University of Denver Digital Commons @ DU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 1-1-2009 The Spirit of Stuff: What I Learned When I Sold (Almost) Everything Rachel Tamsen Perry Schrank University of Denver Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons, and the Fine Arts Commons Recommended Citation Perry Schrank, Rachel Tamsen, "The Spirit of Stuff: What I Learned When I Sold (Almost) Everything" (2009). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 507. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/507 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. THE SPIRIT OF STUFF: WHAT I LEARNED WHEN I SOLD (ALMOST) EVERYTHING _________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Social Sciences University of Denver _________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts _________ by Rachel Perry Schrank June 2009 Advisor: Tony Gault, M.F.A. © Rachel Perry Schrank 2009 All Rights Reserved Author: Rachel Perry Schrank Title: THE SPIRIT OF STUFF: WHAT I LEARNED WHEN I SOLD (ALMOST) EVERYTHING Advisor: Tony Gault, M.F.A. Degree Date: June 2009 ABSTRACT The following document is a report submitted in conjunction with a video project. The video is a personal documentary, filmed in Denver, Colorado and Mexico City, Mexico, which explores the spiritual connection that people have with their material objects. The report is comprised of a project proposal and a post-production report. The proposal discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the project, and offers a plan for the film’s production. The post-production report discusses my filmmaking process in retrospect, reviews production problems and solutions, and includes a final schedule and budget. ii Table of Contents Chapter One: An Introduction to Stuff and Us……………………………………. 1 Chapter Two: Literature Review………………………………………………….. 3 Why Stuff Matters…………………………………………………………. 3 Theory Shopping: A Guide……………………………………………….. 5 Social Science Perspectives………………………………………………... 6 Objects as Language: A Structuralist Approach…………………………... 9 Stuff and Stories: A Narratological Approach…………………………… 14 Connections From Dream Research……………………………………… 17 Too Much Stuff, Not Enough Meaning…………………………………… 21 Reclaiming the Meaning of Stuff: Dream and Play……………………… 23 Plans for My Film Based on These Theoretical Perspectives……………. 25 Material Culture on Film and Television…………………………………. 28 Documentary Modes……………………………………………………… 33 Chapter Three: Production Plan………………………………………………….. 36 Modern Hieroglyphs as an Organizing Motif…………………………….. 36 Divining and Defining Modern Hieroglyphs……………………………. 37 Reading Modern Hieroglyphs……………………………………………. 39 Target Audience………………………………………………………….. 40 Chapter Four: Post-Production Report………………………………………….. 42 Pre-Production: Cultivating Serendipity, Developing Relationships……. 42 Production: Serendipity in Full Force……………………………………. 44 Post-Production…………………………………………………………… 45 Chapter Five: Production Analysis………………………………………………. 47 Questions Answered and Unanswered…………………………………… 49 A Return to the Documentary Modes…………………………………….. 48 Filmmaking Problems and Lessons Learned…………………………….. 50 Pre-Production: Creative Procrastination………………………………… 51 Production: Spontaneity vs. Preparation, and a Lesson Learned………... 52 Post-Production: Lessons Learned While Editing……………………….. 53 The Problem of the Final Cut (the Sixth Finger)…………………………. 54 The Problem of the Self-Portrait………………………………………….. 56 Works Cited………………………………………………………………………. 58 Appendices……………………………………………………………………….. 60 Appendix A: Proposed Schedule………………………………………… 60 Appendix B: Proposed Budget…………………………………………… 61 Appendix C: Final Schedule……………………………………………… 62 Appendix D: Final Budget……………………………………………….. 63 iii Tell me what you buy, and I will tell what you are and who you want to be. --James B. Twitchell, Lead Us Into Temptation Chapter One: An Introduction to Stuff and Us It’s no secret that contemporary American society is built upon materialism. The car you drive, the clothes you wear, the size of your television—these things serve as markers of status and identity for modern Americans. As a country of individualists, we have learned that the best way to express our unique selves is not to create, but to buy, to display, and to collect. Thus the capitalist machine continues to churn out the latest trinkets—Beanie Babies, iPods, Hummers—and we continue to buy them. Of course, there are plenty of Americans who reject the habit of overconsumption, those who resist the call of the mall in favor of a simpler, less cluttered lifestyle. Sometimes the disgust with materialism comes suddenly: have you ever, in the midst of a move for instance, wanted to throw everything you own into the backyard and torch it? Yet, even if we indulged these violent and irrational urges, we would still be left with a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion. We would still need a few material objects— some (gasp) stuff—to survive. Not only that, no matter how much we change or grow emotionally, mentally and spiritually, we will always be left with the same basic physical self as we started with. In order to survive, we all must be a little bit materialistic, because our bodies and brains are physical, material. We cannot fully escape from stuff, because we are stuff. So, whether we are hoarders or minimalists, stuff is inescapably present in our lives. 1 One central question will serve as a starting point for the story I want to tell in this documentary about humans and stuff. This question is: how does stuff make meaning in our lives? This single question leads to a number of questions about the specific ways that stuff might make meaning. For instance, in what ways—physical, emotional, spiritual, and interpersonal—do people living in America today define themselves through (or against) material stuff of all kinds? How do we (and have we) use(d) stuff to construct past, present, and future narratives about ourselves and our world? How is the act of storytelling like the act of collecting and sorting through stuff? Finally, how can the language of stuff be deciphered, what are its component parts, and what does it look like? One way that I plan to get at these questions is by gathering, examining, and deconstructing others’ stories about themselves and their stuff. Of particular interest to me in my exploration of the narrative function and symbology of stuff in people’s lives are my own and other’s dreams about stuff, because these should get past our rational explanations of the function of stuff in our lives to the deeper connections that we have with stuff. Another approach will be to examine the parallels between “stuff management”—my term for the gathering, maintenance, selling, and otherwise managing of stuff—and storytelling. For instance, in the same way that a film editor takes a collection of raw footage and turns it into a story, we trim some things out of our lives and place other things on the mantle in the center of our homes, thereby creating, through the symbology of stuff, a narrative about ourselves. 2 Chapter Two: Literature Review Why Stuff Matters A central reason stuff matters is in the major role it plays in the cultivation of our value systems and in the formation of our identities. A good place to examine this interplay of stuff and identity is in the act of shopping. In the Introductory chapter of The Shopping Experience, editors Pasi Falk and Colin Campbell argue that when we shop, we interact with the potential objects of our desire in various ways. We experience the object aesthetically, examining its form to determine whether it pleases us or not. We experience the object viscerally, touching the object, maybe trying it on. We also experience the object symbolically, through “acts of imagination in which the self is mirrored in the potential object of acquisition” (4). In this interaction, a shopper actively engages in the act of identity formation by comparing her inner sense of self with the object in question. She asks questions such as, “’is that for me?’ ; ‘Am I like that?’ ; ‘Could that be (part of) me?’ ; ‘Could I be like that?’ ; ‘Would I like to be like that?’” (4). In this interaction, the shopper considers not only the aesthetic and visceral qualities of the object, but also its symbolic meanings, as inscribed by culture and as decoded at the moment of the shopper/object interaction. With the aid of Malcolm Barnard’s Fashion as Communication, I will be more semiologically precise. When Jane considers buying a miniskirt, the skirt is a sign that functions on the level of both denotative and connotative meaning. On the denotative 3 level, Jane recognizes the ‘common-sense, obvious meaning’ of the skirt, the factual components which comprise its existence (Barnard 84). Thus the skirt’s denotative meaning includes facts such as: it is made of denim, it was made in the United States, it is a Tommy Hilfiger skirt, it is fifteen inches long, it is a size six. On the connotative level, Jane considers the things that the skirt makes her “think or feel,” that is, “the associations” that the skirt has for her (Barnard 85). For instance, Jane might think that the skirt is too short for a woman her age, that it will make her look trampy. Yet she also might like the patriotic red, white, and blue Hilfiger logo, the skirt’s classy dark blue color, and the fact that it’s a $40 skirt on sale for $8. On the connotative level of meaning, Jane’s impressions of the skirt are determined by her value systems, which are in turn influenced by cultural and social factors such as Jane’s age, race, nationality, class, etc. In this way, every one of our shopping encounters is an act of self-definition, in which we decide whether the values connoted by each object coincide with or contradict our own value systems. But if the average consumer knew this, would it help him have more control over his relationship with stuff? In his book Lead Us Into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism, James B.