Postmodernism in America 7

Freud:

Influence in Hollywood:

1. thanatos - the military, anti-social death instinct.

2. eros - the multifold, life affirming sexual instinct.

Hollywood formula of sex and violence. thanatos and eros also have a symbiotic relationship as in Picasso's painting of a pregnant woman looking at herself in the mirror (mirror representing death).

The hero represents the "ego" fighting heroically against the terrible and destabilzing forces of the id. The superego is represented by elders (chorus in Greek targedy). The ego is often overwhelmed by conflict and sometimes is almost broken apart by the antagonist. But the hero survives.

Oedipus Complex:

An attempt to make all human beings feel guilty for hating the Jews.

This is misanthropy.

Blaming all Germans for the Holocaust is sheer stupidity just like Blaming all Jews for the killing of Christ is sheer stupidity.

Psychic mechanisms:

This was Freud's real genius. Regression, repetition compulsion, personal psychological mechanisms.

Religion:

Basically, God is an extrojection of our superego. Satan is an extrojection of our id. This is probably why religious conservatives hate Freud but didn't Christ want to imprint the human soul with the image of God and Satan and struggle against these two forces. Last Temptation of Christ by Scorcese shows this dynamic.

Interpretation of Dreams:

Again Hollywood:

In dreams, the manifest content hides the repressed content in the same way that Picasso's artwork hides the real meaning of his work.

The Will in the subconscious wants to fulfill a wish and it does it through dreams. Sometimes, the Will feels very much alive as if it were some remnant of a pre-conscious past.

Joseph Campbell said that myths are public dreams. Many Hollywood films are public myths. Myths are fictional stories that expresses value and social systems.

1. Symbolism: A cigar may stand for a penis. Here, the repressed content resides in the libido which is neither masculine or feminine but bisexual?

2. Synthesis: Two images that are symbiotically related are combined into one image. Darth Vader in Star Wars. Darth Vader (Dark Father, Dutch).
The Fascist mechanical and emotionless leader and the human, unformed father.

3. Displacement: transferrence of some dangerous instinct onto a scapegoat. All those films in which you think that someone is the actually the killer, but that person ends up being innocent.