As long as popular culture has existed, so have those who seek alternatives to popular culture. These theorists tend to worry about the mass-produced culture that comes from an elite minority. In the search for an alternative, traditional American music has come to hold an important place in the world of cultural theory. It’s an exciting prospect; any one of us can become culturally enlightened just by buying some bluegrass records and maybe making a trip to a music festival in the Appalachians. Unfortunately, that those sort of supposed engagement miss the mark, because folk music is not always what it seems to be, and there are a lot of conflicting perceptions and misperceptions. The soundtrack to the Coen Brothers film O Brother Where Art Thou? thus comes into focus as one of the more notable and recent segments of a long line of thought about traditional American music.

The quest for an ideal form of culture starts with Matthew Arnold, who agues that Great Books are the form of culture that make people better and improve society.[1] Drawing on the work of ballad-hunter Cecil Sharp, F.R. Leavis proposes Appalachian society as an example of people who, mostly outside the evil influence of the Industrial Revolution, are masters of the “art of social living”[2] without needing literature to achieve perfection. But for those not in the Appalachian region, Leavis says, preindustrial literature is the only way to achieve perfection. Raymond Williams dismisses Leavis’s emphasis on literature as “an emphasis on minority culture” but extends Leavis’s praise of Appalachian society to all working working-class people around the world.[3] As he continues to write that “culture is ordinary,”[4] Williams means that the it is not studios in Hollywood, the publishers in New York, or the record labels in Los Angeles who create culture, but instead the farmer in the rural South and the worker in Appalachia who create shared meanings and values. Relating back to Arnold, Williams believes that culture in the correct form builds a better society, and that form is a democratic culture in which “all of its members are engaged in creating in the act of living.”[5] This is where traditional American music comes in, as the most obvious form of democratic culture. The explicit link between democracy and folk music comes not from Williams but from a rather unlikely source: The Communist Party.

The political use of folk music started in Russia with Lenin using Russian folk music to energize what became the Communist Party. As the party moved to America, its leaders, who were very much out of touch with the working class base of the party, needed a strong cultural symbol to the mobilize and unite the party.[6] The party deemed folk music to be the most American form of music and therefore the best way to link American democracy and communist ideals. The lack of commercialization in folk music was also beneficial for a party opposed to capitalism. As the Red Scare and McCarthyism came into effect, the Communist Party lost any hope of being a part of American politics, but the music had created a subculture that took off after the Cold War ended. For example, The Weavers, a group that started as a musical act for the party, toned down their liberal views and got into the commercial scene after backlash against groups with Communist affiliation had died down.[7]

It is worth pausing here to discuss the definition and authenticity of folk music. This is a discussion not a declaration because a standard definition does not exist and authenticity is impossible to determine. The most basic method is to define folk music by what it is not, and that is popular music. By this definition, folk music has no clear title or writer and also no professional musicians. The International Folk Music Council in 1954 adopted the standard of oral transmittance, with emphasis on the changes that occur as a part of this process.[8] The council accepted that the music could be the product of an individual as long as oral tradition led to or resulted from the product. Ironically, the Council then changed its name to the International Council for Traditional Music, in part because of the difficulty of defining “folk music.” For lack of a better term, I will use “folk music” to refer to traditional music from the Appalachian and Southern regions of the United States. As folk music relates to Williams’s ideas, the most important factor is that the music originates from ordinary people, not the elite minority. Authenticity of recorded folk music becomes tricky under the oral transmittance definition because once it is recorded, it has been forced into a final form. For this reason, autochthonous—meaning arising naturally from the native people—is the best standard in that it focuses on organic creation of music by the people.

It would seem, based on Leavis, Williams, and the Communist Party, that the way to promote a democratic culture is to let working-class people share their culture so it can take over the nation. By extension, it would seem that the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack is the perfect way to do so, and many people believed that it accomplished this. The reviews describe the soundtrack in a similar fashion to the way the Communist Party had described folk music 40 years ago, reflecting the romanticized notion that the Appalachian sound is the authentic American sound. One critic praised the album’s ability to “accurately reproduce… country music’s roots,”[9] while another gave the soundtrack credit for the “power and authenticity” of the film itself.[10] One review even attempted to link Appalachian music to preindustrial England by noting the use of banjos on the album and then erroneously claiming that the instrument has British origins when it is in fact African.[11] This disregard of African American influences on Appalachian music is a very common misconception, according to Appalachian Studies professor Ted Olson.[12] The fact that the album was very popular despite receiving virtually no radio airplay helped fuel the narrative—one that newspapers loved to cover—of a class conflict in which ordinary people flocked to this music despite, or maybe even because, the radio executives tried to keep it away from them.

What these reactions fail to perceive is that the music they are describing is not the folk music of the left-wing politics. When folk singers were performing traditional folk songs at Communist rallies, the music was still, more or less, in the hands of the people. It’s hard to know exactly what Williams would say about such use of traditional folk culture, but based on his connection between working class culture and democratic socialism, it is reasonable to infer that the use would fall in line with his ideas. Once the folk revival came around, the music was no longer rooted in masses in the same way, with professional singers and commercial recording becoming the norm.

The even greater fallacy of these reactions is the idealized notion of Appalachian culture that goes back to Leavis. In his book All That Is Native and Fine, David E. Whisnant argues that cultural missionaries—a group that includes Arnold and Leavis—have painted a romanticized picture of Appalachia for the purpose of “systematic cultural intervention,” which means using and changing parts of a culture, usually for monetary gain.[13] Whisnant calls into question Leavis’s idea of uncorrupted culture in Appalachia by criticizing ballad hunters—a key source in Leavis’s argument—for promoting the “ironies and confusions that have characterized most organized cultural work in the mountains.”[14] Another example is the White Top Folk Festival, whose misguided display of Appalachian music resembles the approach of O Brother. The festival, held in Virginia, was meant to highlight local music, but the organizers decided to make it a competition, and as a result, many Appalachian musicians performed songs that were handed to them minutes before they went on stage.[15] With this point, Whisnant supports the standard of oral transmittance and observes that Appalachian people were singing what someone thought was Appalachian music is clearly not a true representation of that culture. The perception of an Appalachian society where people make music all day stands in contrast to the harsh reality of a neglected population that works in coal mines.

The album’s success is unusual in the music world but falls into the broader theme of Appalachian culture becoming popular. In an article from the same time, Appalachian novelist Lee Smith calls attention to successful novels and films that highlight Appalachia.[16] In a more recent example, the video game BioShock Infinite won the award for Best Song in a Game with a new recording of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”[17] Smith says that “mainstream American culture is becoming “Appalachianized,””[18] but a more accurate statement would be that Appalachian culture is being Americanized, and by Americanized I mean commercialized. T Bone Burnett, the producer of the O Brother soundtrack, engages in cultural intervention as he successfully commercializes the music. Writing for Rolling Stone, music critic Robert Christgau draws contrast between O Brother, where songs are “concocted in the studio,” and Inside Llewyn Davis, another Coen brothers film, where Burnett has the actors performing on set.[19] While actors are obviously not common people, one could argue that in this case, they are closer to Williams’s idea of the common person than are the professional bluegrass and folk singers on O Brother.

The creators of the album also have misconceptions in regard to its so-called authenticity. Ethan Coen, one of the film’s creators, attributes the album’s success to its evocation of an era “when music was a part of every day [sic] life and not something performed by celebrities.”[20] What is ironic is that the songs on the soundtrack are performed by celebrities of the folk music world. Dan Tyminski, who provided the Grammy-winning vocals in “Man of Constant Sorrow,” has vaguely Appalachian roots but now has “one of the most recognizable voices in acoustic music,”[21] which is to say, he is a celebrity. After being featured on EDM artist Avicii’s hit song “Hey Brother,” one would be hard pressed to call him a “common” person.

The alternative to the O Brother soundtrack is an album like American Epic, a soundtrack that uses original recordings of similar songs. These recordings come from the 1920s when ethnomusicologists like Alan Lomax traveled Appalachia and the south, making recordings of rural and working class people who knew songs from the oral tradition.[22] The music in these recordings is autochthonous because it originated in oral tradition and is being performed by ordinary people. The recording technicians called it “catching lightning in a bottle,” which reflected both the one-take method mandated by the equipment and the nature of the music.[23] Just as lightning is a powerful force of nature, folk music is a force of the democratic culture. By using commercial recording methods—multiple takes, editing—O Brother fails to achieve the characteristics of live recordings. That American Epic has received only moderate attention and sales in the six months it has been out while O Brother had gone platinum by that time would suggest that people actually do want to hear celebrities or professionals performing.

It is also important to distinguish music that comes from Appalachian culture and music that is influenced by Appalachian culture. Gillian Welch, who performs on the O Brother soundtrack, released two albums of her own around the same time. Her use of Appalachian music styles created controversy as critics thought Welch, who was essentially born into the music industry, had no credibility in the realm of folk music. Music writer Tom Piazza argues that this criticism is unfounded because “Gillian Welch is not playing, or claiming to play, “traditional music,” any more than Bob Dylan was.”[24] When singing her own songs influenced by Appalachian music, Welch avoids the cultural intervention in which she participates in O Brother. From Piazza’s argument, one can also make a distinction in intention between O Brother—modern recordings of traditional songs—and the folk revival—modern music in the traditional style. The folk music used by the Communist Party falls somewhere between these two, with groups like the Almanac Singers performing both folk standards and their own folk-influenced creations.

If we are to believe Leavis’s assessment of the problem, then we are facing the end of Western civilization due to the industrialization of society and promoting democratic culture is of the utmost importance. As we have seen, projects like O Brother fail to achieve democracy despite popular reaction, but there is still a chance for other forms of culture to blossom. Dissemination of original content, like American Epic, is a possible solution, but it needs an update. Perhaps the answer is more projects of recording technicians traveling the mountains and the South collecting recordings in the spirit of Alan Lomax. Or maybe schools should teach all students to square dance. If we take one lesson from the songs of O Brother, it is that, in the pursuit of a democratic culture, we must “keep on the sunny side.”

 

 

[1]. Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 5-16.

[2]. F.R. Leavis, “Literature in Society,” in The Common Pursuit (London: Faber and Faber, 2011), 190-191.

[3]. Raymond Williams, “The Idea of a Common Culture,” in Raymond Williams on Culture & Society: Essential Writings (London: Sage, 2014), 34.

[4]. Raymond Williams, “Culture is Ordinary,” in Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism (London: Verso, 2007), 4-7.

[5]. Williams, “The Idea of a Common Culture,” 34.

[6]. R. Serge Denisoff, Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971).

[7]. Richard A. Reuss, American Folk Music and Left-Wing Politics, 1927-1957 (Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2000).

[8]. James R. Cowdery, “Kategorie or Wertidee? The early years of the International Folk Music Council,” in Music’s Intellectual History (New York: Répertoire International de la Littérature Musicale), 808-811.

[9]. Jim Caligiuri, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” The Austin Chronicle, January 19, 2001, accessed November 14, 2017, https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2001-01-19/80243/.

[10]. Evan Cater, “O Brother, Where Art Thou? [Original Soundtrack],” AllMusic, 2001, accessed November 14, 2017, https://www.allmusic.com/album/o-brother-where-art-thou-original-soundtrack-mw0000106868.

[11]. Ted Olson and Ajay Kalra, “Appalachian Music: Examining Popular Assumptions,” in A Handbook to Appalachia: An Introduction to the Region (University of Tennessee Press, 2006), 164-165.

[12]. Ibid.

[13]. David E. Whisnant, All That is Native & Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 13.

[14]. Ibid

[15]. Ibid., 183-261

[16]. Lee Smith, “Mountain Music’s Moment in the Sun,” The Washington Post, August 12, 2001, Final Edition ed., Sunday Arts, G01 sec.

[17]. Elton Jones, “VGX 2013: The Full List of Video Game Award Winners,” Heavy.com, December 07, 2013, accessed November 14, 2017, http://heavy.com/games/2013/12/vgx-2013-the-full-list-of-video-game-award-winners/.

[18]. Smith, “Mountain Music’s Moment in the Sun”

[19]. Robert Christgau, “The Lost World of ‘Llewyn Davis’: Christgau on the Coen Brothers,” Rolling Stone, December 4, 2013, accessed November 14, 2017, https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/the-lost-world-of-llewyn-davis-christgau-on-the-coen-brothers-20131204.

[20]. BBC News Online, “O Brother, Why Art Thou So Popular?” BBC, February 28, 2002, accessed November 14, 2017, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1845962.stm.

[21]. Jewly Hight, writer, “Dan Tyminski On Mixing Electronic Dance And ‘Southern Gothic’,” in All Things Considered, transcript, National Public Radio, October 19, 2017.

[22]. Legacy Recordings, “American Epic: The Collection & The Soundtrack Out May 12th,” news release, April 28, 2017, Legacy Recordings, accessed November 14, 2017, https://legacyrecordings.com/2017/04/28/american-epic-collection-american-epic-soundtrack-may-12th/.

[23]. Ibid.

[24]. Tom Piazza, “Trust the Song,” in Da Capo Best Music Writing 2000 (Boston: Da Capo Press), 301.

 

Any Gilmore Girls fan will tell you that Lorelai and Rory are living the life in Stars Hollow. Personally, I can vouch for this. Every time I am sad, having a bad day, or just need a break from reality, I turn to an episode of Gilmore Girls as my relief. The quick, witty humor, the perfectly quirky town, and the close relationships between characters make this show a refuge from our own daily hardships. As viewers buy into the surface level utopia provided in this show, however, they are actually allowing themselves to buy into deeper utopias — the show offers a variety of different sub-level utopias in order to create an overarching one. I predict that many of these “deeper” utopias are ones that most viewers, including myself, would not like to admit that they actually buy into. This leads us to the question of how does seemingly harmless popular culture, like Gilmore Girls, allow consumers to buy into its more harmful creations of utopia?

Figuring out the basic level utopia that different pieces of popular culture offer is the initial step to answering this question. Using Gilmore Girls as an example makes this easier. The utopia is set up starting with the first episode.  First, there is the opening scene, which shows Loralei crossing the street of a small town to a coffee shop, while all around her people stroll through the town, children ride their bikes, and people sit in the town square (complete with its white gazebo). This is the small town utopia that many imagine when they think of close-knit community suburbs. People happily play and walk through the town on a cold brisk day, and as Lorelai Gilmore crosses the street toward her warm cup of coffee at the local diner, she gets to be a part of this gleeful town experience. But why is this our idea of a utopia? Taking Darren Webb’s description of utopia (which is itself based on ideas from other writers), it becomes clear; he describes a utopian text as something that creates a non-existent society that is better than the one its readers live in. In this way, the town utopia is something that we have been taught to value since we were little from all the images of the perfect white picket fence surrounded house that are constantly being portrayed throughout the media, and which stand in contrast to many of the negativities occurring in our real world. This reality does not really exist anywhere, besides in the media, but the idea of a close-knit community in which kids have the freedom to be kids and there is a local diner where all go to eat is seen as the epitome of the “good life” in America and a bastion of comfort and happiness.

This next basic utopia that I describe may seem silly, but it is almost equally as simple and important to answering our question. Most people (especially those who come from well-off families) have had it drilled into them since they were little that it is important for them to eat healthily. However, the utopia would be to not have to eat healthy (in other words, be able to eat as many waffles, slices of pizza, burgers, etc. that you want), yet still look beautiful and have no health complications. Take almost any episode of Gilmore Girls and you will see Rory and Lorelai eating pizza, pop-tarts, Chinese food, or some combination of the three, but hardly ever will you see them exercise or eat a salad. Many would call this a utopia: being able to lead a sustainable life while on that diet and still be super skinny, beautiful, and not have diabetes. Fredric Jameson describes a utopia as a sort of “fantasy bribe” and the utopia explained above fits this exactly. It is a bribe from the culture and fast food industries to eat their delicious, albeit unhealthy, food, yet experience none of the consequences from doing so.

Gilmore Girls also gives its viewers a utopia through the easy solutions it provides to the problems that the characters in the show encounter. A utopia does not necessarily mean that the people that exist in it do not encounter struggles (at least this is the case in many pieces of popular culture, including Gilmore Girls, because without struggle there would be no interesting plot line). However, it can mean that the problems encountered are more easily solved than they would be in a real life situation. An example of an easy solution to a more complicated problem is present within the first thirty minutes of the inaugural episode. When Rory is accepted to Chilton, a prestigious private school, everyone is excited, that is, until Lorelai realizes just how much money it will cost to send Rory there. Yet the solution comes easily, as Lorelai’s parents happen to be millionaires. People are not usually afforded this privilege; most people do not have millionaire parents who will just give them 50,000 dollars a year in exchange for weekly Friday night dinner with them. Even if the child happened to be the next Albert Einstein, a school like Chilton would simply be out of the cards for most families existing in our world. Rory is smart, but certainly not the next Albert Einstein, yet just like that, she is able to afford a Chilton (inset the name of any other elite private school here and it will be equivalent) education. It is in this way that Gilmore Girls gives viewers its feel good vibe. By “good vibe,” I mean a feeling that makes people who are having a bad day want to watch it: that is, problems are easily solved, there is a caring, happy community supporting your every move, and many of your actions lack the consequences that they have in the “real world.”

Now that we have established some of the contributants to the surface-level utopia presented in Gilmore Girls, a more important point is looking at the deeper utopias that Gilmore Girls subconsciously convinces its viewers to buy into. First, there is the consumerist utopia. This show is a full-on advertisement for consumerism that would make Adorno and Marx roll over in their graves. For example, the first episode is full of consumerist overtones, whether it be the big bags of makeup that Lorelai pulls out from under the table when Rory asks for chapstick, or the references to CDs, rock and roll, and movies made not only in the first episode, but throughout the entire show. The Gilmores, as well as many other characters in this show, are fully absorbed into the consumerist world. For example, Season 4, Episode 15 is titled “Scene in a Mall!” While there is some fun being poked at consumerism, I nonetheless found myself wishing that I could go to a fancy mall and shop my stress away as I bought everything I wanted, just as Emily (Lorelai’s mother and Rory’s grandmother), Lorelai and Rory decided to do this episode. Rory and Lorelai go to the mall to go window shopping because they cannot afford to actually buy anything, but soon discover that window shopping is not all it is built up to be because they cannot exist as a consumer in one of the most consumerist places on earth. They then run into Emily, who is shopping her stress away by buying the most expensive things that she sees. The idea of consumerism as a utopia is perpetuated in a subtle way; while Lorelai and Rory do not seem to be having fun in the mall, the assumption is that if they had enough money to actually buy things, their day of shopping therapy would work perfectly.  Thus, consumerism is the utopia that viewers are subconsciously wishing they existed in while they watch this show.

The second utopia that viewers subconsciously subscribe to as they watch and enjoy this show is the utopia of a class-based society. This show supports the idea of education as a means to an end and money as one of the defining factors of success (it can also be argued that the show puts emphasis on love and relationships). In other words, this show reinforces the idea that those at the top of society, particularly those with an elite education, are going to be better off in the world and that this success is the ultimate utopia. This starts with Lorelai and her desire for Rory to go to college and get a good education (something that she did not have to opportunity to obtain). While Lorelai repeatedly says that she would not change the way her life turned out, throughout the show she also emphasizes how important it is for Rory to have an elite education. The biggest fight that occurred during the series was in Season 6 when Rory decided to drop out of Yale and instead go live at her grandparents’ house. Thus, the series supports the idea of happiness and success coming from, among other things, an elite higher education., The classes in Gilmore Girls society are also made clear. High-class society is represented by Rory’s grandparents, while Lorelai, Rory, and other people in Stars Hollow (like Dean, Rory’s first boyfriend who works stocking the local grocery store) represent the middle classes. Gilmore Girls takes for granted that these classes will exist and makes no effort to emphasize an idea of social mobility. For example, Lorelai will always act inappropriately at her parents’ cocktail parties. She will always be a member of a lower class with instincts of a lower-class citizen, as evidenced by the first episode where she resorts to her middle class ways as she cleans dishes to relieve her stress (while in Richard and Emily’s house, that is a job for the maid). At the same time, Emily and Richard will remain a part of high society, a status that is mainly obtained through money and birth. Thus, Gilmore Girls viewers believe the concept of stratified society being a utopia.

Finally, two of the most harmful utopias that Gilmore Girls perpetuates is its exclusive feminist utopia and its utopia of the life of the white middle class. There are countless articles online that talk about Gilmore Girls as “‘sneakily feminist’” or list Gilmore Girls top feminist moments, but in reality, this series perpetuates a very homogeneous, privileged feminist utopia. While Rory and Lorelai are strong women who should be admired, the show should not be considered the “end-all-be-all” of feminism. The problem is that many do consider it this. Those who buy into this idea are confining their ideal feminist movement to one that is led by white, middle-class women. This utopia blends in with another utopia that the show portrays: a white suburb. There is pretty much no diversity in this show (one of the sole exceptions being Lane, Rory’s Korean best friend), which explains why the feminist utopia portrayed is that which only includes the white middle class.  Those who seek refuge in this show are seeking refuge in a white feminist world where those of other races are underrepresented and not seen to be a part of what people consider to be their ideal society and life.

Thus, popular culture like Gilmore Girls does allow consumers to buy into its more harmful creations of utopia. A generalized answer cannot be supplied by simply analyzing Gilmore Girls, for Gilmore Girls itself a conclusion can be reached. Gilmore Girls causes us to buy into deeper level utopias including those of white feminism, classism, and consumerism, by making it seem like the show is simply an escape from reality for the duration of each forty-five-minute episode. It is more than an escape from reality because the show unwillingly causes people to come to a conclusion about what their perfect life would be, perpetuating the problematic idea of what is utopic. Often that vision is one that they would never admit to themselves or others as being true.

Read by Sarah Tully.

Sources:

• Bradley, Laura. “Explain Why Gilmore Girls Is ‘Sneakily Feminist.’” Vanity Fair. (accessed

November 9, 2017)

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/09/gilmore-girls-feminist-lauren-graham.

• Garis, Mary. “34 Feminist Moments In ‘Gilmore Girls’ Season 1 That Not-So-Secretly

Empowered Us.” Bustle. (accessed November 9, 2017)

https://www.bustle.com/articles/178002-34-feminist-moments-in-gilmore-girls-season-1

that-not-so-secretly-empowered-us.

• Jameson, Fredric. “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture.” Social Text, no. 1 (1979): 144.

doi:10.2307/466409.

• Webb, Darren. “Bakhtin at the Seaside: Utopia, Modernity and the Carnivalesque. Theory,

Culture, and Society, no. 22 (2005): 132.  https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276405053724.

I’m sure that you can think of countless films that draw upon World War II and the fight against fascism. The Nazis are a recognizable evil against whom protagonist can fight. And while this fighting normally presents itself in the form of combat or military action, The Sound of Music comes at it with a different approach. As the name implies, The Sound of Music relies on song and dance to work through its problems. But then the question becomes, how can something so gentle as singing overcome the evil of fascism?

Let’s start with the obvious: in the film, the Nazis try to force Captain Von Trapp to take a place in their military forces, but he refuses and manages to evade their demands by escaping from the country. This is effectively defying the Nazi forces that are overtaking the rest of the nation. The foundation of this escape, though, is the Von Trapps’ performance at the folk festival. Had they not had the excuse of singing in the festival, the captain would have been taken away immediately to fulfill his duties. In contrast to the success of this plan, which was all about singing, their original plan, which involved sneaking out quietly, was a complete failure. This distinction of singing having a positive outcome and silence having a negative one communicates the idea that song will save you.

Possibly more impactful than their actual escape though, is their defiance of the Nazis in the performance itself. Despite Herr Zeller saying that the family was singing “only because that is the way [he] wants it to be”, he is visibly unhappy that they are performing. And Edelweiss, which Captain Von Trapp performs, is not just any song, but is meant to evoke feelings of love for the old Austria, that is, one which is not under control of the Nazis. In this way, not only is the very act of them being there an unhappy sight for the Nazis, but the song being performed is outright bad taste in their view.

One particular moment of interest in this song is when the Captain, singing alone, chokes up, presumably because he is either so sad that the nation he knows and loves has been lost, or fearful that he won’t be able to escape and will have to submit to the Nazis. Either way, he is visibly overwhelmed by the outcomes of the Nazis’ actions. But Maria steps in to sing along with him, and they get not only the children to join in, but also the entire audience (excluding of course the Nazi leaders). Here, the performers and the observers become one and have joined together to sing a song that disregards the Anschluss and temporarily unites everyone into the non-fascist nation that they previously were. Maria joining in allows the Captain to rebel against the threat of the Nazis just as the unification of the audience and the Von Trapps allows everyone in the theater to temporarily break free from the hold of the Nazis. It is through the collective effort of ordinary people that they are able to rebel.

But it is no secret in the film that the Von Trapps were rebelling against the Nazis. What is subtler is the fascism, which is ultimately destroyed through singing, that exists within the family itself. When Maria shows up, the family embodies a fascist regime. As Raymond Knapp describes, it is “run by an autocratic, militaristic captain blind to the individual needs of his own children”. But Maria’s arrival changes all of that. It is through teaching the children how to sing that she is able to help liberate them from their unhappy life under the demands of their authoritarian father.

The first thing she does is ensure that they are all on the same level. She does not demand that the children see her as their superior. Right off the bat she tells Liesel that she will just be her friend if she would like. And when the thunderstorm strikes, they all climb into Maria’s bed together and sing. When they are sitting in the bed, they are physically all at the same eye level and act as though they are all friends. It is in this first song, “My Favorite Things”, that Maria establishes a collectivity and begins to tear down the fascism that this family is drowning in. The children get a taste of what it is like to play and they recognize for the first time how freeing music is. Maria is teaching them that through singing they can overcome their fears and get through tough situations.

And she isn’t just teaching the children this, she is telling the viewers as well. It is nearly impossible, at least for me and those I have watched it with, to see this scene and not want to sing along too. It makes the viewer feel like they can be a part of it and it allows them to be temporarily freed from their own anxieties and fears. The songs in this movie make those watching want to be “active participants and not merely observers” (Flinn). In this way, everything that is happening in the film is more directly influencing us because we are so tightly drawn in through the music. The music liberates both us and the children. When Maria teaches them to sing, she is giving them a tool that they can use to break the ranks as soldiers in the house and just be kids, while at the same time teaching us to similarly deal with our own problems.

But they aren’t just singing and playing, they are singing and playing in bad taste. This bad taste largely originates from Maria. Everything about her reeks of it. As a nun, she is constantly late and doing things she shouldn’t. An entire song is dedicated to a debate about her disobedience. As a governess, she stands up to the Captain within the first few minutes of meeting him and criticizes the way he runs his family. Considering that this was the 1930s, this would have been particularly poor taste, as it is a low-class woman condemning an elite naval officer. She couldn’t care less what other people think about her actions. She sings “I have confidence in me”, demonstrating that it is through songs that she has the courage to rebel against her superiors.

Similarly, once the children begin to sing, they act in fits of liberating bad taste. Not only are they wearing clothes made from curtains, an idea that is absolutely appalling to the Captain, but they also act in ways that aren’t conducive to their regimented lifestyle. When the Captain drives by kids hanging in trees, oblivious that they are his own, he states that they are “just some local urchins”. By urchins he means mischievous, raggedy children, i.e. kids who he thinks are acting in bad taste. From this it becomes clear that singing liberates you to act in ways that defy your superiors and disregard the social norms that they value.  In fact, in one scene, Maria doesn’t just rebel against the captain, she switches roles with him entirely. When Maria again acts in bad taste and argues with the Captain about his relationship with his children, he actually calls her “Captain” by mistake. It is clear that he didn’t mean to say it, but interestingly he never takes it back.

And right after they have this argument, he goes in and sings with his kids for the first time in many years. This act of singing together is a pivotal moment for the structure of the family, for when the song is finished, the Captain hugs all of his children. The embrace is something that was inconceivable only a little while before and altogether destroys the fascist environment of the house. It would not have been possible though, had the song not acted as the means of overturning the relations within the household.

Thus, just as song is used to rebel against the Nazis, it is used to rebel against the fascism within the Von Trapp family. To clarify though, the film is not trying to convey that fascist regimes can be completely toppled by everyone singing and dancing through fields. Instead, it is saying that fascism on the individual level can be overcome through song. A person or group of people can push out the fascist within them or individually defy greater fascist powers. Maybe, just as with the crowd at the festival, song can even allow an entire crowd to temporarily revolt against fascism. What’s more, if this is true with fascist ideas, the same can just as easily apply to all forms of evil. The film, by drawing the viewers in through song, is providing you with the tools to overcome any demon in your life, at least temporarily. And these tools don’t require you to be high class, wealthy, or well educated. If you can sing and have confidence in confidence alone, The Sound of Music argues that you can overcome anything.

One of Marvel Entertainment’s newest films for action-seeking viewers is Logan and that is what it may look like on the surface, a film for thrill-seeking Wolverine, and more generically, X-Men fans that are looking for their satisfactory dose. However, this film also displays a general conclusion from Richard Dyer’s chapter “Entertainment and Utopia” in the book Only Entertainment. The conclusion from Dyer’s chapter is that entertainment exemplifies facets of a better world to us as viewers. The movie does seem to underscore something that is entirely unrelated to the slashing and killing of Wolverine’s usual victims, individuals that are typically against and trying to takeover human society. This film provides a bit of a twist though, rather than the dignity and prominence of humankind being in jeopardy, it is the mutants who are condemned, strictly because of their differences from humans.

Logan is a film that stars Hugh Jackman as an old, washed-up version of Wolverine. Initially, he is trying to live a fairly normal human life, aside from his occasional trips across the border to aid Professor Xavier, as old age is taking its toll on him as well. The trick to this film is that there are new mutants that are ultimately genetic descendents of those prior, like Wolverine. Though these mutant children are held captive in the confines of the hospital that they are ‘engineered’ and raised in, they still retain many basic human qualities, as they are practically a family, which leads one nurse to want to spare their lives. This is what really leads to the chaos that ensues throughout the remainder of the film. These mutant children are released into the world, they’re given a sense of hope, they just need to get to Eden, which is where they seek to congregate prior to achieving safety. Before I go on, I want to recognize that their are religious resemblances in this film, but those are deserving of a different exploration entirely.

Continuing on, what really sets the movie in full swing is one girl in particular, Laura, who is genetically similar to Logan. She’s the ‘person of interest’, using the term in its most literal sense. Those tracking her, as well as the other mutants, act as if they’re going to save the world by recapturing them, as if they’re saving the world from some utterly destructible force(s). They make themselves seem like they’re the heroes and once they realize that Laura and Logan are linked, that’s when all hell breaks loose.

To any novel Marvel fan, this may seem like the next great film, a film of continuous and inescapable action-packed fighting. Honestly, that isn’t necessarily a false statement. The question I then ask though is, who are they fighting against? It is clear that they are fighting for their own survival, as one would expect them to. Right from the beginning of the film, we are instantly led to side with the mutants, pulling for them for the entirety of movie. But do we recognize who we are pulling against? The answer to these two previously asked questions is humankind, our own kind. And what do the mutants represent? They represent those people who are different from the mass population. Logan, who is clearly still mutant, provides a simplistic example of how they differ from the general population right at the beginning of the film when he’s awaken by men trying to remove pieces from his car. Initially he tries to handle the situation humanely, but these men fight back, which cues the inevitable… out come the claws … and the rest is history.

The journey for Logan, Laura, and, at least for some time, Professor Xavier begins as they begin their trek towards Eden, a trek that Logan himself is skeptical of and initially doesn’t see as worthy. His human-side has taken a toll on him. Mentally, he has shifted out of the mutant mindset, going off of the idea that few, if any, mutants even exist anymore. That’s one of the reasons he doubts that Laura is even worth their time from the beginning. His human side, and his want for normalcy, leads him to move away from seeing himself as a mutant, as Charles Xavier is really his remaining point of connection, while it also guides him to conform to their standards; I mean, why would a ‘former’ superhero become a driver for people? Other than that, he seems disinterested in his mutant past and the possibility that there are still mutants who do exist.

As the movie progresses, however, Logan realizes that he may be the last sense of hope that mutants have. He may be the only one who can help save them and prevent them from being extinguished from society, from being removed and dictated by humankind. After all, many of the remaining mutants are only children, who lack the leadership and brute strength to fend off their oppressors. The injustice shown towards certain people is no stranger to the real world as well and, unfortunately, for some, the world would be a better place without a particular race, religion, or social group.

In our world today, including the past, there are plenty of examples of social and religious extremist groups that seek to get rid of certain populations and cause disruption entirely. From their perspective, the world is a better place without these people or they see them as some kind of threat to their ideal society. They’d rather live in a world, bluntly, where these people don’t exist, which is part of their own personal utopias. As is the case in Logan, humankind is trying to restrict and maintain mutants, seeing them as a threat to their states of ideality. Think about the Nazi’s for example. In the mid-1900’s, they believed, or at least some believed and others followed suit, that the extermination of the Jewish population would resolve many of the issues of their world, which is incomprehensible in its own right. But a similar situation is prevalent in Logan as well. Humans act as if the world would be a better place if mutants were extinguished. But is that what the film is really showing us?

In Mikhail Lyubansky’s article “The Racial Politics of X-Men”, he states that “the viewer is expected to ultimately accept the assumption that it is the mutants (and, by extension, gays, lesbians, and people of color) who must somehow make themselves fit into mainstream society”. Keep in mind that this is regarding prior X-Men movies before Logan, but as they are predecessors of the film, you’d think some themes would still apply. However, as viewers of Logan, this doesn’t necessarily seem to be the case. Interestingly enough, Logan does initially seem to conform to societal standards, but that doesn’t explain his eventual return to his mutant side. If we, as viewers, were expected to interpret this movie in the fashion that Lyubanksy argues of the other X-Men films, then why would they even put up the fight? If these are the last remaining mutants, then why don’t they succumb to ordinary society and their oppressors? It’s because they shouldn’t be expected to.

Lyubansky also argues that, “Xavier’s mindset would’ve blamed Jews in Nazi Germany and Blacks in the antebellum South for their victimization–and would’ve expected them to make accommodations for the sake of peace”. If that were the case in this film, however, then why would Xavier want Logan to take care of and help Laura, especially if he could anticipate that it would cause further disruption, the opposite of peace.

What really throws this whole idea for a spin is that the mutants are the ones who prevail. They fend off those who have an ideal world where mutants don’t exist, those who seek more power and control. The mutants do this in defense of the continuation of their own selves. So then, what is the film really showing us? It clearly isn’t that the removal of different types of people is the answer. If that was the case, then humankind would’ve simply defeated the mutants. We, as viewers, are then proposed an entirely different set of utopian standards and expectations. Through the success of the mutants, who I remind you are the ones being oppressed, just as white supremacists attempt to oppress African-Americans, we can see an entirely different answer to this film’s image of a utopian world. Logan, who serves as the leader in the fight against those who are trying to rid the world of mutants, is a Martin Luther King Jr. esque figure in this film. He eventually comes to realize the injustice that is being shown towards mutants and conjoins with the others to fight it together. That pushes us as the viewers to see something much different, a world that is built and structured off of equality and justice, where no one should be subjugated due to their uncontrollable differences from the overarching masses.

As the battle concludes and ultimately Logan himself is killed and buried, many of the kids, whom he has touched through his leadership and will to fight, including Laura, hold a burial ceremony. Initially, they create and place a cross at the head of his grave. But, as everyone proceeds to leave the scene, Laura emotionally turns that cross to an ‘X’, signifying that their fight as mutants for respect continues, that the fight must continue, even if their most trusted leader has been defeated. One thing I didn’t initially realize but was introduced to through Ignatiy Vishnevetsky’s critical analysis of Logan titled “A cross on its side: Logan gets religion” is that Logan’s “relationship to Laura could almost be called a religious relationship. She’s Logan’s afterlife”. He sacrificed his own self for the mutant children, especially Laura, considering all that he went through for her, so that they could live there lives and have their own experiences in the world, so that they could carry on the mutant ‘species’.

From the mind of an oppressor, the extinguishing of a different culture, religion, class, race, etc will lead to a better world, or else why would they be so driven to try and get rid of these people? But Logan shows us something else. The mutants, who symbolize those different cultures, religions, and races succeed. They fend off their oppressors… and that’s the nice way of putting it. What Logan really displays to us is that a utopia can be achieved by standing up to the cultural, racial, and religious oppressing mindsets, that a better world is achieved through consistent unity between individuals, ignoring whatever differences that they may have. Ultimately, Logan shows us a different way that we can see the world, a way that the world can be made more utopian. I mean many of us were cheering for the mutants right from the beginning, cheering for the outsiders. We wanted those who had differences to succeed and defeat those who were treating them unjustly… and claws aren’t needed to do that.

*This essay was read by Cory Lund. It is not a first draft.

Works Cited

Dyer, Richard. Only Entertainment. Routledge, 1992.

Lyubansky, Mikhail. “The Racial Politics of X-Men.” Psychology Today, Sussex

Publishers, 5 June 2011, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/between-the-lines

/201106/the-racial-politics-x-men.

Mangold, James, director. Logan. Marvel Entertainment, 2017.

Vishnevetsky, Ignatiy. “A Cross on Its Side: Logan Gets Religion.” Film,

Film.avclub.com, 7 Mar. 2017, film.avclub.com/a-cross-on-its-side-logan-gets-religion-1798258715.