Marriage is Misery

In Misery, the 1990 movie based off Stephen King’s bestselling book, Kathy Bates stars as Annie Wilkes, the “number one fan” and kidnaper of captive romance novelist Paul Sheldon. Wilkes subjugates Sheldon to psychological and physical torture, while forcing him to write another book about Misery Chastain, the protagonist of Sheldon’s series. Bates’ performance is stunning and terrifying, and earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress. Wilkes is somewhat of an oddity in horror, as she is a female villain. In a genre that is so dominated by male villains, it is worth considering what threat Annie Wilkes presents to the audience, and why her threat scares us so deeply.

Underlying this questioning is the assumption that horror is a genre that typically offers women heroic positions and men villainous roles. In horror movies, one lives a feminist fantasy: men are portrayed as violent, think, and single-minded, oppressing young, usually female, protagonists. The ideological importance of this argument is that horror movies portray male violence negatively, implying that it is an issue which needs to be overcome, and can be overcome, by women. Given that many viewers of horror are young and male, this argument implies that men recognize and choose to live out the repercussions of their own violence.

Misery reverses this fundamental dynamic of horror film. Instead of a male villain and female hero, Misery presents us with a male hero and female villain. Correspondingly, instead of a feminist movie, Misery is a misogynistic movie. Indicative of this is that the camera never switches to Wilkes’ perspective. Instead, we are bound to Sheldon and his negative view of Wilkes. The camera reinforces “audience’s identification with his victimization while distancing us from Annie herself.” (Magistrale 66) We are not only viewers of Sheldon’s punishment at the hands of Wilkes, we experience it as well.

The viewer shares Sheldon’s pain as Wilkes “hobbles” his feet

Furthermore, all the oppressive forces that repress Sheldon are female. Out of the five women discussed in the film, three are damaging to Paul. Wilkes tortures him physically, but Sheldon’s editor, Marcia Sindell, and Misery Chastain prevent Sheldon from becoming a “real writer” by limiting his creative talent. Even the Sheriff’s wife, one of three women in speaking roles that are more than one line, is depicted as nagging and obstructing the Sheriff’s search for Sheldon. Finalizing the movie’s crusade against women is the climax of the film in which Sheldon performs a symbolic rape of Wilkes by shoving the burnt remains of Misery’s Return down Wilkes’ throat (Lant 177).

Misery’s misogynistic leanings should not be misinterpreted as disparaging women’s abilities to be capable people. While the movie believes that women are bad, it certainly doesn’t believe that they aren’t competent. Annie Wilkes is incredibly adept and intelligent, albeit in a twisted and insane manner. Wilkes is revealed to have a long criminal past, showing her to be a serial killer who has killed her husband and 11 children, escaping all charges. Sheldon spends much of his time in the movie attempting to outsmart Wilkes, often to no avail. Twice Sheldon escapes from his room, only to have Wilkes notice because Sheldon misplaced a porcelain penguin, which “always faces south.” Placed in the historical context of King’s writing, Wilkes “is a prototype— at least in terms of her strength, intelligence, and angry resolve— for King’s feminist protagonists who follow her in a series of heroine-centered books published during the 1990s.” (Magistrale 66). This context confirms that Wilkes’ power is not an accident, although she is marred by her mental disorders and this books role as a transition for King.

Not only is Wilkes intelligent, she is emasculating. She dominates everything relating to sex, social affairs, and economic activity. Sheldon is confined to Wilkes’ bed, and bedroom, for the near entirety of the movie. Multiple times we see symbolic forms of rape carried out by Wilkes onto Sheldon, such as when she forces painkillers down his throat or injects him with a sedative to keep him quiet. Wilkes is entirely in control of with whom Sheldon can communicate. This is especially apparent in the beginning of the movie when Sheldon begs to call his daughter. Wilkes, after initially claiming she did, screams at Sheldon and refuses him access to the outside world. Wilkes is also the liaison to resources for Sheldon. She decides what he can possess, and his economic life is entirely at her mercy. She forces him to write by threatening violence or starvation if he doesn’t. Wilkes recognizes Sheldon’s dependence, informing him, “And you better hope nothing happens to me because if I die, you die.” Wilkes’ dominance of these spheres confirms the seriousness with which the movie interprets the feminine threat.

Wilkes is not violent in the same way that men tend to be violent in horror films. The 2005 movie Hostel, another movie premised on kidnapping and imprisonment, provides a good contrast to Misery. In Hostel, an evil group kidnaps young travelers in Europe and allows “clients” to come and torture, have sex with, or kill the kidnapped people. One client, dubbed “The American Client,” is nearly identical to the types of villains found in most horror movies. Leather clad, tall, profane, and powerfully built, the American embodies the twisted male aggression that horror films dislike and attempt to defeat. He is the epitome of the scum that controls violence, sex, business, and money. Wilkes may control those elements, but she hardly embodies them. Rather than acting as a sex crazed maniac, Wilkes poses as a near puritanical housewife and former nurse. Her associations are with healing and the hearth rather than pain and business. She never curses, and emphasizes doing God’s work. Annie Wilkes is incredible for this reason: despite her maniacal tendencies she manages to distance herself from masculine violence. Instead, she portrays what violence would look like if domestic women controlled the world.

The adoption of power and violence by the domestic woman seems to be the movie’s main fear. However, there are a few issues with that argument that need clarification. One could argue that the premise of power passing to the home sphere isn’t realistic. Looking at modern women’s equality movements, women aren’t fighting for more control of the home, they want equality in the workplace, equal pay, and access to birth control. The current women’s rights platforms don’t want to maintain the status quo. But Misery isn’t concerned with those modern claims. Misery explores a traditional woman in her element rather than a modern woman in a man’s element. The movie is concerned that women are gaining power in areas where they already have it.

The movie seems to be specifically pointing towards marriage. This association can be contested, primarily on the basis that that marriage is typically seen as strangling towards women rather than men. However, the emphasis on control of Sheldon’s creativity throughout the film shows that Misery is concerned with marriage’s effects on men. Sheldon wants to be in control of his literary creations, but the in the film women keep his genius and happiness at bay. His editor wants to make money off him, Misery makes him feel like a fake writer, and Wilkes forces him to write against his will. Sheldon feels shackled to the women in his life and he wants, fittingly, a divorce from them. Wilkes is the opposite; she views marriage as sacred, claiming, “People just don’t respect the institution of marriage anymore. They have no sense of real commitment.” At the end of the movie, Wilkes decides that she and Sheldon will take their lives, reminiscent of the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet. The symbolic rape of Wilkes avoids Sheldon’s death, which would be an end to his creativity that was held at gunpoint the whole movie. Instead, Sheldon kills Wilkes with his typewriter, one of the tools of his enslavement, and writes a book about a man, transcending the femininity in his life. These themes are reinforced by the title of Sheldon’s new book, which is “The Higher Education of J. Phillip Stone.” By shedding the woman’s influence, Sheldon can self-actualize.

There is one more possible message to glean from this movie. Sheldon overcomes the burdens of marriage despite Wilkes’ attempts to subdue him through violence. The movie, with its large male audience, clearly disapproves of marriage for men. But, in some small way, it also encourages women to explore other spheres than the home. Clearly this movie believes women cannot be violent and powerful while bonded to men. Perhaps they should try for the workplace after all.


 

Works Referenced

Clover, Carol. Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Lant, Kathleen Margaret., and Theresa Thompson. Imagining the Worst: Stephen King and the Representation of Women. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998. Print.

Magistrale, Tony. Hollywood’s Stephen King. Gordonsville, VA, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 18 May 2016

Misery. Dir. Rob Reiner. Prod. Rob Reiner. By William Goldman. Perf. James Caan and Kathy Bates. Columbia Pictures, 1990

MovieClips. “Hostel (7/11) Movie CLIP – The American Client (2005) HD.”  www.youtube.com. Web. 25 May 2012.

The Incredibles and Utopian Dreams

The Incredibles, Pixar’s 2004 superhero flick, is not renowned for its originality. Nearly every superhero trope is reused. The main characters are essentially the Fantastic Four plus the Flash. But ideologically, this film is far more convoluted than I expected. It is a film concerned with society and how to improve it. I think it is fair to claim that this film is concerned with not only improved society, but also perfect, happy society. Utopian society.
Utopia is a strong word with two relevant meanings to this discussion. Many writers have constructed hypothetical Utopias, which are societies that are organized differently than our own and designed to maximize happiness. This genre is instructional; it is impersonal. On the other hand there is the will to Utopia. People possess an innate desire to improve society, and a desire to experience that massively better (how it is better is open to interpretation) society. The will manifests itself in many areas of life, but can be recognized clearly through film and cinema. Which brings us back to The Incredibles: not only does this film attempt to present a Utopia, it also presents characters’ individual wills for Utopia.
Let’s start with Mr. Incredible and Mrs. Incredible, the main protagonists of the film. Forced into hiding for being “Supers,” humans with extraordinary powers and abilities, Mr. and Mrs. Incredible (now with the adopted surname “Parr”) have settled down and moved to the suburbs. The movie begins to hammer home a dichotomy between ordinary and extraordinary. Mr. Incredible is forced to contain his bulk between a tiny desk and an office cubicle at his job, frowning the whole time. Dash, the Incredibles’ second child who has the ability to run faster than anybody else, is refused the privilege to “go out for sports” by his parents as that would make his peers unhappy and draw unnecessary attention to himself. Mrs. Incredible’s most joyous moment in the first act is announcing that the Parr’s are “officially moved in” as she has finally unpacked the last box from their move three years prior.
The situations our heroes are in are not only subduing, they are repressive. The repression of Supers has made them incredibly unhappy. Unable to realize their full potentials, and limited to the capacities of their non-special neighbors, Supers are stuck in our dull world. And it’s not only Supers who are hurt either: regular citizens are impacted as well. In the movies opening scenes, a pre-ban world is shown. Supers are happy, as they can fulfill their desires and help people, but so are regular citizens who benefit from the Supers. They smile and laugh. After the ban, this all changes. Not one regular citizen is laughing or smiling in this world. The brief encounters with non-Supers tell this story: Dash’s teacher fills time trying to catch Dash putting tacks on his chair and Mr. Incredible’s boss lives in constant fear of the shareholders in his company.

Mr. Incredible sits in his office.

The worst part, as the movie would have you think, is that regular citizens’ unhappiness is their own fault. After Mr. Incredible saved a suicide jumper, the jumper sued Mr. Incredible for “ruining his death.” Soon after, nearly all Supers were involved in legal cases. The government was forced to put them into hiding, with one spokeswomen announcing, “it’s time for their secret identities to be their only identity.”
To recap, the unextrodinary masses, and the oppressive capitalist systems, have forced our special heroes into submission, mediocrity, and dejection. The viewer sees an unhappy society, not entirely unlike the one the viewer inhabits. Let’s return to Mr. Incredible, and his will for Utopia. His solution is to “bring back the good old days.” Important to note is that he is not selfish: Mr. Incredible is truly concerned with the stakes of society, rather than only his own life. Repeatedly we see him demonstrate this desire: going the extra mile to help an elderly lady file an insurance claim, attempting to help a man being mugged while Incredible’s boss threatens to sack him, and even resuming illegal hero work to save a family from a burning building. It seems Mr. Incredible wishes for a world where Supers regain their power.
This Utopian world is ideologically aligned with the Nietzschaen superman. Put simply, Pixar is implying that “we are all created equal, but some of us are more equal than others.” (Booker 93) Those who are not special are treated “contemptuously … as a crowd of ignorant rabble.” (Booker 93) Mr. Incredible, and all Supers, are supermen in this sense. Their frustrations are a result of their inability to self actualize because of the constraints of the masses.
The Incredibles seems to follow this ideological base. The efficacy of non-supers to achieve anything meaningful is laughable. Towards the end of the movie, the army attempts to destroy antagonist Syndrome’s robot. Their actions are meaningless, and they are obliterated almost instantly. This ideological view is also supported by the way death is treated. To test his Omnidroid, Syndrome baits various Supers into fighting it. When Mr. Incredible discovers this fact, he freaks out, shocked to find so many Supers have died. This informs the viewer that great emotional weight is placed on the Supers’ deaths. Yet, as the Omnidroid rampages through the city, destroying cars and buildings, not one death is shown. Yes, this is a children’s movie; however, it is important to realize that the “contentious rabble” do not receive even a polite nod when they die. The division between Super and regular is reinforced. Therefore, the Nietzschean Utopia is clearly distinguishes between supermen and regular people. The supermen should be allowed to behave and act without restriction by the rabble.
But the movie’s conclusion offers an alternative interpretation. At the end of the movie, after Syndrome is defeated, the Incredible family are still in their regular clothes – fitting in with society. Dash is allowed to compete in a track race, but he is only allowed to match the speed of his competitors. The family is allowed to resume hero work, but the aspect of full self actualization is absent. Supers still split time between being Super and being normal. This is not the Nietzschean Utopia where the great are unimpeded. The Utopia here is the Utopia Mr. Incredible dreamed for. It seems that this careful limitation of excellence is what the movie strives for. (Anton 227)
To fully describe Mr. Incredible’s, and the movie’s, Utopia I have to incorporate one aspect of the movie that I have mostly ignored until now: the story and character arc of Buddy, who later becomes Syndrome. Buddy is not a Super and has constructed devices and technology that mimics superpowers. Buddy also has a will for Utopia, contrasting to Mr. Incredible’s. Buddy wants everybody to be Super (of course, this is only after he can be super on his own for a few years), and he claims he will share his inventions with the world. The result of his evil: “when everybody is Super, no one will be.”
Buddy’s Utopia is far more egalitarian than Mr. Incredible’s. Buddy wishes for everyone to be equal and elevated to the same power level as the Supers. The movie has made a powerful statement in opposing this point of view, and the movie has opposed this view. At the end of the movie, Mr. Incredible’s Utopia, not Buddy’s, is realized. Ironically, the audience is cheering for the Utopia which least benefits them. The movie makes it clear that being a Super means being born a Super. This is true of the audience as well; none of us are supers. Our idol should be Buddy: he is the person who can empower us. Yet the movie has us cheer for a situation that makes us dependent on the powers and wills of other people.
That scenario is not what I would imagine most Americans envision for their Utopia. It is American, in a traditional sense, to be responsible for yourself, to achieve by yourself. The Incredibles has attempted to convince audiences that the Utopia where they are better off is one where we are less powerful than the institutions surrounding us. It seems like the movie describes our world, but it does not. Instead, The Incredibles is saying that a massively better world is one governed by religion.
It has to be religion too. The government was the primary tool with which Supers were repressed. This implies that the government is not one of the higher powers we should adhere to and, in fact, the government limits the higher power. Capitalism and corporate power is not the solution for much the same reason. That leaves one major institution that fits the description we have. Most religions require a belief in a higher power. Often times, this higher power has smaller deities which do its bidding. Most religions require submission to this higher power, and acceptance of your place below it. These traits are all correlated with behaviors encouraged by The Incredibles.

The Incredibles are crucified like saints.

In particular, Catholicism seems to match better than other religions. All requirements of power, submission, and sainthood are represented. People are not powerful and can never be as powerful as the deities they worship. Regular people should submit to the Supers who will protect them if they do so. Supers are essentially saints: they demonstrate incredible selflessness and capacity to help and are endowed with “otherworldly” power.
The correlation is not perfect. There are ways to become priests, bishops, and the Pope but not Super. But the power dynamics and message remains the same. The movie encourages acceptance of your place in reference to power in a Utopian context. The movie says that if you and everybody else accept religion, the world will be massively better. On impulse, I disagree with this Utopia. But how can I argue, when I just saw how much better off I would be if I let Pope Incredible save me.

 

Works Referenced
Adurey Anton. “The Nietzschean Influence in The Incredibles and the Sidekick Revolt.” The Amazing, Transforming, Superhero: Essays on the Revision of Characters in Comic Books, Film, and Television. Ed. Terrence R. Wandtke. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007. Print.

Booker, M. Keith. Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Messages of Children’s Films. Praeger, 2010. 25 Nov. 2009.

Bloch, Ernst. The Principle of Hope. Trans. Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and Paul Knight. 3rd Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1996.

The Incredibles. Dir. Brad Bird. By Brad Bird. Walt Disney Pictures, 2004. Online.

You’re Not My Supervisor: Archer and Anti-Nationalism

archervice

When the FX TV show Archer broadcast its 5th season, fans of the show knew they were in for something different. Gone were the serial episodes split between the ISIS (the International Secret Intelligence Service and not the middle-eastern terrorist group ISIL) headquarters and exotic international locations. Instead, our heroes were on the run – fleeing US supervision and attempting to cash out a literal ton of cocaine. These changes brought a far more critical view of the spy-action drama Archer had parodied in prior seasons.

One possible method to understanding season 5’s message comes from Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser. In “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” Althusser claims that within the political sphere are multiple fighting groups. Each group promotes a different ideology that it believes everybody else should adopt. The key aspect of Althrusser’s theory is that this battle is cultural. As such, this struggle is reflected in our cultural creations. In the same way that groups fight to spread their ideology, movies and TV shows do too (Althusser, 146). If Althusser’s theory is correct, entertainment must be engaged in an ideological conflict.

Archer: Vice offers a particularly interesting window into this struggle because it is such a departure from the previous seasons’ format. If Althusser is correct, then the show critiques and battles the ideology preached by James Bond, Mission Impossible, and other similar movies in the spy-action genre. But the question still remains of what Archer subtly implies to its viewers, and how that is different from the ideology supplied by other shows.

The most prominent franchise of the spy-action genre is James Bond. Archer, and many other spy movies and TV shows, takes most of its tropes from this series. Specifically, the relationship between Sterling and Mallory is reminiscent of Bond and M’s. Archer’s surface aesthetic is much the same as Bond’s: they wear suits, are serial womanizers, and love a good drink. Both work for government agencies that send them all over the world for a multitude of reasons, the most prominent of which is assassination.

The defining trait of Bond and Archer is their nationalities. While American spies are common across all media, the “Bond-type” is a distinct trope with many characteristics of an stereotypical English gentleman. Archer, the show, takes the time to make sure that Sterling Archer emulates Bond but removes all traces of being British. Sterling lacks Bond’s sly demeanor, replacing it with a loud conspicuousness. Wry wit is replaced with overt sexual references and slapstick humor.   Bond’s powers of seduction come from a careful mental game combined with physical prowess. Archer gets with women by boasting about his job and all his achievements. Bond has a “martini, shaken not stirred.” Archer has whatever he can get his hands on. Even the two character’s theme songs reflect on their nationalities. Bond’s theme is an orchestral arrangement that plays as he walks triumphantly away from another vanquished enemy. Archer’s theme, “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins, literally describes him: Archer is a danger. The slick and posh versus the crude and common cleanly divides Bond from Archer in the came clichéd way that “American” and “British” are commonly differentiated.

archerbond

Archer, top, is chaotic and uses brute force while Bond, bottom, is calmer and more refined.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The attention to nationality changes the message of each Bond movie and the Archer TV show. In the modern Bond movie Skyfall, the climactic battle takes place on Bond’s hometown estate of Skyfall in Scotland. Bond, along with the groundskeeper Kincade and head of MI6 M, are on the run from a former MI6 agent named Raoul Silva. After retreating to Skyfall, the heroes set up a series of traps and devices in order to defend Skyfall against well-armed attackers. After a long battle, Bond is triumphant in killing Silva. Unfortunately, M is killed in the battle. She leaves a Union Jack emblazoned porcelain bulldog to Bond to remember her by( Skyfall).

The Althussarian interpretation of these events points back to nationality. Because Bond is so clearly identified with Britain, it follows that when Bond is defending his homestead he is also defending his homeland. The battle at Skyfall invokes a possible attack on England by terrorists. Furthering this interpretation is the knowledge that Silva was at one point an MI6 agent, implying that these attacks can come from the inside by people who aren’t loyal to Britain. But the way that Bond survived was by retreating to Skyfall, and using the resources it provided. The ideological interpretation here is that in order to be safe, individuals should be loyal to their nations. Skyfall, and Bond in general, promotes staunch nationalism.

Although Bond is British, and the movie does directly promote British nationalism, I believe the correct interpretation of the movie’s ideology is that it promotes nationalism in general. Most audiences viewing this movie do not identify with Britain, but they do identify with Bond. As a viewer, watching Bond defend his country will not inspire you to defend Britain as well. Instead, the ideology will rub off on you to defend whichever country you support. The distinction between Bond’s British identity and Archer’s American identity is only important in the contexts of the character’s stories. In terms of ideology, the concepts are generalized.

Archer argues against the type of nationalism promoted by Bond in Archer: Vice. The season begins with an attack by the FBI on ISIS, which results in the death of minor character Brett and the arrest of the main cast (“White Elephant”). This initial scene sets up the rest of the season: the disgraced ISIS agents attempting to sell cocaine in order to make some money before parting ways. I want to draw attention to two particular episodes in this season. First is “On the Carpet.” In this episode, we are introduced to Slater, the shady arms dealer. Slater gives Archer, Cyril, and Ray weapons in return for the cocaine they were attempting to smuggle, and tells them to fly south. Slater’s identity is revealed in “Arrival/Departure,” the final episode of the season. Slater is actually a CIA agent who was selling arms to a South American dictator to increase the CIA’s budget. The dictator could only pay for the weapons with cocaine, so the CIA needed people to sell the cocaine for them. The ISIS agents had actually been selling the CIA’s cocaine the whole time. Slater attempts to bring the ISIS agents to a CIA black site, but is disarmed. The episode ends with Mallory pulling a gun on the CIA agents and forcing them to reinstate ISIS.

As Archer’s defining trait, like Bond, is his nationality, we should look at these events through the national lens again. The initial crisis in the series is not an attack by a foreign group. The initial crisis is an attack by the US on an American – Archer. The breach of trust between country and individual doesn’t end there. The final reveal, that the CIA had used ISIS to fulfill their own goals, also demonstrates this point. Ideologically, Archer is implying that we should not trust our government. The government will only use you and abuse you, as they did to the ISIS agents. Furthermore, as indicated by Mallory, the only way to save yourself is to force the government to help you. That fact is reinforced by the attempted murder of the ISIS agents by the CIA once the ISIS agents had lost their utility. Archer counters the Bond style nationalism with a grim account of government secrecy and betrayal. Archer implores the viewer to not become a pawn in a much larger war.

Archer’s anti-nationalist agenda is unique and not a result of Archer’s satirical nature Austin Powers, another parody franchise that draws main elements from the James Bond, also advocates nationalism. Like both Bond and Sterling Archer, Austin Powers is known for his suits, nationality, and serial womanizing. But the ideology offered by Powers is in accordance with Bond, rather than Archer.

Take Austin Powers in Goldmember as a specific example. The major conflict is that Dr. Evil and Goldmember have commissioned a tractor beam (called “Preperation H”) that they will use to destroy the world. In the final confrontation of the movie, Austin pleads with Dr. Evil not to launch this rocket towards Earth. At the penultimate moment, Austin’s father reveals that Dr. Evil is actually Austin’s brother, which causes Dr. Evil to switch sides and fight off Goldmember to save the day.

There are a few key details that should be included to clarify Austin Powers’ ideology. First, the rocket is very clearly made by the Japanese – a whole scene in the movie is dedicated to infiltrating the factory where it was constructed. Second, Goldmember is Dutch, and a Belgian couple raised Dr. Evil. The enemy in this movie is foreigners, foreigners who want to destroy the world with foreign technology. And the way to stop this from happening is by uniting under a British identity. Austin Powers, while plainly parodying James Bond, agrees with Bond that nationalism and national identity is a solution to problems. Furthermore, it even identifies the specific way you should serve your country: accept the brotherhood of your nation and you will be protected from outsiders who mean you harm. Despite it’s nature as a parody, Austin Powers is on the same side as Bond in the cultural battle.

Austin Powers next to his car, “The Shagmobile”

For Althusser’s theory to be demonstrated, there must be an ideological war between movies within the same genre and of the same type. The traditional spy-action superpower, James Bond, has long argued that we should submit to our country and accept our place as a member of that particular society. Even spin off media, like Austin Powers, which parodies some of the central concepts and constructs in Bond, advocates the same position. But Archer, a firm fixture in the spy-action scene disagrees. It tells us to distrust our government and find our own path to safety. In doing so, it declares a cultural war on the other spy TV shows and movies.

 

 

 

 

References

Austin Powers in Goldmember. Jay Roach. Perf. Mike Myers, Beyonce Knowles, Seth Green.  New Line Cinema, 2002, Online.

Althusser, Louis. “Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays.” La Pensée (1970): 127-186. Web.17 Mar. 2016.

Skyfall. Sam Mendes. Perf. Danial Craig, Javier Bardem, Naiome Harris. Metro Golden Meyer, 2012. Online.

“White Elephant,” “The Rules of Extraction,” and “Arrival/Departure.” Archer: Vice. Writ. Adam Reed. FX, 2013. Online.