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Father Trouble: Staging Sovereignty in Spielberg's War of the Worlds

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 25; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/15295030701849332

1529-5036

Joshua Gunn,

South Asian Cinema and Culture

Abstract This essay argues that Spielberg's War of the Worlds, constitutive of anxieties generated by Nine-eleven, tacitly cultivates an affective response of desperation in order to promulgate an ideology of paternal sovereignty. To this end I first claim that the film is about sovereignty because it re-stages a state of nature as a “state of emergency.” Second, drawing on the work of Jacques Lacan and Giorgio Agamben, I argue that the father figure of the film doubles as the figure of a sovereign insofar as both represent the authority of the law, both are charged with protecting their people, and both have the power to assert a state of exception. Finally, the essay concludes by describing the parallels between the film's plot vis-à-vis the father and the narrative arc of the presidency of George W. Bush. Keywords: George W. BushFather FigureIdeologySovereigntyState of Exception Acknowledgements Insofar as all published essays are co-authored at some level, the author would like to thank Barry Brummett, Dana Cloud, Tom Frentz, Chris Lundberg, Kenneth Rufo, Eric Watts, and the blinded reviewers for their advice and patience. Notes 1. I deliberately refer to the events of September 11, 2001 as “Nine-eleven” to underscore their fetishization and commodification. 2. “With War of the Worlds he [Spielberg] has made what is arguably one of the best 1950s science fiction films ever, and that is not a backhanded compliment” (Turan, Citation2005, para. 2). 3. If films can be read as the collective dreaming of a people, then War of the Worlds can also be described as a nightmare registering the fears of a polis besieged by “terrorists” less than six years ago (Rushing & Frentz, Citation1995, p. 47). 4. Owing to the undeniable Spielberg “brand” and my remarks about intention, some readers may be tempted to dismiss the following analysis as a variation of auteur theory. As I go on to argue, however, the affective economy of the film is largely an unconscious production; Spielberg would probably bridle at the suggestion that War of the Worlds supports or reflects the post-Nine-eleven popularity of the Bush administration. 5. My repeated references to “policemen” instead of “police officers” are deliberate, as this reflects not only what is seen on screen, but also the masculine coding of authority throughout the film. 6. More technically, the “real father” is the individual who is said to be the father, not necessarily the biological father, which implies that even the real father is a symbolic subject. 7. In the stories of Oedipus and the primal horde, the father's transgressions are punished by death (Oedipus, one recalls, blinds himself and wanders in darkness when he realizes his violation of the law of exogamy). The lesson here is that no-one can be the law, and neither can s/he fully represent the law. Furthermore, Lacan eventually argues that even the law or symbolic itself contains a perversion or “gap” that indicates that we “can no longer rely on the Father's guarantee” (Lacan, Citation1992, p. 100; see Shepherdson, Citation2000, pp. 115–121). 8. Again, this theoretical point is more technical but space does not permit a full explanation. The function of the “paternal metaphor” here is to provide a new object choice for the child, and thereby an escape for the narcissism of primary identification (see Shepherdson, Citation2000, pp. 121–140). 9. For Lacan, then, the symbolic father is really nothing more than a metaphor for the institution of what he calls the symbolic order, the world of language and representation. This order is often contrasted with the “imaginary” and the “real”; however, space prevents a thorough account of Lacan's three registers. 10. I should note that at times Lacan refers to the symbolic father as the “Name-of-the-Father” in order to emphasize that it is a function, and not a person. Extending an example first described by Fink (1997, p. 80), the present discussion of Lacan's theory of the father is a good example of the theory: throughout this section I have invoked the name of Lacan as a signifier of authority, not the flesh-and-blood human being of Lacan (who is, in fact, a real dead daddy); his name turns on some and turns off others, but it is the appeal to the name itself that rhetorically communicates authority. The Name-of-the-Father is another term for what rhetoricians term “appeals to authority.” 11. The Oedipal themes central to his films are numerous: Indiana Jones, for example, was estranged from his Holy Grail-chasing father in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Cruise's futuristic investigator in Minority Report is haunted by his failure to protect a dead son. The robot boy in A.I. Artificial Intelligence was searching for a connection with his creator “father.” And a fussy grown-up Peter Pan in Hook neglected his children until they were snatched away to Never Land, where he rediscovers his better nature. (Breznican, Citation2005, p. 1A; also see Stephens, Citation1997) 12. Most recently this “crisis” has been centered on the absent father in the African American community; however, rhetoric about the perils of the absent father has been steadily building in over the past century in Europe and the United States. 13. Prima facie, the reason for State failure in War of the Worlds has to do with its explicit ideological message: the film is a call to parental duty in the wake of a disaster or crisis, a theme discernable in many of Spielberg's family-oriented films, such as E.T., The Goonies, and Poltergeist. In addition to its commentary on the decline of father figures in the United States, the movie also intones: “When your government can no longer protect you, a (broken) family can!” In this respect, War of the Worlds is arguably a resurrection of the bourgeois concept of family as the only viable protection from capitalism or catastrophe (see Engels, Citation1999; Zaretsky, Citation1986). 14. For an overview of the many different types of sovereignty, see the entry on the concept in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sovereignty/). 15. Hardt and Negri, for example, argue that the sovereign, wed to the nation state, is functionally a single, transcendent power that has been (or is being) liquidated by capitalism, which operates on a plane of immanence; its contemporary replacement is an emerging “empire” (see Hardt & Negri, Citation2000, pp. 235–348). 16. My thanks to Kenneth Rufo for stressing the importance of distinguishing Schmitt's concern with the legal from Agamben's concern with the social. 17. I am thinking in particular of Jean-Louis Baudry's theory of the “cinematic apparatus” (see de Lauretis & Heath, Citation1980). 18. From an interview with David Koepp: “[A]s long as everything's pretty much copasetic, we're okay. But as soon as we get scared, or threatened, or something's being taken from us”—DK: “Yeah—we get ugly. … We were in a story meeting one day, when I was maybe halfway though the War of the Worlds script. I had show the first have to Steven [Spielberg] and he said: ‘I want you to remember, though, that in times of great disaster … it does tend to bring out the best in people. … I said, ‘Yes, you're absolutely right,’ and went home and wrote the carjacking scene, where it's as ugly as ugly gets. In part, because I'm still a teenager and I have to rebel against Dad, but also because [I am not optimistic like Spielberg].” (Friedmann & Koepp, Citation2005, p. 150) 19. So, too, is my work on Huey Pierce Long; this essay is intended as its counterpart (see Gunn, Citation2007). 20. Moreover, Alan Wolfe argues, “ Schmitt's way of thinking about politics pervades the contemporary zeitgeist in which Republican conservatism has flourished, often in ways so prescient as to be eerie” (Wolfe, Citation2004, para. 7). 21. The many legal transgressions of the United States government are detailed in the most recent report issued by the United Nations (Citation2006). 22. For a good overview of the answers given, see James E. Campbell's study (Citation2005, pp. 219–241). 23. Arguably, another reason is because, after numerous controversial statements and appearances promoting the film, in the public eye Tom Cruise is a hopelessly misguided Scientologist. Additional informationNotes on contributorsJoshua Gunn Joshua Gunn is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin