[Post]Oedipai Fatherhood and Subjectivity in ABC's Lost "T

"All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues": [Post]Oedipai Fatherhood And Subjectivity In ABC's Lost "t Gozde Killc Interdisciplinary MA Program in Popular Culture Submitted ill partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master ofArts in Popular Culture Faculty of Social Sciences, Brock University St. Catharines, Ontario ©Gozde Kilic, August 2011 To My Mother, Whom I will always love and remember Abstract ABC's popular television series Lost has been pJaised as one of the most innovative programs in the history of broadcast television primarily due to its unique storytelling content and structure. In this thesis, I argue that in spite of its unconventional stances in terms of narrative, genre, and character descriptions, Lost still conforms to the conventional understanding of family, fatherhood, and subjectivity by perpetuating the psychoanalytic myth of the Oedipus complex. The series emphasizes the centrality of the father in the lives of the survivors, and constructs character developments according to Freud's essentialist and phallocentric conception of subjectivity. In this way, it continues the classic psychoanalytic tradition that views the father as the essence of one's identity. In order to support this argument, I conduct a discursive reading of the show's two main characters: Jack Shepherd and John Locke. Through such a reading, I explore and unearth the mythic/psychoanalytic importance of the father in the psychology of these fictional constructs. Acknowledgements Here comes my favourite part of the thesis: expressing my gratitude to those whom I am deeply indebted in conducting and fInishing this thesis. I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Sarah Matheson, for her mentorship, support, and especially encouragement during times of despondency and despair. I would also like to thank the members of my committee: Professor Jeannette Sloniowski for her insightful comments and help in making this thesis better; Professor Joel Faflak for his meticulous reading and suggestions for revision of the thesis as well as for his direction in future research; Professor Sherryl Vint for laying out a very clear schedule for deadlines and preventing me from getting lost. I am also thankful to our Graduate Program Coordinator, Amanda Bishop, for all her patience and diligence whenever I needed help. In the process of writing this thesis, I have undergone maybe the hardest time of my life, as I had to deal with my mother's unexpected health condition. I am grateful to my family, my sister and my father, for always being there for me and supporting me in fInishing the thesis even though it meant travelling back and forth between Canada and Turkey. Above all, my biggest gratitude goes to my boyfriend, Zak Bronson, without whose assistance I would not have been able to fmish this thesis. Thank you for being with me in difficult times and sharing both my grief and joy. Thank you for your never ending support and love. And thank you for your constant re-reading of my thesis, guidance in conducting research, and simply being there to listen when I theorize about contemporary society and link everything at the end (maybe sometimes falsely) to the father. Last but not least, I would like t2 thank Patti Bronson, for providing me with a warm house to stay this year and for showing me the care of a mother. I also would like to thank these individuals for providing respite from overwhelming thesis work and making some of my days fun: Merve Ersoy, Senem Demiralp, Yesim Ulusoy, Angela Pizzacalla, and Roman Pizzacalla. Lastly, to my dear mother, whose memory will never fade away, I dedicate this thesis. ii Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements ii CHAPTERl Introduction 1 1.1 Situating Lost 4 1.2 Early Television Fathers: the 1950s and 1960s 10 -" 1.3 Television Fathers in Flux: from the 1970s to the Present 16 1.4 Lost and the Representation of Fatherhood 21 1.5 Methodology 25 CHAPTER 2 Literature review A psychoanalytic look at the father and the decline of paternal authority 35 2.1 Freud: The Oedipal and the Primal Father 39 2.2 Lacan: The Symbolic Father 42 2.3 The Decline of the Symbolic Father and Emergence ofToday's Narcissistic Personality 46 2.4 Celebration or Loss: What Happens After the Death of the Symbolic Father? 51 CHAPTER 3 The past spilling into the present: Jack Shepherd and the paternal roots of his flawed identity 56 3.1 Jack's Split Personality: A Hero and/or A Failure 60 3.2 Jack's Depression: A Castaway off the Island 70 iii 3.3 Jack's Transformation: A New Quest on the Island 74 CHAPTER 4 In search of a paternal substitute: John Locke and the need for father's authority and guidance 81 4.1 Locke's Search for Paternal Guidance: The Island as Father Substitute 85 4.2 Locke's Island Worship: Faith, Fate, and Destiny 95 4.3 Locke's Self-Sacrifice and Death 102 CHAPTERS Conclusion 107 /' 5.1 The Sixth Season of Lost and the Return to the Father 110 5.2 A Final Reflection 115 Works Cited 120 Videography 127 iv 1 INTRODUCTION In Fall, 2009, the producers of ABC's Lost (September, 2004 - May, 2010) launched an advertising campaign that enabled fans of the program to enroll in the fictitious Lost University, an online, promotional university where students can partake in online courses that delve into issues and themes central to the narrative of the show. The university includes classes such as "Philosophy 101: I'nyLost, Therefore I am," "Physics 101: Introductory Physics of Time Travel," and "History 101: Ancient Writing on the Wall." Through these courses, fans of the program are able to read, examine, and discuss some of the myths and ideas that underpin the mysteries of the Lost universe. Among the more serious of the courses offered is "Psychology 201: Self Discovery Through Family Relationships," which offers fans the ability to discuss "the complex relationships explored on the show," and "break down and explore how character's choices are influenced by their family or childhood experience" ("PSY 201 "). The ideas of family and self examined through this promotional course highlight the wider discussion of family relationships that are central to my analysis of Lost in this thesis. I am generally interested in exploring the intimate and complex relationship of the subject with parental figures: how familial conflicts of childhood, even of adulthood, continue to exert profound influences on the psychology of the Lost characters and how these conflicts dictate the shape of their quests on the island. The castaways' familial 1 histories that are revealed through their flashbacks become the major motivating factor for their later development both on and off the island. In my thesis, I am particularly interested in exploring the father figure and how father-child conflicts in the series playa significant role in the formation and position of the characters' subjectivity. In Lost, most castaways are depicted as having had unpleasant experience involving either their own fathers, or themselves in the father role. As Kat Sanchez writes in her column, "Lost, as a whole, has not been kind to the father figure." In the show, fathers are notoriously bad at sustaining their ties with their children. Most of them are absent and the ones that are not are portrayed as unloving, negligent, or tyrannical. For example, the protagonist Jack Shepherd (Matthew Fox) has a contentious relationship with his father, who is often too strict and rigid to be of any emotional support to his son. His partner on the island, Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) constantly runs from the law after killing her molester father. John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) suffers from a deceitful father who is responsible for almost every tragedy in his life, including his kidney loss and his paralysis. Likewise, the rugged individualist James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway) is greatly influenced by the familial drama he went through as a little boy: when he witn~ssed his parents' murder/suicide. Jack, Kate, Locke, and Sawyer are just a few of the characters in the show that are portrayed as wounded and torn up by their relationship with their fathers. They repeatedly project aspects of their paternal drama onto their adult world, where the decisions they take and the choices they make are greatly influenced by their past father complexes. Father issues lie at the core of Lost's narrative. Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, the co-producers and writers of the show, acknowledge the prominence of this recurring 2 theme while answering a fan's question at a recent Comic-Con convention: "I think father issues are very much a part of the show. Dramatically, that is something that we deal with extensively. And if you look at the characters on the show, a lot of the characters have 'daddy issues'. And that is sort of a thematic thread, and something that is very much a part of how we come up with stories and how we break stories" ("Official Lost Podcast,,)l. Because it is given much emphasis in the narrative of Lost, father issues have never fallen out of favor in discussions of the show. Various Lost-related media such as web sites, blogs, books, and magazine articles have taken up the issue pointing to the significance of the 'deadbeat dads' in the show. Fan~,feeling compelled to fmd an explanation for the father issues speculate about the show on numerous websites and in 2 online forums • Books about the show allot chapters to the discussion ofthe parent-child 3 relationships, laying out their own theorizing about its pervasiveness • Magazine articles comment on Lost's theme of failed fathers and warped children under titles such as "The 'Bad Daddy' Fixation on Lost," "Daddy Dearest-Are Father Issues at the Core of Lost?" and "Shepherd's Daddy Issues Multiply on Losl" However, since these sources are written primarily for a non-academic audience, they all present a superficial and somewhat sketchy underst~ding of the origins and effects of the failed fatherhood in the show.

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