Post Script - Essays in Film and the Humanities
19:2 (Winter 1999-Spring 2000)
p. 34-48
*Jon Radwan*
*Generation X, the in-between generation born after the Baby
Boomers and before the Boomer-babies, is now an official cohort. As they
came of age, Generation X quickly developed a distinctive identity
pattern--a way of being and doing that both sets them apart from their
elders and also distinguishes them from their own children. One of the
most persistent terms used to identify the Generation Xer's distinctive
approach to life is ''slacker.'' In order to generate insight into how
this cohort relates to the rest of society, this essay presents a close
reading of Richard Linklater's <#LINKLATER1992> surprisingly popular
film, /Slacker/ (1991). After a brief introduction to slackers and the
film, this critique interprets /Slacker/'s formal and thematic
dimensions in terms of postmodern aesthetics. The conclusion reunites
form and content and closes by looking to the future of American film.
My basic thesis is that postmodern cinema is an authentic expression of
the Generation X attitude. /Slacker/ is a pioneering film in this
movement that offers a cohesive representation of the slack aesthetic on
visual, aural, and thematic levels.
Slackers
Defining slackers is a questionable task. Much of what they are about
involves defying, or at least avoiding, naming as a matter of principle.
/The Official Slacker Handbook/ (a text whose existence is oxymoronic;
true slackers would not buy a handbook, especially not an official one)
offers daily affirmations designed to keep one slack. The
self-affirmation recommended for Wednesday (every Wednesday) expresses
the slacker's sense of identity.
I am an Individual. I will not be categorized. I refuse to align
myself with a political party, because doing so would only place
more power into the hands of the ruling elite. Of course, I prefer
to have liberal Democrats in office because the Republicans aren't
going to help me with things like welfare fraud. But beyond that, I
really don't care. (Dunn <#DUNN1994> 115)
In general, slackers are a subset of generation Xers or
twenty-somethings, the ''thirteenth'' generation born between 1960 and
1980 (Coupland <#COUPLAND1991> , Dunn <#DUNN1994> , Howe et al
<#HOWEETAL> ). The slacker subculture is deeply disillusioned and does
not accept traditional American values, especially the work ethic and
consumerism. Instead, /getting by/ is the primary motive, with excess
time spent sleeping, thinking, talking, reading, watching movies, and
being creative--all activities that mainstream culture defines as leisure.
It is important to note that there are many who object to having their
generation characterized as a listless group of slackers.
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Rather than assume that all people from this generation lack ambition
and sneer at progress, it is probably best to consider genuine slackers,
and Linklater's <#LINKLATER1992> film depicting them, as an extreme
manifestation of the beliefs, feelings, and ideas of generation X as a
whole (Tierney 51). Slackers are a subculture, but their intelligence,
cynicism, and relaxed indifference is a clear enactment of the broader
attitude shared by much of Generation X. The slackers live out the ideas
that the rest of the generation merely considers. Slacker
In the summer of 1991, an independently produced low budget film was
released nationwide and quickly became a ''hit'' (/New York Times/,
8/7/91). /Slacker/, Richard Linklater's <#LINKLATER1992> first feature
length effort, was not merely popular. It received a wide variety of
critical reactions (many, but certainly not all, were favorable) that
established Linklater <#LINKLATER1992> as a rising star in the
competitive world of motion picture directors (Kroll <#KROLL1991> 57).
He went on to enjoy mainstream success with his next film, about high
school in the '70s, called /Dazed and Confused/.
/Slacker/ itself is distinctly non-Hollywood; there is no plot.
/Slacker/ eschews the classic Hollywood narrative in favor of a
cross-sectional tour of an American subculture. The camera follows one
''interesting'' person/slacker for awhile and then selects another, and
then another, and another ... --for ninety-seven minutes. Broad
structure is provided by an apparent twenty-four hour progression. The
film wanders, from dawn to dawn, around the fringes of the University of
Texas at Austin.
Much of the script is monologue, or at least very one-sided dialogue,
and the subjects are diverse. Conspiracy theories, UFOs, revolution,
nihilism, sexual terrorism, Madonna's reproductive health, and the media
are just a few of the topics that the slackers attempt to explain to one
another. Their views vary in intensity and coherence, but overall,
slackers are critical of American values. A sense of powerlessness in
the face of a Boomer-dominated system encourages them to adopt
alternative lifestyles. After all, to keep a 9 to 5 job is to buy into a
corrupt system. Slackers live within a consumer culture, but they will
not become part of it.
According to /Slacker/ (1992), Linklater's <#LINKLATER1992> book that
provides behind-the-scenes information about the film, there are two
thematic tensions that structure.
In the film: Characters' desire to act contrasted with their
inability to do so.
Outside the film: Those who expect a traditional narrative and are
not getting one. (13)
Formally, the film creates the impression that it is composed of a
single (very) long take. Perpetually moving, dollying slowly and
gracefully, the camera-work evokes a documentary tone, like a nature
show photographer exploring the slack habitat. A seamless continuity is
achieved by avoiding the classic Hollywood editing practices. Shot
reverse shot sequences are rare, and cuts never occur during transitions
from one character to the next. Instead, the infrequent cuts appear
unobtrusively between long takes, only after we are already established
in a new (and equally temporary) seam of significance.
Postmodern Aesthetics
/Slacker/'s formal organization and dramatic content suggest that the
film employs a markedly postmodern aesthetic. Before getting specific
about /Slacker/'s formal and thematic elements, it is important to
describe just what is meant by a ''postmodern aesthetic.''
If modernism is an ideology associated with progress, clarity of
purpose, faith in the system, efficiency, and order that inhabits a
hierarchical world with sharp lines and clear boundaries, then
postmodernism is an ideology that opposes all of these values.
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As we in the West approach the end of the twentieth century, the
''modern'' record of world wars, the rise of Nazism, concentration
camps (in both East and West), genocide, worldwide depression ...
--makes any belief in the idea of progress or faith in the future
seem questionable. Post-modernists criticize all that modernism has
engendered: the accumulated experience of Western civilization,
industrialization, urbanization. They challenge modern priorities:
career, office, individual responsibility, bureaucracy, liberal
democracy, tolerance, humanism. (Rosenau <#ROSENAU1992> 5)
The postmodern alternative is not widespread anarchy, as many modernists
fear. Rather, it is a deep-seated mistrust of all totalizing narratives
and a careful avoidance of any potential for hypocrisy. ''The
post-modern goal is not to formulate an alternative set of assumptions,
but to register the impossibility of establishing any such underpinning
for knowledge'' (Rosenau <#ROSENAU1992> 6).
Postmodernism's relativistic values and hypercritical stance work
themselves into art in a variety of ways. Overall, singular approaches
to meaning are to be avoided. The author is not accepted as the final
authority on what the work means. Instead, the reader's power to
interpret is recognized and valued (Barthes <#BARTHES1993> ). Because
meaning is always negotiable, postmodern artists often organize their
work so that audiences are invited (or required) to work with the ideas
expressed, ultimately coming to their own understanding of how the piece
communicates. The list below compiles some specific aesthetic patterns
that enable artists to problematize meaning, authority, and society
(Burns <#BURNS1994> ). An author associated with each idea follows in
parentheses.
*
* pastiche (Jameson <#JAMESON1991> )
*
* intertextuality (Bauman)
*
* high degree of reflexivity (Jencks <#JENCKS1989> )
*
* ambiguity/indeterminacy, refusal to make a clear point
*
* depthlessness (Jencks <#JENCKS1989> )
*
* fragmentation/deconstruction (Derrida)
*
* schizophrenia/polylogia (Jameson <#JAMESON1991> )
*
* plunder history, sense of eternal present
*
* reject master narratives, deconstruct foundations (Lyotard
<#LYOTARD1984> )
*
* ironic double-coding/paradoxical dualism (Leitch <#LEITCH1992> )
*
* hybrid, plural ism/eclecticism--toleration/celebration of
difference (Rosenau <#ROSENAU1992> )
*
* simulacra/image (Baudrillard)
*
* blur boundaries, such as art vs. commerce or high vs. pop
culture (Lyotard <#LYOTARD1984> )
Any given work of art will not exhibit all of these characteristics, but
they do tend to show up together. A close reading of the particular way
that /Slacker/ interprets these aesthetic patterns will show us how
Generation X relates to contemporary (very modern) American society.
Critique
If postmodern cinema is a genuine expression of the Generation X
attitude, then /Slacker/ is a clear example of postmodern film that
appeals to Xers because it is a cohesive expression of the intelligent,
relaxed, and profoundly indifferent slacker lifestyle. Many of the
postmodern aesthetic patterns listed above are evident within the film.
Among the most prominent are schizophrenia, rejection of master
narratives, fragmentation, pastiche, and depthlessness.
This critique will discuss /Slacker/'s aural and visual form in general
and then proceed to its thematic dimensions. The section on Form
addresses the script, setting, shot composition, camera movement, and
editing, while the section on Themes discusses four ideas important to
Generation X: question master narratives, anarchy, conspiracy, and the
value of images over reality.
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Form
Overall, Linklater <#LINKLATER1992> provides us with a representation of
some of the most slack members of Generation X, not a story about them.
This is an important formal contrast: stories are modern, they provide a
singular account of what has happened. Re-presentations are more
ambiguous. What they mean and how they fit together is up to the
audience. However, just because there is no plot does not mean that
there is no script. /Slacker/ is virtually all talk, mostly monologue,
and all the characters get a chance to deliver their spiel. This pattern
is in keeping with the postmodern ethic of relativism and
egalitarianism, with the ultimate result that no voice is privileged
over any other. No one is marginalized, and no matter how outrageous the
content, the speakers get to finish what they are saying.
The continuous succession of monologues presents us with a catalog of
slacker subculture. Post-structural literary theorist Vincent Leitch
<#LEITCH1992> argues that catalogs are a paradigmatic postmodern form.
In his view, catalogs are significant because they do not attempt to
establish a totalizing master narrative explaining everything.
''Incomplete and disjunctive, catalogs stand in for unified totalities.
For poststructuralists, texts are always already multitrack intertexts.
In the beginning was the polylogue, socially situated and heteroglot''
(xiii). /Slacker/ is the polylogue incarnate. Each one of thirty-three
distinct sequences could have potentially become its own track, but
rather than follow one character, we are introduced to a diverse
multiplicity of voices, all situated within a single Austin neighborhood
on a single day.
/Slacker/'s visual structure supports the schizoid catalog form that
governs the script. Taken as a whole, the film has no single personality
but a vast multiplicity--we see one hundred characters of potentially
equal status (although ''only'' seventy or eighty are significant enough
to receive a significant time allotment within their sequence).
Jameson's <#JAMESON1991> description of postmodern schizophrenia is a
bit technical but enlightening.
Meaning on the new view is generated by the movement from signifier
to signifier. What we generally call the signified--the meaning or
conceptual content of an utterance--is now rather to be seen as a
meaning-effect, as that objective mirage of signification generated
and projected by the relationship of signifiers among themselves.
When that relationship breaks down, when the links of the signifying
chain snap, then we have schizophrenia in the form of a rubble of
distinct and unrelated signifiers. (26)
If we take the succession of visual images in /Slacker/ as Jameson's
<#JAMESON1991> utterance, the meaning of the film is not established
through any reference to another conceptual order beyond the visual, but
is generated by the incessant flow from one signifier/vignette to the next.
/Slacker/ is set on the edges of the University of Texas at Austin.
Because much of the film takes place out of doors, streets and buildings
are a significant part of the mise en scène. This section of Austin has
seen better days, and is in a state of mild decay. There are no shiny
skyscrapers here, just dusty storefronts and homes converted into
student apartments.
Indoor scenes also lack any display of wealth. It is simply not the
slacker way. Couches rescued from the curb on trash day, instruments
made from empty water jugs, and bicycles from 1964 are all
representative of a subculture that has refused to believe in
consumerism, progress, and the work ethic. The bare necessities can
really get pretty bare if you're willing to do it--Ramen noodles and a
place to sleep. As Hitch-hiker Awaiting the True Call puts it, ''I may
live badly, but at least I don't have to work to do it!''
/Slacker/ makes use of available lighting, usually the sun. This helps
to establish the cyclical progression of the film and reinforces
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figure 1. *use of natural light reinforces the impression of a
documentary style continuous long take.* the impression of a documentary
style continuous long take. When the film begins at dawn, the early
morning light filters through the bus window and immerses Should Have
Stayed at the Bus Station (played by Linklater <#LINKLATER1992> ) in
muted blues and purples. As the morning progresses and the Texas sun
rises, we are treated to the objective and revealing light of day.
Later, as night falls illumination is provided by street-lights and
other natural sources. The absence of artificial light is characteristic
of documentary film and contributes to the impression that we are seeing
these people as they actually are--without the mediation of a judgmental
director guiding our impressions.
The camera work in /Slacker/ is exceedingly reserved. Non-intrusive and
nonjudgmental, the visual style of the film resembles a wandering eye,
casting its gaze upon whoever seems interesting for the moment. This
mode of organization conveys the fragmented depthlessness characteristic
of many postmodern artworks (Jencks <#JENCKS1989> ). We simply are not
with anyone long enough to really get to know them. The characters do
not even have real names. The end result is a film that is a ''series of
deadpan vignettes'' (Hoberman <#HOBERMAN1991> 27), brief and superficial
representations that present us with nothing beyond what individual
slackers look and talk like at a given moment.
Camera and character movements are prominent in /Slacker/. Freedom of
movement can be read as a central metaphor for slacker culture as a
whole. Walking (or aimless
figure 2. *camera and character movement is prominent* */slacker./*
*this freedom of movement serves as a central metaphor for the slacker
sub-culture.*
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meandering) occupies a significant portion of screen time. The camera
itself is in perpetual motion, dollying or panning to follow a temporary
seam of significance and pausing only to hear an interesting
conversation or shoot someone grabbing a cup of coffee. Most movement in
/Slacker/ occurs on the X and to a lesser extent Z (usually away from
the camera) axes. The camera never rises (or even tilts), and characters
rarely go up or down. This predominance of lateral movement expresses
the postmodern depthlessness. In addition, lack of vertical movement
means that no one is ever placed above anyone else--privileged positions
are for modernists.
A final note about movement can be drawn from Jameson <#JAMESON1991> .
While discussing the speed of ''postmodern hyper-space,'' the new
geography of the information superhighway and global capitalism, he
qoutes Michael Herr's riveting description of the postmodern war (Viet
Nam) machine, the helicopter. He concludes that ''in this new machine,
which does not, like the older modernist machinery of the locomotive or
airplane, represent motion, but can only be represented in motion,
something of the mystery of the new postmodernist space is
concentrated'' (45). Slacker space is of the
figure 3. *much of the egalitarian ethic in* */slacker/* *is achieved
through neutral positioning of figures within the frame.* same order.
Their space is not on a map with clear relationships and distances
between landmarks; it is in continual motion. You do not have to live in
a particular place to be a slacker--it is a mode of being and doing,
speaking and acting, that can only be represented in motion.
Much of the egalitarian ethic in /Slacker/ is achieved through neutral
positioning of figures within the frame. Camera angles in /Slacker/ are
completely neutral. Almost invariably set at eye level, the camera
provides no judgment and not even a hint of condescension or admiration.
There are no canted shots. Tracking shots are the norm, a choice that
serves to maintain character presence in the center of the screen. This
non-judgmental camera attitude leaves it to the viewer to decide in what
manner to evaluate the given character. This is not a typical Hollywood
practice. Consider Giannetti's <#GIANNETTI1987> description of modern
positioning techniques.
Hostility and suspicion between two characters can be conveyed by
keeping them at the edges of a composition, with a maximum of space
between them, or by having an intrusive character force his or her
physical presence into the other character's territory, which is
temporarily defined by the confines of the frame. (58-59)
/Slacker/ eschews these expressionistic proxemics and conveys a
relativistic political stance. Nobody is marginalized or shunted to
the sides of the frame (in danger of falling off or out), because
each character is of equal significance and import, a link in the
chain of visual signifiers.
/Slacker/ also avoids Hollywood editing techniques like continuity
cutting and parallel editing
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(cross-cutting). The film's impression of a continuous long take is
largely achieved by /not/ placing /any/ cuts during transitions between
sequences. Indeed, cutting seems to be avoided whenever possible. The
first twenty-three hours of the slackers' day is presented with only one
hundred twenty-two shots, an exceedingly slow pace by Hollywood
standards. Several sequences have no cuts at all. One example is the
conversation (a dramatic event typically presented in shot reverse-shot
form) between Ultimate Loser, Stephanie from Dallas, and Pap Smear
Pusher in shot 30. Reactions are still presented, but they are realized
through six pans between medium two shots. The end result is a film that
more closely approximates actual lived experience than most Hollywood
productions. We experience the visual world through a single set of
eyes, and this vision is never interrupted (except for blinking) by a
cut to another point of view.
Shot composition in /Slacker/ is characterized by an open style and
loose framing. Potential camera and character movements are rarely
restricted, for the mise en scène is spaciously distributed and never
boxes anyone in (the ''open range'' mythos of Texas, the anything goes
university subcultural atmosphere). This choice reinforces both the
non-judgmental camera-work and egalitarian politics of the film. The
only limits on slackers seem to be those of their own imaginations,
which are themselves quite nimble and extremely far-ranging. If even the
mainstream ''necessities'' of personal hygiene and gainful employment
have no hold on these people, how could symbolic film techniques like
tight framing or closed forms hold them back?
In /Slacker/, the dominant camera distances range from the medium to
long shot. Once again, this technique helps to convey a non-judgmental
orientation. Close-ups, which are typically employed to direct/force
viewer attention toward the director's understanding of a significant
detail, are completely absent here. Likewise, extreme long shots, which
are often used to depict the dominance of surroundings over a miniscule
figure, are missing. It is not up to Linklater <#LINKLATER1992> to
decide what is important for us (although in a broader sense he
obviously has), we the viewers must select for ourselves the details
which speak to us. The
figure 4. *dominant camera distance ranges from medium to long shots.
this mode of filmmaking conveys a nonjudgmental viewer[rarr ]character
orientation.* signified is left in ambiguity; the point is for us to
decide.
In terms of overall form, /Slacker/ is not drama in any conventional
sense of the term. Narrative structure is missing, there is no central
conflict to be resolved, and no climactic turning point. Characters are
not developed, and we witness no epiphanies. To a great degree, it is
the casting that gives /Slacker/ a documentary air that leaves viewers
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with a sense of sincerity and actuality. The budget precluded any star
consideration, and so the film is populated with local non-actors
selected on the basis of camera presence and slack sensibility. This
means that the picture may have a ''genuine'' relationship to ''actual''
slackers. Through casting real people and not actors, this film depicts
subcultural subjects who actually have a role in determining the
finished product. This cannot happen in Hollywood. There, actors are
paid to give the impression of being someone else. Famous actors are
paid to be themselves playing someone else. In a scheme like this, there
is little possibility of the cast having a genuine relationship with the
role. Everyone knows that Tom Cruise was never a jet pilot.
Non-actors acting can look a lot like real life. Indeed, if we take a
Burkean or Goffmanesque position, social life is directly analogous to
acting. In /Slacker/, this impression is built up by Linklater's
<#LINKLATER1992> open approach to filmmaking. Here are his instructions
to the cast.
The character's emotions: will always be your own (can't be forced
from you/must arise from yourself). We must labor to bring forward
the right FEELING from which the right expression arises.
Disconnect your scene from the whole (especially the preceding scene).
We are striving for a TRUTHFUL state of mind/being that cannot be
feigned ... the truth of THAT moment's state of mind.
Live your OWN inner life in front of the sensitive camera. Don't try
to convey the full depths of what is going on with you.
Simply show LIFE (the audience will find within themselves the
appreciation of what you're doing). The film is much more interested
in who you are than what you're doing.
Need to accept the rules of the film and have a large capacity for
trust (in the film and its personnel). (12)
These guidelines were followed, and the result is acting that supports
an aesthetic based on fragmentation, depthlessness, the present, and
suspension of judgment.
/Slacker/ does not rely on a single cinematic dimension to establish its
postmodern style. All elements the script, setting, lighting, movement,
editing, shot composition, and casting, work together to provide a
cohesive representation of the slack subcultural style. Next, in the
section on themes, we can see how Generation X's postmodern
sensibilities are worked out in /Slacker/'s succession of monologues.
Themes
Although the range of topics discussed by the slackers is broad, four
prominent themes can be identified across multiple sequences. Generation
X is characterized as a (more or less) intelligent group of young people
who spend their copious time questioning cultural narratives, praising
anarchy, visualizing conspiracies, and mediating their experience.
Question Master Narratives
The late twentieth century's interrogation of modernism's accepted
accounts of the physical and social world is one of Lyotard's
<#LYOTARD1984> central themes in /The Postmodern Condition/. In the same
way, Generation X has completed its own questioning and has found many
socially accepted stories and roles wanting. The uniquely slack strategy
adopted to deal with obviously corrupt cultural narratives is called
''Conscious Non-Participation.'' This ideal is the answer to those who
view slackers as shiftless and lazy. As Dunn <#DUNN1994> stresses, ''the
point must be made that deliberately opting out of socially-recognized
forms of activity isn't the same thing as stumbling into inaction. If
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table 1 *bush basher's argument*
you refuse to be a cog in our economic machine you become, de facto, a
detached spectator with a lot of free time on your hands'' (6). Primary
among the narratives rejected in /Slacker/ are representative democracy,
consumerism, and the Protestant work ethic.
The American democratic process is most directly questioned in Bush
Basher's scene. Shot 18 contains Basher's entire monologue. It is a
confusing statistically warranted argument against media assertions that
president Bush received a ''mandate from the masses'' in the '88
election. Parsed out, the argument looks like the diagram shown in .
Like most statistical arguments, this one depends upon the quality of
data and commensurability of units compared. I wrote out the argument in
ideal form. As delivered, it loses much of the logical appeal. Bush
Basher names his source when asked, but is not always specific about
units compared. For instance, ''the vote'' is used in two different
contexts, referring to registered voters with Bush and residents with
Pinochet. Further, the quick switch from 34% to 43% in the Pinochet
comparison may cause one to wonder if he is just making this up.
Regardless of whether the argument is sound, the point is that he is
attempting to argue, in a somewhat sophisticated manner, with the mass
mediated narrative explaining the 1988 presidential election and present
his own account. Our post-Watergate information society has provided him
with the mathematical training, statistical materials, and attitude that
can allow him to conclude ''I mean, it just seems that one day it's
going to dawn on everybody that this large, nonvoting majority has been
winning every election for the past three decades, and the people that
win these elections are going to be too ashamed or better yet, too
afraid to even take power at all.''
Democracy is just one target narrative. Non-participation in The
Consumer Game is indicated through slacker costume and living space. For
them, there is no need to answer the incessant call from advertisers to
purchase the inevitable upgrade. As Linklater <#LINKLATER1992> notes,
even with environmentalism ''the question's always WHAT to buy. It's
never WHETHER to buy or not'' (21). For everything possible, slackers
have chosen not to buy. This is not to say that possessions are
inherently bad, just that there are other ways of obtaining them.
''Rejecting the nose-to-the grindstone lifestyle that's founded upon the
ethic of Purchasing New Things isn't the same as rejecting the ethic of
Mooching, Shoplifting, and Stealing them'' (Dunn <#DUNN1994> 6). Grocery
Grabber of Death's Bounty, Two For one Special, Recluse In Bathrobe, all
five Capitalist Youths,
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Hitch-Hiker Awaiting the ''True Call,'' the Cadillac Crooks, and
Handstamping Arm Licker are just a few of the many characters that
obtain goods and services without cash.
Rejection of consumerism is closely tied to the slacker work ethic.
Slacker jobs (when taken) are not seen as a significant part of the
worker's identity, but rather as an occasionally necessary and always
temporary evil. This is largely because a changing economy has decreased
the number of available career opportunities and concentrated the
remaining jobs into the service industry. Author Douglas Coupland
<#COUPLAND1991> describes the positions available to most Generation
Xers as ''McJob[s]: A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit,
no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying
career choice by people who have never held one'' (5). Slack rejection
of such a career path is not a difficult task. In addition, a
''successful'' economic life increasingly depends more upon chance than
skill or effort. Howe and Strauss <#HOWEETAL> quote a twenty-eight year
old novelist who has just received a substantial advance on her first
book. ''It's like the lottery. I'm expecting a car to hit me to offset
this'' (119).
Most characters in the film exhibit this work ethic, but Hitch-Hiker
Awaiting the ''True Call'' puts the attitude into a political slogan.
''To all you workers out there: every single commodity you produce is a
piece of your own death.'' If everyone listened and opted not to
participate, the capitalist machine would grind to a halt, significantly
shifting power balances and, perhaps, ultimately resulting in anarchy.
Anarchy
For many, anarchism is the logical end-point of postmodern lines of
interrogation. If there are no agreed upon values, the eventual result
will be ''every [wo]man for themselves.'' For modernists, with a lot
invested in representative democracy and the communicative rationality
it depends upon, such a position is anathematic. Consider this piece of
dialog from those much maligned commentators on the products of our
post-industrial consumer culture, Beavis and Butthead.
Butthead--Don't you care about anything but yourself Beavis?
Beavis--Heh heh heh ... No ... huh huh huh.
Butthead--Heh heh, uuuuh ... What about when I'm kicking your ass?
Heh huh ...
Beavis--Heh heh ... Well, uh, then I just care about my butt ...
heh, huh, heh heh. (Church <#CHURCH1995> )
Beavis and Butthead are the incarnation of modernist fears. Their
complete lack of social conscience is the force that ensures banning in
many areas as well as their continued popularity.
While the values expressed by Beavis, Butthead, and many slackers do not
remotely support traditional modernist ones, it is exceedingly rare for
a slacker to be motivated enough to actually coordinate the effort
required for change. Indeed, anarchism seems to preclude the chain of
command necessary for any mass mobilization. Any social influence from
the slackers will characteristically be of the solo ''lead by example''
variety rather than any charismatic leader organizing for revolution.
In /Slacker/ we are presented with two extremes of the lone wolf
anarchist continuum. Old Anarchist occupies the mild pole. He professes
to ''hate the police,'' idolizes McKinley's anarchist assassin, and
relates stories about his experiences in the Spanish civil war. However,
as his daughter Delia informs us, this is just what he ''tells
everyone.'' The Old Anarchist firmly believes in the principle of
anarchy, but takes no direct action to realize it. A gentle man, instead
of violence, he speaks to anyone who will listen (like many slackers),
advocating the values and cause of anarchism. Two of his more profound
maxims are
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''Remember, the passion for destruction is also a creative
passion.'' and ''Every action is a positive action, even if it has a
negative result.''
They point out that every choice is a creation of a new reality, even if
that creation should destroy other possibilities or set one on a
dangerous path.
In the penultimate sequence, Postmodern Paul Revere represents the more
intense end of the anarchist scale. Although there is no semblance of a
minuteman movement behind him, Paul Revere has still chosen to take his
message to the early morning streets of Austin. Via speakers mounted on
top of his truck he presents his prophecy, ''We're going to have a
free-for-all, weapons giveaway program. It's like one of those
government programs ... just come and get fucking anything you want
...'' He goes on to describe the numerous types of weapons that will be
made available and then launches into a visualization of the results.
''I want to see people putting secret things in fucking cars and fucking
explode and see the people explode in 'em. I want to see knife cutting,
slice cutting, chopping, blowing up, ahh yeah ... that's right, a free
weapons give away program. I see it, we're gonna solve all these goddamn
problems.''
Paul's final sentence is similar to Travis Bickle's line in /Taxi
Driver/--''Some day a big rain is gonna come and wash the scum off of
the streets.'' In Scorsese's film, we are presented with the story of
Bickle's solo vigilante rain and its ''laundering'' effects on Sport and
his associates. It is a modernist tale of agency and causality. In
/Slacker/, there is no such opportunity. The cross-section pastiche
offers no individual voice enough treatment to foster identification. We
are like the people in the houses Paul drives past--for us his message
is one among thousands. Its volume increases as it nears but quickly
fades away, soon to be replaced by another advocating different values
and in a different medium.
A final anarchist in /Slacker/ can serve as a transition into the next
theme, conspiracies. In her sequence, Pap Smear Pusher recounts the
story of an old man who has just put anarchic ideas into action on the
freeway. ''They had six or seven pig cars chasing him into the south
side of town. He was still swinging the gun around and laughing ...
fuckin' laughed all the way. Finally his car spun out and slammed into
the grassy knoll, you know the median. As soon as his car came to a
halt, man, he just put the gun to his head and blammo! Offed himself,
man, blew himself away right it's like, I don't know, he had had enough
... enough.'' This motorist appears to have acted upon the rhetoric of
postmodern Paul Revere and Old Anarchist. However, the immovable object
that brought his destructive force to a halt is of more interest here.
''The grassy knoll'' is a cultural referent that has widespread
understanding. Pap Smear Pusher has, at least inadvertently, connected a
seemingly isolated anarchic incident to vast and secret power
networks--Conspiracies.
Conspiracy
Generation X's appreciation for conspiracy theories may rise from the
widespread replacement of youthful idealism with a heartfelt cynicism,
especially with regard to institutions and power. Howe and Straus
<#HOWEETAL> capture the twenty-something viewpoint well.
You gaze at the great hero-built edifices that have lasted from that
era--NATO, the Pentagon, social security, network TV, Aid to
Dependent Children, TVA porkbarrel, ICBM's, marble post offices--and
what you see are most dysfunctional irrelevancies sagging with age.
Through your eyes, they all seem like some old municipal
aqueduct--massive beyond your comprehension, hoisted during some
ancient era you can hardly imagine, intended for some grand purpose
that no longer matters. Cracks in its concrete reveal a
p.44
------------------------------------------------------------------------
complex network of rusting wires and pipework designed long a go by
some whistling young engineer. Maybe he cared about it back then,
but he's long since retired on a generous federal pension paid for
with the money deducted from your Pizza Hut paycheck. (127)
This quotation gets at much of the ideology behind conscious
non-participation, but what happens when the occasional slacker chooses
to devote some of their copious time to extended examination of
institutions and global power networks? Occasionally the result has a
ring of the fantastical. For instance, Been On The Moon Since The '50s
believes more than the theory that names him. He also holds that we have
stolen ''anti-grav drive from the Nazi's,'' been on Mars since '62, and
that people are being kidnapped to colonize space.
Scooby Doo Philosopher and Papa Smurf's theories are more believable.
Over a few beers, they question the enculturation process supported by
children's television programming.
Like Saturday morning cartoons is all a bunch of values and junk
they're throwing at you. Like take Scooby Doo, you know? Scooby Doo,
like, looks at you, and it's like there's Shaggy, and there's Scooby
Doo, and they say, 'Hey, why don't you beat the shit out of this bad
guy and like we'll give you a Scooby snack.' And he'll go,'Oh,
duhh.' And they'll say, 'Well, two Scooby snacks ...' That's what
they're teaching kids it's all bribery. They're teaching kids
fucking bribery ...
This basic point could have been presented in any number of contexts,
from a government hearing to an academic conference, a church group to
your local slacker bar. While they do not engage in much speculation
about exactly who is behind it all, Scooby Doo Philosopher and Papa
Smurf demonstrate a level of media literacy and critical awareness
unheard of forty years ago. Raised in a media saturated society,
slackers are both aware of vast social machinations and their individual
inability to affect much beyond themselves. The doors to power are few
and well guarded by the Boomers, and thus the ''most'' a
twenty-something can do is critique from the sofa as culture streams by
on seventy-four channels at the speed of light.
Not all slack conspiracy theories are far-fetched. Just why is that a
''Masonic pyramid on the back of the dollar bill?'' Conspiracy a-Go-Go
Author is so obsessed with factual evidence in published sources that he
is just as much an expert on Kennedy assassination literature as the
actual event (Hoberman <#HOBERMAN1991> 27). This is the position of many
cultural detectives in our information society. Mediated contact with
institutions, and especially historical events, ensures that many other
hands have colored the information we receive. As we will see in Video
Backpacker's sequence, direct experience in a global politico-economic
structure is just not a possibility.
Image Over Reality
A notable exception to /Slacker/'s slow movement and open framing is the
sequence at Video Backpacker's home. Within his tiny room he is
completely surrounded by television sets and is even weighted down by
one strapped to his back (the postmodern albatross). Even his windows
are covered, the only egress is a door that will not fully open because
of the dominant mass of video equipment. He does not stand up but rolls
across his three feet of floor space in an office chair. Although boxed
in, he seems to prefer it that way and would like to have more TVs. This
may be because the TVs are his windows on the world and provide him a
level of access and control that real life cannot begin to approximate.
While he does not have mobility in the usual sense, he can see far
beyond the rest of us and virtually go anywhere the televised image can
take him. This superiority
p.45
------------------------------------------------------------------------
of mediated images to their real life counterparts, the signifier over
the signified, is a principle of /Slacker/'s form that is clearly
matched in its thematic content.
Cadillac Crook: Where would you put it? [another TV]
Video Backpacker: Oh, no problem ... we rotate the stock out with
the old, in with the new. Like this one here--it's my pride--it's
been on four years, two months. The rest of them, I just kind of
keep 'em going ... kind of working up a harmonious relationship with
them, equilibrium. Have a seat. Poptart? There's red ones blue ones
over there.
CC: No thanks. So, uh, what is this, some kind of psychic TV type
... parallelism?
VB: Well, we all know the psychic powers of the televised image. But
we need to capitalize on it and make It work for us instead of us
working for IT.
CC: Like how?
VB: Well, like, to me, my thing is that a video image is much more
powerful and useful than an actual event. Like, back when I used to
go out, when I was last out ... I was walking down a street, and
this guy came barreling out of a bar, fell right in front of me, and
he had a knife right in his back ... landed right on the ground.
Well, I have no reference to it now, I can't refer back to it, I
can't press rewind, I can't put it on pause, I can't put it on
slo-mo and see all the little details. And the blood, it was all
wrong. It didn't look like blood. The hue was off and I couldn't
even adjust the hue. There I was seeing it for real, but it just
wasn't right. I didn't even see the knife impact on the body ... I
missed that part.
CC: Too bad ...
In Video Backpacker's world there is competition for control of the well
known ''psychic powers'' of the TV image--''we need to capitalize on it
and make It work for us instead of us working for IT.'' When Cadillac
Crook asks how we can gain control, Video Backpacker replies with an
explanation of why he thinks images are better than reality--''power''
and utility, repeatability and control--illustrated through the knifing
example.
To find out how to control the power, we can only draw inferences from
the way Video Backpacker lives and what he's told us about his life. His
opening lines offer quite a few hints. The image is not a power source
to be conquered with revolutionary force. On the contrary, it must be
courted, a ''kind of working up a harmonious relationship with them,
equilibrium.'' This is not an issue of domination. Video Backpacker has
chosen to negotiate a balanced exchange with video images and appears to
be succeeding.
Television has become an extension of and even replacement for his
natural senses. He is McLuhan's dream come true. Video Backpacker has
come to share substance with the sets, not merely co-habitating with
them, but giving up his mobility to them, in exchange for access to and
control of images and the powers they possess. Video Backpacker has
gladly made this trade, and, significantly, he begins to have some of
the same power that Linklater's <#LINKLATER1992> doggie cam does. He can
guide his own journey across the myriad potential tracks of life. While
he holds the remote in his hand, nothing can flash into his isolated
realm without being subject to his influence.
As a final thematic note before concluding, consider the views on power
expressed in the five oblique strategies that characters draw from
Having a Break-Through Day's deck of fortune cards.
*
* Honor thy error as a hidden intention.
*
* Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy.
p.46
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*
* It's not building a wall but making a brick.
*
* Look closely at the most embarrassing detail and amplify it.
*
* Repetition is a form of change.
Generation X requires strategies that are oblique because direct
approaches do not work when you have no power. These are coping
strategies or maxims to live by in the post-industrial world.
Appropriately, they are not provided by established value systems, they
come at random--fortune cookie philosophy in an age of Consumer
Capitalist Gambling and questionable opportunity.
Conclusion
/Slacker/ takes us on a leisurely journey through a catalog of
Generation X's most dedicated, the slackers. Rather than follow a
specific subject, /Slacker/ takes a cross-section approach. Formally,
Linklater <#LINKLATER1992> presents us with a pastiche of Austin
subculture, not the unique adventure of modern Hollywood plots.
Thematically, no single point can be made, because even the loudest
voices will blend in with such a large crowd. No individual seam of
significance is foregrounded, and ''like a dog distracted by a new and
more promising scent, he meanders from one digression to the next,
always interested but without urgency'' (Kemp <#KEMP1992> 49). Modern
rational deliberation is missing and policy decisions (where to go and
whom to sniff) are subject to the whims of someone with an eclectic
nose. An eclectic ear may be a better description, but the point remains
the same--the viewer's experience feels as if it has not been overtly
planned ahead. Instead, the path is chosen from moment to moment, in
each particular case.
Casuistry and phronesis as modes of postmodern judgment have been
suggested by Lyotard <#LYOTARDETAL> (1985) and specifically applied to
criticism by Leff <#LEFF1992> . ''[T]he critic attempts to cultivate the
capacity, the practical judgment, necessary to interpret and assess any
new case that comes to hand, and judgment moves laterally across cases,
thus fixing attention on embodied rhetorical performance rather than on
abstract forms'' (228). In an important sense, /Slacker/'s pattern of
organization invites us to become phronetic critics as we are guided
''laterally'' through a talkative ocean of possibilities. With this line
of performances, viewers must work on their own to determine just what
the film means.
In conclusion, the rhetoric of /Slacker/ is based upon postmodern
aesthetics, a position that tells us many things about Slackers and the
generation they represent, Generation X. The film's appeal is based on
formal patterns including pastiche, schizophrenia, depthlessness,
pluralism, and fragmentation. Aurally, the film is polylogic,
incorporating a diverse array of voices. Visually, /Slacker/ is a
relativistic and egalitarian chain of signifiers or depthless pastiche
of ''interesting'' people. Thematically, the film is a schizoid
presentation of many postmodern cultural themes including suspicion of
master narratives, anarchism, conspiracies, and the superiority of
mediated images over reality.
Understanding the responses invited by a particular cultural product
provides insight into broad social currents. Slackers are among the more
extreme members of Generation X--they are actively committed to the
ideas, postmodern styles, and ideals that more mainstream members sense
vaguely and enact sporadically. /Slacker/'s appeal derives from its
ability to clearly represent the slack aesthetic on both formal and
thematic levels.
Postmodern conditions of appeal are only just beginning to be developed
in the cinematic arts. Hollywood remains a bastion of modern ideology
and classical practice. Other films labeled postmodern, such as
/Pulp-Fiction/, still possess modern elements like dominant characters
and expressionistic lighting. In the future, the body of literature on
postmodern filmmaking will certainly grow, and /Slacker/ will remain a
pioneering effort that artistically meshes
p.47
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Generation X ideology with postmodern aural and visual styles.
**
*Roland Barthes*
*DATE: *1993
''Dominici, or the Triumph of Literature.'' /The Cultural Studies
Reader/. Ed. Simon During. New York: Routledge Press.
*Gary Burns*
*DATE: *4 Apr. 1994
''Postmodern Form.'' Northern Illinois University, DeKalb.
*Vincent Canby*
*DATE: *22 March 1991
''Some Texas Eccentrics and Aunt Hallie.'' /New York Times/: C8.
*Vincent Canby*
*DATE: *5 July 1991
'''Slacker,' a Collection of Eccentrics and Lunacies.'' /New York
Times/: C6.
*Mike Church*
*DATE: *26 April 1995
Beavis and Butthead. MTV.
*Douglas Coupland*
*DATE: *1991
/Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture/. New York: St. Martin's
Press.
*Sarah Dunn*
*DATE: *1994
/The Official Slacker Handbook/. New York: Warner Books.
*John Fiske*
*DATE: *(1986)
''Post-Structural Post-Modern.'' /Journal of Communication Inquiry/ 10:
74-79.
*Louis Giannetti*
*DATE: *1987
/Understanding Movies/. 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
*J. Hoberman*
*DATE: *June 1991
''Two Wild and Crazy Films.'' /Premiere/: 27.
*Robert Horton*
*DATE: *July / August 1990
''Stranger Than Texas.'' /Film Comment/: 77-78.
*Neil Howe*
*Bill Straus*
*DATE: *1993
/13th GEN: Abort, Retry. Ignore, Fail?/ New York: Vintage Books.
*Fredric Jameson*
*DATE: *1991
/Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism/. Durham: Duke
UP.
*Charles Jencks*
*DATE: *1989
What Is Post-Modernism? New York: St. Martin's Press.
*Philip Kemp*
*DATE: *December 1992
''Slacker.'' /Sight and Sound/: 49.
*Jack Kroll*
*DATE: *22 July 1991
''Zonking Out in Austin: A New Talent Joins the Movie Counterculture.''
/Newsweek/: 57.
*Michael Leff*
*DATE: *(1992)
''Things Made By Words: Reflections On Textual Criticism.'' /Quarterly
Journal of Speech/ 78: 223-231.
*Vincent Leitch*
*DATE: *1992
/Criticism, Literary Theory, Poststructuralism/. New York: Columbia
University Press.
*Richard Linklater*
*DATE: *1992
/Slacker/. New York: St. Martin's Press.
*Jean Francois Lyotard*
*DATE: *1984
/The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge/. Trans. Geoff
Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
*Jean-Francois Lyotard*
*Jean-Loup Thebaud*
*DATE: *1985
/Just Gaming/. Trans. Wlad Godzich. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P.
*Robert Ray*
*DATE: *1985
/A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1980/. Princeton:
Princeton UP.
*Pauline Marie Rosenau*
*DATE: *1992
/Postmodernism and the Social Sciences/. Princeton: Princeton UP.
*DATE: *7 August 1991
''A $23,000 Film Is Turning Into a Cult Hit.'' /New York Times/: C13-15.
*Patricia Waugh*
*DATE: *1992
/Postmodernism, A Reader/. London: Edward Arnold.
*Chris Weedon*
*DATE: *1987
/Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory/. Cambridge: Basil
Blackwell.
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