Abstract
American Culture has undergone many turns and twists throughout the centuries. It has always been determined to provide a tangential impasse into the lives of the American citizens as well as that of the events that encircle him /her in a wider global perspective. Perhaps that had been the proper way of interpretation of the society and its elements on a global as well as local perspective for the media. However in recent years, there seems to be an influence on the media channels as well as cable networks to highlight the importance of only the internal complexities of the American social platform in complete disregard of the larger social or global perspective that is significant. Hence it becomes apparent that the narcissism has become a dominant aspect in American culture. This paradigm shift in the psyche of the depiction of American culture in media, a comparative analysis of particular case study will provide a valuable lot of information to support the idea. On a comparative basis, kind of narcissist cloud seems to have enveloped the American portrayal of their culture where the focus of attention seems to have shifted towards self appraisal and analysis The different types of survival strategies employed by narcissistic depictions of American culture has given rise to the so-called the cultural revolution. which in itself is an indication of a collapsing civilization.(Lasch , 1991)
English 103
Narcissism in American Culture
If you ever turn over to cable channels like MeTV, which show programming from the 1960s and 1970s, and then come back to look at the network and cable programming that is written and produced today, you'll notice a lot of differences. For example, take a look at the modern and original versions of Hawaii Five-O. In the original version, the focus is on catching the villain and making sure that the criminal goes to jail. The people who are victims of crime receive compassion and care, but in the modern version, the focus is on making cast members look attractive while discussing the emotional turmoil from their own personal lives, with the crimes being solved turning into more of a tangential matter. The external conflicts in the show become much less significant than the internal ones. Changes in crime dramas, sitcoms and film all show similar shifts in modern culture. These changes are just one sign that television and cinema in American culture show a slow, steady turn from focusing on the world around us to gazing at ourselves, and the entertainment that we choose to watch is a clear sign of this.
One of the most popular crime fiction drama shows in our own time is Criminal Minds. From the beginning of the show, its plots have pushed the envelope as far as the degree of violence and cruelty that are shown on television (Gorman). One of the episodes features a father who receives a diagnosis of brain cancer and a very short time frame before death. His wife leaves him with their young son, unable to put up with the trials of tending to a terminal cancer patient as a spouse. In response, the father starts taking his son to shopping malls and other places and having him go up to attractive women and pretend that he can't find his father. Then, the boy lures the woman into private places in stores so that the father can pop out of hiding and threaten to kill her or the boy if she doesn't come with them. Then, he takes the women into his basement and slowly tortures them to death. The boy even lures his school nurse over to the home to carry out one of these schemes, but the FBI profiling team shows up in time to keep her from meeting the fate of the other women. The damage that this wreaks on the psyche on the young boy is evident, but this is just one of many plots that involve serial abusers, serial murderers and repeat rapists. The original lead profile, Jason Gideon, was portrayed by Mandy Patinkin. Patinkin ultimately left the show because of the fact that the plot lines were becoming increasingly grisly, and Joe Mantegna took his place (Abramovitch). This show focuses on the internal motives of the criminals and always ends with the profiles reflecting on the meaning of the events as they fly home on their FBI jet. This is a major shift from crime dramas from a few decades ago and shows the shift in American culture toward self-centeredness.
Thus , it is uncountable that the modern media including television and cinema, have become domains for narcissistic representation of the American culture as well as provide a means for its expansion and promotion in the society in general.
Forecast Statement
The essay deals with the diversity expressed in the American culture and its development of narcissistic overtones in different media and television programs thought out the recent times. The modern city denizen spends a lot of time in front of the Television and the different sitcoms or soaps reflect the present situation or alterations in the American culture at the present times. The ideals promoted in the programs in earlier times dealt with the overall interaction of the character with the society, the responses of the later which helped to identify the position of the character in the plot .Under the present circumstances, self gratification, self satisfaction and sex seem to have overwhelmed all other aspects .Narcissism has engulfed the American culture as a whole.
Background Information The change in the nature of the shows are quite apparent if we compare the ones that were produced years ago with those produced now. If you turn the clock back a few decades, one of the most popular detective programs was Columbo, featuring Peter Falk. This show was marked by the fact that Columbo would work his way through fairly elaborate murder plots over the course of the 90-minute episodes. All of the violence took place off-screen; the focus of the show was on unraveling the network of lies that the characters would tell them. Columbo would keep coming back, asking the various characters “just one more question” until he had the information that he wanted. Wearing his trademark battered trench coat and smoking his cheap cigars, Columbo was a counterpoint to the high-rolling people who, more often than not, had ended up conspiring for the demise of the victim, unable to hide behind their lies because of his intrepid questioning and detective work. This show never featured anything more violent than someone getting hit on the head and falling on the floor, at least not on screen (Falk, p. 78). The focus was on solving the crime and getting to the truth, rather than the internal emotional problems of the characters. At that point in time, the focus in American culture was not squarely on the self.
Body Paragraphs
If we consider a couple of examples, then one of the most popular comedy shows today is The Big Bang Theory, an ensemble show featuring a gang of nerdy guys, one of whom lives across the hall from a pretty blonde girl who, somewhat unbelievably, ends up dating one of them. Many of the episodes revolve around the comic conflicts that result when this group of engineers and math majors run into situations involving the real world, as when they all go to a Halloween party in a variety of superhero costumes, but their lack of social skills makes for a madcap evening.
There is a lot of physical comedies in these episodes, but there is also a lot of focus on sex. Whether it's ubernerd Sheldon's conversations with his ubernerd girlfriend/companion, using a series of stilted euphemisms to tiptoe around the topic of sex, or the gaggle of nerdy supporting characters giggling about finding sex the next time they head out, this constant focus on gratifying the self and finding sex makes many of the plots quite similar (Carter). However, the fact that this is one of the most popular television programs right now indicates how prevalent these themes are in the popular consciousness right now. In sharp contrast with this stands the older program I dream of Jeannie. There is also a blonde girl (the genie) with two nerdy men (Major Nelson and Major Healy) hemming and hawing around her. The two of them are astronauts, and Major Nelson found her bottle floating in the Pacific Ocean when he splashed down from a trip into space. She calls him her “master” since he found her, and so she comes home to live with him. He has to hide her existence from everyone else, except for his friend Major Healy who finds out about her but helps keep her under wraps.
Jeannie's costume shows her bare stomach, which would have been scandalous in any other setting than the fact that her costume comes from the harem ideals of that time period. However, the plots of the show focus on the problems that Jeannie causes with her magic. Sometimes her magic goes awry, but sometimes she just wants to help her “master” out. Sometimes things get just wacky enough for Major Nelson's boss to find out what's going on, and the whole show focuses around the escapades of this group. While Major Nelson ends up marrying Jeannie, in a nod to the conventional mores of the time, very little of the humor revolves around sexual tension in this program (Cox and Frank). In The Big Bang Theory, almost all of the humor revolves around sexual tension. This is a sign that American culture is turning from delayed gratification to a more short-term form that honors the self.
The larger genre of cinema is also showing signs of turning away from external conflicts to internal ones. The recent release of Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street has received considerable attention in the press for setting the record for the number of uses of the word “fxxk,” the entire film is one that could not have been made 30 or 40 years ago (Levinson). Throughout the entire film, the main character (a narcissistic stockbroker who ends up running afoul of the SEC and the FBI) uses just about every type of drug imaginable and has sex with everyone he can. The scenes are nothing short of pornographic; the entire film is about his addictions, not just to drugs and sex but also to money. While he does go into rehab after going through a bizarre drive home and a Quaalude nightmare, and he serves time in prison for his crimes, he never really learns his lesson. The story is based on a memoir, and the person who really lived that life and is still traveling the world, delivering motivational presentations. While narcissists with monstrous addictions are nothing new, the way this film is made shows how our culture has changed. Many of the sex scenes (and the scenes leading up to them) show gratuitous nudity, to the point where in earlier decades the film would not have been eligible for release, on the sheer basis of content (Quenqua). The film Citizen Kane, that focuses on the life of William Randolph Hearst, goes into similar matters of megalomania and compulsions (although not to the same degree as that of the Scorsese film). Again, the power of suggestion comes through dialogue and subtlety, rather than splashing all of the excess right onto the screen. A change towards a more voyeuristic and steamy side of a film was highlighted by the craze of moviegoers for The Wolf of Wall Street..
Similar reflections can found in other films as well like American Gigolo based on the plot of a male escort named Julian played by Richard Gere immersed in stereotypic outfits, drugs and sex. Importantly, the character is seen to demonstrate narcissism in a rather blatant manner that is at the same time not skin deep. As the story proceeds, it revolves round the characters of the a local politician’s wife, who develops some interest in the character of the Gigolo eventually leading to the emergence of an incident of a previous murder of a financer. Interestingly, the self gratifying aspect or voyeuristic aspect becomes evident when Julian is asked by the financer to abuse and indulge in sex with his wife while he would gain pleasure by watching!!The film depicts excessive nudity as those that has been mentioned before and although not in the script, but was later incorporated. In fact the sexual overtones in film, and the aspect of the gay subtext “was considerably important in the development of the film
The entire film has been described in a subtle way by the following:
“The whole movie has a winning sadness about it; take away the story's sensational aspects and what you have is a study in loneliness. Richard Gere's performance is central to that effect, and some of his scenes -- reading the morning paper, rearranging some paintings, selecting a wardrobe -- underline the emptiness of his life”(Ebert)
The film thus not only develops and explicitly portrays the concept of a gigolo, but at the same time the sexual overtones, perhaps necessarily demonstrated in the film does point out towards the self satisfying attitudes of American Culture. In reality, the so called evolution of the American culture with time does seem to point towards narcissistic advances. The American society is gradually becoming self centered and self absorbed with almost everybody looking forward to episodes of self gratification and satisfaction irrespective of the entire society as a whole. According to some, the results of such alterations are the terminal products of consumerism and individualism with unequal wealth distribution at the expense of others.
Analysis and Conclusion
A society engulfed in the vices of narcissism is not in good shape. According to the comments of Dingfelder (pg 64),
“According to some researchers, that is precisely where America is heading. Self-esteem is on the rise, with 80 percent of middle-school students scoring higher in self-esteem in 2006 than the average middle-school student in 1988. Among college students, subclinical levels of narcissism have steadily risen since the 1970s, other studies suggest. Young people are much more likely than older adults to have ever experienced Narcissistic Personality Disorder, according to a large-scale epidemiological study.
Hence the condition of the society is grave .The future of the American society under the clutches of Narcissism would be a society where “Cosmetic surgery would be routine, materialism rampant, and everyone would seek fame or notoriety would also be a place with high rates of anxiety and depression. That’s because narcissists people with an inflated sense of their importance and abilities have trouble keeping friends, even though they are good at making them”(Barry). The topic of this paper is important because of the general trend toward narcissism that is showing up in the other aspects of American society and culture. Earlier twentieth century witnessed the wealthiest members of the society acting as philanthropists, contributing huge sums of money to the greater good. It was important for them. Universities and other institutions were named after them, and their legacies last on (Quenqua). Income tax rates for the highest socioeconomic levels of American society reached well above 50 percent, as the society viewed progressive taxation as being important for all levels of society. In our own time, the top tax rate is 39 percent, and there are constant attacks on the government's attempts to create some sort of safety net for the poor. There are those who might say that television is more of a reflection of society than society taking its cues from television and that the root causes of narcissism lie elsewhere.
The essay provides valuable information on the subtle dynamics of the society and the progression of narcissism in the American culture in .It does highlight major issues contributing towards the development of this situation, and it is time that the value systems be placed in their proper perspectives. It is important to understand that5 human beings have evolved as communities and are destined to function in communities for the welfare of the community as a whole. Hence it is important to decide on the priorities that have to be infused right at childhood. A feeling and belief of survival not only for oneself, but also for others. I would respond that if television reflects the trends of society, then society needs changes to counteract this narcissism. It is difficult to forecast the future of entertainment basing on the changes of the past years. Many of the world's greatest cultures have collapsed under the weight of their own narcissism, and it would be a shame if the great experiment that is America were to have that happen.
Works Cited
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