National Lampoon Season is Upon Us
November 20, 2004
As the “holiday season” is upon us, the attenuated nature of that nomenclature rises higher in the minds of many Americans than they will freely admit, and even those who regard themselves as the most “traditional” and “conservative” come dangerously close to realizing how high the waters have risen and how hot they are.
Perhaps many prayers of thanks this season will look down on the sad, alienated secular, liberal publicans who cry out to big government and enlightened skepticism for succour from their alien-nation. But deeper down, past the usual awareness of the evils of consumerism, Americans, irrespective of their politics, equally suffer the effects of distance and economic independence rather than familial and communal interdependence. And even this “independence” they have is really just individual attachment (serfdom really) to a corporate paymaster.
In that vein, Chevy Chase will soon be repeating his annual quest for the Christmas bonus, and other “holiday movies” will soon be presenting the populace with more of that stunningly sad humor that is laughed at by nearly everyone, including staunch patriots whose staunchness is probably to be explained as a protection against the question posed by the entertainments: why defend this “life?”
American politics could be remade and refreshed overnight simply by having party leaders ask that question over a screening of National Lampoon “family” films. Two or three in a row should crack the hardest skulls and bring together the divided politicking on matters economic, moral and spiritual. (Imagine William Bennett or Newt Gingrich weeping with Bill Clinton and taking some kind of Promise-Keeper pledge while Franklin Graham and Bill Wallis start the group hug.)
The national communion of denial sparks such satire and simultaneously contains it. One is encouraged to play to the script: technologies of represented presence and rapid mobility incline all to believe that distance has been eliminated. It is enough to “reach out and touch … someone.” Repeat and believe: your lives are not really fragmented because you can pantomime the togetherness of “extended family” on cue, but it is a relic and a showpiece, not a necessary structuring of life.
As I gaze on this familiar Rockwellian scene, I sense the emerging shape of a story Tom Wolfe might write. It involves turkey and viagra. Turkey has a natural erectile enhancement property, and it seems that these important cultural symbols are some of the few things the culture can unite on. Opening scene: a senior statesman goes on TV to give a benediction before the ball games. He speaks of things everyone agrees to love: the goods of boneless birds processed in individual portions and being able to bone your significant other at age 95.
Then we zoom in and perhaps hear some wisdom reserved for age: the omniscient meddler parent whose tone catches you in the back of the neck as we hear the thoughtful consideration of so-and-so’s life–who may or may not be in the room. And it’s not about that person at all, you come to realize, but rather the subject being circled is a felt and dimly perceieved need for the presence of filial interdependence. This circling voice traces out a constellation of interstellar separations in time and space from children, siblings, parents, friends and the speaker’s own youth when more that was dear was near to home, and that was what home was. You hear the admixture of regret, resentment, and the sense that youth is wasted on the young. (That ironical proverb whose corollary is “youth is wasted by everyone.”) Worries then are articulated in terms of choices–the right versus the wrong ones, of course. As if one never is compelled to choose between different goods, or as if all choices aren’t compromised and bad in some way. And as if life is not a pilgrimage for penitents and the world a hospital in which we must get worse before we can get better. As if suffering other people is not inevitable and necessary.
On this course our script follows the bestowal of seasonal advisings to their dramatic crisis. We need for this an actress capable of depicting “thin-lipped forbearance.” The nuclear family approaches critical mass. Will they let their cups of false communion pass? How could they.
This is National Lampoon Season is Upon Us in The Japery, a part of The New Pantagruel. Previously: Fighting the CoD | Next: St. Tammy, Our Lady of Preservatives | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)
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