Feature 06

a b ov e Anderson calls attention to the act of filming pornography in Boogie Nights

films differ is not through their portrayals Falling Victim to of the negative influence of media and products within consumer culture, but through their use of self-reflexive elements, calling attention not only to the method Consumer Culture: The of filmmaking itself as a commodity but the human body as well. By exploring the recording, watching, buying, selling, and Commodification of analyzing of bodies, each film demonstrates how the individual falls victim to consumer culture, as their own distorted identities become commodified objects. Bodies in “Smart” Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape places emphasis on voyeurism through the watching and recording of bodies within the film, Films putting the characters in a hyper-mediated and consumable context. Guy Debord’s article on the spectacle as commodity By Katie Jane Parkes illustrates that the spectacle “presents itself simultaneously as all of society, as part of society, and as instrument of unification. keywords: smart films, consumerism, commodification, As part of a society, it is specifically the sector which concentrates all gazing and all bodies, victims, Boogie Nights consciousness” (Debord 117). In the case of Sex, Lies, and Videotape, it is Ann Mullany’s Stephen Wilkinson’s book strategies, instead experimenting with tone (Andie MacDowell) body that helps develop on the commodification of bodies as a means of critiquing ‘bourgeois’ taste the conscious awareness of the gaze and explains that “to commodify is to treat and culture” (Sconce 352). “Smart” films functions as part of the spectacle. This aspect as a commodity something which is not such as Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and of spectorial gazing is initiated early on in a (proper) commodity” (Wilkinson 46). Videotape (1989), Todd Haynes’s Safe (1994), the film when Ann and Graham Dalton Commodification thus denotes a specific and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (James Spader) are presented in a medium kind of wrong behavior, making our (1997), illustrate a collective thematic focus establishing shot while having drinks at a social practice of commodifying people on consumerism and highlight the voyeuristic restaurant. Here, Graham admits to the as property an immoral act. By further tendencies associated with the commodified audience that he has been watching her, commercializing the body in the context individual. Engaging in this type of “smart” further explaining that she is “someone of contemporary cinema, “audiences (and sensibility in recent contemporary American who is extremely aware” of people looking critics) align themselves either with or cinema requires both “the sociocultural at her. His statement instantly places the against this ironic sensibility at the point of formation informing the circulation of camera’s narrative focus on Ann and aligns consumption” (Sconce 353). According to these films (a ‘smart’ set) and a shared set the viewer with her perpetual awareness Jeffrey Sconce,“the new smart cinema has for of stylistic and thematic practices (a ‘smart’ of self. Soderbergh’s choice of static shot the most part re-embraced classical narrative aesthetic)” (Sconce 352). Where these three in this scene is excruciating, prolonging the

39 Film Matters Spring 2014 ➜ Feature 06 K atie Jane Parkes

Soderbergh’s choice of static shot in this scene is air around her, insinuating that her body is greatly affected by and trapped within the excruciating, prolonging the audience’s exposure realm of consumerism. The following sequence promptly to the idea of voyeurism, forcing the spectator to relocates Carol’s body to a hospital where she lies in bed attached to tubes, being swallow the whole scene while foreshadowing the questioned and quizzed by the doctor, film’s hyper awareness of the consumption of bodies. illustrating this analytical form of voyeurism and accentuating her victimization. As the sequence goes on, she watches audience’s exposure to the idea of voyeurism, motives of others” (Peterson 205). Ultimately an advertisement on television for a forcing the spectator to swallow the whole Ann’s presence behind the camera is just as rehabilitation center called Wrenwood, scene while foreshadowing the film’s hyper significant as her ability to hold the camera. where people with chemical sensitivities go awareness of the consumption of bodies. The film’s final scenes perfectly play with the to cope with their reactions. The television Immediately following this scene the heightened self-reflexivity in the narrative by screen is the most important object here, editing jump cuts to the first explicit use of creating an obvious awareness of the act of as it provokes the self-reflexive nature of self-reflexivity, providing several close-up filmmaking and the unfortunate realization the film, promoting the idea of film and shots of the video being watched, as well that her body is the commodified subject. television as commodities and a means of as simultaneous intercuts of the camera In contradiction to Soderbergh’s more selling products to an audience. Debord’s and tapes, calling direct attention to the obvious elements of voyeurism, Todd article illustrates that “the spectacle is not equipment used to record images and bodies. Haynes’s film Safe explores the theme of a collection of images, but a social relation The interviews Graham conducts discuss voyeurism by analyzing Carol White’s among people, mediated by images” (Debord the subject of sex, advancing the film’s (Julianne Moore) body as she experiences 118). Carol’s relation to the spectacle is voyeuristic theme by fixating on the intimate severe chemical sensitivities – a result of the social, as the television is broadcasting an act of two human bodies, and demonstrating consumer culture in which she resides. Jesse ad to a specific demographic of people into how he transforms the video footage into Mayshark’s book on finding meaning in New which she now fits. Mediated images on- commodities that he can consume. When American film explains that this particular screen sell the center to Carol, making both Ann’s sister, Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo) film presents these issues of commodification her and the audience aware of her desire agrees to be interviewed and placed in front to use this service, which she will eventually of the filmic lens, she not only stresses the like a slow, nauseating revelation, with buy into, making her body both an object of role of her body by sexualizing herself, lingering shots of the smog clouding the experimentation and commodification. but also shines a spotlight on the method California highways, the bottles of hair Haynes’s concluding sequence in Safe, of film production as a cultural product formula at the beauty parlor, and the much like the final minutes of Sex, Lies, to be consumed. By allowing herself to be dense fog of … chemicals in the air at the and Videotape, holds the highest narrative recorded by Graham, she falls victim to her dry cleaner’s where Carol collapses in a significance as Carol proceeds to give own commodification, as her body now lives seizure. (Mayshark 52) a fragmented speech that defines her in a digital realm where it can be screened presence at Wrenwood and illustrates how and consumed through the videotapes. It is in this particular scene where Haynes she has fallen victim to commodification. Yannis Tzioumakis’s article on the use inserts a dire static long shot fully framed Her speech is a fragmented mixture of of medium in Sex, Lies, and Videotape, argues around the dry-cleaning shop, demanding broken words: bits of copy gathered from that the most important scene takes place the viewer pay attention to the noise of pamphlets she’s read, information sessions approximately ten minutes before the the cars, the highly commercialized plaza, she’s attended, or tapes she’s listened to end of the film when Ann decides to be and the people roaming the shops, buying about her condition. She portrays her bodily recorded. Akin to her sister, she falls victim and selling, that maginifies the film’s condition in reassuring parts, regurgitating to her own commodification, but plays with preoccupation with consumer culture. When the sales pitch of Wrenwood to her fellow the act of consumption when she grabs the camera narrows in on Carol’s convulsing rehabilitants, to herself, and to the filmic Graham’s camera, pointing it towards him body on the dry-cleaner’s dirty floor, she is audience. Essentially, she commercializes and challenging the film’s use of voyeurism. immediately victimized by the product-filled herself; this final sequence solidifies her paid Yannis further explains that, “prior to that moment in the narrative, the only person behind the camera had been the current object of its gaze” (Tzioumakis 29). Even though Ann is successful in switching the gaze, what differentiates her from her sister is the implied notion that that she commits to having sex with Graham in this scene, allowing herself to not only be consumed through the mediated video screen, but also by Graham himself. Jennifer Peterson’s article about the film argues that Ann’s role in the film is defined when she moves “from a b ov e Amber Waves (Julianne Moore) in being scrutinized to using film to examine the Boogie Nights

40 Film Matters Spring 2014 Feature 06 Falling Victim to Consumer Culture: The Commodification of Bodies in “Smart” Films

panning, high-angle camera steadily scans the walls plastered in posters of bodies, and more specifically, one of a nearly naked woman which the camera lingers on after its completion of a full circle. This powerful high-angle shot of the exposed female body emphasizes the film’s focus on the body as a commodity, championing the nakedness and the global distribution of such an image, and calling attention to Eddie’s consumer habits. The camera continues to swiftly sweep around the room, but once again regains focus, this time on a static shot of Eddie’s reflected body clothed only in underwear in front of a mirror: his awareness of the potential profit he could gain from selling a b ov e Caroline (Julianne Moore) and her his body is palpable, as is the audience’s husband (Xander Berkeley) in Safe awareness of his desire to be commodified. Comparable to Soderbergh’s insertion of multiple close-up shots of the camera and tapes that are used to record and watch bodies, Anderson’s film is highly stylized around self-reflexive images of filmmaking equipment, drawing attention to not only the act of film-viewing as a commodified enterprise, but also the genre of pornography filmmaking as a collective effort in the commodification of bodies. Debord’s article explains, “in the spectacle, which is the image of the ruling economy, the goal is nothing, development everything. The spectacle aims at nothing other than itself ” (Debord 120). Anderson’s narrative development relies heavily on being hyper aware of itself, a b ov e Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo) in Sex, Lies, and Videotape meaning that the spectacle is essentially the doubly mediated images of bodies in the experience at Wrenwood and highlights how get out,” foreshadowing that the protagonist’s pornography film within the film. Unlike the voyeuristic analysis of her body trapped decision to exploit his own body will become Safe, where the character’s body is never her into a commodified space. This speech the drive of the narrative; and what’s in his directly recorded, Boogie Nights showcases this contextualizes Wrenwood as a business that jeans will become commodified subjecthood. act during the scene in which they shoot the sells its services, insinuating that her body Guy Debord’s article demonstrates that pornography film. Multiple-angled close-ups is merely a source of income and that she “the language of the spectacle consists of of Eddie’s (now referred to as Dirk Diggler) has fully fallen victim to consumer culture signs of the ruling production, which at and Amber Waves’s (Julianne Moore) bodies in a place that views her body entirely as a the same time are the ultimate goal of this flood the screen, as well as intercut close-ups commodity. production” (Debord 118). These signs of of the camera and its lens, objectifying both Contrary to Sex, Lies, and Videotape and the ruling production are exemplified in the the naked bodies and film equipment within Safe, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights film’s second sequence, as the story follows consumer culture. Anderson even goes one deals directly with voyeuristic trends in the Eddie home to his bedroom where the step further and includes close-ups of the buying and selling of bodies on-screen in the pornography industry. During the opening sequence of the film, the initial interaction It is in this particular scene where Haynes inserts between Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) and a dire static long shot fully framed around the dry- Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) exposes the tone of the film’s narrative structure: Eddie cleaning shop, demanding the viewer pay attention to offers Jack a look at his penis in exchange for money. Their interaction immediately places the noise of the cars, the highly commercialized plaza, the viewer in the context of sexploitation, commenting on the consumption of bodies and the people roaming the shops, buying and selling, in direct correlation with the explosion of the adult film industry during this time magnifying the film’s preoccupation with consumer period. Jack responds by saying that there’s “something wonderful in his jeans waiting to culture.

41 Film Matters Spring 2014 ➜ Feature 06 Katie Jane Parkes b e low Close-up of porn tapes in Sex, Lies, through cinematic exposure. Anderson and Videotape cleverly builds the anticipation of this shot, as Dirk’s phallus has been discussed within the narrative for almost three hours. By choosing to divulge the dick shot within the final frames, Anderson amplifies the theme of voyeurism and Dirk’s victimization throughout the film. Among Sconce’s list of shared elements that make up the “smart” film, number five conclusively links these three films together: “a recurring interest in the politics of taste, consumerism and identity” (Sconce 358). Soderbergh, Haynes, and Anderson’s films accumulate a shared thematic narrative purpose, playing with the cinematic forms of voyeurism, as the recording, watching, buying, selling, and analyzing of bodies b e low Ann (Andie MacDowell) in Sex, Lies, and Videotape distort each protagonist’s function within consumer culture. As Debord further explains, “in all its specific forms, as information propaganda, as advertisement or direct entertainment consumption, the spectacle is the present model of socially dominant life” (Debord 118). Bodies become spectacles in these smart films, asking the consumer to not only question the role they play in the narrative structure, but also question the changing roles of each character dependent on the director’s manifestation of cinematic self-reflexivity. By smartly weaving the commodified act of filmmaking with the presentation of the individual as spectacle, these cultural products offer pointed social commentary about the dominance of film reels, literally showing “film-within- Peter Lehman’s book on masculinity and the capitalism, consumer culture, and how film,” creating an overtly self-reflexive effort representation of the male body explains human bodies can fall victim to these forces, and drawing attention to how the body is that, “on the surface, it might seem that the ultimately becoming catalysts for critiquing mediated and commodified through the final shot of Boogie Nights falls not into the contemporary culture. filmic frame. melodramatic category but is instead an / e n d / Similarly to Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Safe, example of the awesome spectacle of phallic the final sequence in Boogie Nights solidifies power” (Lehman 249). This shot glorifies the film’s thematic focus on the voyeuristic the film’s voyeurism as he finally fully Works Cited construction of cinema and the victimization exposes himself to the audience, suggesting of the protagonist’s bodies as objects. This an intimate dominance over his own body Boogie Nights. Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson. Perf. final scene is also widely known as “the dick and the industry in which he works. In so Mark Wahlberg and Julianne Moore. New Line shot” because Dirk Diggler unzips his pants doing, the film seems to knowingly confront Cinema, 1997. DVD. in a momentous reveal of full-frontal nudity. the buying and selling of Dirk’s body \ Debord, Guy. “The Commodity as Her speech is a fragmented mixture of broken words: Spectacle.” Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. rev. ed. Ed. Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. bits of copy gathered from pamphlets she’s read, Kellner. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 117–21. Print. \ information sessions she’s attended, or tapes she’s Lehman, Peter. “Conclusion to the New Edition.” Running Scared: Masculinity and the listened to about her condition. She portrays her Representation of the Male Body. rev. ed. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2007. 235–61. Print. bodily condition in reassuring parts, regurgitating the \ Mayshark, Jesse Fox. Post-Pop Cinema: The Search sales pitch of Wrenwood to her fellow rehabilitants, to for Meaning in New American Film. United States of America: Praeger, 2007. Print. herself, and to the filmic audience. \

42 Film Matters Spring 2014 Feature 06 Falling Victim to Consumer Culture: The Commodification of Bodies in “Smart” Films

Peterson, Jennifer. “Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989).” Fifty Key American Films. Ed. John White and Sabine Haenni. New York: Routledge, 2009. 203–08. Print. \ Safe. Dir. Todd Haynes. Perf. Julianne Moore. American Playhouse Theatrical Films, 1995. DVD. \ Sconce, Jeffrey. “Irony, Nihilism and the New

American ‘Smart’ Film.” Screen 43.4 (2002): 349– ➜ 69. EBSCOhost. Web. 22 March 2013. Author Biography \ Katie Jane Parkes is a recent graduate with a Sex, Lies, and Videotape. Dir. Steven Soderbergh. passion for film. She just wrapped a year as Perf. Andie MacDowell and Peter Gallagher. Co-Director of Marketing and Communications at Film North and is currently the Content Outlaw Productions, 1989. DVD. Coordinator at Waterloo Region’s own Creative \ Enterprise Initiative. She also sits on the Board Tzioumakis, Yannis. “Love, Truth, and the of Directors for the Grand River Festival, where Medium in Sex, Lies, and Videotape.” The Philosophy of she co-created Cin-E-merge, an educational Steven Soderbergh. Ed. R. Barton Palmer and Steven outreach program designed for local aspiring filmmakers. Her dream is to one day direct and M. Sanders. Lexington, KY: University Press of produce her own feature-length film. Kentucky, 2011. 29–50. Print. \ Wilkinson, Stephen. “Objectification, Exploitation & Commodification.” Bodies for Sale: Ethics and Exploitation in the Human Body Trade. London: Routledge, 2003. 27–56. Print. \

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Mentor Biography Stefan Sereda teaches courses in American cinema and film genres at Wilfrid Laurier University, where his doctoral dissertation, “Cinema in Scare Quotes: Postmodern Aesthetics and Economics in the American Art Cinema” earned the Graduate Gold Medal from the Faculty of Arts in 2012. His publications on American and African film have appeared in academic monographs and the peer-reviewed journal, ARIEL.

Department Overview The Film Studies Program at Wilfrid Laurier University emphasizes the study of international film history, the distinctive character of film as a medium, and individual films as texts. It explores questions of film genre, style, theory, and history – always placing film in the context of the liberal arts and in relation to a variety of cultural concerns. Students also investigate the commercial, historical, political, and economic contexts that affect and govern the production of film.

43 Film Matters Spring 2014 ➜