Danzig's Oedipal Strife

Anyone who hears about a conflict between a prospective suitor and his lady’s parents would not be shocked. This is one of the most common story formulas in history: boy meets girl, boy must prove to girl’s parents his worthiness, and parents either approve and consent or disapprove and reject. This formula in itself provides us with plenty of material with which to understand humans within a familial and social context, but when Glenn Danzig takes it a step further, we are able to see even deeper into human consciousness, unconsciousness, and the defense mechanisms we use to protect ourselves.






On a structural level, Danzig’s song appears to be a warped version of the ‘boy meets girl’s parents’ formula in that he is talking to her parents and mentioning his desire to take her out for the night. Danzig’s use of this typical formula as a means to convey a very atypical message is indicative of his own inner conflict and lack of resolution of the Oedipal stage. Danzig does not sing to the mother and father to convince them to let him take their daughter, but rather, threatens the daughter and father, and entices the mother. Hence, the singer reveals a manifestation of his repressed desire for his mother, and his continued struggle for dominance with his father. However, instead of playing out this conflict with his actual parents, he does so with the parents of a presumed love interest because the pain of the original conflict it too much for the ego to bear.

Sigmund Freud explains that “the tie of affection, which binds the child as a rule to the parent of the opposite sex, succumbs to disappointment” and concludes that “the lessening amount of affection he receives, the increasing demands of education, hard words and an occasional punishment—these show him at last the full extent to which he has been scorned” (435). This initial disappointment, as experienced by the child’s realization that the mother cannot and will not be his, is usually resolved by the child’s alignment with the father and the phallus. For Danzig, however, this conflict and disappointment is not necessarily resolved in the typical way. Rather than overtly challenging his own father and pursuing his own mother, he feigns interest in a heteronormative partner in order to pursue a different mother and challenge a different father. Indeed, Danzig is bitter towards his mother and yet still deeply desires her, and because he cannot quite have her, he is willing to settle for nothing less than another mother.

Danzig begins his song with words of warning and threats towards the mother’s children. He asks, “Can you keep them in the dark for life? Can you hide them from the waiting world?”, but he does this not to actually warn them, but rather to express his resentment and disappointment resulting from his separation from what Lacan calls the “motherer”. At some point, he was launched out of the ‘Imaginary’, where he was one with the motherer and completely safe from the “waiting world”, and dropped into the ‘Symbolic’, where he is acutely aware of his separation from her and of an overall ‘lack’ in his life. Rather than cope with this loss through repression or by connecting with his own father, Danzig latches on to another’s parents and attempts the entire Oedipal process all over again while simultaneously accusing the new mother of the crime of forcing her own children into this world of pain.

He then goes on to challenge the father by asking “do you wanna bang heads with me?”, and entices the mother by saying “if you wanna find hell with me, I can show you what it’s like.” Here, Danzig’s challenging of the father is representative of what Freud calls an “identification with the father” (439)—he would like to be the father. But rather than learn how to be the father with another woman, he attempts to be the father by defeating one. Conversely, his enticement of the mother shows his desire to have her rather than identify with her. She is his object, and the purpose of this song is to convince her to give up her role as mother to her children and wife to her husband, and to become mother and wife to him alone. He cannot achieve this with his own mother, and so, just like the little boy who throws his toys away, “by repeating it, unpleasurable though it was, [...] he took on an active part” and made himself “master of the situation” (Freud 432-33). Whether he is successful in attaining a new motherer or not is irrelevant. The only thing that matters for this man is his ability to recreate his Oedipal stage over and over again so that he does not have to feel the loss of his original object, his mother.


Freud, Sigmund. “Beyond the Pleasure Principle.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd Ed. Eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 2004.

---“Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd Ed. Eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 2004.

My, What Bad Luck She Has: The Case of the Woman-Child

The reference Freud makes to Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata, where the hero kills/wounds his love repeatedly without realizing it, is an excellent example of our preconscious ego recreating loss and suffering in a way that enables us to have power and mastery over it. Tancred does not intentionally hurt Clorinda again, but rather, he does so because he has not dealt with the fact that he was the cause of her death. The same applies to the examples Freud gives regarding the man who creates the same destructive pattern in his love relationships, or the child who throws out his toys in place of losing his mother. When we do not learn from or heal from our suffering or losses, we recreate them in order to feel power over them. We enact the loss or hurt upon ourselves, and are consequently more comfortable with it.

It is nearly impossible not to see the existence of such repeated patterns of thought or behavior in our everyday lives and in the lives of those around us. I cannot count how many times I have noticed someone doing something self-destructive over and over again, only to realize that a similarly harmful thing had already been enacted upon them. This is most evident in the case of the ‘woman-child,’ someone I happen to know quite well. At first glance, she is a middle-aged woman with the lightness of spirit and gentleness of demeanor which is reminiscent of a young girl. She speaks softly and loves wearing bright summer dresses. She loves laughing and the only inner darkness she admits to or complains of is a growing sense that the light inside her is being extinguished by others. She is a victim. As I continued to get to know her, I observed that she seemed to have a lot of trouble in her romantic relationships. Men tended to mistreat her by using her for her money or talking down to her or not going out with her in public. She lamented these situations and complained that she deserved better, but she never did anything about it or chose different men.

What she did inform me of was how much better she was doing than ever before. A decade prior, she finally ‘escaped’ a fifteen year, highly physically and emotionally abusive relationship, and prior to that, she ‘escaped’ a childhood comprised of various other deeply troubling abuses. Now, thirty-five years from the start, she cannot see that although the abuses and abusers are different, the hurt is the same. She complains of her mistreatment, yet she chooses to surround herself with unsafe people. This is not to say that she intentionally causes her own suffering any more than Tancred intentionally caused his love’s death and his own suffering. Rather, she never dealt with her original suffering, her original hurt and loss, and so she continues to experience it in a way that is manageable and controlled. She is victim and abuser at the same time. She speaks like an adult and lives like an adult, but is also simultaneously a little girl who has never healed.

People wonder why battered women repeatedly place themselves in abusive relationships after having been abused as children. What people do not understand is the woman’s need to re-experience the abuse in a different way in order avoid the loss and hurt she felt as a child. The displacement of the hurt as a child onto the hurt as an adult by a different abuser makes the hurt more manageable. The only way out of such a cycle is the woman’s willingness to look at the original hurt in order to learn from it and feel it so that she no longer needs to substitute a new hurt for the old one. Without Freud’s intensive research and writing, such an analysis would not be possible, and a woman such as the one previously mentioned would not be understood, and consequently, could never be helped.

Christina Ricci and Semiology: Two Great Tastes That Go Great Together

Just as it is necessary to have a system of language in order to make sounds and utterances meaningful, so do we have an established system of entertainment which makes celebrities meaningful. Jonathan Culler explains that Structuralism is based on “the realization that if human actions or productions have a meaning there must be an underlying system of distinctions and conventions which makes this meaning possible” (56). Indeed, it would be impossible to recognize the significance of Paris Hilton washing a car with a hamburger in her hand or Britney Spears shaving her head if there was not a system of associations and differences which spell out for us how things are supposed to be in our culture, particularly within the realm of media and entertainment. As Culler notes, “the rules of English enable sequences of sound to have meaning” (56), just as the rules of American pop culture enable the celebrities within it to have meaning. This is certainly the case with the former child—and now identifiably adult—actress, Christina Ricci. Ms. Ricci is one of the few actresses who, although her name represents only one sound image, one signifier, is able to signify two very different cultural concepts; she is both the mysterious, delicate, but often threatening young girl and the seductive, damaged, often severely abused and troubled young woman.

Ferdinand de Saussure begins his semiologic analysis of linguistics by asserting that “language is a system of signs that express ideas” and that this system serves as more than just a “naming-process” (60). The same applies to the signs within the system of media and entertainment, as evidenced by Ricci. On the surface, it is easy to declare that Ricci signifies ‘young actress’ with ‘odd tastes.’ If we stop there, that would be a case of mere naming. However, it is more beneficial and certainly more productive to look at this sign within the context of the system from whence she originated, and in order to do so, it is important to look at other signs and how they are similar to and different from her. As a child actress, Ricci already differentiated herself from other signs in that her name evoked a sense of discomfort and concern. Her child roles typically involved her being empowered (particularly in the two Addams Family films). As an adult, she differentiates herself from other signs in that the utterance of her name signifies weakened, disempowered sex object or victim. As a child she was mostly empowered, as an adult, not so much. Hence, the child Ricci, when compared to a sign like her such as Drew Barrymore, signifies a much different concept. Whereas Drew represents the adorable innocence our culture associates with children, Ricci represents the dark side of childhood that our society often ignores. Similarly, whereas the adult Drew represents a mature and healthy young woman who has overcome terrible obstacles, Ricci signifies ongoing trouble and victimization and, more importantly, a lack of interest in conforming, changing, or ‘healing.’

By comparing the significations of Ricci and Drew as both child and adult stars, and then by looking at how these stereotypes are manifested elsewhere, we are able to recognize greater societal value systems. Saussure explains that “the respective value of the pieces depends on their position on the chessboard just as each linguistic term derives its value from its opposition to all the other terms” (64). In the same vein, the sign “Christina Ricci” derives its value from its difference from the sign “Drew Barrymore,” and other signs as well. Each sign represents a different side of our culture, and this would not be apparent without the two signs being placed next to each other. Based on the concept of Ricci as “sex kitten,” we see the cultural value of not just feminine sexual appeal, but the weakened female object. Conversely, based on the concept of Drew as “sweet, woman-child,” we see the cultural value of pure, delicate, and almost motherly woman. It is the repeated juxtaposition of these two cultural mythologies, which in fact are more like contradictions, that enables us to better understand our culture and the signs we perceive on a daily basis.

---Culler, Jonathan. "The Linguistic Foundation."

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan, Eds. Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed.Malden: Blackwell, 2004.

---Saussure, Ferdinand de. "Course in General Linguistics."

Woah-Man: Defamiliarizing Pregnancy

A small man hugs a large man who is wearing a pink dress. The man has nearly shoulder-length blonde hair and has a visibly pregnant belly. The small man leaves the second story room and the pregnant man looks out the window at several pregnant women. He appears unhappy, and calls a woman and leaves her a message. The pregnant man flops a baby doll on a table in the process of putting a diaper on it and is reminded to be gentle with babies. Later, he is seen along with the pregnant women coming down a staircase, smiling. He improves in the baby-diaper application process, but still has immense difficulty moving his more than six-foot tall pregnant body around. He is highly emotional at times, and has difficulty getting his massive body into bed at the end.

Viktor Shklovsky asserts that “habitualization devours work, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war” (16), and indeed, so does it also disable individuals from seeing, let alone appreciating, a woman’s experience with pregnancy. People become desensitized, and often altogether blind to, the experiences of others and the objects and images in their lives, and this is exactly how people perceive, or more accurately, do not perceive pregnant women. In response to this tendency to not “see” what is right before one’s eyes, Shklovsky explains that “art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony” (16). This clip from the film Junior certainly makes pregnancy pregnancy-y. Once one gets past the obvious humor of a man so large and so well known for being an action hero being in a pink dress and blonde wig, the viewer is forced to “see” pregnancy in all its glory. Although a large, pregnant man makes the experience and image of pregnancy shockingly grotesque, he also makes the viewer see the actions and feelings of pregnant women in a new light.

The Deadened Senses of an Entertainment Society

Twenty-first century American popular culture is saturated with extreme images of sex, violence, and consumption. Ours is an entertainment culture which feeds on the people’s desire to be awe-inspired, impressed, shocked, and appalled. Hence, each new video or song must be able to penetrate the audience’s increasingly calloused exterior in order to be lucrative. In the music video “Stinkfist,” Tool comments on our society’s consumer-based addiction to sensory stimulation, and although Plato does not directly address the issue of an over-stimulated mass society in the Republic, his theory is useful in interpreting the video and its greater societal meaning. Plato would argue that although the video intends to subvert the societal need for and emphasis on shocking entertainment, the fact that the video itself is so grotesque is enough for him to consider it unhealthful and dangerous for the masses.

In his Republic, Plato argues that stories which depict gods acting wickedly “are harmful to those who hear them” and that “that’s why such stories must be stopped, to prevent them from breeding in our young men a complete indifference to wickedness” (31-32). Indeed, this is exactly the stance Plato would take in evaluating “Stinkfist.” Rather than commend the video for its accurate depiction of two individuals’ obsessive and compulsive consumption and over-stimulation, Plato would attack the video for its use of disturbing imagery and its lack of positive instruction. When Maynard sings, “there’s something kinda sad about the way that things have come to be. Desensitized to everything; what became of subtlety?” (Tool), he admonishes the shock-based culture in which we live because of its tendency to numb and deaden individuals’ perceptions and ability to think. Although this is a concept Plato would appreciate, the means by which the band conveys the message are too poetic, and are too much of a rhetorical appeal to the audience’s emotions.

By showing the man caressing a television screen, inhaling a substance from a breathing apparatus, and swallowing spikes in spite of his apparent agony, and by pairing these scenes with the lyrics described above, Tool attempts to show the dark side of an addicting entertainment culture. In order to send this message, however, Plato would suggest leading by example. The music video, therefore, should be used to show individuals practicing positive, constructive behaviors so that the audience will not be desensitized to the very things Tool is saying we are desensitized to—corruption, violence, and sex. Hence, Plato would condemn the video for inadvertently promoting the very ills it is supposed to be subverting. To Plato, “Stinkfist” is devoid of any educational usefulness, and due to its ability to manipulate and influence the ignorant masses, he would consider it a danger to society. Indeed, this video reveals how absolutely necessary it is for those in power to be conscious of what and how much the people consume, and how that will affect their ability to effectively participate in their lives and the life of their community.

Works Cited

Plato. Republic 3. Classical Literary Criticism. Trans. Penelope Murray and T.S. Dorsch. London: Penguin, 2000.

Tool. “Stinkfist.” YouTube. 3 February 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07pLGIgyfjw.

Is There a Good Side to Greed?

Michael Douglas’ character’s speech involves the expert usage of Aristotle’s concepts of Logos, Ethos, and Pathos. By emphasizing that his success is contingent upon the share-holders’ success, he appeals to a sense of community (Ethos), and by providing a plethora of facts, statistics, and details, he appeals to the audience’s sense for logic (Logos). However, the most effective aspect of his speech, and in my opinion, the most unconventional, is his appeal to the emotions of the audience through his emphasis on the necessity of greed (Pathos). By promoting greed as a positive characteristic, and by turning it into a means of accomplishing goals, he appeals to his audience on an emotional level. It is unlikely that men involved in business of the stock market’s caliber have not dealt with or personally felt extreme greed. Many men probably feel (and the key word here is feel) disgust when they hear that word, or at least shame. Hence, Douglas’ character’s use of this particularly heavy word would most certainly impact his audience. The fact that he expertly shifts the word’s connotation from negative and destructive to positive and productive is not a reflection of the mutability of the word, but rather his skill as a rhetorician. He realizes that if he is to persuade his audience that his way is the right way, he needs to subvert their existing perceptions rather than blatantly challenge them. He appeals to their feelings about greed and selfishness, and in so many words, tells them that it is not only okay to be selfish and self-seeking, but it is actually necessary in the world of business.

In response to Plato, Aristotle comments, “In deciding whether something that has been said or done is morally good or bad, not only should we pay regard to the goodness or badness of the saying or deed itself, but we should also take into account the persons by whom and to whom it was said or done, the occasion, the means, and the reason—whether, for example, to bring about a greater good, or to avert a greater evil” (94-95). Here, rather than judge a story, poem, or speech as detrimental based on its content alone, Aristotle encourages a contextual analysis as well as a thorough investigation into the author or speaker’s perceived intent. This is most certainly a departure from Plato’s admonition against nearly all creative poetry and prose, but it, too, has its faults as evidenced in Douglas’ speech. It is not clear from watching one scene whether or not his speech was successful in persuading his audience, but he certainly had a major impact on them. By appealing to Logos, Ethos, and particularly Pathos, he affected them on the three main aspects of their being. The problem now is not how effective he was or wasn’t, but rather, whether or not his overall aim is morally good or bad. He claims to be averting a greater evil by his encouragement of a generally negative trait. Plato would argue that he is absolutely morally corrupt and dangerous for the masses based on this promotion of greed, whereas Aristotle would most likely avoid disregarding the speech as immoral without further investigating the character, the situation, and the next few scenes.

However, it is not possible to always discover an author or speaker’s intent, nor can a reader or listener ever have all the information from all perspectives, and thus, Aristotle’s point loses its validity. The only way that I can make sense of the two rivaling perspectives is as follows: Aristotle appreciates good rhetoric first and foremost because if it is done right, it will serve as a catharsis for the people which will, in effect, aide them in their endeavors; conversely, Plato appreciates morally instructive works because anything else, well done or not, will only lead the people into destructive behaviors. One can look at Douglas’ speech from both perspectives—he is leading the people astray through his illegitimate use of rhetoric or he is leading the people to success through his effective rhetorical appeals to their senses. I highly doubt that Douglas’ demand for greed is an effort to bring about a greater good for anyone but himself, but the fact remains that he is a fine rhetorician.