Jewett, Robert and John Shelton Lawrence. ��Star Trek� and the Bubble-gum Fallacy� The American Monomyth. Garden City, USA: Anchor Press/Doubleday. 1977.
Continuing in my series of vicious lambastings of Jewett and Lawrence�s The American Monomyth, we now dive into the first chapter.
They report, but do not cite, casual fans of Star Trek referring to it as �bubble-gum,� and contrast that attitude against the �fanaticism� (1) of dedicated fans. They also cite a sociological study by one Herbert J. Gans that seems to simultaneously argue that �people pay much less attention to the media and [�] would not think of applying its content to their own lives� (Gans in J&L 2), and that �popular culture does not harm either high culture, the people who prefer it, or the society as a whole� (Gans in J&L 3), that �If the media had as significant an effect on aggressive behavior as the critics and some researchers charge, a constantly increasing tide of violence should have manifested itself in America since the emergence of mass media� (Gans in J&L 3), but also that it �has played a useful role in the process of enabling ordinary people to become individuals [� and] offer[s] ideas to the audience which it can apply to its own situation� (Gans in J&L 3).
On the face of it, that combination of quotations seems pretty damning, but J&L consistently misquote Campbell, so they�ve already lost the benefit of the doubt with me. Based on the few glimpses of Gans� paper that we get, I can see a way in which the argument is consistent. His claim could be that though audiences don�t pay as close attention as critics, and though violence in media doesn�t cause violence in the real world, it has other effects on and uses to that popular audience. They might take up the media�s situations on a less-than-conscious level. They might take up only the general thrust, rather than the minutia that we literary critics are so fond of. There might, even for reasons unknown, simply be no causal chain between fictional and real violence. These statements could all be true, and accurate.
Regardless, J&L arrive at a somewhat useful concept, the �bubble-gum fallacy,� which �paradoxically ascribes trivial and instrumental qualities to popular culture materials,� and �obscures [its] mythic qualities,� the result of which is that it �discourages any investigation of the power of such materials to shape consciousness and thus indirectly influence behavior� (4). Their quotations do not quite demonstrate that Gans� paper did any such thing, but, nevertheless, the complaint is valid. Such a claim would be fallacious.
The rest of the paper doesn�t come back to that fallacy, nor does it actually demonstrate that there is a causal connection between media and behaviour, even though making such an argument would be as easy as citing the effects of either advertising or propaganda, which amount to the same thing in their effects and practises. They do, however, name a few of the specific features of the so-called American monomyth. The first is the �saga,� the �defense against malevolent attacks upon innocent communities� (12), a motif that�s not exactly unique to American adventure fiction, nor does it contradict Campbell. The second is �sexual renunciation,� in which the hero �renounce[s] previous sexual ties� and �avoid entanglements and temptations that inevitably arise� from �his trials� (12).
The example they use is Captain Kirk, which is somewhat odd, considering that he is particularly known for having many and varied sexual encounters with many and varied alien women, and doing so in about two out of three episodes. Several years ago, there was a comedic tagline used on message boards that read �Captain Kirk: Any Race. Any place.� Other American heroes are similarly known for their bed-hopping. Commander James Bond, �007,� a British character but long ago subsumed into American culture, sleeps with at least two women per film, and often ends up killing one of them (the �bad� one often precedes the �good� one, though there are variations). American heroes do not renounce sex; they renounce commitment. We find total sexual abstinence only in stories that are aimed at consumption by children, post-CCA superhero comics, for example.
We find this cross-culturally, too. In The Saint, a British television series, Simon Templar has girlfriends; it was aimed at adults. In Doctor Who, also British, the Doctor is all but asexual; it was aimed at kids. The Doctor has shown some degree of sexuality in the new series produced by Russel T. Davies, famous in Britain for producing both Queer as Folk and Casanova, but that�s arguably because the new series aren�t actually aimed at kids. Finally, we find renunciation of sexuality in major mythic heroes outside of the United States, such as Jesus and the Buddha, who, taken as pair, would seem to constitute a fairly powerful counter-example.
The last quality of the American monomyth is �redemption,� �selfless crusading to redeem others� (15), which would seem to be very similar to Campbell�s monomythic �return,� in which the hero comes back to the community in order to spread the wisdom he has discovered. Admittedly, there is enough difference that we might call attention to an American variety of the �return� trope. The American hero seems to spread redemption simultaneously to the actions required by his trials, and Campbell�s hero spreads it as a result of his trials, but Campbell constantly calls attention to the vast flexibility in his system. It just doesn�t seem different enough to deserve its own, all-new category.
Finally, the paper addresses the pseudo-science of Star Trek, and makes a mixed-bag of claims about them. First, it dresses up the concept of suspension of disbelief in new terms, using Gene Roddenberry�s phrase, �believability factor� (Roddenberry in J&L 18) to describe the illusion of technological realism as it is achieved through visual complexity. The characters on the bridge of the Enterprise should be as �efficient as the blinking lights and instrumentation around them� (18). J&L point out, accurately, that the function of this veneer of scientific accuracy is to suspend our disbelief, to actually refute objections to scientific accuracy.
Unfortunately, they take that claim one dumb-ass step further, claiming that �While exactitude and gadgetry are parts of science, they do not constitute the degree of scientific objectivity capable of calling one�s own myths into question� (19), and quoting Karl Popper, who states that �what we call �science� is differentiated from the older myths, not by being something different from a myth, but by being accompanied by a second order tradition�that of critically discussing
the myth� (Popper in J&L 19). They call this particular kind of suspension of disbelief the �myth of mythlessness� (italics are original 17), claiming that Star Trek�s �implicit claim to be antimythical and purely scientific is itself a myth�that is, a set of unconsciously held, unexamined premises� (17).
I suppose it�s typical of a scientist to think that myths are not discussed traditionally, despite the long-standing tradition of scriptural interrogation within Jewish culture, for example, or the active debate within the Catholic Church. I suppose it�s also typical to ascribe total selflessness to scientific research, despite the planet-sized egos involved in it, or, as a historical example, how long the scientific community, including Einstein, clung to Newtonian physics despite the clear evidence that it didn�t work at the quantum level. It�s typical, but disappointing nonetheless. J&L have an interesting point, here, that science-fiction uses fallacious science to create a sense of realism that is, in fact, just another generic feature, just another part of the myth, but they burry it in inaccurate claims.
As an example of a scientifically ridiculous episode, J&L offer up the infamous �Spock�s Brain� and ask �Why doesn�t the audience discern the transparency of the myth of mythlessness in an episode like this? Why do science students desert their labs or such Amazonian fare?� (18) The answers are simple and obvious. First, audiences did and do see through that particular episode. It is known among fans as one of the worst of the series, and that�s a tough contest to win! Second, those science students might very well desert their labs because the episodes are so scientifically inaccurate. J&L seem blissfully unaware that audiences occasionally watch television out of a sense of irony or kitsch. Contemporary viewers of shows like Star Trek, Kung Fu, or Batman were entirely aware of how silly the shows were. That�s why they watched. To miss this possibility is to assume that the audience is capable of only the most literal and superficial interpretations of popular culture.
There are three more papers in this book that are pertinent to me, another on Star Trek, and one on superheroes, and I�ll read them, and I probably won�t bother picking them apart the way I have here because there�s seems no reason to bother. This book is, so far, a total misreading of Campbell, an interesting idea executed without any grace or critical rigour.
Posted by orion at May 8, 2006 12:13 AM