Posted Date: : Jun 27, 2006 7:51 AM
i read an interesting piece the other day about film noir.
The piece discussed the fall of tragedy from a tale that depicted the struggles of a hero, a real tale of tumbling from way "up there" to way "down here" and all points southward and more hellish then wherever "here" happens to be, to a tale of the struggles of the common man. It pointed out that the commonizing of tragedy in film noir marks the end of tragedy as a genre because any persons experience could be referred to or depicted as tragic. Then the essay turned. It shifted gears and threw in the exception.
The argument went something like this: "tragedy as it stands today must be reborn into something that not everyone can identify with,but everyone can recognize as uncommon pain not like their own. Tragedy as a genre is not dead. It is only more difficult to properly diagnose. Tragic figures are no longer the aristocrats of society displaced to hell. Tragic figures are those who are already there who are socio-economic minorities and are cut off from the common pool of society, who through incredible and fatalistic turns find themselves somehow further ostracised from the common pool of suffering, which is a far worse place to be because it is suffering without the ability to identify oneself with the common sufferings of your fellow man." thats a total paraphrase. the guy who wrote the piece had a much more in depth argument... but you get the idea (i hope).
the problem with being hard out for luck, in need of support, or on the ropes for any reason is that /everyone/ really believes thiers is the ultimate tragedy, and they "turned out okay" so why should they help or even try to empathize with you? thank you media for making hugh grant look like the saddest man alive.
according to this article, a true "tragic figure" candidate could be one of the poor bastards interned in cuba who later returns to society, his life in shambles, dirt poor, and with literally no one willing to identify with him because of his nationality, and his own government, the shining united states of america, unwilling to touch him so they wrap him up in red tape, put a nice little tag on him that says "don't worry, it's all taken care of" and poke him into the back corners of everyones minds with a thirty foot pole to quietly rot away like so much discarded food behind a stove.
so next time you read something that sounds like a person is whining about how hard their life is and they didn't just return from a foriegn countries prison camp where they were raped every night as a prisoner of war maybe give some consideration to the idea that they actually are having a hard time of it (assuming, of course, that their whole life isnt one big complaint. there are people that are addicted to sorrow and lamentation, or at least i think there are). instead of accusing them of crying to heaven "WHY ME!!" get out of your own stories of overcoming woes for just a moment, discard your images and ideas of how everyone suffers the same, and take a minute to consider that given their circumstances you really have no frame of reference (besides media, which pollutes, dilutes, and confuses the idea of what is and is not suffering on a day-to-day basis and, loosely, your own personal experiences) to judge them accurately.
this is not to say that you have no right to make your judgements. it is to say that i believe you should not pass judgement based on the idea that you've had it just as bad or know someone who has, when what you're really operating on is an idea based in the commonizing of tragedy and the assumption that suffering is an experience without meter that unifies us all. it doesnt.
i wish i could remember the name of the article... it was very provocative.
No comments:
Post a Comment