Audience attitudes about the hearing characters are affected because of their previous or present involvement with deaf individuals. This representation of deafness seems to provide a window into audience understanding and appreciation of the protagonist. More inferences can be made about the hearing person and provides one possible explanation for what ensues. It is a subtle, almost subliminal trick. There are several effective examples of this approach. In Gas, Food, Lodging (1992), Shade discovers that tough-guy Javier’s mother is deaf. He introduces Shade to his mother by simple signs and finger-spelling. They all proceed to visit and dance together (mom feels the vibrations on the floor). The audience is drawn to feel ‘Wow! Javier is a sensitive kid who has grown up with a beautiful, exotic, deaf mother!’ The 1977 film, Looking for Mr. Goodbar presents film-goers with Theresa, a confused young woman living a double life. By day, she is a teacher of deaf children. Her professor in the Teacher of the Deaf program even likens their vocation to ‘touching God’. But by night she cruises bars and engages in promiscuous sexual activity. The film shows how her fledgling use of signs begins to express her innermost desires, as well as her ability to communicate and reach out to her students. Other films in this category include: Miracle on 34th Street (1994 version)Nashville (1975, dir. Robert Altman)The Family StoneGrand CanyonThere Will Be Blood Deaf Characters as a Parallel to the Protagonist I Don’t Want to Talk about It (1993) from Argentina, uses a deaf character to establish an implied parallel story line to the main hearing character. Charlotte, a dwarf, is friends with Reanalde, who is deaf. The audience sees them in the first moments of the film when they are little girls together. Reanalde’s mother attempts to commiserate with Charlotte’s mother, establishing a simultaneous but unseen story line somewhere else in town over the course of the story. The setting is Argentina during the 1930s, and the viewer can assume that disability awareness is fairly minimal at the time. Without having seen Charlotte’s deaf counterpart, the audience still knows that her story has contained similar struggles for ‘normalcy’ and acceptance. Near the conclusion of the film, there is one more glimpse of Reanalde, when she catches the bridal bouquet at Charlotte’s wedding. While having been privy to Charlotte’s experiences all along, we can only conjecture as to what Reanalde’s life has been. Sign Language as ‘Hero’ The power of language, and one’s calculated use of language as a means of escape from a potentially deadly situation, is shown in The River Wild (1996). The reason that any of the hearing characters knows sign language is that Gail, the protagonist, has a deaf father. Victor appears primarily to allow the audience to see his daughter and grandson sign with him. The mother, father, and son are able to communicate surreptitiously and get themselves out of a dangerous predicament. Signing takes an iconic form when the signs BOAT, LEFT, I-LOVE-YOU are drawn on a log suspended over the river as a message to Gail so that she knows where to steer the boat, and that her husband is still alive. The unique nature of sign language saves the day– silently and subtly produced, right under the bad guys’ noses! Stories about Deaf/Hearing Relationships Because of increased awareness and acceptance of deafness, it may be tempting to assume that growing up deaf or having any kind of relationship with a deaf individual may not pose too much of a challenge. Captioning and subtitling are ubiquitous in the USA now, as is the inclusion of interpreters on stages at public events. Since the inception of USA Public Law 94-142 and section 504 in 1974, more deaf children are ‘mainstreamed’ into public schools than ever before. The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1993, opening the doors in the US for more access, more job opportunities, more inclusion. These are the external manifestations of acceptance that most viewers with no personal exposure to deafness may see in the public domain. The nuts and bolts of growing up deaf, navigating through opposing philosophical theories regarding deaf education, and dealing with parents, siblings, and peers who can’t communicate, all serve to form foundational experiences which an audience rarely witnesses. Children of a Lesser God (1986), uses the character of James Leeds to provide simultaneous voiced translations of the deaf student Sarah’s comments. The audience is ushered into the world of disparate philosophies of deaf education, a controversy of which general audiences may not have been previously unaware. At the core of James and Sarah’s struggle is his inability to accept that she is complete as she is, as a signing not speaking deaf person. Whether a full reconciliation is possible remains to be seen. The esteemed teacher of the deaf must allow himself to be taught by the deaf. Other films in this category include: Johnny Belinda (1949, 1982)Mr. Holland’s OpusBeyond SilenceThe Good ShepherdCompensation A Normal Guy-or-Gal-Who-Just-Happens-to-Be-Deaf The greatest measure of equality is to be accepted on one's own merits, with no special attention to differences or deviations from whatever is deemed ‘the norm.’ In this category, the audience sees the seemingly incidental inclusion of a deaf or hearing-impaired person in the casting. A sleeper movie titled Crazy Moon (1986) is an effective example. Brooks is a shy, eccentric young hearing man who needs who needs to change his life. Vanessa is deaf and works as a clerk in a shop while takes speech lessons. She possesses a joie de vivre that Brooks admires and wishes to emulate. When comparing the way they interact with the world, it is apparent that Brooks is the one who is handicapped. Other films in this category include: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (South Korea, 1992)Liar, LiarRequiem for a DreamKung Fu HustleBangkok DangerousThe Family StoneDeafness as a Psychosomatic Response to Trauma Literature about psychosomatic illnesses enumerates many disconcerting and disruptive physiological responses. However, rarely is there a PTSD response as profound as complete blockage of one of the five senses, ie; becoming deaf as a result of a traumatic incident. But it makes great copy, and provides a convenient explanation as to why an actor needn't learn sign language! The rock group The Who recorded Tommy in 1968, inaugurating an exciting and groundbreaking new musical genre – the rock opera. The film adaptation, directed by Ken Russell, was released in 1975. In an ironic twist for a rock extravaganza, the hero of the story is a ‘deaf, dumb, and blind kid.’ Tommy Johnson becomes deaf when he witnesses the murder of his father at the hands of his step-father and complicit mother. From that moment on, he is deaf and blind. When he grows up, he establishes a cult religion of inner vision and self-discovery. Another film in this category is Psych Out. Deafness as a Metaphor Hearing loss does not necessarily mean complete deafness and/or lack of vocalization. Yet, the general public tends to assume that there is utter silence, complete muteness, and the inability to verbalize anything at all. These assumptions provide a rich breeding ground for a deaf character to personify isolation, disenfranchisement, and/or avoidance of the harsher side of life. The deafness of a character can also serve as a hearing character’s nemesis. Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) chronicles much of the adult life of a beleaguered man named Glenn Holland whose fondest dream is to compose a grand piece of orchestral music. To make ends meet he must teach band and orchestra to apparently disinterested and often untalented students in a public school. His golden son (named Cole, in honor of the jazz great John Coltrane) is discovered to be deaf. Glenn’s music can’t be born, and now his son is born without music. He will never be able to share his passion with his child. He learns just a little bit of sign, is dismissive of the boy’s dreams, and drifts further away from his family to settle into a puddle of bitterness, regrets, and unfulfilled desires. John Lennon’s death provides the catalyst for Cole’s confrontation with Glenn, forcing the father to understand that the gulf between them is an artificial one, perpetuated by the unwillingness to try. Any other disability could not have had the same effect in this story. Other films in this category include: Ramblin’ RoseBabelThe Heart Is a Lonely HunterA Code Unkown Deafness as a Symbolic Commentary on Society Sometimes films show deafness in a different country, during another era, and audiences receive a fictionalized representation of what life might have been like before these more enlightened times. The inability to hear and/or speak can also represent the more generalized powerlessness that a culture or a society’s disenfranchised experience. The Chinese masterpiece To Live (1994) provides historical and political reasons for Fenxi’s deafness—her father was a political prisoner whose prolonged absence brought hardship and untended illness. Later, the chaotic political situation which resulted in a lack of qualified doctors led to her death. In between these scenes the audience sees how her parents arrange a marriage with another ‘handicapped’ comrade of the town. Those citizens deemed to be crippled or outcast have different overt rights and treatment. The 1996 film Illtown presents the character of a very young teenage boy to represent the powerlessness of youth in America. David has absolutely no say in where he can live, with whom he can live, and the decisions made all around him. When he is apprehended after a stolen car chase, his frustration at his and all of his generation’s predicament in the face of a crumbling world is pounded out on the steering wheel as the police cars circle him. He is caged, and without the ability to communicate. Were he to have a voice, the overall sense of the film and his situation is that he would be misunderstood anyway. Other films in this category include: Stille Liebe (Germany)RidiculeIn the Company of Men Let Your Fingers Do the ‘Talking’ I use this heading to describe films where sign language is used by a deaf character to express something that a main hearing character can’t (or won’t) self-generate. It is a clever device which employs a silent language to create a communication symbiosis: Someone asks a hearing person who knows sign what that deaf person just said, and the hearing person must voice what he or she truly feels, and yet is unable to express voluntarily. The deaf person is capable of expressing the feeling, but must rely upon the hearing person to disseminate the message. And so, the words do emanate from the mouth of the person who means them, albeit self-consciously, unwillingly. Jerry Maguire (1996) provides a signed foreshadowing of character metamorphosis and development, which is then voiced for the hearing audience. Jerry and Dorothy have just met, resigned from their jobs in solidarity and rebellion, and then step into an elevator to begin a new phase of their lives. Their body language identifies them as separate, disconnected, and heavily emotionally fortified. An amorous deaf couple enters the elevator and Dorothy translates the deaf man’s signs as, ‘You complete me.’ The sentiment is strong and a glaring contrast to Jerry and Dorothy’s present dynamic. In the end, Jerry repeats this exact phrase to her, and means it with all his heart. We are all made aware of just how far they have traveled emotionally. They have become the couple in the elevator. Other films in this category include: Four Weddings and a FuneralKnowing Conclusion This has been a cursory glance at examining the narrative raison d’etre for the presence of a deaf character in story lines where no discussion of deafness is articulated. A film’s plot may necessitate hearing-impairment or deafness to successfully execute certain gimmickry, provide a sense of danger, or relational tension. The underlying themes and motifs may revolve around loneliness, alienation, or outwardly imposed solitude. The character may have a subconscious desire to literally shut out the world of sound. The properties of sign language itself can be exploited for subtle, undetectable conversations to assure the safety of hearing characters. Deaf people have lived during all times, in all places, and historical films can portray a slice of what their lives may have been like. I hope readers will become more aware of deaf characters on the screen, and formulate more theories as to where they fit in the literary/narrative schema. ReferencesMaltin, Leonard. Leonard Maltin’s 2009 Movie Guide. Penguin Group, 2008.Shuchman, John S. Hollywood Speaks. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988. Filmography Babel. Dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Central Films, 2006. DVD. Bangkok Dangerous. Dir. Pang Brothers. Film Bangkok, 1999. VHS. Beyond Silence. Dir. Caroline Link. Miramax Films, 1998. DVD. Children of a Lesser God. Dir. Randa Haines. Paramount Pictures, 1985. DVD. A Code Unknown. Dir. Michael Heneke. MK2 Editions, 2000. DVD. Compensation. Dir. Zeinabu Irene Davis. Wimmin with a Mission Productions, 1999. VHS. Crazy Moon. Dir. Allan Eastman. Allegro Films, 1987. VHS. The Family Stone. Dir. Mike Bezucha. 20th Century Fox, 2005. DVD. Four Weddings and a Funeral. Dir. Mike Newell. Polygram Film Entertainment, 1994. DVD. Gas, Food, Lodging. Dir. Allison Anders. IRS Media, 1992. DVD. The Good Shepherd. Dir. Robert De Niro. Morgan Creek, TriBeCa Productions, American Zoetrope, 2006. DVD. Grand Canyon. Dir. Lawrence Kasdan, Meg Kasdan. 20th Century Fox, 1991. DVD. Hear No Evil. Dir. Robert Greenwald. 20th Century Fox, 1993. DVD. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Dir. Robert Ellis Miller. Warner Brothers, 1968. DVD. Huck Finn. Stephen Sommers. Walt Disney Pictures, 1993. VHS. I Don’t Want to Talk about It. Dir. Maria Luisa Bemberg. Mojame Productions, 1994. DVD. Knowing. Dir. Alex Proyas. Escape Artists, 2009. DVD. Illtown. Dir. Nick Gomez. 1998. VHS. In the Company of Men. Dir. Neil LaBute. Alliance Atlantis Communications,1997. DVD. It’s a Wonderful Life. Dir. Frank Capra. RKO Pictures, 1947. DVD. Jerry Maguire. Dir. Cameron Crowe. TriSTar Pictures, 1996. DVD. Johnny Belinda. Dir. Jean Nagalesco. Warner Brothers Pictures, 1948. DVD. Kung Fu Hustle. Dir. Stephen Chow. Film Production Asia, 2004. DVD. Liar, Liar. Dir. Tom Shadyac. Universal Pictures, 1997. DVD. Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Dir. Richard Brooks. Paramount Miracle on 34th Street. Dir. Les Mayfield. 20th Century Fox, 1994. DVD. Mr. Holland’s Opus. Dir. Stephen Hereck. Hollywood Pictures, 1996. DVD Murder by Death. Dir. Robert Moore. Columbia Pictures, 1976. VHS. Nashville. Dir. Robert Altman. Paramount Pictures, 1975. DVD. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Dir. Milos Forman. United Artists, 1975. DVD. The Perfect Circle. Dir. Ademir Kenovic. 1997. DVD. Psych Out. Dir. Richard Rush. American International Pictures, 1968. DVD. The Quiet. Dir. Jamie Babbit. Sony Pictures Classics, 2005. DVD. Ramblin’ Rose. Dir. Martha Coolidge. Carolco Pictures, 1991. DVD. Read My Lips. Dir. Jacques Audiard. Panthe Films, 2001. DVD. Requiem for a Dream. Dir. Darren Aronofsky. Artisan Entertainment, 2000. DVD. Ridicule. Dir. Patrice Laconte. Miramax Films, 1996. DVD. The River Wild. Dir. Curtis Hanson. Universal Pictures, 1995. DVD. See No Evil, Hear No Evil. Dir. Arthur Hiller. TriSTar Pictures,1989. DVD. The Shop on Main Street. Dir. Jan Kadar, Elmar Klos. Barrandov Film Studio, 1965. VHS. Stille Liebe. Dir. Christoph Schaub. T and C Film AG, 2001. DVD. Suspect. Dir. Peter Yates. Tri-Star Pictures, 1987. DVD. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. Dir. Park Chan-wook. CJ Entertainments, Tartan Films, 2002. DVD. There Will Be Blood. Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson. Paramount Vantage, Miramax Films, 2007. DVD. To Live. Dir. Zhang Yimou. Shanghai Film Studio and ERA International, 1994. DVD. What the Bleep Do We Know?. Dir. Willam Arntz, Betsy Chasse, Mark Vicente. Roadside Attractions, 2004. DVD.

If the home is traditionally considered to be a space of safety associated with the warm and cosy feeling of the familial hearth, it is also continuously portrayed as a space under threat from the outside from which we must secure ourselves and our families. Securing the home entails a series of material, discursive and performative strategies, a host of precautionary measures aimed at regulating and ultimately producing security. When I was eleven my family returned home from the local fruit markets to find our house had been ransacked. Clothes were strewn across the floor, electrical appliances were missing and my parents’ collection of jewellery – wedding rings and heirlooms – had been stolen. Few things remained untouched and the very thought of someone else’s hands going through our personal belongings made our home feel tainted. My parents were understandably distraught. As Filipino immigrants to Australia the heirlooms were not only expensive assets from both sides of my family, but also signifiers of our homeland. Added to their despair was the fact that this was our first house – we had rented prior to that. During the police interviews, we discovered that our area, Sydney’s Western suburbs, was considered ‘high-risk’ and we were advised to install security. In their panic my parents began securing their home. Grills were installed on every window. Each external wooden door was reinforced by a metal security door. Movement detectors were installed at the front of the house, which were set to blind intruders with floodlights. Even if an intruder could enter the back through a window a metal grill security door was waiting between the backroom and the kitchen to stop them from getting to our bedrooms. In short, through a series of transformations our house was made into a residential fortress. Yet home security had its own dangers. A series of rules and regulations were drilled into me ‘in case of an emergency’: know where your keys are in case of a fire so that you can get out; remember the phone numbers for an emergency and the work numbers of your parents; never let a stranger into the house; and if you need to speak to a stranger only open the inside door but leave the security screen locked. Thus, for my Filipino-migrant family in the 1990s, a whole series of defensive behaviours and preventative strategies were produced and disseminated inside and around the home to regulate security risks. Such “local knowledges” were used to reinforce the architectural manifestations of security at the same time that they were a response to the invasion of security systems into our house that created a new set of potential dangers. This article highlights “the interplay of material and symbolic geographies of home” (Blunt and Varley 4), focusing on the relation between urban fears circulating around and within the home and the spatial practices used to negotiate such fears. In exploring home security systems it extends the exemplary analysis of home technologies already begun in Lynn Spigel’s reading of the ‘smart home’ (381-408). In a similar vein, David Morley’s analysis of mediated domesticity shows how communications technology has reconfigured the inside and outside to the extent that television actually challenges the physical boundary that “protects the privacy and solidarity of the home from the flux and threat of the outside world” (87). Television here serves as a passage in which the threat of the outside is reframed as news or entertainment for family viewing. I take this as a point of departure to consider the ways that this mediated fear unfolds in the technology of our homes. Following Brian Massumi, I read the home as “a node in a circulatory network of many dimensions (each corresponding to a technology of transmission)” (85). For Massumi, the home is an event-space at the crossroads of media technologies and political technologies. “In spite of the locks on the door, the event-space of the home must be seen as one characterized by a very loose regime of passage” (85). The ‘locked door’ is not only a boundary marker that defines the inside from the outside but another technology that leads us outside the home into other domains of inquiry: the proliferation of security technologies and the mundane, fearful intimacies of the home. In this context, we should heed Iris Marion Young’s injunction to feminist critics that the home does provide some positives including a sense of privacy and the space to build relationships and identities. Yet, as Colomina argues, the traditional domestic ideal “can only be produced by engaging the home in combat” (20). If, as Colomina’s comment suggests, ontological security is at least partially dependent on physical security, then this article explores the ontological effects of our home security systems. Houses at War: Targeting the Family As Beatriz Colomina reminds us, in times of war we leave our homelands to do battle on the front line, but battle lines are also being drawn in our homes. Drawing inspiration from Virilio’s claim that contemporary war takes place without fighting, Colomina’s article ‘Domesticity at War’ contemplates the domestic interior as a “battlefield” (15). The house, she writes, is “a mechanism within a war where the differences between defense [sic] and attack have become blurred” (17). According to the Home Security Precautions, New South Wales, October 1999 report conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 47% of NSW dwellings were ‘secure’ (meaning that they either had a burglar alarm, or all entry points were secured or they were inside a security block) while only 9% of NSW households had no home security devices present (Smith 3). In a similar report for Western Australia conducted in October 2004, an estimated 71% of WA households had window security of some sort (screens, locks or shutters) while 67% had deadlocks on at least one external door (4). An estimated 27% had a security alarm installed while almost half (49%) had sensor lights (Hubbard 4-5). This growing sense of insecurity means big business for those selling security products and services. By the end of June 1999, there were 1,714 businesses in Australia’s security services industry generating $1,395 million of income during 1998-99 financial year (McLennan 3; see also Macken). This survey did not include locksmith services or the companies dealing with alarm manufacturing, wholesaling or installing. While Colomina’s article focuses on the “war with weather” and the attempts to control environmental conditions inside the home through what she calls “counterdomesticity” (20), her conceptualisation of the house as a “military weapon” (17) provides a useful tool for thinking the relation between the home, architecture and security. Conceiving of the house as a military weapon might seem like a stretch, but we should recall that the rhetoric of war has already leaked into the everyday. One hears of the ‘war on drugs’ and the ‘war on crime’ in the media. ‘War’ is the everyday condition of our urban jungles (see also Diken and Lausten) and in order to survive, let alone feel secure, one must be able to defend one’s family and home. Take, for example, Signal Security’s website. One finds a panel on the left-hand side of the screen to all webpages devoted to “Residential Products”. Two circular images are used in the panel with one photograph overlapping the other. In the top circle, a white nuclear family (stereotypical mum, dad and two kids), dressed in pristine white clothing bare their white teeth to the internet surfer. Underneath this photo is another photograph in which an arm clad in a black leather jacket emerges through a smashed window. In the foreground a black-gloved hand manipulates a lock, while a black balaclava masks an unrecognisable face through the broken glass. The effect of their proximity produces a violent juxtaposition in which the burglar visually intrudes on the family’s domestic bliss. The panel stages a struggle between white and black, good and bad, family and individual, security and insecurity, recognisability and unidentifiability. It thus codifies the loving, knowable family as the domestic space of security against the selfish, unidentifiable intruder (presumed not to have a family) as the primary reason for insecurity in the family home – and no doubt to inspire the consumption of security products. Advertisements of security products thus articulate the family home as a fragile innocence constantly vulnerable from the outside. From a feminist perspective, this image of the family goes against the findings of the National Homicide Monitoring Program, which shows that 57% of the women killed in Australia between 2004 and 2005 were killed by an intimate partner while 17% were killed by a family member (Mouzos and Houliaras 20). If, on the one hand, the family home is targeted by criminals, on the other, it has emerged as a primary site for security advertising eager to exploit the growing sense of insecurity – the family as a target market. The military concepts of ‘target’ and ‘targeting’ have shifted into the benign discourse of strategic advertising. As Dora Epstein writes, “We arm our buildings to arm ourselves from the intrusion of a public fluidity, and thus our buildings, our architectures of fortification, send a very clear message: ‘avoid this place or protect yourself’” (1997: 139). Epstein’s reference to ‘architectures of fortification’ reminds us that the desire to create security through the built environment has a long history. Nan Ellin has argued that fear’s physical manifestation can be found in the formation of towns from antiquity to the Renaissance. In this sense, towns and cities are always already a response to the fear of foreign invaders (Ellin 13; see also Diken and Lausten 291). This fear of the outsider is most obviously manifested in the creation of physical walls. Yet fortification is also an effect of spatial allusions produced by the configuration of space, as exemplified in Fiske, Hodge and Turner’s semiotic reading of a suburban Australian display home without a fence. While the lack of a fence might suggest openness, they suggest that the manicured lawn is flat so “that eyes can pass easily over it – and smooth – so that feet will not presume to” (30). Since the front garden is best viewed from the street it is clearly a message for the outside, but it also signifies “private property” (30). Space is both organised and lived, in such a way that it becomes a medium of communication to passers-by and would-be intruders. What emerges in this semiotic reading is a way of thinking about space as defensible, as organised in a way that space can begin to defend itself. The Problematic of Defensible Space The incorporation of military architecture into civil architecture is most evident in home security. By security I mean the material systems (from locks to electronic alarms) and precautionary practices (locking the door) used to protect spaces, both of which are enabled by a way of imagining space in terms of risk and vulnerability. I read Oscar Newman’s 1972 Defensible Space as outlining the problematic of spatial security. Indeed, it was around that period that the problematic of crime prevention through urban design received increasing attention in Western architectural discourse (see Jeffery). Newman’s book examines how spaces can be used to reinforce human control over residential environments, producing what he calls ‘defensible space.’ In Newman’s definition, defensible space is a model for residential environments which inhibits crime by creating the physical expression of a social fabric that defends itself. All the different elements which combine to make a defensible space have a common goal – an environment in which latent territoriality and sense of community in the inhabitants can be translated into responsibility for ensuring a safe, productive, and well-maintained living space (3). Through clever design space begins to defend itself. I read Newman’s book as presenting the contemporary problematic of spatialised security: how to structure space so as to increase control; how to organise architecture so as to foster territorialism; how to encourage territorial control through amplifying surveillance. The production of defensible space entails moving away from what he calls the ‘compositional approach’ to architecture, which sees buildings as separate from their environments, and the ‘organic approach’ to architecture, in which the building and its grounds are organically interrelated (Newman 60). In this approach Newman proposes a number of changes to space: firstly, spaces need to be multiplied (one no longer has a simple public/private binary, but also semi-private and semi-public spaces); secondly, these spaces must be hierarchised (moving from public to semi-public to semi-private to private); thirdly, within this hierarchy spaces can also be striated using symbolic or material boundaries between the different types of spaces. Furthermore, spaces must be designed to increase surveillance: use smaller corridors serving smaller sets of families (69-71); incorporate amenities in “defined zones of influence” (70); use L-shaped buildings as opposed to rectangles (84); use windows on the sides of buildings to reveal the fire escape from outside (90). As he puts it, the subdivision of housing projects into “small, recognisable and comprehensible-at-a-glance enclaves is a further contributor to improving the visual surveillance mechanism” (1000). Finally, Newman lays out the principle of spatial juxtaposition: consider the building/street interface (positioning of doors and windows to maximise surveillance); consider building/building interface (e.g. build residential apartments next to ‘safer’ commercial, industrial, institutional and entertainment facilities) (109-12). In short, Newman’s book effectively redefines residential space in terms of territorial zones of control. Such zones of influence are the products of the interaction between architectural forms and environment, which are not reducible to the intent of the architect (68). Thus, in attempting to respond to the exigencies of the moment – the problem of urban crime, the cost of housing – Newman maps out residential space in what Foucault might have called a ‘micro-physics of power’. During the mid-1970s through to the 1980s a number of publications aimed at the average householder are printed in the UK and Australia. Apart from trade publishing (Bunting), The UK Design Council released two small publications (Barty, White and Burall; Design Council) while in Australia the Department of Housing and Construction released a home safety publication, which contained a small section on security, and the Australian Institute of Criminology published a small volume entitled Designing out Crime: Crime prevention through environmental design (Geason and Wilson). While Newman emphasised the responsibility of architects and urban planners, in these publications the general concerns of defensible space are relocated in the ‘average homeowner’. Citing crime statistics on burglary and vandalism, these publications incite their readers to take action, turning the homeowner into a citizen-soldier. The householder, whether he likes it or not, is already in a struggle. The urban jungle must be understood in terms of “the principles of warfare” (Bunting 7), in which everyday homes become bodies needing protection through suitable architectural armour. Through a series of maps and drawings and statistics, the average residential home is transformed into a series of points of vulnerability. Home space is re-inscribed as a series of points of entry/access and lines of sight. Simultaneously, through lists of ‘dos and don’ts’ a set of precautionary behaviours is inculcated into the readers. Principles of security begin codifying the home space, disciplining the spatial practices of the intimate, regulating the access and mobility of the family and guests. The Architectural Nervous System Nowadays we see a wild, almost excessive, proliferation of security products available to the ‘security conscious homeowner’. We are no longer simply dealing with security devices designed to block – such as locks, bolts and fasteners. The electronic revolution has aided the production of security devices that are increasingly more specialised and more difficult to manipulate, which paradoxically makes it more difficult for the security consumer to understand. Detection systems now include continuous wiring, knock-out bars, vibration detectors, breaking glass detectors, pressure mats, underground pressure detectors and fibre optic signalling. Audible alarm systems have been upgraded to wire-free intruder alarms, visual alarms, telephone warning devices, access control and closed circuit television and are supported by uninterruptible power supplies and control panels (see Chartered Institution of Building Service Engineers 19-39). The whole house is literally re-routed as a series of relays in an electronic grid. If the house as a security risk is defined in terms of points of vulnerability, alarm systems take these points as potential points of contact. Relays running through floors, doors and windows can be triggered by pressure, sound or dislocation. We see a proliferation of sensors: switching sensors, infra-red sensors, ultrasonic sensors, microwave radar sensors, microwave fence sensors and microphonic sensors (see Walker). The increasing diversification of security products attests to the sheer scale of these architectural/engineering changes to our everyday architecture. In our fear of crime we have produced increasingly more complex security products for the home, thus complexifying the spaces we somehow inherently feel should be ‘simple’. I suggest that whereas previous devices merely reinforced certain architectural or engineering aspects of the home, contemporary security products actually constitute the home as a feeling, architectural body capable of being affected. This recalls notions of a sensuous architecture and bodily metaphors within architectural discourse (see Thomsen; Puglini). It is not simply our fears that lead us to secure our homes through technology, but through our fears we come to invest our housing architecture with a nervous system capable of fearing for itself. Our eyes and ears become detection systems while our screams are echoed in building alarms. Body organs are deterritorialised from the human body and reterritorialised on contemporary residential architecture, while our senses are extended through modern security technologies. The vulnerable body of the family home has become a feeling body conscious of its own vulnerability. It is less about the physical expression of fear, as Nan Ellin has put it, than about how building materialities become capable of fearing for themselves. What we have now are residential houses that are capable of being more fully mobilised in this urban war. Family homes become bodies that scan the darkness for the slightest movements, bodies that scream at the slightest possibility of danger. They are bodies that whisper to each other: a house can recognise an intrusion and relay a warning to a security station, informing security personnel without the occupants of that house knowing. They are the newly produced victims of an urban war. Our homes are the event-spaces in which mediated fear unfolds into an architectural nervous system. If media plug our homes into one set of relations between ideologies, representations and fear, then the architectural nervous system plugs that back into a different set of relations between capital, fear and the electronic grid. The home is less an endpoint of broadcast media than a node in an electronic network, a larger nervous system that encompasses the globe. It is a network that plugs architectural nervous systems into city electronic grids into mediated subjectivities into military technologies and back again, allowing fear to be disseminated and extended, replayed and spliced into the most banal aspects of our domestic lives. References Barty, Euan, David White, and Paul Burall. Safety and Security in the Home. London: The Design Council, 1980. Blunt, Alison, and Ann Varley. “Introduction: Geographies of Home.” Cultural Geographies 11.1 (2004): 3-6. Bunting, James. The Protection of Property against Crime. Folkestone: Bailey Brothers & Sinfen, 1975. Chartered Institution of Building Service Engineers. Security Engineering. London: CIBSE, 1991. Colomina, Beatriz. “Domesticity at War.” Assemblage 16 (1991): 14-41. Department of Housing and Construction. Safety in and around the Home. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1981. Design Council. The Design Centre Guide to Domestic Safety and Security. London: Design Council, 1976. Diken, Bülent, and Carsten Bagge Lausten. “Zones of Indistinction: Security and Terror, and Bare Life.” Space and Culture 5.3 (2002): 290-307. Ellin, Nan. “Shelter from the Storm or Form Follows Fear and Vice Versa.” Architecture of Fear. Ed. Nan Ellin. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997. Epstein, Dora. “Abject Terror: A Story of Fear, Sex, and Architecture.” Architecture of Fear. Ed. Nan Ellin. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997. Fiske, John, Bob Hodge, and Graeme Turner. Myths of Oz: Reading Australian Popular Culture. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987. Geason, Susan, and Paul Wilson. Designing Out Crime: Crime Prevention through Environmental Design. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 1989. Hubbard, Alan. Home Safety and Security, Western Australia. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005. Jeffery, C. Ray. Crime Prevention through Environmental Design. Beverley Hills: Sage, 1971. Macken, Julie. “Why Aren’t We Happier?” Australian Financial Review 26 Nov. 1999: 26. Mallory, Keith, and Arvid Ottar. Architecture of Aggression: A History of Military Architecture in North West Europe, 1900-1945. Hampshire: Architectural Press, 1973. Massumi, Brian. Parables of the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. McLennan, W. Security Services, Australia, 1998-99. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2000. Morley, David. Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. Mouzos, Jenny, and Tina Houliaras. Homicide in Australia: 2004-05 National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) Annual Report. Research and Public Policy Series 72. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2006. Newman, Oscar. Defensible Space: Crime Prevention through Urban Design. New York: Collier, 1973. Puglini, Luigi. HyperArchitecture: Space in the Electronic Age. Basel: Bikhäuser, 1999. Signal Security. 13 January 2007 http://www.signalsecurity.com.au/securitysystems.htm>. Smith, Geoff. Home Security Precautions, New South Wales, October 1999. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2000. Spigel, Lynn. Welcome to the Dreamhouse: Popular Media and Postwar Suburbs. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001. Thomsen, Christian W. Sensuous Architecture: The Art of Erotic Building. Munich and New York: Prestel, 1998. Walker, Philip. Electronic Security Systems: Better Ways to Crime Prevention. London: Butterworths, 1983. Young, Iris Marion. “House and Home: Feminist Variations on a Theme.” Feminist Interpretations of Martin Heidegger. Eds. Nancy J. Holland and Patricia Huntington. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State UP, 2001. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Caluya, Gilbert. "The Architectural Nervous System: Home, Fear, Insecurity." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/05-caluya.php>. APA Style Caluya, G. (Aug. 2007) "The Architectural Nervous System: Home, Fear, Insecurity," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/05-caluya.php>.

"If people don't trust their information, it's not much better than a Marxist-Leninist society." -- Orville Schell Dean, Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley "Most people aren't very discerning. Maybe they need good financial information, but I don't think people know what good information is when you get into culture, society, and politics." -- Steven Brill,Chairman and Editor-in-chief, Brill's Content Once upon a time, not very long ago, advertisements were easy to recognise. They had simple personalities with goals not much more complicated than selling you a bar of soap or a box of cereal. And they possessed the reassuring familiarity of old friends or relatives you've known all your life. They were Pilgrims who smiled at you from Quaker Oats boxes or little tablets named "Speedy" who joyfully danced into a glass of water with the sole purpose of giving up their short life to help lessen your indigestion from overindulgence. Yes, sometimes they could be a little obnoxious but, hey, it was a predictable annoyance. And once, not very long ago, advertisements also knew their place in the landscape of popular culture, their boundaries were the ad space of magazines or the commercial time of television programs. When the ads got too annoying, you could toss the magazine aside or change the TV channel. The ease and quickness of their dispatch had the abruptness of slamming your front door in the face of an old door-to-door salesman. This all began to change around the 1950s when advertisements acquired a more complex and subtle personality and began straying outside of their familiar media neighborhoods. The social observer Vance Packard wrote a best-selling book in the late 50s called The Hidden Persuaders which identified this change in advertising's personality as coming from hanging around Professor Freud's psychoanalysis and learning his hidden, subliminal methods of trickery. Ice cubes in a glass for a liquor ad were no longer seen as simple props to help sell a brand of whiskey but were now subliminal suggestions of female anatomy. The curved fronts of automobiles were more than aesthetic streamlined design features but rather suggestive of a particular feature of the male anatomy. Forgotten by the new subliminal types of ads was the simple salesmanship preached by founders of the ad industry like David Ogilvy and John Caples. The word "sales" became a dirty word and was replaced with modern psychological buzzwords like subliminal persuasion. The Evolution of Subliminal Techniques The book Hidden Persuaders made quite a stir at the time, bringing about congressional hearings and even the introduction of legislation. Prominent motivation researchers Louis Cheskin and Ernest Dichter utilised the new ad methods and were publicly admonished as traitors to their profession. The life of the new subliminal advertising seemed short indeed. Even Vance Packard predicted its coming demise. "Eventually, say by A.D. 2000," he wrote in the preface to the paperback edition of his book, "all this depth manipulation of the psychological variety will seem amusingly old- fashioned". Yet, 40 years later, any half-awake observer of popular culture knows that things haven't exactly worked out the way Packard predicted. In fact what seems old-fashioned today is the belief that ads are those simpletons they once were before the 50s and that products are sold for features and benefits rather than for images. Even Vance Packard expresses an amazement at the evolution of advertising since the 50s, noting that today ads for watches have nothing to do with watches or that ads for shoes scarcely mention shoes. Packard remarks "it used to be the brand identified the product. In today's advertising the brand is the product". Modern advertising, he notes, has an almost total obsession with images and feelings and an almost total lack of any concrete claims about the product and why anyone should buy it. Packard admits puzzlement. "Commercials seem totally unrelated to selling any product at all". Jeff DeJoseph of the J. Walter Thompson firm underlines Packard's comments. "We are just trying to convey a sensory impression of the brand, and we're out of there". Subliminal advertising techniques have today infiltrated the heart of corporate America. As Ruth Shalit notes in her article "The Return of the Hidden Persuaders" from the 27 September 1999 issue of Salon magazine, "far from being consigned to the maverick fringe, the new psycho- persuaders of corporate America have colonized the marketing departments of mainstream conglomerates. At companies like Kraft, Coca-Cola, Proctor & Gamble and Daimler-Chrysler, the most sought-after consultants hail not from McKinsey & Company, but from brand consultancies with names like Archetype Discoveries, PsychoLogics and Semiotic Solutions". Shalit notes a growing number of CEOs have become convinced they cannot sell their brands until they first explore the "Jungian substrata of four- wheel drive; unlock the discourse codes of female power sweating; or deconstruct the sexual politics of bologna". The result, as Shalit observes, is a "charmingly retro school of brand psychoanalysis, which holds that all advertising is simply a variation on the themes of the Oedipus complex, the death instinct, or toilet training, and that the goal of effective communications should be to compensate the consumer for the fact that he was insufficiently nursed as an infant, has taken corporate America by storm". The Growing Ubiquity of Advertising Yet pervasive as the subliminal techniques of advertising have become, the emerging power of modern advertising ultimately centres around "where" it is rather than "what" it is or "how" it works. The power of modern advertising is within this growing ubiquity or "everywhereness" of advertising rather than the technology and methodology of advertising. The ultimate power of advertising will be arrived at when ads cannot be distinguished from their background environment. When this happens, the environment will become a great continuous ad. In the process, ads have wandered away from their well-known hangouts in magazines and TV shows. Like alien-infected pod-people of early science fiction movies, they have stumbled out of these familiar media playgrounds and suddenly sprouted up everywhere. The ubiquity of advertising is not being driven by corporations searching for new ways to sell products but by media searching for new ways to make money. Traditionally, media made money by selling subscriptions and advertising space. But these two key income sources are quickly drying up in the new world of online media. Journalist Mike France wisely takes notice of this change in an important article "Journalism's Online Credibility Gap" from the 11 October 1999 issue of Business Week. France notes that subscription fees have not worked because "Web surfers are used to getting content for free, and they have been reluctant to shell out any money for it". Advertising sales and their Internet incarnation in banner ads have also been a failure so far, France observes, because companies don't like paying a flat fee for online advertising since it's difficult to track the effectiveness of their marketing dollars. Instead, they only want to pay for actual sales leads, which can be easily monitored on the Web as readers' click from site to site. Faced with the above situation, media companies have gone on the prowl for new ways to make money. This search underpins the emerging ubiquity of advertising: the fact that it is increasingly appearing everywhere. In the process, traditional boundaries between advertising and other societal institutions are being overrun by these media forces on the prowl for new "territory" to exploit. That time when advertisements knew their place in the landscape of popular culture and confined themselves to just magazines or TV commercials is a fading memory. And today, as each of us is bombarded by thousands of ads each day, it is impossible to "slam" the door and keep them out of our house as we could once slam the door in the face of the old door-to-door salesmen. Of course you can find them on the matchbook cover of your favorite bar, on t-shirts sold at some roadside tourist trap or on those logo baseball caps you always pick up at trade shows. But now they have got a little more personal and stare at you over urinals in the men's room. They have even wedged themselves onto the narrow little bars at the check-out counter conveyer belts of supermarkets or onto the handles of gasoline pumps at filling stations. The list goes on and on. (No, this article is not an ad.) Advertising and Entertainment In advertising's march to ubiquity, two major boundaries have been crossed. They are crucial boundaries which greatly enhance advertising's search for the invisibility of ubiquity. Yet they are also largely invisible themselves. These are the boundaries separating advertising from entertainment and those separating advertising from journalism. The incursion of advertising into entertainment is a result of the increasing merger of business and entertainment, a phenomenon pointed out in best-selling business books like Michael Wolf's Entertainment Economy and Joseph Pine's The Experience Economy. Wolf, a consultant for Viacom, Newscorp, and other media heavy-weights, argues business is becoming synonymous with entertainment: "we have come to expect that we will be entertained all the time. Products and brands that deliver on this expectation are succeeding. Products that do not will disappear". And, in The Experience Economy, Pine notes the increasing need for businesses to provide entertaining experiences. "Those businesses that relegate themselves to the diminishing world of goods and services will be rendered irrelevant. To avoid this fate, you must learn to stage a rich, compelling experience". Yet entertainment, whether provided by businesses or the traditional entertainment industry, is increasingly weighted down with the "baggage" of advertising. In a large sense, entertainment is a form of new media that carries ads. Increasingly, this seems to be the overriding purpose of entertainment. Once, not long ago, when ads were simple and confined, entertainment was also simple and its purpose was to entertain rather than to sell. There was money enough in packed movie houses or full theme parks to make a healthy profit. But all this has changed with advertising's ubiquity. Like media corporations searching for new revenue streams, the entertainment industry has responded to flat growth by finding new ways to squeeze money out of entertainment content. Films now feature products in paid for scenes and most forms of entertainment use product tie-ins to other areas such as retail stores or fast-food restaurants. Also popular with the entertainment industry is what might be termed the "versioning" of entertainment products into various sub-species where entertainment content is transformed into other media so it can be sold more than once. A film may not make a profit on just the theatrical release but there is a good chance it doesn't matter because it stands to make a profit in video rentals. Advertising and Journalism The merger of advertising and entertainment goes a long way towards a world of ubiquitous advertising. Yet the merger of advertising and journalism is the real "promised land" in the evolution of ubiquitous advertising. This fundamental shift in the way news media make money provides the final frontier to be conquered by advertising, a final "promised land" for advertising. As Mike France observes in Business Week, this merger "could potentially change the way they cover the news. The more the press gets in the business of hawking products, the harder it will be to criticize those goods -- and the companies making them". Of course, there is that persistent myth, perpetuated by news organisations that they attempt to preserve editorial independence by keeping the institutions they cover and their advertisers at arm's length. But this is proving more and more difficult, particularly for online media. Observers like France have pointed out a number of reasons for this. One is the growth of ads in news media that look more like editorial content than ads. While long-standing ethical rules bar magazines and newspapers from printing advertisements that look like editorial copy, these rules become fuzzy for many online publications. Another reason making it difficult to separate advertising from journalism is the growing merger and consolidation of media corporations. Fewer and fewer corporations control more and more entertainment, news and ultimately advertising. It becomes difficult for a journalist to criticise a product when it has a connection to the large media conglomerate the journalist works for. Traditionally, it has been rare for media corporations to make direct investments in the corporations they cover. However, as Mike France notes, CNBC crossed this line when it acquired a stake in Archipelago in September 1999. CNBC, which runs a business-news Website, acquired a 12.4% stake in Archipelago Holdings, an electronic communications network for trading stock. Long-term plans are likely to include allowing visitors to cnbc.com to link directly to Archipelago. That means CNBC could be in the awkward position of both providing coverage of online trading and profiting from it. France adds that other business news outlets, such as Dow Jones (DJ), Reuters, and Bloomberg, already have indirect ties to their own electronic stock-trading networks. And, in news organisations, a popular method of cutting down on the expense of paying journalists for content is the growing practice of accepting advertiser written content or "sponsored edit" stories. The confusion to readers violates the spirit of a long-standing American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) rule prohibiting advertisements with "an editorial appearance". But as France notes, this practice is thriving online. This change happens in ever so subtle ways. "A bit of puffery inserted here," notes France, "a negative adjective deleted there -- it doesn't take a lot to turn a review or story about, say, smart phones, into something approaching highbrow ad copy". He offers an example in forbes.com whose Microsoft ads could easily be mistaken for staff-written articles. Media critic James Fallows points out that consumers have been swift to discipline sites that are caught acting unethically and using "sponsored edits". He notes that when it was revealed that amazon.com was taking fees of up to $10,000 for books that it labelled as "destined for greatness", its customers were outraged, and the company quickly agreed to disclose future promotional payments. Unfortunately, though, the lesson episodes like these teach online companies like Amazon centres around more effective ways to be less "revealing" rather than abstention from the practice of "sponsored edits". France reminds us that journalism is built on trust. In the age of the Internet, though, trust is quickly becoming an elusive quality. He writes "as magazines, newspapers, radio stations, and television networks rush to colonize the Internet, the Great Wall between content and commerce is beginning to erode". In the end, he ponders whether there is an irrevocable conflict between e-commerce and ethical journalism. When you can't trust journalists to be ethical, just who can you trust? Transaction Fees & Affiliate Programs - Advertising's Final Promised Land? The engine driving the growing ubiquity of advertising, though, is not the increasing merger of advertising with other industries (like entertainment and journalism) but rather a new business model of online commerce and Internet technology called transaction fees. This emerging and potentially dominant Internet e-commerce technology provides for the ability to track transactions electronically on Websites and to garner transaction fees. Through these fees, many media Websites take a percentage of payment through online product sales. In effect, a media site becomes one pervasive direct mail ad for every product mentioned on its site. This of course puts them in a much closer economic partnership with advertisers than is the case with traditional fixed-rate ads where there is little connection between product sales and the advertising media carrying them. Transaction fees are the new online version of direct marketing, the emerging Internet technology for their application is one of the great economic driving forces of the entire Internet commerce apparatus. The promise of transaction fees is that a number of people, besides product manufacturers and advertisers, might gain a percentage of profit from selling products via hypertext links. Once upon a time, the manufacturer of a product was the one that gained (or lost) from marketing it. Now, however, there is the possibility that journalists, news organisations and entertainment companies might also gain from marketing via transaction fees. The spread of transaction fees outside media into the general population provides an even greater boost to the growing ubiquity of advertising. This is done through the handmaiden of media transaction fees: "affiliate programs" for the general populace. Through the growing magic of Internet technology, it becomes possible for all of us to earn money through affiliate program links to products and transaction fee percentages in the sale of these products. Given this scenario, it is not surprising that advertisers are most likely to increasingly pressure media Websites to support themselves with e-commerce transaction fees. Charles Li, Senior Analyst for New Media at Forrester Research, estimates that by the year 2003, media sites will receive $25 billion in revenue from transaction fees, compared with $17 billion from ads and $5 billion from subscriptions. The possibility is great that all media will become like great direct response advertisements taking a transaction fee percentage for anything sold on their sites. And there is the more dangerous possibility that all of us will become the new "promised land" for a ubiquitous advertising. All of us will have some cut in selling somebody else's product. When this happens and there is a direct economic incentive for all of us to say nice things about products, what is the need and importance of subliminal techniques and methods creating advertising based on images which try to trick us into buying things? A Society Without Critics? It is for these reasons that criticism and straight news are becoming an increasingly endangered species. Everyone has to eat but what happens when one can no longer make meal money by criticising current culture? Cultural critics become a dying breed. There is no money in criticism because it is based around disconnection rather than connection to products. No links to products or Websites are involved here. Critics are becoming lonely icebergs floating in the middle of a cyber-sea of transaction fees, watching everyone else (except themselves) make money on transaction fees. The subliminal focus of the current consultancies is little more than a repackaging of an old theme discovered long ago by Vance Packard. But the growing "everywhereness" and "everyoneness" of modern advertising through transaction fees may mark the beginning of a revolutionary new era. Everyone might become their own "brand", a point well made in Tim Peters's article "A Brand Called You". Media critic James Fallows is somewhat optimistic that there still may remain "niche" markets for truthful information and honest cultural criticism. He suggests that surely people looking for mortgages, voting for a politician, or trying to decide what movie to see will continue to need unbiased information to help them make decisions. But one must ask what happens when a number of people have some "affiliate" relationship with suggesting particular movies, politicians or mortgages? Orville Schell, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, has summarised this growing ubiquity of advertising in a rather simple and elegant manner saying "at a certain point, people won't be able to differentiate between what's trustworthy and what isn't". Over the long run, this loss of credibility could have a corrosive effect on society in general -- especially given the media's importance as a political, cultural, and economic watchdog. Schell warns, "if people don't trust their information, it's not much better than a Marxist-Leninist society". Yet, will we be able to realise this simple fact when we all become types of Marxists and Leninists? Still, there is the great challenge to America to learn how to utilise transaction fees in a democratic manner. In effect, a combination of the technological promise of the new economy with that old promise, and perhaps even myth, of a democratic America. America stands on the verge of a great threshold and challenge in the growing ubiquity of advertising. In a way, as with most great opportunities or threats, this challenge centres on a peculiar paradox. On the one hand, there is the promise of the emerging Internet business model and its centre around the technology of transaction fees. At the same time, there is the threat posed by transaction fees to America's democratic society in the early years of the new millennium. Yes, once upon a time, not very long ago, advertisements were easy to recognise and also knew their place in the landscape of popular culture. Their greatest, yet silent, evolution (especially in the age of the Internet) has really been in their spread into all areas of culture rather than in methods of trickery and deceit. Now, it is more difficult to slam that front door in the face of that old door-to-door salesman. Or toss that magazine and its ad aside, or switch off commercials on television. We have become that door-to-door salesman, that magazine ad, that television commercial. The current cultural landscape takes on some of the characteristics of the theme of that old science fiction movie The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. A current advertising campaign from RJ Reynolds has a humorous take on the current zeitgeist fad of alien abduction with copy reading "if aliens are smart enough to travel through space then why do they keep abducting the dumbest people on earth?" One might add that when Americans allow advertising to travel through all our space, perhaps we all become the dumbest people on earth, abducted by a new alien culture so far away from a simplistic nostalgia of yesterday. (Please press below for your links to a world of fantastic products which can make a new you.) References Brill, Steven. Quoted by Mike France in "Journalism's Online Credibility Gap." Business Week 11 Oct. 1999. France, Mike. "Journalism's Online Credibility Gap." Business Week 11 Oct. 1999. <http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_41/b3650163.htm>. Packard, Vance. The Hidden Persuaders. Out of Print, 1957. Pine, Joseph, and James Gilmore. The Experience Economy. Harvard Business School P, 1999. Shalit, Ruth. "The Return of the Hidden Persuaders." Salon Magazine 27 Sep. 1999. <http://www.salon.com/media/col/shal/1999/09/27/persuaders/index.php>. Schell, Orville. Quoted by Mike France in "Journalism's Online Credibility Gap." Business Week 11 Oct. 1999. Wolf, Michael. Entertainment Economy. Times Books, 1999. Citation reference for this article MLA style: John Fraim. "Friendly Persuasion: The Growing Ubiquity of Advertising, or What Happens When Everyone Becomes an Ad?." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.1 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/ads.php>. Chicago style: John Fraim, "Friendly Persuasion: The Growing Ubiquity of Advertising, or What Happens When Everyone Becomes an Ad?," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 1 (2000), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/ads.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: John Fraim. (2000) Friendly Persuasion: The Growing Ubiquity of Advertising, or What Happens When Everyone Becomes an Ad?. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(1). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/ads.php> ([your date of access]).

Introduction “Patterns are everywhere”, design researcher Anuradha Reddy told her virtual audience at the 2023 speaker series hosted by Brilliant Labs, a Canadian non-profit focussed on experiential digital learning and coding (Brilliant Labs / Labos Créatifs). Like other technology fora, this public-facing series offered designers an opportunity to highlight the accessibility of code. But unlike many such fora, Reddy’s code was worn on the body. Sitting at the now-standard webinar lectern, Reddy shared a flurry of images and contexts as she introduced a garment she called b00b, a bra that she created in 2021 to probe the encoding of more than aesthetic possibility. Her presentation included knotted motifs of Andean Quipus; symbolic arcs of Chinese Pan Chang knots; geometric transformations of African American cornrow hairstyles (Eglash and Bennett, Brilliant Labs / Labos Créatifs). She followed the patterned imagery with questions of uncertainty that are often central for design researchers like her. Facing what might be a possible swipe, tap, or otherwise engagement, a technologist cannot fully determine what a user does. But they can “nudge”, a term popularised by behavioral economists Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein in 2008 and later propagated within technoscientific discourses on risk (see Duffy and Thorson; Rossi et al.; Thaler and Sunstein). Adjacent bodies of scholarship frame the related concept of trust as a form of compliance (Adam et al.; Gass and Seiter). The more trustworthy an interface, the more likely a user is to comply. Rooted in social-psychological precepts, this line of scholarship frames trust less as a condition than a perception. When a user trusts an indicator light, for example, an app is more likely to see increased acceptance and engagement. Reddy approaches trust from and with b00b, an emphatically intimate (soft, pliable, textile) artifact. “How do we use these … perspectives to deal with uncertainty and things we do not know yet in the future?”, Reddy asks her Brilliant Labs audience (Brilliant Labs / Labos Créatifs). To make this argument, I examine Reddy’s b00b in conversation with a legacy feminist textile performance that brings questions of embodiment (and embodied trust) to an ostensibly disembodied technocratic scene. b00b is a decorative bra that emulates two-factor authentication, or what Reddy calls “b00b factor authentication.” The bra uses its two cups to verify a user’s access to a Website describing the project. With this interaction, the bra is self-referential—asking users to unlock a link that brings them back to someone’s chest. In practice, b00b asks users to scan a bra cup that relies on scanning the companion bra cup for a second passcode. Rather than messaging users, an initial passcode that triggers a second passcode sent by text message, the engagement requires bodily proximity. The bra cups take the place of electronic media (such as the text message) so that a close encounter with the bra enlivens digital trust. Under these circumstances, a trusted user becomes a risk-taker—gaining access while transgressing personal boundaries. In the sections that follow, I thread conversations on digital and algorithmic trustworthiness with critiques of trust and compliance that pervade Reddy’s 2021 handmade experiment. To date, technology analysts tend to treat trust as a perception: feelings of confidence in a person or thing (Gilkson and Woolley). As Natasha Schüll notes, a user might trust a slot machine but might miss its implications for further (and potentially excessive) gambling. Additionally, media scholars such as Evgeny Morozov have since mapped this addiction principle within social media development, pointing to a familiar science of incentive structures, gamification dashboards, and behaviour-change techniques, each designed to raise user engagement and keep people in apps longer. Thinking with Reddy’s work, I argue that trust can reveal an embodied desire, something momentarily felt and differentially shared (see also Gregg; Sharma; Irani). Reddy frames the weft of woven material as code, the purl and knit stitches of knitting as binary, and the knots of rope as algorithms. She urges her audience to see fabric as a means of challenging common assumptions about technology. With needles and thread, she proffers algorithmic trust as a relational ethics. In Technology We Trust From a design perspective, trust grows from the strategic balancing of risk and uncertainty (Cheshire). Users who find a digital feature reliable or trustworthy are more likely to grow their engagement and convince others to join in (Hancock et al.). In a recent analysis of the overlapping dynamics of algorithmic trust and bias, communication and information scholars Jeff Hancock, Mor Namaan, and Karen Levy (95) argue that machine learning tools such as the Chrome extension Just Not Sorry often replicate bias within training data. The extension disproportionately alerts femme users when they use qualifying words like “sorry”, and “I think”. In ​​other contexts, Hancock and colleagues suggest, an AI-aided tool may help mitigate interpersonal biases since if it “imparts signals of trustworthiness between peer-based social exchange partners, these countervailing cues may neutralise stereotypes that would otherwise impede the transaction” (ibid). Here, the signal of trustworthiness holds the promise of accountability. But because the signals focus on cognition (manipulating an individual’s perceptions), what they refer to and how they may alleviate harms caused by entrenched cultural bias remains less clear. Grounded in social-psychological tenets, technology analysts codify trust as the relationship between two primary concepts: risk and uncertainty. As information scholar Coye Chesire (50) explains, “trust is not simply the absence of risk and uncertainty. More accurately, trust is a complex human response to situations that are rife with risk and uncertainty”. Through a range of controlled methods including observations, self-reports, survey questions, and the experimental conditions of a lab study, researchers measure the trustworthiness of user interface features as assessments of risk and uncertainty that explain differing motivations for use and disengagement. For example, design researcher Nick Merrill’s and Cheshire’s study of heart rate monitors finds that listening to an acquaintance's normal heart rate can lead to negative trust-related assessments in challenging contexts such as waiting to meet the acquaintance about a legal dispute. Parallel work by Hancock and colleagues uses self-reports and large-scale experiments on platforms like Facebook to map the significance of AI-enabled curation features like news feeds (Hancock et al.). As a psychological state, trustworthiness tends to indicate a behavioral metric that can be numerically encoded and individually addressed. By measuring trust-infused dimensions of user activity, analysts seek to systematically identify new ways of scaffolding trust-building behaviour by manipulating perception (Hancock, Namaan, and Levy), ultimately convincing a user to comply. A core goal is to maximise participation. The US government applied these principles to mass data collection and dissemination efforts during national census such as the COVID response (Halpern). But a secondary effect grows from the political-economic dimensions of user experience. Through compliance, users become easier to place, measure, count, and amend—a process Michelle Murphy names the economisation of life. When people’s certainty in interpersonal relationships grows, “the source of uncertainty then shifts to the assurance system, thereby making trustworthiness and reliability of the institution or organisation the salient relationship” (Cheshire 54). For instance, we may trust people in our text messages because we meet them face to face and put their numbers in our phones. But once we trust them, this assurance moves to our social media service or cellular phone provider. The service that manages our contacts also preserves the integrity of our contacts, such as when a messaging platform like WhatsApp automatically updates a cell phone number without our knowledge or explicit consent. Conversely, feelings of assurance in a digital interface feature may dwindle with decreased feelings of assurance by a platform. Until November 2022, users may have trusted someone with a blue checkmark on Twitter more than someone without one, even if they did not trust them at an interpersonal level. But with a chaotic acquisition that, according to a Washington Post report (Weatherbed), led to shifting check mark meanings and colours, this assurance grew more complicated. Murphy (24) might call these quantitative practices enriched with affect the “phantasmagrams” of rationalised assurance. Like a check mark that may or may not index a particular measure of confidence, excitement or worry, these shifting dynamics reveal the “trust and belief that animates numbers” (52). A less considered outcome of this framing is how individuated expressions of distrust (situations that foster psychological and physiological concern, skepticism, or fear for a single person) overshadow its complement: non-unconditional expressions of care. How might a user interface foster networks of connection for self and community? As Anna Lauren Hoffmann suggests, efforts to thwart algorithmic discrimination undergird this conundrum—“mirroring some of antidiscrimination discourse’s most problematic tendencies” (901). The particular value placed on trust often proceeds quick-fix techniques such as multi-factor authentication and cryptography that reduce trust to a neutral transaction (see Ashoori, et al.). In this discussion, design researchers have only begun to conceive trust (and distrust) as a deeply embodied process. Looks, Cuts, and Scans Reddy’s b00b invites audiences to explore embodied positioning. Sitting on a static mannequin, the garment invites audience members to engage the handiwork laid atop its breasts. In video documentation (Reddy), Reddy holds up a phone to a mannequin wearing the bra. She touches the phone to the mannequin’s right nipple, and the phone screen opens a Web browser with a password-protected field. As Reddy moves the phone to the mannequin’s left nipple, the phone shares the password ‘banjara,’ a reference to the community from which the embroidery techniques derive. The password opens a Website full of descriptive text and imagery detailing this material reference. In this interaction, b00b joins a movement of artistic work that uses textile artifacts to frame boundaries of self and other as porous and shifting. Consider Nam June Paik’s 1969 TV Bra for Living Sculpture. Across the 1970s, Charlotte Moorman performed the work by playing cello while wearing a transparent brassiere with two miniature television screens mounted on her chest (Paik; Rothfuss). As Moorman played her cello, wires connecting the cello to the two television sets sent sonic signals to the video that manipulate its imagery. Moorman’s instrumentation controlled the visuals displayed on the screens, inviting audience members to come closer to the electronic garment and her body—or, as Joan Rothfuss explains, “never mind that the bra actually encouraged prurience by compelling spectators to stare at [Moorman’s] breasts” (243). TV Bra invited its audience to breach conventional limits of closeness and contact much like users of b00b. Yoko Ono’s celebrated Cut Piece has sparked a similar prurience. During the work Ono dressed in some of her finest clothes and invites audience members to walk on stage and shear away pieces of fabric. Notably documented in the Albert and David Maysles film of Ono’s 1965 Carnegie Hall performance, the audience leaves Ono’s body nearly fully exposed at the performance’s end, save for her arms holding remaining pieces of fabric. With scissors in hand, the performance threatens imminent danger—inspiring snickers, pause, and discomforting ease among audience members eager to participate. Cut Piece encourages the audience to disregard consent and expose a certain breach of trust, practice mirrored with b00b. In this process of cutting cloth, often on the bias (or on a slanted angle; see Benabdallah, et al.; Rosner), feminist performance works have long prompted audiences to trouble the intimate relationship between themselves and the performer. As Vivian Huang has deftly argued, Ono’s shredded fabrics are more than neutral inconveniences; they also hint at whatever racialised and gendered feelings of trust might or might not exist between Ono and her audience. “If Orientalist conflations of the East with femininity have in turn sexualized Asian women as simultaneously hypersexual and submissive”, Haung contends, “then how can we as viewers and readers performatively read Asian femininity in a different, and not anti-relational, orientation to hospitality?” (187). b00b asks a similar question with systems of verification. Examining this possibility, Peggy Kyoungwon Lee recently puts Cut Piece in conversation with the contemporary media art of Lisa Park, and notes that “Ono’s signature composure both enacts and challenges archetypes of the feminized Asian body: cognitive efficiency, durability, calculative emotionality, docility, passivity” (54). For Lee, Cut Piece continues to open pathways for interpretation by diverting audience members from the compliance arguments above. Where algorithmic trust further complicates the making of trust with an added layer of uncertainty (is this made by an algorithm or is this not?), Cut Piece and TV Bra see in and through uncertainty to recentre a relational ethics. This concern for the relationality endures in Reddy’s b00b. To fashion the near-field communication (NFC) cards, Reddy draws from Banjara embroidery, a heritage craft technique featured in her home city of Hyderbad (Telangana). Like Banjara, b00b incorporates varied accessories (mirrors, tassels, shells) with colourful pattern. She embellishes the bra with lively zig-zagging embroidery, fashioning each nipple with a mirror that expertly doubles as an NFT tag hidden behind the embroidery. Garments like Ono’s, Paik and Moorman’s, and now Reddy’s, share an understanding that technology can and should reflect a certain felt complexity. At the Brilliant Labs event, Reddy presents b00b to conference-goers invested in shared hardware design specification standards. Across the 48-minute presentation, b00b interrupts the audience's presumed intentions. As Elizabeth Goodman has argued, hackers and tech enthusiasts interested in schematics, wireframes, and other digital drawings often prioritise formats that anyone can examine, adapt, use, and circulate by overlooking their situated social and political stakes. In the theatrical setting of a tech forum, b00b’s fabric draws attention to the body—manoeuvring the (often white Western) gaze around femme Asian subjectivities and questioning proximities between one body and another. Through its embodied relationality, real or imagined, b00b shares a concern for reimagining trust within mechanisms of control. b00b is Reddy’s attempt at generative justice, a concept of inclusive making she calls part of “bringing the Open Hardware community closer to heritage craft communities” (Reddy). In documentation, she discusses the geopolitical conditions of NFC-based authentication that relies on intimate connection as a means of state-led coercion and control. Situating her work in contemporary trust politics, she describes the Aadhar biometric identification system designed to compel Indian residents to record biometric data through iris scans, fingerprints, and photographs in exchange for a unique identity number (Dixon). She writes that systems like Aadhar “make minority communities more vulnerable to being identified, classified, and policed by powerful social actors” (Dixon). Wearing b00b challenges efforts to root NFC transactions in similar carceral and colonial logics. With an intimate scan, a user or audience makes room for counter-expressions of dis/trust. Sitting across from Reddy during a recent Zoom conference, I felt the tug of this work. With the piece modelled on a mannequin in the background, it reminded me of the homegrown techno-armour worn throughout Friedrichshain, a lively neighborhood in the former eastern part of Berlin. For the onlooker, the bra incites not only intrigue but also a careful engagement; or what Reddy names the “need to actively participate in conveying trust and intimacy with the bra’s wearer”. I couldn't help but wonder what an attendee at the Open Hardware Summit might make of the work. Would they bristle at the intimacy, or would they—like Ono’s audiences—cut in? On the surface, b00b presents a playful counterpoint to the dominant narrative of technology as slick, neutral, and disembodied. By foregrounding the tactile, handmade qualities of electronic media, Reddy’s work suggests we reconsider the boundaries between physical and digital worlds to complicate readings of computational risk. She is taking a highly technical process typically used for practical applications like finance, online identity, or other well-defined authentication problems, and enlivening it. The garment invites her audience to appreciate two-factor encryption as something intimate—both in an abstract sense and in a resolutely embodied sense. By defamiliarising digital trust, Reddy calls attention to its absurdity. How can a term like “trust” (associated with intimacy and mutual concern) also denote the extractive politics of algorithmic control (the verification of a user, the assessment of risk, the escalating manipulation of use)? Look closer at b00b, and the focus on authentication offers something specific for our ideas of algorithmic trust. Reddy turns a computational process into an extension of the body, registering a distinctly affective intrusion within the digital codification of assurance and accountability. Working with interaction design in the tradition of feminist performance, b00b directs our digital gaze back toward the embodied. Toward a Relational Ethics of Trust Fabric artifacts like b00b have long challenged digital scholars to consider questions of uncertainty and accountability. From what counts as computational, to whose labour gets recognised as innovative, woven material sparks a particular performance of risk. As Lisa Nakamura (933) shrewdly observes, gendered and racialised “traits” associated with textiles tend to fuel technological production, casting women of colour as the ideal digital workers. Looking to transnational flows connected with making, Silvia Lindnter argues that these stereotypes bring strategic meanings to feminised Asian bodies that naturalise their role within digital economies. Whose bodies get associated with fabric (through making, repair, consumption, aesthetics) reflects deep-seated stratifications within the masculine history of computing—with seemingly few possibilities for circumvention. If trust works as a felt condition, digital developments might more fully honour that condition. Bringing textile possibilities to NFTs suggests examining how authentication systems work on and through the body, even without touch. It is in this reciprocal encounter between content and user, audience and performer, textile and algorithm that something like a bra can hint at a profound ethics of connection. Reddy’s work reveals the consensual contact that can meaningfully shape who and how we digitally trust. While this essay has focussed on trust, I want to end with a brief consideration of the way a textile—in this case a conceptual and maybe even ontoepistemic (da Silva) artifact—brings the status of users closer to that of audience members. It begins to weave an analytic thread between the orientations, capacities, and desires of performance and design. Across this connection, b00b’s design works as minoritarian performance, as Jasmine Mahmoud (after José Esteban Muñoz) describes: a practice that “centers performance—as an object of study, a method, and theoretical container—as a means of centering minortized knowledge”. As minoritarian knowledge, the embroidered NFT expands Rozsika Parker’s profound insight into the subversive power of needlecraft. As Julia Bryan-Wilson (6) observes, “accounting for textiles—objects that are in close physical contact with us at virtually every minute of the day—demands alternative methodologies, ones that extend from shared bodily knowledge”. For digital scholars, b00b opens a similar possibility under racial technocapitalism. It asks us to notice how an indicator light on an AI-trained surveillance camera, for instance, does not map to an engaged or disaffected condition for an over-monitored user. It registers the need for probing relationships that underlie those tools—relationships between workers and employers, between non-users and corporate platforms, between differentially marked bodies. It challenges the reduction of trust dynamics into individualised or universalised motivations. To trust and be trusted with thread opens the possibility of algorithmic re-embodiment. Acknowledgements I’m grateful to insightful comments and suggestions from Anuradha Reddy, Amanda Doxtater, Scott Magelssen, Jasmine Jamillah Mahmoud, Adair Rounthwaite, Anne Searcy, James Pierce, and the anonymous reviewers of the current M/C Journal issue. References Adam, Martin, Michael Wessel, and Alexander Benlian. "AI-Based Chatbots in Customer Service and Their Effects on User Compliance." 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Introduction The LEGO Group is a multinational toy manufacturer headquartered in Billund, Denmark, with interests in videogames, television, and film, in addition to toys. Their primary product consists of plastic building blocks with thousands of variations in dozens of colours, purchasable either in sets with instructions to create particular designs, or as assorted boxes for more creative freeform building; sets have a multitude of “themes”, including in-house labels such as ‘Bionicles’ and ‘Ninjago’, ‘city’ sets, and products based on popular intellectual property from film, television, videogames, and even organisations such as NASA. Different sets and themes are targeted at different audience segments, including adults and children by age group. The company announced in 2021 that it would aim to ensure its “products and marketing are accessible to all and free of gender bias” (LEGO Group, “Girls”). The LEGO Group and its various products attract active and engaged fans. LEGO bricks allow users to create designs limited only by their imagination and their ability to acquire sufficient parts. Though initially and perhaps primarily a children’s toy, LEGO has over the past few decades attracted a substantial adult audience, often referred to as Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs) who function as brand ambassadors, consumers, and co-creators (Jennings 222). The toy’s creative affordances have allowed AFOLs to establish numerous fan conventions and events at which they display their designs. In addition to unofficial fan activity such as conventions, LEGO has shown an interest in direct economic engagement with fans of their products. This is evidenced by their 2021 purchase of a large after-market LEGO reselling marketplace, Bricklink (LEGO Group, “LEGO Group Acquires”), and the establishment of the LEGO Ideas platform, which is the subject of this article. Such efforts might be viewed in light of Busse’s warning that there is “danger to fan culture [from] the co-optation and colonization of fan creations, interactions, and space” (Busse 112). This article investigates the LEGO Group’s relationship to adult fan labour through the notion of ‘platform rhetoric’, by which we mean the way in which the LEGO Ideas platform, and specifically the LEGO Ideas Guidelines (LEGO Group, “Product Idea”), hereafter “Guidelines”, create an infrastructure for structuring the relationship between fan designers and the company. The platform harnesses the labour of both adult fan designers and other site users to generate new and successful products for the LEGO Group. In doing so, it offers a tantalising case study of how this toy is positioned at the intersection of creativity, transnational data flows, and global economic activity. While the LEGO Ideas platform and Guidelines are not the only space in which LEGO and their fans negotiate such matters, as shown by other examples already mentioned, the platform’s public nature and its intersection with other aspects of participatory online media offer a valuable case study for understanding platform rhetorics and the way they can structure interactions between fans and brands. About LEGO Ideas LEGO Ideas was established in 2008 as a collaboration between the LEGO Group and a Japanese company as a crowdsourcing platform called LEGO CUUSOO. It was relaunched as LEGO Ideas in 2014 (LEGO Group, “LEGO History”). Crowdsourcing is an “online, distributed problem-solving and production model” (Brabham 75) that became popular from about 2006 as a new approach to generating product ideas. It is a process in which “the crowd was co-opted” (Ghezzi et al. 344) and where “products designed by the crowd become the property of companies, who turn large profits off from this crowd labor” (Brabham 76). Ideas appears part of a broader reset for LEGO that occurred as the Internet came to occupy increasing prominence in social and commercial life. Hatch and Shultz (596) observe that in contrast to previous strategies for the company, by the early 2000s “consumer and company alike were now using the Internet as both the platform and a channel for brand engagement”. In line with this trend, the Ideas platform invites fan designers to submit ideas for new LEGO products which then pass through a series of filters before reaching a stage at which the company considers them for production, including multiple stages of public voting. After reaching the final stage of fan voting, potential products are assessed by the LEGO Group on a range of factors. Each of these stages is laid out in the Guidelines, along with authorship arrangements: successful designers receive “1% of the total net sales of the product … 10 complimentary copies of your LEGO Ideas set [and] Credit and bio in set materials as the LEGO Ideas set creator”. Ideas capitalises on the cultures of creation and co-creation that Nancy Jennings has identified as central to AFOL communities, although her work focusses on the Lego Ambassador Program and LEGO Group AFOL Engagement Department (238). The LEGO Ideas Website can be described as a platform, a “digital, socio-technical system that create[s] relationships between different entities” (Lee). When self-applied by the entity, the term platform has a political purpose to simplify or obfuscate “tensions … between user-generated and commercially-produced content, between cultivating community and serving up advertising, between intervening in the delivery of content and remaining neutral” (Gillespie 348). In applying the term ‘platform’ to LEGO Ideas, we are making similar political claims that it occupies a tension-filled role between users (including those who submit designs) and the commercial interests of the LEGO Group. Plantin et al. suggest something of a convergence between platform and infrastructure studies, especially when addressing “new digital objects” (293). The platform also serves a role in collecting large amounts of data for LEGO, which can be understood as equivalent to the advertising initiatives of other platforms. It is certainly not a neutral carrier of content, as our analysis of the Guidelines will show. The affordances of the LEGO Ideas platform engage both fans who actively produce fan products in the form of designs and photographs submitted to the site, but also “nonproductive fans [who] can participate in fandom's gift economy through their engagement with the fruits of fannish labor” (Turk). Such engagement takes the form of participating in the voting systems, commenting upon the designs, and generating engagement through social media. This is a capturing of consumer labour in much the same way envisioned by Toffler (cited in Bruns) in the notion of a ‘prosumer’: “Producer and consumer, divorced by the industrial revolution, are reunited in the cycle of wealth creation, with the customer contributing not just the money but market and design information vital for the production process”. The ecosystem of participation also extends beyond the platform itself as the Guidelines explicitly specify that a user may “promote as you wish online”. Fan designer Brent Waller, creator of two successful LEGO Ideas sets, commented in an interview that you need to actively promote it via outside avenues – forums, websites, Facebook, Twitter etc. This is particularly important if your project is based on existing [sic] license or intellectual property. If that is the case then you need to reach out to those external fan bases who may not be huge LEGO fans but may be a fan of the project you’ve submitted and would love to see it come to life in LEGO form. (Ong, “Interview with Brent Waller”) As such, submitters tend to use social media and other Internet platforms to generate votes, further extending the complexity of interactions between user creativity, the toy company and their economic interests, and the flow of user-generated information across Internet platforms. LEGO Ideas Guidelines as Rhetorical Infrastructure While we have characterised LEGO Ideas as a platform, it is not an open social media platform but instead has tightly controlled submission procedures. Each submission to LEGO Ideas must incorporate several required elements outlined in the Guidelines and be approved by platform staff prior to publication. This is the first in a series of processes by which LEGO Ideas operates to shape the products which are published through it. These are rhetorical infrastructures, “not just containers for composition but systems of support that structure the compositions they generate in an active way” (Pilsch 8). Accepting the distinction between platforms and infrastructure in terms of digital objects discussed by Plantin et al., we are distinguishing between LEGO Ideas as a platform and the LEGO Ideas guidelines as an infrastructural element which shapes how the platform operates. Whereas infrastructure studies has “focused on analyzing essential, widely shared sociotechnical systems” (Plantin et al., 294), the Guidelines serve that purpose only within the Ideas platform for the purposes of this case study. There are similarities in this conception of rhetorical infrastructure and terms such as ‘affordance’, which similarly seek to describe the way in which artifacts embed “mechanisms and conditions [which] create a scaffold through which artifacts request, demand, allow, encourage, discourage, and refuse” (Davis and Chouinard 246, original emphasis). The notion of “rhetorical infrastructure” is distinctive in capturing the functional and relational work done by networks of documents, artifacts, activities, and procedures that underpin action within a given environment (Read 12); within technical communication, there is a particular emphasis on the rhetorical infrastructure of “invisible documents” such as documentation and standards – forms of writing that serve a vital regulatory function but which are often invisible until they fail (Frith 406). Understanding the LEGO Ideas Guidelines as rhetorical infrastructure allows us to excavate how this document works behind the scenes to shape user action and standardise outputs within a platform that ostensibly privileges free play and creativity, but actually transforms these into valuable intellectual property for the LEGO Group. The Guidelines function as a translational infrastructure to incorporate fan labour directly into the LEGO ecosystem. The Guidelines serve their regulatory function in part by outlining in plain terms, both textually and visually, what content will and will not be accepted as a submission to the site. The Guidelines specify that Ideas must be: “single, stand-alone LEGO products”; “a maximum of 3000 pieces”; “must focus on a single concept”; and not based “on a licensed property we currently sell”. Platform users must be older than 13 years of age, and any submitter younger than 18 must have written approval from their caregiver. In this way, LEGO further orients the Ideas platform toward the putative AFOL, and submitted Ideas, in our review, likewise tend to be targeted toward older builders. Additionally, the Guidelines prohibit any commercial activity related to submitted Ideas, although they do permit sharing of “photos and building instructions free of charge”. These are the basic substantive rules by which staff approve submissions to be posted to (or remain on) the platform, though further aesthetic and legal conditions are outlined elsewhere in the Guidelines. Following initial approval, concepts published on LEGO Ideas must achieve a series of voting milestones in which other users of the platform show their ‘support’ – 100 supporters in the first 60 days, 1,000 supporters in the next year, and so on – a process which generates substantial amounts of user data for LEGO. Ultimately, projects have just over two years to attain the figure of 10,000 supporters that triggers the “expert review” phase of the Ideas selection process. Such voting is a form of collective knowledge generation; within the context of a workplace, Majchrzak et al. describe this practice as “metavoicing … adding metaknowledge to the content that is already online” (41). It is also a substantial source of market data. Assuming at least some supporters of each successful project have selected their time zone and filled in other details, the submission of these votes under the LEGO Ideas guidelines demonstrates potential market interest for the projects and other data points of economic interest to the toymaker. Additionally, LEGO Ideas places at least eight ‘cookies’ on Web browsers used to access the site. This process also generates a substantial potential data pool (Bennett; Englehardt et al.). In addition to generating data for LEGO, achieving milestones motivates submitters to continue promoting their idea and thus drives traffic to the platform. Blog posts published on the LEGO Ideas site demonstrate that the 10,000 vote milestone in particular generates substantial excitement for the fan designers. For example, in one such post Peter (user SoGenius106), who submitted an Idea based on television program The Office, notes that this project hit 10k about 8 days before it was set to expire, this is what really made me nervous, knowing that this project was so close to 10K but had little time to get there. (Kamila9) Similarly, Sam (user KaijuBuildz) expressed excitement at reaching the 10,000-supporter milestone: it took a while, around 16 months to be precise. But the feeling when it finally DID hit that magic 5-digit number felt incredible, though it did take some time to truly sink in. (fergushart) Like Waller, quoted earlier, both fan designers noted that using social media platforms outside of Ideas was important to their success. But Sam / KajuiBuildz also credited the platform’s affordances and userbase, suggesting: “word of mouth through the supporters of the project itself was a big help for sure” (fergushart). Such extension across platforms demonstrates “the logic of self-branding – of carefully curated self-promotion – [which] is a fact of social media life, for everyday users and cultural workers alike” (Duffy and Pooley 8). While the LEGO Ideas platform shapes production of submitted projects, the Guidelines also structure the relationship between fan designers and the LEGO Group after any successful voting period. Any Idea that reaches the 10,000-supporter milestone is reviewed by a ‘review board’ of “designers, product managers, and other key team members”; if an Idea is selected for production, “professional LEGO designers take over” (LEGO Group, “Product”). In practice, a number of fan designers document collaborating with professional designers in some capacity. For example, Motorised Lighthouse designer Sandro Quattrini said he was able to express ideas “in our very first meeting” (Ong, “Interview with the LEGO Ideas Design Team”), while the designer of the Typewriter set stated: “I was really made to feel a part of the team” (Huw). In this case, the published document sets a term of engagement that may or may not be reflected in the actual practice of creating a LEGO set following a successful Ideas submission. It therefore establishes the framework through which the decision to interact or not with the designer is left in the hands of LEGO staff assigned to the project. Guidelines for Social Action This points to the dual role of the Guidelines: the document is at once procedural, laying out the steps required of platform users, and social, shaping the ways that users of the platform engage with the Ideas published there and with the LEGO Group. It’s common for technical documents such as guidelines and instructions to be characterised as formulaic, mechanical tools for dictating practice, what Walwema and Butts refer to as “grey genres” (Butts and Walwema 15); in practice, however, such genres both shape users’ actions and position them as members of a community with shared interests and values. This positioning happens in both informal and formal guidelines – for example, Ledbetter’s study of user-generated instructional content in YouTube beauty communities has demonstrated how video tutorials begin from users’ shared interests (here, in makeup techniques) and then build fan-user communities that share specialist vocabularies, social interactions, and value-led behaviours (Ledbetter). Within institutions, codes of conduct are a well-defined and stable genre, yet operate in a complex, unstable nexus of procedural, ethical, and legal contexts; they are simultaneously internal policy documents (setting out standards of behaviour for organisation members), public ethical statements (published as part of an organisation’s commitment to ethical frameworks, emphasising principles and values over actions), and deployed or deployable in legal contexts to shield corporations. As Sam Dragga notes, codes of conduct typically adopt a legislative approach and are composed as “guidelines and regulations”, even where they use language and syntax – like “we” statements – designed to look more like commitments than regulations. These documents position users as subject to the institution’s values, “implying that the individual is without power because all power comes from the regulating corporation” (Dragga 7), rather than as collaborators in them. The LEGO Ideas Guidelines likewise operate to require alignment of user actions with brand values to ensure that fan labour can be successfully monetised at all stages of the Ideas process, from initial visits to the platform right through to commercial production of fan designs. This expectation is codified in the Guidelines’ “Acceptable Content” section: “in order for us to be able to consider your product idea, it must fit with our brand values and guidelines … following these guidelines is the surest recipe to see that your work is approved for LEGO Ideas”. Those values, however, are only implicit in the list of concrete themes and attributes that “do not fit”, including nudity, modern warfare, human-scale weapons, and racism. The Guidelines are explicitly directive, with a hard demarcation between LEGO and its fans: the document refers to “we” the LEGO Group and “you” the user, and bans fan designers from using any version of the brand logo, even an approximation so abstract as “a red square”, lest their submission be misconstrued as LEGO-endorsed. This exclusion occurs even as in-house terminology like “LEGO Fan designer” and “professional LEGO designer” or “LEGO Set designer” establishes an overlap between the labour of fans and employees – one reinforced by the showcasing of those fan designers who do participate in some co-design with LEGO’s professional team when their Idea goes into production. Conclusion The LEGO Ideas platform is presented as a channel for fans and designers to use their existing passion and creativity productively, for their own financial benefit and for the (considerably larger) economic benefit of the company. Adult designers using the platform do so only in alignment within the operation of a set of Guidelines that constrain and guide their decisions in a way perceived to be an appropriate reflection of the LEGO brand. Like other online platforms with social features, the Ideas platform is a commercial infrastructure in which community is shaped, rather than a community infrastructure. The success of the platform has also impacted on the wider toy industry, with other toy companies introducing Ideas-like platforms, such as Mattel’s ‘Creations’. In turn, the platform and its users intersect with other participatory Internet platforms such as social network sites where they promote their Ideas to garner the magical 10,000 supporters needed to progress to the next step. Further engagement with broader notions of digital infrastructure and platforms, especially on the terms described by Plantin et al., would offer fruitful insights into both the wider LEGO operation and LEGO Ideas specifically. Throughout the process, LEGO collects massive amounts of user data from both participating fan designers and other users of the site through both technical means and social signals. Such data is of additional value when combined with other LEGO user accounts such as purchase history, and potentially also with information about users (buyers and sellers) on the Bricklink site. This offers a potentially vast amount of signals about purchase, browsing, and interest among both existing and prospective LEGO customers, and could again be part of a larger study of the company’s corporate strategies. The Guidelines shape the entirety of this interactive space, creating the infrastructure in which different forms of knowledge and cultural capital operate, and rhetorical action occurs. Successful Ideas have captured a social Zeitgeist to gather the required number of supporters, while also ensuring they closely align with the LEGO brand guidelines. LEGO staff participating in the process bring their own institutional perspective to the designs, taking over where required but also consulting the submitting fan designers in a number of cases. On this point, the Guidelines offer ambiguity, allowing the LEGO Group discretion over the final shape of interaction between designers of different status. All of these examples demonstrate the rhetorical infrastructure of the LEGO Ideas platform and its Guidelines. As a key interactive space between the LEGO Group and its adult fan community, the underpinning expertise, documentation, networks of information and individuals, and complex data flows clearly demonstrate the ways that toys can intersect with other social and economic structures. References Bennett, Colin. “Cookies, Web Bugs, Webcams and Cue Cats: Patterns of Surveillance on the World Wide Web”. Ethics and Information Technology 3.3 (Sep. 2001): 195–208. Brabham, Daren. “Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving: An Introduction and Cases”. Convergence 14.1 (2008): 75–90. Bruns, Axel. “From Prosumption to Produsage.” Handbook on the Digital Creative Economy. Eds. Ruth Towse and Christian Handke. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2013. 67–78. Busse, Kristina. “Fan Labor and Feminism: Capitalizing on the Fannish Labor of Love.” Cinema Journal 54.3 (2015): 110–115. 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Despite the now-traditional tendency of noir scholarship to call attention to the retrospective and constructed nature of this genre— James Naremore argues that film noir is best regarded as a “mythology”— one feature that has rarely come under question is its association with the city (2). Despite the existence of numerous rural noirs, the depiction of urban space is associated with this genre more consistently than any other element. Even in critical accounts that attempt to deconstruct the solidity of the noir genre, the city is left as an implicit inclusion, and the country, an implict exclusion. Naremore, for example, does not include the urban environment in a list of the central tenets of film noir that he calls into question: “nothing links together all the things described as noir—not the theme of crime, not a cinematographic technique, not even a resistance to Aristotelian narratives or happy endings” (10). Elizabeth Cowie identifies film noir a “fantasy,” whose “tenuous critical status” has been compensated for “by a tenacity of critical use” (121). As part of Cowie’s project, to revise the assumption that noirs are almost exclusively male-centered, she cites character types, visual style, and narrative tendencies, but never urban spaces, as familiar elements of noir that ought to be reconsidered. If the city is rarely tackled as an unnecessary or part-time element of film noir in discursive studies, it is often the first trait identified by critics in the kind of formative, characteristic-compiling studies that Cowie and Naremore work against.Andrew Dickos opens Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir with a list of noir’s key attributes. The first item is “an urban setting or at least an urban influence” (6). Nicholas Christopher maintains that “the city is the seedbed of film noir. […] However one tries to define or explain noir, the common denominator must always be the city. The two are inseparable” (37). Though the tendencies of noir scholars— both constructive and deconstructive— might lead readers to believe otherwise, rural locations figure prominently in a number of noir films. I will show that the noir genre is, indeed, flexible enough to encompass many films set predominantly or partly in rural locations. Steve Neale, who encourages scholars to work with genre terms familiar to original audiences, would point out that the rural noir is an academic discovery not an industry term, or one with much popular currency (166). Still, this does not lessen the critical usefulness of this subgenre, or its implications for noir scholarship.While structuralist and post-structuralist modes of criticism dominated film genre criticism in the 1970s and 80s, as Thomas Schatz has pointed out, these approaches often sacrifice close attention to film texts, for more abstract, high-stakes observations: “while there is certainly a degree to which virtually every mass-mediated cultural artifact can be examined from [a mythical or ideological] perspective, there appears to be a point at which we tend to lose sight of the initial object of inquiry” (100). Though my reading of these films sidesteps attention to social and political concerns, this article performs the no-less-important task of clarifying the textual features of this sub-genre. To this end, I will survey the tendencies of the rural noir more generally, mentioning more than ten films that fit this subgenre, before narrowing my analysis to a reading of Moonrise (Frank Borzage, 1948), Thieves’ Highway (Jules Dassin, 1949), They Live By Night (Nicholas Ray, 1949) and On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952). Robert Mitchum tries to escape his criminal life by settling in a small, mountain-side town in Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947). A foggy marsh provides a dramatic setting for the Bonnie and Clyde-like demise of lovers on the run in Gun Crazy (Joseph Lewis, 1950). In The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950), Sterling Hayden longs to return home after he is forced to abandon his childhood horse farm for a life of organised crime in the city. Rob Ryan plays a cop unable to control his violent impulses in On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952). He is re-assigned from New York City to a rural community up-state in hopes that a less chaotic environment will have a curative effect. The apple orchards of Thieves’ Highway are no refuge from networks of criminal corruption. In They Live By Night, a pair of young lovers, try to leave their criminal lives behind, hiding out in farmhouses, cabins, and other pastoral locations in the American South. Finally, the location of prisons explains a number of sequences set in spare, road-side locations such as those in The Killer is Loose (Budd Boetticher, 1956), The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953), and Raw Deal (Anthony Mann, 1948). What are some common tendencies of the rural noir? First, they usually feature both rural and urban settings, which allows the portrayal of one to be measured against the other. What we see of the city structures the definition of the country, and vice versa. Second, the lead character moves between these two locations by driving. For criminals, the car is more essential for survival in the country than in the city, so nearly all rural noirs are also road movies. Third, nature often figures as a redemptive force for urbanites steeped in lives of crime. Fourth, the curative quality of the country is usually tied to a love interest in this location: the “nurturing woman” as defined by Janey Place, who encourages the protagonist to forsake his criminal life (60). Fifth, the country is never fully crime-free. In The Killer is Loose, for example, an escaped convict’s first victim is a farmer, whom he clubs before stealing his truck. The convict (Wendell Corey), then, easily slips through a motorcade with the farmer’s identification. Here, the sprawling countryside provides an effective cover for the killer. This farmland is not an innocent locale, but the criminal’s safety-net. In films where a well-intentioned lead attempts to put his criminal life behind him by moving to a remote location, urban associates have little trouble tracking him down. While the country often appears, to protagonists like Jeff in Out of the Past or Bowie in They Live By Night, as an ideal place to escape from crime, as these films unfold, violence reaches the countryside. If these are similar points, what are some differences among rural noirs? First, there are many differences by degree among the common elements listed above. For instance, some rural noirs present their location with unabashed romanticism, while others critique the idealisation of these locations; some “nurturing women” are complicit with criminal activity, while others are entirely innocent. Second, while noir films are commonly known for treating similar urban locations, Los Angeles in particular, these films feature a wide variety of locations: Out of the Past and Thieves’ Highway take place in California, the most common setting for rural noirs, but On Dangerous Ground is set in northern New England, They Live by Night takes place in the Depression-era South, Moonrise in Southern swampland, and the most dynamic scene of The Asphalt Jungle is in rural Kentucky. Third, these films also vary considerably in the balance of settings. If the three typical locations of the rural noir are the country, the city, and the road, the distribution of these three locations varies widely across these films. The location of The Asphalt Jungle matches the title until its dramatic conclusion. The Hitch-hiker, arguably a rural noir, is set in travelling cars, with just brief stops in the barren landscape outside. Two of the films I analyse, They Live By Night and Moonrise are set entirely in the country; a remarkable exception to the majority of films in this subgenre. There are only two other critical essays on the rural noir. In “Shadows in the Hinterland: Rural Noir,” Jonathan F. Bell contextualises the rural noir in terms of post-war transformations of the American landscape. He argues that these films express a forlorn faith in the agrarian myth while the U.S. was becoming increasingly developed and suburbanised. That is to say, the rural noir simultaneously reflects anxiety over the loss of rural land, but also the stubborn belief that the countryside will always exist, if the urbanite needs it as a refuge. Garry Morris suggests the following equation as the shortest way to state the thematic interest of this genre: “Noir = industrialisation + (thwarted) spirituality.” He attributes much of the malaise of noir protagonists to the inhospitable urban environment, “far from [society’s] pastoral and romantic and spiritual origins.” Where Bell focuses on nine films— Detour (1945), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Out of the Past (1947), Key Largo (1948), Gun Crazy (1949), On Dangerous Ground (1952), The Hitch-Hiker (1953), Split Second (1953), and Killer’s Kiss (1955)— Morris’s much shorter article includes just The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Gun Crazy. Of the four films I discuss, only On Dangerous Ground has previously been treated as part of this subgenre, though it has never been discussed alongside Nicholas Ray’s other rural noir. To further the development of the project that these authors have started— the formation of a rural noir corpus— I propose the inclusion of three additional films in this subgenre: Moonrise (1948), They Live by Night (1949), and Thieves’ Highway (1949). With both On Dangerous Ground and They Live by Night to his credit, Nicholas Ray has the distinction of being the most prolific director of rural noirs. In They Live by Night, two young lovers, Bowie (Farley Granger) and Keechie (Cathy O’Donnell), attempt to escape from their established criminal lives. Twenty-three year old Bowie has just been released from juvenile prison and finds rural Texas refreshing: “Out here, the air smells different,” he says. He meets Keechie through her father, a small time criminal organiser who would be happy to keep her secluded for life. When one of Bowie’s accomplices, Chicamaw (Howard DaSilva), shoots a policeman after a robbing a bank with Bowie, the young couple is forced to run. Foster Hirsch calls They Live by Night “a genre rarity, a sentimental noir” (34). The naïve blissfulness of their affection is associated with the primitive settings they navigate. Though Bowie and Keechie are the most sympathetic protagonists of any rural noir, this is no safeguard against an inevitable, characteristically noir demise. Janey Place writes, “the young lovers are doomed, but the possibility of their love transcends and redeems them both, and its failure criticises the urbanised world that will not let them live” (63). As indicated here, the country offers the young lovers refuge for some time, and their bond is depicted as wonderfully strong, but it is doomed by the stronger force of the law.Raymond Williams discusses how different characteristics are associated with urban and rural spaces:On the country has gathered the idea of a natural way of life: of peace, innocence, and simple virtue. On the city has gathered the idea of an achieved center: of learning, communication, light. Powerful hostile associations have also developed: on the city as a place of noise, worldliness and ambition; on the country as a place of backwardness, ignorance, limitation. (1) They Live By Night breaks down these dichotomies, showing the persistence of crime rooted in rural areas.Bowie desires to “get squared around” and live a more natural life with Keechie. Williams’ country adjectives— “peace, innocence, and simple virtue”— describe the nature of this relationship perfectly. Yet, criminal activity, usually associated with the city, has an overwhelmingly strong presence in this region and their lives. Bowie, following the doomed logic of many a crime film character, plans to launch a new, more honest life with cash raised in a heist. Keechie recognises the contradictions in this plan: “Fine way to get squared around, teaming with them. Stealing money and robbing banks. You’ll get in so deep trying to get squared, they’ll have enough to keep you in for two life times.” For Bowie, crime and the pursuit of love are inseparably bound, refuting the illusion of the pure and innocent countryside personified by characters like Mary Malden in On Dangerous Ground and Ann Miller in Out of the Past.In Ray’s other rural noir, On Dangerous Ground, a lonely, angry, and otherwise burned out cop, Wilson (Rob Ryan), finds both love and peace in his time away from the city. While on his up-state assignment, Wilson meets Mary Walden (Ida Lupino), a blind woman who lives a secluded life miles away from this already desolate, rural community. Mary has a calming influence on Wilson, and fits well within Janey Place’s notion of the archetypal nurturing woman in film noir: “The redemptive woman often represents or is part of a primal connection with nature and/or with the past, which are safe, static states rather than active, exciting ones, but she can sometimes offer the only transcendence possible in film noir” (63).If, as Colin McArthur observes, Ray’s characters frequently seek redemption in rural locales— “[protagonists] may reject progress and modernity; they may choose to go or are sent into primitive areas. […] The journeys which bring them closer to nature may also offer them hope of salvation” (124) — the conclusions of On Dangerous Ground versus They Live By Night offer two markedly different resolutions to this narrative. Where Bowie and Keechie’s life on the lam cannot be sustained, On Dangerous Ground, against the wishes of its director, portrays a much more romanticised version of pastoral life. According to Andrew Dickos, “Ray wanted to end the film on the ambivalent image of Jim Wilson returning to the bleak city,” after he had restored order up-state (132). The actual ending is more sentimental. Jim rushes back north to be with Mary. They passionately kiss in close-up, cueing an exuberant orchestral score as The End appears over a slow tracking shot of the majestic, snow covered landscape. In this way, On Dangerous Ground overturns the usual temporal associations of rural versus urban spaces. As Raymond Williams identifies, “The common image of the country is now an image of the past, and the common image of the city an image of the future” (297). For Wilson, by contrast, city life was no longer sustainable and rurality offers his best means for a future. Leo Marx noted in a variety of American pop culture, from Mark Twain to TV westerns and magazine advertising, a “yearning for a simpler, more harmonious style of life, and existence ‘closer to nature,’ that is the psychic root of all pastoralism— genuine and spurious” (Marx 6). Where most rural noirs expose the agrarian myth as a fantasy and a sham, On Dangerous Ground, exceptionally, perpetuates it as actual and effectual. Here, a bad cop is made good with a few days spent in a sparsely populated area and with a woman shaped by her rural upbringing.As opposed to On Dangerous Ground, where the protagonist’s movement from city to country matches his split identity as a formerly corrupt man wishing to be pure, Frank Borzage’s B-film Moonrise (1948) is located entirely in rural or small-town locations. Set in the fictional Southern town of Woodville, which spans swamps, lushly wooded streets and aging Antebellum mansions, the lead character finds good and bad within the same rural location and himself. Dan (Dane Clark) struggles to escape his legacy as the son of a murderer. This conflict is irreparably heightened when Dan kills a man (who had repeatedly teased and bullied him) in self-defence. The instability of Dan’s moral compass is expressed in the way he treats innocent elements of the natural world: flies, dogs, and, recalling Out of the Past, a local deaf boy. He is alternately cruel and kind. Dan is finally redeemed after seeking the advice of a black hermit, Mose (Rex Ingram), who lives in a ramshackle cabin by the swamp. He counsels Dan with the advice that men turn evil from “being lonesome,” not for having “bad blood.” When Dan, eventually, decides to confess to his crime, the sheriff finds him tenderly holding a search hound against a bucolic, rural backdrop. His complete comfortability with the landscape and its creatures finally allows Dan to reconcile the film’s opening opposition. He is no longer torturously in between good and evil, but openly recognises his wrongs and commits to do good in the future. If I had to select just a single shot to illustrate that noirs are set in rural locations more often than most scholarship would have us believe, it would be the opening sequence of Moonrise. From the first shot, this film associates rural locations with criminal elements. The credit sequence juxtaposes pooling water with an ominous brass score. In this disorienting opening, the camera travels from an image of water, to a group of men framed from the knees down. The camera dollies out and pans left, showing that these men, trudging solemnly, are another’s legal executioners. The frame tilts upward and we see a man hung in silhouette. This dense shot is followed by an image of a baby in a crib, also shadowed, the water again, and finally the execution scene. If this sequence is a thematic montage, it can also be discussed, more simply, as a series of establishing shots: a series of images that, seemingly, could not be more opposed— a baby, a universal symbol of innocence, set against the ominous execution, cruel experience— are paired together by virtue of their common location. The montage continues, showing that the baby is the son of the condemned man. As Dan struggles with the legacy of his father throughout the film, this opening shot continues to inform our reading of this character, split between the potential for good or evil.What a baby is to Moonrise, or, to cite a more familiar reference, what the insurance business is to many a James M. Cain roman noir, produce distribution is to Jules Dassin’s Thieves’ Highway (1949). The apple, often a part of wholesome American myths, is at the centre of this story about corruption. Here, a distribution network that brings Americans this hearty, simple product is connected with criminal activity and violent abuses of power more commonly portrayed in connection with cinematic staples of organised crime such as bootlegging or robbery. This film portrays bad apples in the apple business, showing that no profit driven enterprise— no matter how traditional or rural— is beyond the reach of corruption.Fitting the nature of this subject, numerous scenes in the Dassin film take place in the daylight (in addition to darkness), and in the countryside (in addition to the city) as we move between wine and apple country to the market districts of San Francisco. But if the subject and setting of Thieves’ Highway are unusual for a noir, the behaviour of its characters is not. Spare, bright country landscapes form the backdrop for prototypical noir behaviour: predatory competition for money and power.As one would expect of a film noir, the subject of apple distribution is portrayed with dynamic violence. In the most exciting scene of the film, a truck careens off the road after a long pursuit from rival sellers. Apples scatter across a hillside as the truck bursts into flames. This scene is held in a long-shot, as unscrupulous thugs gather the produce for sale while the unfortunate driver burns to death. Here, the reputedly innocent American apple is subject to cold-blooded, profit-maximizing calculations as much as the more typical topics of noir such as blackmail, fraud, or murder. Passages on desolate roads and at apple orchards qualify Thieves’ Highway as a rural noir; the dark, cynical manner in which capitalist enterprise is treated is resonant with nearly all film noirs. Thieves’ Highway follows a common narrative pattern amongst rural noirs to gradually reveal rural spaces as connected to criminality in urban locations. Typically, this disillusioning fact is narrated from the perspective of a lead character who first has a greater sense of safety in rural settings but learns, over the course of the story, to be more wary in all locations. In Thieves’, Nick’s hope that apple-delivery might earn an honest dollar (he is the only driver to treat the orchard owners fairly) gradually gives way to an awareness of the inevitable corruption that has taken over this enterprise at all levels of production, from farmer, to trucker, to wholesaler, and thus, at all locations, the country, the road, and the city.Between this essay, and the previous work of Morris and Bell on the subject, we are developing a more complete survey of the rural noir. Where Bell’s and Morris’s essays focus more resolutely on rural noirs that relied on the contrast of the city versus the country— which, significantly, was the first tendency of this subgenre that I observed— Moonrise and They Live By Night demonstrate that this genre can work entirely apart from the city. From start to finish, these films take place in small towns and rural locations. As opposed to Out of the Past, On Dangerous Ground, or The Asphalt Jungle, characters are never pulled back to, nor flee from, an urban life of crime. Instead, vices that are commonly associated with the city have a free-standing life in the rural locations that are often thought of as a refuge from these harsh elements. If both Bell and Morris study the way that rural noirs draw differences between the city and country, two of the three films I add to the subgenre constitute more complete rural noirs, films that work wholly outside urban locations, not just in contrast with it. Bell, like me, notes considerable variety in rural noirs locations, “desert landscapes, farms, mountains, and forests all qualify as settings for consideration,” but he also notes that “Diverse as these landscapes are, this set of films uses them in surprisingly like-minded fashion to achieve a counterpoint to the ubiquitous noir city” (219). In Bell’s analysis, all nine films he studies, feature significant urban segments. He is, in fact, so inclusive as to discuss Stanley Kubrick’s Killer’s Kiss as a rural noir even though it does not contain a single frame shot or set outside of New York City. Rurality is evoked only as a possibility, as alienated urbanite Davy (Jamie Smith) receives letters from his horse-farm-running relatives. Reading these letters offers Davy brief moments of respite from drudgerous city spaces such as the subway and his cramped apartment. In its emphasis on the centrality of rural locations, my project is more similar to David Bell’s work on the rural in horror films than to Jonathan F. Bell’s work on the rural noir. David Bell analyses the way that contemporary horror films work against a “long tradition” of the “idyllic rural” in many Western texts (95). As opposed to works “from Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman to contemporary television shows like Northern Exposure and films such as A River Runs Through It or Grand Canyon” in which the rural is positioned as “a restorative to urban anomie,” David Bell analyses films such as Deliverance and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that depict “a series of anti-idyllic visions of the rural” (95). Moonrise and They Live By Night, like these horror films, portray the crime and the country as coexistent spheres at the same time that the majority of other popular culture, including noirs like Killer’s Kiss or On Dangerous Ground, portray them as mutually exclusive.To use a mode of generic analysis developed by Rick Altman, the rural noir, while preserving the dominant syntax of other noirs, presents a remarkably different semantic element (31). Consider the following description of the genre, from the introduction to Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide: “The darkness that fills the mirror of the past, which lurks in a dark corner or obscures a dark passage out of the oppressively dark city, is not merely the key adjective of so many film noir titles but the obvious metaphor for the condition of the protagonist’s mind” (Silver and Ward, 4). In this instance, the narrative elements, or syntax, of film noir outlined by Silver and Ward do not require revision, but the urban location, a semantic element, does. Moonrise and They Live By Night demonstrate the sustainability of the aforementioned syntactic elements— the dark, psychological experience of the leads and their inescapable criminal past— apart from the familiar semantic element of the city.The rural noir must also cause us to reconsider— beyond rural representations or film noir— more generally pitched genre theories. Consider the importance of place to film genre, the majority of which are defined by a typical setting: for melodramas, it is the family home, for Westerns, the American west, and for musicals, the stage. Thomas Schatz separates American genres according to their setting, between genres which deal with “determinate” versus “indeterminate” space:There is a vital distinction between kinds of generic settings and conflicts. Certain genres […] have conflicts that, indigenous to the environment, reflect the physical and ideological struggle for its control. […] Other genres have conflicts that are not indigenous to the locale but are the results of the conflict between the values, attitudes, and actions of its principal characters and the ‘civilised’ setting they inhabit. (26) Schatz discusses noirs, along with detective films, as films which trade in “determinate” settings, limited to the space of the city. The rural noir slips between Schatz’s dichotomy, moving past the space of the city, but not into the civilised, tame settings of the genres of “indeterminate spaces.” It is only fitting that a genre whose very definition lies in its disruption of Hollywood norms— trading high- for low-key lighting, effectual male protagonists for helpless ones, and a confident, coherent worldview for a more paranoid, unstable one would, finally, be able to accommodate a variation— the rural noir— that would seem to upset one of its central tenets, an urban locale. Considering the long list of Hollywood standards that film noirs violated, according to two of its original explicators, Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton— “a logical action, an evident distinction between good and evil, well-defined characters with clear motives, scenes that are more spectacular than brutal, a heroine who is exquisitely feminine and a hero who is honest”— it should, perhaps, not be so surprising that the genre is flexible enough to accommodate the existence of the rural noir after all (14). AcknowledgmentsIn addition to M/C Journal's anonymous readers, the author would like to thank Corey Creekmur, Mike Slowik, Barbara Steinson, and Andrew Gorman-Murray for their helpful suggestions. ReferencesAltman, Rick. “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre.” Film Genre Reader III. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. 27-41.The Asphalt Jungle. Dir. John Huston. MGM/UA, 1950.Bell, David. “Anti-Idyll: Rural Horror.” Contested Countryside Cultures. Eds. Paul Cloke and Jo Little. London, Routledge, 1997. 94-108.Bell, Jonathan F. “Shadows in the Hinterland: Rural Noir.” Architecture and Film. Ed. Mark Lamster. New York: Princeton Architectural P, 2000. 217-230.Borde, Raymond and Etienne Chaumeton. A Panorama of American Film Noir. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002.Christopher, Nicholas. Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American City. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.Cowie, Elizabeth. “Film Noir and Women.” Shades of Noir. Ed. Joan Copjec. New York: Verso, 1993. 121-166.Dickos, Andrew. Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2002.Hirsch, Foster. Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-Noir. New York: Limelight Editions, 1999.Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden. New York: Oxford UP, 1964.McArthur, Colin. Underworld U.S.A. London: BFI, 1972.Moonrise. Dir. Frank Borzage. Republic, 1948.Morris, Gary. “Noir Country: Alien Nation.” Bright Lights Film Journal Nov. 2006. 13. Jun. 2008 http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/54/noircountry.htm Muller, Eddie. Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir. New York: St. Martin’s P, 1998.Naremore, James. More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts. Berkeley, C.A.: U of California P, 2008.Neale, Steve. “Questions of Genre.” Film Genre Reader III. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. 160-184.On Dangerous Ground. Dir. Nicholas Ray. RKO, 1951.Out of the Past. Dir. Jacques Tourneur. RKO, 1947.Place, Janey. “Women in Film Noir.” Women in Film Noir. Ed. E. Ann Kaplan. London: BFI, 1999. 47-68.Schatz, Thomas. Hollywood Genres. New York: Random House, 1981.Schatz, Thomas. “The Structural Influence: New Directions in Film Genre Study.” Film Genre Reader III. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin: U of Texas P, 2003. 92-102.Silver, Alain and Elizabeth Ward. Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. London: Bloomsbury, 1980.They Live by Night. Dir. Nicholas Ray. RKO, 1949.Thieves’ Highway. Dir. Jules Dassin. Fox, 1949.Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. New York: Oxford UP, 1973.

The story of Barbie is a tapestry woven with threads of cultural significance, societal shifts, and corporate narratives. It’s a tale that encapsulates the evolution of American post-war capitalism, mirroring the changing tides of social norms, aspirations, and identities. Barbie’s journey from Germany to Los Angeles, along the way becoming a global icon, is a testament to the power of Ruth Handler’s vision and Barbie’s marketing. Barbie embodies and reflects the rise of mass consumption and the early days of television advertising, where one doll could become a household name and shape the dreams of children worldwide. The controversies and criticisms surrounding Barbie – from promoting a ‘thin ideal’ to perpetuating gender and racial stereotypes – highlight the complexities of representation in popular culture. Yet, Barbie’s enduring message, “You can be anything”, continues to inspire and empower, even as it evolves to embrace a more inclusive and diverse portrayals of power, beauty, and potential. Barbie’s story is not just about a doll; it’s about the aspirations she represents, the societal changes she’s witnessed, and the ongoing conversation about her impact on gender roles, body image, and consumer culture. It’s a narrative that continues to unfold, as Barbie adapts to the times and remains a symbol of possibility. Barbie: A Popular Culture Icon “It is impossible to conceive of the toy industry as being anything other than dependent on a popular culture which shapes and structures the meanings carried by toys” (Fleming 40). The relationship between toys and popular culture is symbiotic. While popular culture influences the creation of toys, toys also contribute to the spread and longevity of cultural icons and narratives. Today, one of the most influential, popular, and contested toys of the twentieth century is Mattel’s Barbie doll. Her launch at the New York Toy Fair on 9 March 1959 by Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler was a game-changer in the toy industry. Her adult appearance, symbolised by her fashionable swimsuit and ponytail, was a bold move by Mattel. Despite the doubts from the toy industry which thought nobody would want to play with a doll that had breasts (Tamkin) and Mattel’s skepticism of its commercial success (Westenhouser 14), Barbie was a success, selling over 350,000 units in her first year, and she quickly became an iconic figure, paving the way for other male and female adult dolls. For the first time in mid-century America, Barbie meant children could play with a doll that looked like a woman, not a little girl or a baby. In a 1965 interview, Ruth Handler argued that American girls needed a doll with a “teen-age figure and a lot of glorious, imaginative, high-fashion clothes” (cited in Giacomin and Lubinski 3). In a 1993 interview, Handler said it was “important that Barbie allowed play situations that little girls could project themselves into … to imagine, pretend and to fantasize”. Hence Ruth Handler’s Barbie could be an “avatar for girls to project their dreams onto” (Southwell). Barbie hit the market with a “sassy ponytail, heavy eyeliner, a healthy dose of side-eye and a distinctly adult body” (Blackmore). Her arched eyebrows were matched with a coy sideways glance reflecting her sexual origins (Thong). Mattel did not reveal that Ruth Handler’s Barbie was inspired by a German novelty men’s toy, Bild Lilli, which Handler had purchased on a European holiday in 1955. Mattel fought several lawsuits and eventually secured the rights to Bild Lilli in 1964, which required the German maker of the Bild Lilli doll to not make her again. Barbie dolls, both blonde and brunette, changed little until 1967, when Mattel launch the ‘new’ Barbie doll which is the foundation for today’s Stereotypical Barbie. The same size as the original, thanks to Mattel engineer Jack Ryan she could twist and turn at the waist. Her facial features were softened, she had ‘real’ eyelashes’ and took on an ‘outdoor look’. The new 1967 version of Barbie originally retailed for US$3.00. Mattel, assuming consumers may not want to buy a new Barbie when they already had one, offered buyers the new Barbie at US$1.50 if they traded in their old 1950s Barbie. The television advertising campaign for the new Barbie featured Maureen McMormick (who would go on to play Marcia Brady in the TV series The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974). The original #1 Barbie today sells for over US$25,000 (Reinhard). The most expensive Barbie sold to date was a Stefano Canturi-designed Barbie that sold in 2010 for US$302,500 at Christies in New York (Clarendon). Barbie has been described as “the most successful doll in history”, “the most popular toy in history”, the “empress of fashion dolls” (Rogers 86), the “most famous doll in the world” (Ferorelli), the biggest-selling fashion doll in history (Green and Gellene), and is one if the world’s “most commercially successful toys” (Fleming 41). Barbie is both “idealistic and materialistic” and characterises an “American fantasy” (Tamkin). More so, she is a popular culture icon and “a unique indicator of women’s history” (Vander Bent). The inclusion of Barbie in America’s twentieth-century Time Capsule “cemented her status as a true American icon” (Ford), as did Andy Warhol when he iconised Barbie in his 1968 painting of her (Moore). During the 1950s and 1960s, Barbie’s name was licenced to over 100 companies; while a strategic move that expanded Barbie’s brand presence, it also provided Mattel with substantial royalty payments for decades. This approach helped solidify Barbie’s status as a cultural icon and enabled her to become a lucrative asset for Mattel (Rogers). Sixty-five years later, Barbie has 99% global brand awareness. In 2021, Mattel shipped more than 86 million Barbies globally, manufacturing 164 Barbies a minute (Tomkins). In 2022, Barbie generated gross sales of US$1.49 billion (Statista 2023). With this fiscal longevity and brand recognition, the success of the Barbie film is not surprising. The 2023 film, directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Australian Margot Robbie as Barbie and Canadian Ryan Gosling as Ken, as of March 2024 has a global box office revenue of US$1.45 billion, making it the 14th most successful movie of all time and the most successful movie directed by a woman (Statista 2024). Contested Barbie Despite her popularity, Barbie has been the subject of controversy. Original Barbie’s proportions have been criticised for promoting an unrealistic body image (Thong). Barbie’s appearance has received numerous critiques for “representing an unrealistic beauty standard through its former limited skin tone and hair combination” (Lopez). The original Barbie’s measurements, if scaled to life-size, would mean Barbie is unusually tall and has a slim figure, with a height of 5 feet 9 inches, a waist of just 18 inches, and hips of approximately 33 inches. Her bust would measure around 32 inches with an under-bust of 22 inches, and her shoulder width would be approximately 28 inches. Original Barbie’s legs, which are proportionally longer than an average human’s, would make up more than half her height (Thong). A 1996 Australian study scaled Barbie and Ken to adult sizes and compared this with the physical proportions of a range of women and men. They found that the likelihood of finding a man of comparable shape to Ken was 1 in 50. Barbie was more problematic. The chance of a woman being the same proportion as Barbie was 1 in 100,000 (Norton et al. 287). In 2011, The Huffington Post’s Galia Slayen built a life-sized Barbie based on Barbie’s body measurements for National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Slayen concluded that “if Barbie was a real woman, she’d have to walk on all fours due to her proportions”. One report found that if Barbie’s measurements were those of a real woman her “bones would be so frail, it would be impossible for her to walk, and she would only have half a liver” (Golgowski). A 2006 study found that Barbie is a “possible cause” for young girls’ “body dissatisfaction”. In this study, 162 girls from age 5 to 8 were exposed to images of a thin doll (Barbie), a plus-size doll (US doll Emme, size 16), or no doll, and then completed assessments of body image. Girls exposed to Barbie reported “lower body esteem and greater desire for a thinner body shape than girls in the other exposure conditions”. The study concluded that “early exposure to dolls epitomizing an unrealistically thin body ideal may damage girls' body image, which would contribute to an increased risk of disordered eating and weight cycling” (Dittman and Halliwell 283). Another study in 2016 found that “exposure to Barbie” led to “higher thin-ideal internalization”, but found that Barbie had no “impact on body esteem or body dissatisfaction” (Rice et al. 142). In response to such criticism, Mattel slowly introduced a variety of Barbie dolls with more diverse body types, including tall, petite, and curvy models (Tamkin). These changes aim to reflect a broader range of beauty standards and promote a more positive body image. Barbie has always had to accommodate social norms. For this reason, Barbie always must have underpants, and has no nipples. One of the reasons why Ruth Handler’s husband Elliott (also a co-founder of Mattel) was initially against producing the Barbie doll was that she had breasts, reportedly saying mothers would not buy their daughters a doll with breasts (Gerber). Margot Robbie, on playing Barbie, told one news outlet that while Barbie is “sexualized”, she “should never be sexy” (Aguirre). Early prototypes of Barbie made in Japan in the 1950s sexualised her body, leaving her to look like a prostitute. In response, Mattel hired film make-up artist Bud Westmore to redo Barbie’s face and hair with a softer look. Mattel also removed the nipples from the prototypes (Gerber). Barbie’s body and fashion have always seemed to “replicate history and show what was what was happening at the time” (Mowbray), and they also reflect how the female body is continually surveilled. Feminists have had a long history of criticism of Barbie, particularly her projection of the thin ideal. At the 1970 New York Women’s Strike for Equality, feminists shouted “I am not a Barbie doll!” Such debates exemplify the role and impact of toys in shaping and reforming societal norms and expectations. Even the more recent debates regarding the 2023 Barbie film show that Barbie is still a “lightning rod for the messy, knotty contradictions of feminism, sexism, misogyny and body image” (Chappet). Decades of criticism about Barbie, her meaning and influence, have left some to ask “Is Barbie a feminist icon, or a doll which props up the patriarchy?” Of course, she’s both, because “like all real women, Barbie has always been expected to conform to impossible standards” (Chappet). Diversifying Barbie Over the decades Mattel has slowly changed Barbie’s body, including early versions of a black Barbie-like dolls in the 1960s and 1970s such as Francie, Christie, Julia, and Cara. However, it was not until 1980 that Mattel introduced the first black Barbie. African American fashion designer Kitty Black-Perkins, who worked for Mattel from 1971, was the principal designer for black Barbie, saying that “there was a need for the little Black girl to really have something she could play with that looked like her” (cited in Lafond). Black Barbie was marketed as She’s black! She’s beautiful! She’s dynamite! The following year, Asian Barbie was introduced. She was criticised for her nondescript country of origin and dressed in an “outfit that was a mishmash of Chinese, Korean and Japanese ethnic costumes” (Wong). More recently, the Asian Barbies were again criticised for portraying stereotypes, with a recent Asian Barbie dressed as a veterinarian caring for pandas, and Asian violinist Barbie with accompanying violin props, reflecting typical stereotypes of Asians in the US (Wong). In 2016, Mattel introduced a range of Barbie and Ken dolls with seven body types, including more curvy body shapes, 11 skin tones and 28 hairstyles (Siazon). In 2019, other Barbie body types appeared, with smaller busts, less defined waist, and more defined arms. The 2019 range also included Barbies with permanent physical disabilities, one using a wheelchair and one with a prosthetic leg (Siazon). Wheelchair Barbie comes with a wheelchair, and her body has 22 joints for body movement while sitting in the wheelchair. The Prosthetic Barbie comes with a prosthetic leg which can be removed, and was made in collaboration with Jordan Reeve, a 13-year-old disability activist born without a left forearm. In 2020, a No Hair Barbie and a Barbie with the skin condition vitiligo were introduced, and in 2022, Hearing Aid Barbie was also launched. In 2022 other changes were made to Barbie’s and Ken’s bodies, with bodies that became fuller figured and Kens with smaller chests and less masculine body shapes (Dolan). Down Syndrome Barbie was released in 2023, designed in collaboration with the US National Down Syndrome Society to ensure accurate representation. By 2024, Barbie dolls come in 35 skin tones, 97 hairstyles, and nine body types (Mattel 2024). Spanning hundreds of iterations, today the Barbie doll is no longer a homogenous, blond-haired, blue-eyed toy, but rather an evolving social phenomenon, adapting with the times and the markets Mattel expands into. With dolls of numerous ethnicities and body types, Barbie has also embraced inclusivity, catering to the plethora of different consumers across the world (Green and Gellene 1989). Career Barbie While not dismissing Barbie’s problematic place in feminist, gender and racial critiques, Barbie has always been a social influencer. Her early years were marked by a variety of makeovers and modernisations, as have recent changes to Barbie’s body, reflecting the changing social norms of the times. Stereotypical Barbie had her first major makeover in 1961, with her ponytail swapped for a short ‘Bubble Bob’ hairstyle inspired by Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, reflecting women’s emerging social independence (Foreman). In the early 1970s, Barbie’s original demure face with averted eyes was replaced by a new one that “depicted confidence and a forward-facing gaze” (Vander Bent). Her “soft look” was a departure from the mature image of the original 1959 Barbie (Lafond). The ‘soft look’ on Malibu Barbie with her newly sculpted face featured an open smile for the first time, as well as sun-tanned, make-up free skin and sun-kissed blonde hair. The disappearance of Barbie’s coy, sideways glance and the introduction of forward-looking eyes was a development “welcomed by feminists” (Ford). Barbie’s early makeovers, along with her fashion and accessories, including her homes, cars, and pets, contributed to shaping her image as a fashionable and independent woman. Barbie’s various careers and roles have been used to promote ideas of female empowerment. From astronaut to presidential candidate, Barbie has broken barriers in traditionally male-dominated fields. However, the effectiveness of these efforts in promoting female empowerment is a topic of debate. The post-war period in America saw a significant shift in the pattern of living, with a move from urban areas to the suburbs. This was facilitated by a robust post-war economy, favourable government policies like the GI Bill, and increasing urbanisation. The GI Bill played a crucial role by providing low-interest home loans to veterans, making home ownership accessible to a large segment of the population. It was a significant transformation of the American lifestyle and shaped the country’s socio-economic landscape. It is in this context that Barbie’s first Dreamhouse was introduced in the early 1960s, with its mid-century modern décor, hi-fi stereo, and slim-line furniture. This was at a time when most American women could not get a mortgage. Barbie got her first car in 1962, a peach-colored Austin-Healey 3000 MKII convertible, followed short afterwards by a Porsche 911. She has also owned a pink Jaguar XJS, a pink Mustang, a red Ferrari, and a Corvette. Barbie’s car choices of luxurious convertibles spoke to Barbie’s social and economic success. In 1998, Barbie became a NASCAR driver and also signed up to race in a Ferrari in the Formula 1. Barbie’s ‘I Can Be Anything’ range from 2008 was designed to draw kids playing with the dolls toward ambitious careers; one of those careers was as a race car driver (Southwell). While Barbie’s first job as a baby-sitter was not as glamourous or well-paying as her most of her other over 250 careers, it does reflect the cultural landscape Barbie was living in in the 1960s. Babysitter Barbie (1963) featured Barbie wearing a long, pink-striped skirt with ‘babysitter’ emblasoned along the hem and thick-framed glasses. She came with a baby in a crib, a telephone, bottles of soda, and a book. The book was called How to Lose Weight and had only two words of advice, ‘Don’t Eat’. Even though there was a backlash to the extreme dieting advice, Mattel included the book in the 1965 Slumber Party Barbie. Barbie wore pink silk pajamas with a matching robe and came prepared for her sleepover with toiletries, a mirror, the controversial diet book, and a set of scales permanently set at 110 pounds (approx. 50kg), which caused further backlash (Ford). Barbie’s early careers were those either acceptable or accessible to women of the era, such as the Fashion Designer Barbie (1960), Flight Attendant Barbie (1961), and Nurse Barbie (1962). However, in 1965 Barbie went into space, two years after cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, and four years before the American moon landing. Barbie’s career stagnated in the 1970s, and she spends the decade being sports Barbie, perhaps as a response to her unpopularity among vocal second wave feminists and reflecting the economic downturn of the era. America’s shift to the right in the 1980s saw in the introduction of the Yuppie, the young urban professional who lived in the city, had a high-powered career, and was consumption-driven. More women were entering the workforce than ever before. Barbie also entered the workforce, spending less time doing the passive leisure of her earlier self (Ford). It also signals the beginning of neoliberalism in America, and a shift to individualism and the rise of the free market ethos. In 1985, Day-to-Night Barbie was sold as the first CEO Barbie who “could go from running the boardroom in her pink power suit to a fun night out on the town”. For Mattel she “celebrated the workplace evolution of the era and showed girls they could have it all”. But despite Barbie’s early careers, the focus was on her "emphasized femininity”, meaning that while she was now a career woman, her appearance and demeanor did not reflect her job. Astronaut Barbie (1985) is a good example of Barbie’s ‘emphasised femininity’ in how career Barbies were designed and dressed. Astronaut Barbie is clearly reflecting the fashion and culture trends of the 1980s by going into space in a “shiny, hot pink spacesuit”, comes with a second space outfit, a shiny “peplum miniskirt worn over silver leggings and knee-high pink boots” (Bertschi), and her hair is too big to fit into the helmet. A dark-skinned US Astronaut Barbie was released in 1994, which coincided with the start of the Shuttle-Mir Program, a collaboration between the US and Russia which between 1994 and 1998 would see seven American astronauts spend almost 1,000 days living in orbit with Russian cosmonauts on the Mir space station. Throughout the 1990s, Barbie increasingly takes on careers more typically considered to be male careers. But again, her femininity in design, dressing and packaging takes precedence over her career. Police Officer Barbie (1993), for example, has no gun or handcuffs. Instead, she comes with a "glittery evening dress" to wear to the awards dance where she will get the "Best Police Officer Award for her courageous acts in the community”. Police Office Barbie is pictured on the box "lov[ing] to teach safety tips to children". Barbie thus “feminizes, even maternalises, law enforcement” (Rogers 14). In 1992, Teen Talk Barbie was released. She had a voice box programmed to speak four distinct phrases out of a possible 270. She sold for US$25, and Mattel produced 350,000, expecting its popularity. The phrases included ‘I Love Shopping’ and ‘Math class is tough’. The phrase ‘Math class is tough’ was seen by many as reinforcing harmful stereotypes about girls and math. The National Council of American Teachers of Maths objected, as did the American Association of University Women (NYT 1992). In response to criticisms of the gendered representations of Barbie’s careers, Mattel have more recently featured Barbie in science and technology fields including Paleontologist Barbie (1996 and 2012), Computer Engineer Barbie (2010), Robotics Engineer Barbie (2018), Astrophysicist Barbie (2019), Wildlife Conservationist Barbie, Entomologist Barbie (2019), and Polar Marine Biologist Barbie (all in collaboration with National Geographic), Robotics Engineer Barbie (2018), Zoologist Barbie (2021), and Renewable Energy Barbie (2022), which go some way to providing representations that at least encompass the ideal that ‘Girls Can Do Anything’. Barbie over her lifetime has also taken on swimming, track and field, and has been a gymnast. Barbie was an Olympic gold medallist in the 1970s, with Mattel releasing four Barbie Olympians between 1975 and 1976, arguably cashing in on the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Gold Medal Barbie Doll Skier was dressed in a red, white, and blue ski suit completed with her gold medal. Gold Medal Barbie Doll is an Olympic swimmer wearing a red, white, and blue tricot swimsuit, and again wears an Olympic gold medal around her neck. The doll was also produced as a Canadian Olympian wearing a red and white swimsuit. Gold Medal Barbie Skater looks like Barbie Malibu and is dressed in a long-sleeved, pleated dress in red, white, and blue. The outfit included white ice skates and her gold medal. Mattel also made a Gold Medal P.J. Gymnast Doll who vaulted and somersaulted in a leotard of red, white, and blue tricot. She had a warm-up jacket with white sleeves, red cuffs, white slippers, and a gold medal. Mattel, as part of a licencing agreement with the International Olympic Committee, produced a range of toys for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The collection of five Barbies represented the new sports added to the 2020 Olympics: baseball and softball, sport climbing, karate, skateboarding, and surfing. Each Barbie was dressed in a sport-specific uniform and had a gold medal. Barbie Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Surfer, for example, was dressed in a pink wetsuit top, with an orange surfboard and a Tokyo 2020 jacket. For the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, Mattel released a new collection of Barbie dolls featuring among others a para-skiing Barbie who sits on adaptive skis and comes with a championship medal (Douglas). As part of Mattel’s 2023 Barbie Career of the Year doll, the Women in Sports Barbie range shows Barbie in leadership roles in the sports industry, as manager, coach, referee, and sport reporter. General Manager Barbie wears a blue-and-white pinstripe suit accessorised with her staff pass and a smartphone. Coach Barbie has a pink megaphone, playbook, and wears a two-piece pink jacket and athletic shorts. Referee Barbie wears a headset and has a whistle. Sports Reporter Barbie wears a purple, geometric-patterned dress and carries a pink tablet and microphone (Jones). Political Barbie Barbie has run for president in every election year since 1992. The first President Barbie came with an American-themed dress for an inaugural ball and a red suit for her duties in the Oval Office. In 2016, Barbie released an all-female presidential ticket campaign set with a president and vice-president doll. The 2000 President Barbie doll wore a blue pantsuit and featured a short bob cut, red lipstick pearl necklace, and a red gown to change into, “presumably for President Barbie’s inaugural ball” (Lafond). This followed the introduction of UNICEF Ambassador Barbie in 1989. She is packaged as a member of the United States Committee for UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund), which is mandated to provide humanitarian and development aid to children worldwide. Rather problematically, and again with a focus on her femininity rather than the importance of the organisation she represents, she wears a glittery white and blue full length ball gown with star patterning and a red sash. While some proceeds did go to the US Committee for UNICEF, the dressing and packaging featuring an American flag overshadows the career and its philanthropic message. The period signalled the end of the Cold War and was also the year the United States invaded Panama, resulting in a humanitarian disaster when US military forces attacked urban areas in order to overthrow the Noriega administration. Military Barbie Barbie has served in every US military branch (Sicard). Barbie joined the US army in 1989, wearing a female officer’s evening uniform, though with no sense of what she did. While it may be thought Barbie would increase female in interest in a military career, at the time more women were already enlisting that in any other period from the early 1970s to 2012 (Stillwell). Barbie rejoined the army for the 1990-1991 Gulf War, wearing a Desert Combat Uniform and the 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagle" patch, and serving as a medic. Barbie also joined the Air Force in 1990, three years before Jeannie Leavitt became the first female Air Force fighter pilot. Barbie wore a green flight suit and leather jacket, and gold-trimmed flight cap. She was a fighter pilot and in 1994, she joined the USAF aerial demonstration team, The Thunderbirds. Busy in the 1990s, she also enlisted in the US Navy wearing women's Navy whites. Marine Corps Barbie appeared in 1992, wearing service and conduct medals (Stillwell). All of Barbie’s uniforms were approved by the Pentagon (Military Women’s Memorial). The 2000 Paratrooper Barbie Special Edition was released with the packaging declaring “let’s make a support drop with first aid and food boxes”. She was dressed in undefined military attire which includes a helmet, dog tags, parachute, boots, and hairbrush. Barbie’s Influence In 2014, Barbie became a social media influencer with the launch of the @barbiestyle Instagram account, and in 2015, Barbie launched a vlog on YouTube to talk directly to girls about issues they face. The animated series features Barbie discussing a range of topics including depression, bullying, the health benefits of meditation, and how girls have a habit of apologising when they don’t have anything to be sorry about. The Official @Barbie YouTube channel has over eleven million global subscribers and 23 billion minutes of content watched, making Barbie the #1 girls’ brand on YouTube. Barbie apps average more than 7 million monthly active users and the Instagram count boasts over 2 million followers. The 2023 Barbie film really does attest to Barbie’s influence 70 years after her debut. Barbie, as this article has shown, is more than an influencer and more than a doll, if she ever really was only a doll. She is a popular culture icon, regardless of whether we love her or not. Barbie has sometimes been ahead of the game, and sometimes has been problematically represented, but she has always been influential. Her body, race, ability, careers, independence, and political aspirations have spoken different things to those who play with her. She is fiercely defended, strongly criticised, and shirks from neither. She is also liberating, empowering, straight, and queer. As the articles in this issue reflect, Barbie, it seems, really can be anything. Imagining and Interrogating Barbie in Popular Culture The feature article in this issue outlines how Australian Barbie fans in the 1960s expressed their creativity through the designing and making of their own wardrobes for the doll. Through examining articles from the Australian Women’s Weekly, Donna Lee Brien reveals this rich cultural engagement that was partly driven by thrift, and mostly by enjoyment. Eva Boesenberg examines the social and environmental effects of a plastic doll that is positioned as an ecological ambassador. While there is no doubt that climate change is one of our most pressing social issues, Boesenberg questions the motivations behind Barbie’s eco-crusade: is she an apt role-model to teach children the importance of environmental issues, or is this just a case of corporate greenwashing? Emma Caroll Hudson shifts the focus to entertainment, with an exploration of the marketing of the 2023 blockbuster film Barbie. Here she argues that the marketing campaign was highly successful, utilising a multi-faceted approach centred on fan participation. She highlights key components of the campaign to reveal valuable insights into how marketing can foster a cultural phenomenon. Revna Altiok’s article zooms in on the depiction of Ken in the 2023 film, revealing his characterisation to be that of a ‘manic pixie dream boy’ whose lack of identity propels him on a journey to self-discovery. This positioning, argues Altiok, pulls into focus social questions around gender dynamics and how progress can be truly achieved. Rachel Wang turns the spotlight to Asian identity within the Barbie world, revealing how from early iterations a vague ‘Oriental’ Barbie was accompanied by cultural stereotyping. Despite later, more nuanced interpretations of country-specific Asian dolls, problematic features remained embedded. This, Wang argues, positions Asian Barbies as the racial ‘other’. Kaela Joseph, Tanya Cook, and Alena Karkanias’s article examines how the 2023 Barbie film reflects different forms of fandom. Firstly, Joseph interrogates how the Kens’ patriarchal identity is expressed through acts of collective affirmational fandom. Here, individual fans legitimise their positions within the group by mastering and demonstrating their knowledge of popular culture phenomena. Joseph contrasts this with transformational fandom, which is based upon reimagining the source material to create new forms. The transformation of the titular character of the Barbie movie forms the basis of Eli S’s analysis. S examines how the metaphor of ‘unboxing’ the doll provides an avenue through which to understand Barbie’s metamorphosis from constrained doll to aware human as she journeys from the pink plastic Barbie Land to the Real World. Anna Temel turns her critical gaze to how the 2023 film attempts to reposition Barbie’s image away from gender stereotypes to a symbol of feminist empowerment. Director Greta Gerwig, Temel argues, critiques the ‘ideal woman’ and positions Barbie as a vehicle through which contemporary feminism and womanhood can be interrogated. Temel finds that this is not always successfully articulated in the depiction of Barbie in the film. The reading of the Barbie movie’s Barbie Land as an Asexual Utopia is the focus of Anna Maria Broussard’s article. Here Broussard draws the focus to the harmonious community of dolls who live without social expectations of sexuality. Barbie provides a popular culture reflection of the Asexual experience, expressed through Barbie’s rejection of a heteronormative relationship both in Barbie Land and the Real World. Completing this collection is Daisy McManaman’s article interrogating the multiple iterations of the doll’s embodied femininity. Incorporating an ethnographic study of the author’s relationship with the doll, McManaman uncovers that Barbie serves as a site of queer joy and a role model through which to enjoy and explore femininity and gender. These articles have been both intellectually stimulating to edit, and a joy. We hope you enjoy this collection that brings a new academic lens to the popular cultural phenomenon that is Barbie. References Aguirre, Abby. “Barbiemania! Margot Robbie Opens Up about the Movie Everyone’s Waiting For.” Vogue, 24 May 2023. 16 Mar. 2024 <https://www.vogue.com/article/margot-robbie-barbie-summer-cover-2023-interview>. Bertschi, Jenna. “Barbie: An Astronaut for the Ages.” Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, 18 Jul. 2023. 11 Mar. 2024 <https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/barbie-astronaut-ages>. Blackmore, Erin. “Barbie’s Secret Sister Was a German Novelty Doll.” History.com, 14 Jul. 2023. 11 mar. 2024 <https://www.history.com/news/barbie-inspiration-bild-lilli>. Chappet, Marie-Claire. “Why Is Barbie So Controversial? How Ever-Changing Standards for Women Have Affected the Famous Doll.” Harpers Bazaar, 18 Jul. 2023. 11 Mar. 2024 <https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/culture-news/a44516323/barbie-controversial-figure/>. Clarendon, Dan. “The Most Valuable Barbie Doll Auctioned for $302,500 — Which Others Carry Value?” Market Realist, 14 Apr. 2023. 15 Mar. 2o24 <https://marketrealist.com/fast-money/most-valuable-barbies/>. Dittman, Helga, and Emma Halliwell. “Does Barbie Make Girls Want to Be Thin? The Effect of Experimental Exposure to Images of Dolls on the Body Image of 5- to 8-Year Old Girls.” Developmental Psychology 42.2 (2006): 283-292. DOI: 10.1037/0012-1649.42.2.283. Dolan, Leah. “Barbie Unveils Its First-Ever Doll with Hearing Aids.” CNN, 11 May 2022. 16 Mar. 2024 <https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/barbie-hearing-aid-ken-vitiligo/index.html>. Douglas, Kelly. “Why the New Para Skiing Barbie Is Groundbreaking for Disability Representation.” The Mighty, 21 Oct. 2023. 25 Mar. 2024 <https://themighty.com/topic/disability/para-skiing-barbie-disability-representation/>. Ferorelli, Enrico. “Barbie Turns 21.” Life, Nov. 1979. 15 Mar. 2024 <https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/310.html>. Fleming, Dan. Powerplay: Toys as Popular Culture. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1996. Ford, Toni Marie. “The History of the Barbie Doll.” Culture Trip, 6 Oct. 2016. 16 Mar. 2024 <https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/articles/the-history-of-the-barbie-doll>. Foreman, Katya. “The Changing Faces of Barbie.” BBC, 11 May 2016. 16 Mar. 2024 <https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160511-the-changing-faces-of-barbie>. Gerber, Ruth. Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World's Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her. HarperCollins, 2009. Giacomin, Valeria, and Christina Lubinski. 2023. “Entrepreneurship as Emancipation: Ruth Handler and the Entrepreneurial Process ‘in Time’ and ‘over Time’, 1930s–1980s.” Business History Online. 20 Mar. 2024 <https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2023.2215193>. Golgowski, Nina. “Bones So Frail It Would Be Impossible to Walk and Room for Only Half a Liver: Shocking Research Reveals What Life Would Be Like If a REAL Woman Had Barbie's body.” Daily Mirror, 14 Apr. 2013. 19 Mar. 2024 <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2308658/How-Barbies-body-size-look-real-life-Walking-fours-missing-half-liver-inches-intestine.html>. Green, Michelle, and Denise Gellene. “As a Tiny Plastic Star Turns 30, the Real Barbie and Ken Reflect on Life in the Shadow of the Dolls.” People, 6 Mar. 1989. 15 Mar. 2024 <https://people.com/archive/as-a-tiny-plastic-star-turns-30-the-real-barbie-and-ken-reflect-on-life-in-the-shadow-of-the-dolls-vol-31-no-9/>. Jones, Alexis. “Barbie's New 'Women in Sports' Dolls Are a Major Win For Athletes and Fans.” Popsugar, 9 Aug. 2023. 17 Mar. 2024 <https://www.popsugar.com/family/mattel-women-in-sports-barbie-49268194>. Lafond, Hannah. “How Barbies Have Changed over the Years.” The List, 7 Jul. 2023. 16 Mar. 2024 <https://www.thelist.com/1333916/barbies-changed-over-the-years/>. Lopez, Sandra. “10 Barbie Dolls Inspired by Real-Life Iconic Latinas.” Remezcla, 19 Jul. 2023. 20 Mar. 2024 <https://remezcla.com/lists/culture/barbie-dolls-inspired-by-real-life-iconic-latinas/>. Military Women’s Memorial. “Barbie Enlists.” 15 Mar. 2024 <https://womensmemorial.org/curators-corner/barbie-enlists/>. Moore, Hannah. “Why Warhol Painted Barbie.” BBC, 1 Oct. 2015. 15 Mar. 2024 <https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34407991>. Mowbray, Nicole. “Dressing Barbie: Meet the Designer Who Created a Miniature Fashion Icon.” CNN, 14 Jul. 2023. 17 Mar. 2024 <https://edition.cnn.com/style/dressing-barbie-iconic-fashion-looks>. New York Times. “Mattel Says It Erred; Teen Talk Barbie Turns Silent on Math." 21 Oct. 1992. 20 Mar. 2024 <https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/21/business/company-news-mattel-says-it-erred-teen-talk-barbie-turns-silent-on-math.html>. Norton, Kevin, et al. “Ken and Barbie at Life Size.” Sex Roles 34 (1996): 287-294. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01544300. Reinhard, Abby. “Here's How Much Your Childhood Barbies Are Really Worth Now, New Data Shows.” Best Life, 14 Jul. 2023. 15 Mar. 2024 <https://bestlifeonline.com/how-much-are-barbies-worth-now-news/>. Rice, Karlie, et al. “Exposure to Barbie: Effects on Thin-Ideal Internalisation, Body Esteem, and Body Dissatisfaction among Young Girls.” Body Image 19 (2016): 142-149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2016.09.005. Rogers, Mary, F. Barbie Culture. Sage, 1999. Siazon, Kevin John. “The New 2019 Barbie Fashionistas Are More Diverse than Ever.” Today’s Parents, 12 Feb. 2019. 19 Mar. 2024 <https://www.todaysparent.com/blogs/trending/the-new-2019-barbie-fashionistas-are-more-diverse-than-ever/>. Sicard. Sarah. “A Few Good Dolls: Barbie Has Served in Every Military Branch.” Military Times, 28 Jul. 2023. 15 Mar. 2024 <https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2023/07/27/a-few-good-dolls-barbie-has-served-in-every-military-branch/>. Slayen, Galia. “The Scary Reality of a Real-Life Barbie Doll.” Huffington Post, 8 Apr. 2011. 19 Mar. 2024 <https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-scary-reality-of-a-re_b_845239>. Southwell, Haxel. “Plastic on Track: Barbie's History in Motorsport”. Road and Track, 21 Jul. 2023. 15 Mar. 2024 <https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a44588941/plastic-on-track-barbie-history-in-motorsport/>. Statista. “Gross Sales of Mattel's Barbie Brand Worldwide from 2012 to 2022.” 2023. 16 Mar. 2024 <https://www.statista.com/statistics/370361/gross-sales-of-mattel-s-barbie-brand/>. ———. “Highest-Grossing Movies of All Time as of 2024.” 2024. 31 May 2024 <https://www.statista.com/statistics/262926/box-office-revenue-of-the-most-successful-movies-of-all-time/>. Stillwell, Blake. “Barbie and Ken Went to War Long before the 'Barbie' Movie.” Military.com, 26 Jul. 2023. 15 Mar. 2024 <https://www.military.com/off-duty/movies/2023/07/26/barbie-and-ken-went-war-long-barbie-movie.html>. Tamkin, Emily. Cultural History of Barbie.” Smithsonian, 23 Jun. 2023. 17 Mar. 2024 <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/cultural-history-barbie-180982115/>. Thong, Hang. “Barbie’s Doll Dimensions.” OmniSize, 29 Nov. 2023. 19 Mar. 2024 <https://omnisizes.com/hobbies/barbie-doll/>. 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I first came across etoy in Linz, Austria in 1995. They turned up at Ars Electronica with their shaved heads, in their matching orange bomber jackets. They were not invited. The next year they would not have to crash the party. In 1996 they were awarded Arts Electronica’s prestigious Golden Nica for web art, and were on their way to fame and bitterness – the just rewards for their art of self-regard. As founding member Agent.ZAI says: “All of us were extremely greedy – for excitement, for drugs, for success.” (Wishart & Boschler: 16) The etoy story starts on the fringes of the squatters’ movement in Zurich. Disenchanted with the hard left rhetorics that permeate the movement in the 1980s, a small group look for another way of existing within a commodified world, without the fantasy of an ‘outside’ from which to critique it. What Antonio Negri and friends call the ‘real subsumption’ of life under the rule of commodification is something etoy grasps intuitively. The group would draw on a number of sources: David Bowie, the Sex Pistols, the Manchester rave scene, European Amiga art, rumors of the historic avant gardes from Dada to Fluxus. They came together in 1994, at a meeting in the Swiss resort town of Weggis on Lake Lucerne. While the staging of the founding meeting looks like a rerun of the origins of the Situationist International, the wording of the invitation might suggest the founding of a pop music boy band: “fun, money and the new world?” One of the – many – stories about the origins of the name Dada has it being chosen at random from a bilingual dictionary. The name etoy, in an update on that procedure, was spat out by a computer program designed to make four letter words at random. Ironically, both Dada and etoy, so casually chosen, would inspire furious struggles over the ownership of these chancey 4-bit words. The group decided to make money by servicing the growing rave scene. Being based in Vienna and Zurich, the group needed a way to communicate, and chose to use the internet. This was a far from obvious thing to do in 1994. Connections were slow and unreliable. Sometimes it was easier to tape a hard drive full of clubland graphics to the underside of a seat on the express train from Zurich to Vienna and simply email instructions to meet the train and retrieve it. The web was a primitive instrument in 1995 when etoy built its first website. They launched it with a party called etoy.FASTLANE, an optimistic title when the web was anything but. Coco, a transsexual model and tabloid sensation, sang a Japanese song while suspended in the air. She brought media interest, and was anointed etoy’s lifestyle angel. As Wishart and Bochsler write, “it was as if the Seven Dwarfs had discovered their Snow White.” (Wishart & Boschler: 33) The launch didn’t lead to much in the way of a music deal or television exposure. The old media were not so keen to validate the etoy dream of lifting themselves into fame and fortune by their bootstraps. And so etoy decided to be stars of the new media. The slogan was suitably revised: “etoy: the pop star is the pilot is the coder is the designer is the architect is the manager is the system is etoy.” (Wishart & Boschler: 34) The etoy boys were more than net.artists, they were artists of the brand. The brand was achieving a new prominence in the mid-90s. (Klein: 35) This was a time when capitalism was hollowing itself out in the overdeveloped world, shedding parts of its manufacturing base. Control of the circuits of commodification would rest less on the ownership of the means of production and more on maintaining a monopoly on the flows of information. The leading edge of the ruling class was becoming self-consciously vectoral. It controlled the flow of information about what to produce – the details of design, the underlying patents. It controlled the flows of information about what is produced – the brands and logos, the slogans and images. The capitalist class is supplanted by a vectoral class, controlling the commodity circuit through the vectors of information. (Wark) The genius of etoy was to grasp the aesthetic dimension of this new stage of commodification. The etoy boys styled themselves not so much as a parody of corporate branding and management groupthink, but as logical extension of it. They adopted matching uniforms and called themselves agents. In the dada-punk-hiphop tradition, they launched themselves on the world as brand new, self-created, self-named subjects: Agents Zai, Brainhard, Gramazio, Kubli, Esposto, Udatny and Goldstein. The etoy.com website was registered in 1995 with Network Solutions for a $100 fee. The homepage for this etoy.TANKSYSTEM was designed like a flow chart. As Gramazio says: “We wanted to create an environment with surreal content, to build a parallel world and put the content of this world into tanks.” (Wishart & Boschler: 51) One tank was a cybermotel, with Coco the first guest. Another tank showed you your IP number, with a big-brother eye looking on. A supermarket tank offered sunglasses and laughing gas for sale, but which may or may not be delivered. The underground tank included hardcore photos of a sensationalist kind. A picture of the Federal Building in Oklamoma City after the bombing was captioned in deadpan post-situ style “such work needs a lot of training.” (Wishart & Boschler: 52) The etoy agents were by now thoroughly invested in the etoy brand and the constellation of images they had built around it, on their website. Their slogan became “etoy: leaving reality behind.” (Wishart & Boschler: 53) They were not the first artists fascinated by commodification. It was Warhol who said “good art is good business.”(Warhol ) But etoy reversed the equation: good business is good art. And good business, in this vectoral age, is in its most desirable form an essentially conceptual matter of creating a brand at the center of a constellation of signifiers. Late in 1995, etoy held another group meeting, at the Zurich youth center Dynamo. The problem was that while they had build a hardcore website, nobody was visiting it. Agents Gooldstein and Udatny thought that there might be a way of using the new search engines to steer visitors to the site. Zai and Brainhard helped secure a place at the Vienna Academy of Applied Arts where Udatny could use the computer lab to implement this idea. Udatny’s first step was to create a program that would go out and gather email addresses from the web. These addresses would form the lists for the early examples of art-spam that etoy would perpetrate. Udatny’s second idea was a bit more interesting. He worked out how to get the etoy.TANKSYSTEM page listed in search engines. Most search engines ranked pages by the frequency of the search term in the pages it had indexed, so etoy.TANKSYSTEM would contain pages of selected keywords. Porn sites were also discovering this method of creating free publicity. The difference was that etoy chose a very carefully curated list of 350 search terms, including: art, bondage, cyberspace, Doom, Elvis, Fidel, genx, heroin, internet, jungle and Kant. Users of search engines who searched for these terms would find dummy pages listed prominently in their search results that directed them, unsuspectingly, to etoy.com. They called this project Digital Hijack. To give the project a slightly political aura, the pages the user was directed to contained an appeal for the release of convicted hacker Kevin Mitnick. This was the project that won them a Golden Nica statuette at Ars Electronica in 1996, which Gramazio allegedly lost the same night playing roulette. It would also, briefly, require that they explain themselves to the police. Digital Hijack also led to the first splits in the group, under the intense pressure of organizing it on a notionally collective basis, but with the zealous Agent Zai acting as de facto leader. When Udatny was expelled, Zai and Brainhard even repossessed his Toshiba laptop, bought with etoy funds. As Udatny recalls, “It was the lowest point in my life ever. There was nothing left; I could not rely on etoy any more. I did not even have clothes, apart from the etoy uniform.” (Wishart & Boschler: 104) Here the etoy story repeats a common theme from the history of the avant gardes as forms of collective subjectivity. After Digital Hijack, etoy went into a bit of a slump. It’s something of a problem for a group so dependent on recognition from the other of the media, that without a buzz around them, etoy would tend to collapse in on itself like a fading supernova. Zai spend the early part of 1997 working up a series of management documents, in which he appeared as the group’s managing director. Zai employed the current management theory rhetoric of employee ‘empowerment’ while centralizing control. Like any other corporate-Trotskyite, his line was that “We have to get used to reworking the company structure constantly.” (Wishart & Boschler: 132) The plan was for each member of etoy to register the etoy trademark in a different territory, linking identity to information via ownership. As Zai wrote “If another company uses our name in a grand way, I’ll probably shoot myself. And that would not be cool.” (Wishart & Boschler:: 132) As it turned out, another company was interested – the company that would become eToys.com. Zai received an email offering “a reasonable sum” for the etoy.com domain name. Zai was not amused. “Damned Americans, they think they can take our hunting grounds for a handful of glass pearls….”. (Wishart & Boschler: 133) On an invitation from Suzy Meszoly of C3, the etoy boys traveled to Budapest to work on “protected by etoy”, a work exploring internet security. They spent most of their time – and C3’s grant money – producing a glossy corporate brochure. The folder sported a blurb from Bjork: “etoy: immature priests from another world” – which was of course completely fabricated. When Artothek, the official art collection of the Austrian Chancellor, approached etoy wanting to buy work, the group had to confront the problem of how to actually turn their brand into a product. The idea was always that the brand was the product, but this doesn’t quite resolve the question of how to produce the kind of unique artifacts that the art world requires. Certainly the old Conceptual Art strategy of selling ‘documentation’ would not do. The solution was as brilliant as it was simple – to sell etoy shares. The ‘works’ would be ‘share certificates’ – unique objects, whose only value, on the face of it, would be that they referred back to the value of the brand. The inspiration, according to Wishart & Boschsler, was David Bowie, ‘the man who sold the world’, who had announced the first rock and roll bond on the London financial markets, backed by future earnings of his back catalogue and publishing rights. Gramazio would end up presenting Chancellor Viktor Klima with the first ‘shares’ at a press conference. “It was a great start for the project”, he said, “A real hack.” (Wishart & Boschler: 142) For this vectoral age, etoy would create the perfect vectoral art. Zai and Brainhard took off next for Pasadena, where they got the idea of reverse-engineering the online etoy.TANKSYSTEM by building an actual tank in an orange shipping container, which would become etoy.TANK 17. This premiered at the San Francisco gallery Blasthaus in June 1998. Instant stars in the small world of San Francisco art, the group began once again to disintegrate. Brainhard and Esposito resigned. Back in Europe in late 1998, Zai was preparing to graduate from the Vienna Academy of Applied Arts. His final project would recapitulate the life and death of etoy. It would exist from here on only as an online archive, a digital mausoleum. As Kubli says “there was no possibility to earn our living with etoy.” (Wishart & Boschler: 192) Zai emailed eToys.com and asked them if them if they would like to place a banner ad on etoy.com, to redirect any errant web traffic. Lawyers for eToys.com offered etoy $30,000 for the etoy.com domain name, which the remaining members of etoy – Zai, Gramazio, Kubli – refused. The offer went up to $100,000, which they also refused. Through their lawyer Peter Wild they demanded $750,000. In September 1999, while etoy were making a business presentation as their contribution to Ars Electronica, eToys.com lodged a complaint against etoy in the Los Angeles Superior Court. The company hired Bruce Wessel, of the heavyweight LA law firm Irell & Manella, who specialized in trademark, copyright and other intellectual property litigation. The complaint Wessel drafted alleged that etoy had infringed and diluted the eToys trademark, were practicing unfair competition and had committed “intentional interference with prospective economic damage.” (Wishart & Boschler: 199) Wessel demanded an injunction that would oblige etoy to cease using its trademark and take down its etoy.com website. The complaint also sought to prevent etoy from selling shares, and demanded punitive damages. Displaying the aggressive lawyering for which he was so handsomely paid, Wessel invoked the California Unfair Competition Act, which was meant to protect citizens from fraudulent business scams. Meant as a piece of consumer protection legislation, its sweeping scope made it available for inventive suits such as Wessel’s against etoy. Wessel was able to use pretty much everything from the archive etoy built against it. As Wishart and Bochsler write, “The court papers were like a delicately curated catalogue of its practices.” (Wishart & Boschler: 199) And indeed, legal documents in copyright and trademark cases may be the most perfect literature of the vectoral age. The Unfair Competition claim was probably aimed at getting the suit heard in a Californian rather than a Federal court in which intellectual property issues were less frequently litigated. The central aim of the eToys suit was the trademark infringement, but on that head their claims were not all that strong. According to the 1946 Lanham Act, similar trademarks do not infringe upon each other if there they are for different kinds of business or in different geographical areas. The Act also says that the right to own a trademark depends on its use. So while etoy had not registered their trademark and eToys had, etoy were actually up and running before eToys, and could base their trademark claim on this fact. The eToys case rested on a somewhat selective reading of the facts. Wessel claimed that etoy was not using its trademark in the US when eToys was registered in 1997. Wessel did not dispute the fact that etoy existed in Europe prior to that time. He asserted that owning the etoy.com domain name was not sufficient to establish a right to the trademark. If the intention of the suit was to bully etoy into giving in, it had quite the opposite effect. It pissed them off. “They felt again like the teenage punks they had once been”, as Wishart & Bochsler put it. Their art imploded in on itself for lack of attention, but called upon by another, it flourished. Wessel and eToys.com unintentionally triggered a dialectic that worked in quite the opposite way to what they intended. The more pressure they put on etoy, the more valued – and valuable – they felt etoy to be. Conceptual business, like conceptual art, is about nothing but the management of signs within the constraints of given institutional forms of market. That this conflict was about nothing made it a conflict about everything. It was a perfectly vectoral struggle. Zai and Gramazio flew to the US to fire up enthusiasm for their cause. They asked Wolfgang Staehle of The Thing to register the domain toywar.com, as a space for anti-eToys activities at some remove from etoy.com, and as a safe haven should eToys prevail with their injunction in having etoy.com taken down. The etoy defense was handled by Marcia Ballard in New York and Robert Freimuth in Los Angeles. In their defense, they argued that etoy had existed since 1994, had registered its globally accessible domain in 1995, and won an international art prize in 1996. To counter a claim by eToys that they had a prior trademark claim because they had bought a trademark from another company that went back to 1990, Ballard and Freimuth argued that this particular trademark only applied to the importation of toys from the previous owner’s New York base and thus had no relevance. They capped their argument by charging that eToys had not shown that its customers were really confused by the existence of etoy. With Christmas looming, eToys wanted a quick settlement, so they offered Zurich-based etoy lawyer Peter Wild $160,000 in shares and cash for the etoy domain. Kubli was prepared to negotiate, but Zai and Gramazio wanted to gamble – and raise the stakes. As Zai recalls: “We did not want to be just the victims; that would have been cheap. We wanted to be giants too.” (Wishart & Boschler: 207) They refused the offer. The case was heard in November 1999 before Judge Rafeedie in the Federal Court. Freimuth, for etoy, argued that federal Court was the right place for what was essentially a trademark matter. Robert Kleiger, for eToys, countered that it should stay where it was because of the claims under the California Unfair Competition act. Judge Rafeedie took little time in agreeing with the eToys lawyer. Wessel’s strategy paid off and eToys won the first skirmish. The first round of a quite different kind of conflict opened when etoy sent out their first ‘toywar’ mass mailing, drawing the attention of the net.art, activism and theory crowd to these events. This drew a report from Felix Stalder in Telepolis: “Fences are going up everywhere, molding what once seemed infinite space into an overcrowded and tightly controlled strip mall.” (Stalder ) The positive feedback from the net only emboldened etoy. For the Los Angeles court, lawyers for etoy filed papers arguing that the sale of ‘shares’ in etoy was not really a stock offering. “The etoy.com website is not about commerce per se, it is about artist and social protest”, they argued. (Wishart & Boschler: 209) They were obliged, in other words, to assert a difference that the art itself had intended to blur in order to escape eToy’s claims under the Unfair Competition Act. Moreover, etoy argued that there was no evidence of a victim. Nobody was claiming to have been fooled by etoy into buying something under false pretences. Ironically enough, art would turn out in hindsight to be a more straightforward transaction here, involving less simulation or dissimulation, than investing in a dot.com. Perhaps we have reached the age when art makes more, not less, claim than business to the rhetorical figure of ‘reality’. Having defended what appeared to be the vulnerable point under the Unfair Competition law, etoy went on the attack. It was the failure of eToys to do a proper search for other trademarks that created the problem in the first place. Meanwhile, in Federal Court, lawyers for etoy launched a counter-suit that reversed the claims against them made by eToys on the trademark question. While the suits and counter suits flew, eToys.com upped their offer to settle to a package of cash and shares worth $400,000. This rather puzzled the etoy lawyers. Those choosing to sue don’t usually try at the same time to settle. Lawyer Peter Wild advised his clients to take the money, but the parallel tactics of eToys.com only encouraged them to dig in their heels. “We felt that this was a tremendous final project for etoy”, says Gramazio. As Zai says, “eToys was our ideal enemy – we were its worst enemy.” (Wishart & Boschler: 210) Zai reported the offer to the net in another mass mail. Most people advised them to take the money, including Doug Rushkoff and Heath Bunting. Paul Garrin counseled fighting on. The etoy agents offered to settle for $750,000. The case came to court in late November 1999 before Judge Shook. The Judge accepted the plausibility of the eToys version of the facts on the trademark issue, which included the purchase of a registered trademark from another company that went back to 1990. He issued an injunction on their behalf, and added in his statement that he was worried about “the great danger of children being exposed to profane and hardcore pornographic issues on the computer.” (Wishart & Boschler: 222) The injunction was all eToys needed to get Network Solutions to shut down the etoy.com domain. Zai sent out a press release in early December, which percolated through Slashdot, rhizome, nettime (Staehle) and many other networks, and catalyzed the net community into action. A debate of sorts started on investor websites such as fool.com. The eToys stock price started to slide, and etoy ‘warriors’ felt free to take the credit for it. The story made the New York Times on 9th December, Washington Post on the 10th, Wired News on the 11th. Network Solutions finally removed the etoy.com domain on the 10th December. Zai responded with a press release: “this is robbery of digital territory, American imperialism, corporate destruction and bulldozing in the way of the 19th century.” (Wishart & Boschler: 237) RTMark set up a campaign fund for toywar, managed by Survival Research Laboratories’ Mark Pauline. The RTMark press release promised a “new internet ‘game’ designed to destroy eToys.com.” (Wishart & Boschler: 239) The RTMark press release grabbed the attention of the Associated Press newswire. The eToys.com share price actually rose on December 13th. Goldman Sachs’ e-commerce analyst Anthony Noto argued that the previous declines in the Etoys share price made it a good buy. Goldman Sachs was the lead underwriter of the eToys IPO. Noto’s writings may have been nothing more than the usual ‘IPOetry’ of the time, but the crash of the internet bubble was some months away yet. The RTMark campaign was called ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. It used the Floodnet technique that Ricardo Dominguez used in support of the Zapatistas. As Dominguez said, “this hysterical power-play perfectly demonstrates the intensions of the new net elite; to turn the World Wide Web into their own private home-shopping network.” (Wishart & Boschler: 242) The Floodnet attack may have slowed the eToys.com server down a bit, but it was robust and didn’t crash. Ironically, it ran on open source software. Dominguez claims that the ‘Twelve Days’ campaign, which relied on individuals manually launching Floodnet from their own computers, was not designed to destroy the eToys site, but to make a protest felt. “We had a single-bullet script that could have taken down eToys – a tactical nuke, if you will. But we felt this script did not represent the presence of a global group of people gathered to bear witness to a wrong.” (Wishart & Boschler: 245) While the eToys engineers did what they could to keep the site going, eToys also approached universities and businesses whose systems were being used to host Floodnet attacks. The Thing, which hosted Dominguez’s eToys Floodnet site was taken offline by The Thing’s ISP, Verio. After taking down the Floodnet scripts, The Thing was back up, restoring service to the 200 odd websites that The Thing hosted besides the offending Floodnet site. About 200 people gathered on December 20th at a demonstration against eToys outside the Museum of Modern Art. Among the crowd were Santas bearing signs that said ‘Coal for eToys’. The rally, inside the Museum, was led by the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping: “We are drowning in a sea of identical details”, he said. (Wishart & Boschler: 249-250) Meanwhile etoy worked on the Toywar Platform, an online agitpop theater spectacle, in which participants could act as soldiers in the toywar. This would take some time to complete – ironically the dispute threatened to end before this last etoy artwork was ready, giving etoy further incentives to keep the dispute alive. The etoy agents had a new lawyer, Chris Truax, who was attracted to the case by the publicity it was generating. Through Truax, etoy offered to sell the etoy domain and trademark for $3.7 million. This may sound like an insane sum, but to put it in perspective, the business.com site changed hands for $7.5 million around this time. On December 29th, Wessel signaled that eToys was prepared to compromise. The problem was, the Toywar Platform was not quite ready, so etoy did what it could to drag out the negotiations. The site went live just before the scheduled court hearings, January 10th 2000. “TOYWAR.com is a place where all servers and all involved people melt and build a living system. In our eyes it is the best way to express and document what’s going on at the moment: people start to about new ways to fight for their ideas, their lifestyle, contemporary culture and power relations.” (Wishart & Boschler: 263) Meanwhile, in a California courtroom, Truax demanded that Network Solutions restore the etoy domain, that eToys pay the etoy legal expenses, and that the case be dropped without prejudice. No settlement was reached. Negotiations dragged on for another two weeks, with the etoy agents’ attention somewhat divided between two horizons – art and law. The dispute was settled on 25th January. Both parties dismissed their complaints without prejudice. The eToys company would pay the etoy artists $40,000 for legal costs, and contact Network Solutions to reinstate the etoy domain. “It was a pleasure doing business with one of the biggest e-commerce giants in the world” ran the etoy press release. (Wishart & Boschler: 265) That would make a charming end to the story. But what goes around comes around. Brainhard, still pissed off with Zai after leaving the group in San Francisco, filed for the etoy trademark in Austria. After that the internal etoy wranglings just gets boring. But it was fun while it lasted. What etoy grasped intuitively was the nexus between the internet as a cultural space and the transformation of the commodity economy in a yet-more abstract direction – its becoming-vectoral. They zeroed in on the heart of the new era of conceptual business – the brand. As Wittgenstein says of language, what gives words meaning is other words, so too for brands. What gives brands meaning is other brands. There is a syntax for brands as there is for words. What etoy discovered is how to insert a new brand into that syntax. The place of eToys as a brand depended on their business competition with other brands – with Toys ‘R’ Us, for example. For etoy, the syntax they discovered for relating their brand to another one was a legal opposition. What made etoy interesting was their lack of moral posturing. Their abandonment of leftist rhetorics opened them up to exploring the territory where media and business meet, but it also made them vulnerable to being consumed by the very dialectic that created the possibility of staging etoy in the first place. By abandoning obsolete political strategies, they discovered a media tactic, which collapsed for want of a new strategy, for the new vectoral terrain on which we find ourselves. Works Cited Negri, Antonio. Time for Revolution. Continuum, London, 2003. Warhol, Andy. From A to B and Back Again. Picador, New York, 1984. Stalder, Felix. ‘Fences in Cyberspace: Recent events in the battle over domain names’. 19 Jun 2003. <http://felix.openflows.org/html/fences.php>. Wark, McKenzie. ‘A Hacker Manifesto [version 4.0]’ 19 Jun 2003. http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html. Klein, Naomi. No Logo. Harper Collins, London, 2000. Wishart, Adam & Regula Bochsler. Leaving Reality Behind: etoy vs eToys.com & Other Battles to Control Cyberspace Ecco Books, 2003. Staehle, Wolfgang. ‘<nettime> etoy.com shut down by US court.’ 19 Jun 2003. http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9912/msg00005.html Links http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9912/msg00005.htm http://felix.openflows.org/html/fences.html http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html Citation reference for this article Substitute your date of access for Dn Month Year etc... MLA Style Wark, McKenzie. "Toywars" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/02-toywars.php>. APA Style Wark, M. (2003, Jun 19). Toywars. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 6,< http://www.media-culture.org.au/0306/02-toywars.php>