Violence and the Scapegoat in American Film: 1967-1999 Paul E

Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2002 Violence and the scapegoat in American film: 1967-1999 Paul E. Graham III Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Graham III, Paul E., "Violence and the scapegoat in American film: 1967-1999" (2002). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2359. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2359 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. VIOLENCE AND THE SCAPEGOAT IN AMERICAN FILM: 1967-1999 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Paul E. Graham III B.A., University of New Orleans, 1994 M.A., University of New Orleans, 1997 December 2002 For Michael J. Wilson Who asked to read this “There is word in the caravans of a great one who was driven out of Egypt.” —Sephora, The Ten Commandments ii Acknowledgements Writing this dissertation has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I have had the pleasure to work with and lean on many admirable people, whose assistance and encouragements have been invaluable these five years. For financial support, work experience and general help, I owe many thanks to the Graduate Committee and Department of English at Louisiana State University, Professor Sarah Liggett, Professor Carol Mattingly, Professor Irvin Peckham, Deborah Normand, Renee Major, Lillie T. Johnston, Terri Guidry, Jeanine Conant, and all the staff of the English Department, not to mention the fine people at Interlibrary Borrowing and Professor Leonard N. Moore of the History Department. Among my colleagues, many of the most friendly and helpful have been Elizabeth Beard, R. Nichole Rougeau, Bill Scalia, Daniel McNamara, Samuel Anderson, Sarah Uzelac, Richard Houser, Erica Daigle, and Robert Beuka. These people constitute a support group, whose camaraderie and friendship are invaluable to any kind of sustained academic endeavor. The professors I have worked with serve as model educators and facilitators, whose guidance and support are appreciated. They have done more than enough to enrich my academic experience at LSU and provide a professional yet friendly environment in which to learn the craft of scholarship. My sincerest thanks belong to Professor Carl Freedman, Professor Joseph Kronick, Professor Malcolm Richardson, Professor William W. Demastes, and my dissertation director, Professor John R. May, whose exemplary editorial skill is exceeded only by his boundless patience. Finally, my family’s support and good will have shined through when things were not so easy. For their love and concern, I thank my parents Paul and Barbara, my sister Gretchen, my grandparents, aunts and uncles. And if it had not been for the loving and gentle encouragements iii of my favorite scholar and very best friend, Jessica McKelvie, this work may never have been completed. Her good humor and enduring patience have been nothing less than inspirational. iv Table of Contents Dedication…………………………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………iii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………...vi Introduction: Violence, Girard, and American Cinema…………..…………………..…………...1 Chapter 1: Scapegoating the American Dreamer: Coppola’s Violence in The Godfather Films…………………………………………………………………………………………..…31 Chapter 2: Deconstructing the Vigilante Line: Taxi Driver and the Lonely White Male……………………………………………………………………………………………...53 Chapter 3: Scapegoating the Independent Woman: Fatal Attraction and Eclipsing Narratives of the Reagan Era...….………………..………….….……………………………….89 Chapter 4: Fragmentation and American History X….....………………………………………125 Conclusion: Dying for the American Dream…………………………………………………...165 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………….170 Vita……………………………………………………………………………………………...177 v Abstract This study addresses the proliferation of cinematic violence since the demise of the MPAA’s Production Code in 1966. Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch were films that projected violence to comment on the civil fervent caused by the Vietnam War. Yet the floodgates these films opened allowed for virtually unlimited and graphic displays of bloodshed to redden big screens for the next three decades. Using the theories of René Girard, namely the scapegoating motif, this study proposes readings of film that, through cinematic ambiguity, contain humanitarian statements against violence by examining the consequences of using force to cause pain. The Godfather serves as a virtual contemplation of the cruelty inherent in causing bloodshed. Coppola uses both unedited long takes and fast, contrapuntal editing to expose and underscore his protagonist’s hypocrisy. Toward the end of the seventies, Taxi Driver is the next major film to enact compassion in bloodshed, as it both joins and deconstructs the cynical line of films it belongs to. Scorsese manifests an exceptional ability to take the viewer inside the brutality so that he vicariously lives through the event. The chapters that deal with the films above demonstrate that expertly rendered camerawork creates a scapegoating process for the audience to consider. In the eighties with Fatal Attraction, however, the audience has to rely on future criticism inspired by the film to initiate vindication of the immolated scapegoat, because of the enormous resistance she offers the dominant culture. And in the nineties, the surrogate victim at the end of American History X dies, symbolically lamenting the mimetic rivalry contained in both the troubled inner city and the film industry itself. Together these films constitute positive, artistic, and edifying contributions of cinematic violence that resist the ordinary depiction of bloodshed for the sake of exploitative entertainment. vi Introduction Violence, Girard, and American Cinema The American film industry is a powerful apparatus. Critics have asserted for decades now that movies promote homogenization in our culture by repeatedly promulgating manipulative subject matter and instilling it into the collective unconscious. The industry’s streamlining of ideas draws hundreds of thousands of people to the box offices on a weekly basis, generating staggering sums of money for filmmakers. Their films often appeal to single-issue concerns and our most basic, visceral emotions in an effort to gain mass approval and agreement. An excellent example to consider would be the patriotic blockbusters of the Reagan era that harnessed anti- Communist sensibilities and older ideas, creating a distinctly eighties style of filmmaking. Obviously, however, counterexamples pervaded the decade, and one need not ponder the issue for too long before invoking the memory of Warren Beatty’s Reds, for instance. Still, looking back over the decade, recalling and examining the most easily remembered films and drawing conclusions about them can be very instructive about an entire people’s beliefs and attitudes during a given time period. Oddities, countertrends and subversive films aside, movie producers and directors know the audiences they are dealing with, and they seek to please that audience. Their efforts result in heavily enhancing and efficiently simplifying already held beliefs and cultural concerns. This is at least one reason why filmic violence has been a controversial subject since the earliest days of the motion picture industry. Parents, moralists, government officials, even self- reflective filmmakers continue to rail out against the undue influence of bloodshed on the big screen. This point of view is understandable, considering that every depiction of blood and gore imaginable has been accomplished through special effects and innovative, pseudo-magical 1 editing. In the second half of the twentieth century alone, we have seen blood squirting from people’s heads, monsters getting chopped to pieces in household appliances, as well as endless forms of beating, mutilation, shooting, and brutality. As for their effects on the general public, there is no longer any need to debate on whether or not these powerful images cause people to act accordingly from time to time. Studies have long shown that humans like to imitate what they see; children act out movie violence when they play with each other and, on occasion, deranged individuals commit heinous crimes, often misinterpreting the meaning of what they see on the screen. Yet a quick review of films released in the 1990s would show that superfluous bloodshed is on the rise and gaining in popularity. Why does it continue? Why is it that cinematic violence fits so prominently into the American film ethos, despite the realization that it is often distressing and negatively influential? The first answer is as old as the industry itself: violence draws box office dollars because it appeals to the audiences’ most visceral instincts. The second answer, which is pertinent to this treatise, is that many of the more thought-provoking violent films attempt to imitate the troubles

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