The other kind of theory application, probably even worse than Duck Theory, is the theory of Absent Ducks. In this method, a critics selects a theoretical structure and then checks to see if a text conforms to it. The flaw in this methodology ought to be obvious, and yet it's maddeningly common for critics to simply check if this movie correctly reflects Lacan or if that comic book accurately depicts Nietzsche, as Zizeck does in Enjoy Your Symptom! and Matthew Wolf-Meyer does in "The World Ozymandias Made," respectively. I call this the theory of Absent Ducks because often, such critiques merely report that they are shocked, shocked!, to discover that the particular text in question "fails" to construct a narrative that reflects the critic's interpretation of how theory indicates that the world works. Which is to say that these pieces of art don't happen to conform to the theory in question.
There are a couple of truly baffling assumptions behind this method. The first assumption is that art has any responsibility whatsoever to reflect a given critic's little pet theory. Unless a piece of art indicates that it allies itself with a politics, a philosophy, an ideology, or a theory, there's just no point in reporting that it doesn't ally itself to one that you like. Even if it references one of those theories, it still has no responsibility to conform (and by the by: critics who happen to use a wee piece of a theory aren't on the hook for using the whole theory either!). The second is that the theory just is an accurate portrayal of the world, and therefore we can blame a text for portraying the world "wrong." Some of the less sophisticated Marxist critiques are guilty of Absent Duck theory, for example. They simply report that yet another piece of art fails to point out that capitalism is "bad." This second assumption is by no means limited to Marxism, of course. It happens in Feminist critiques as well, and it's all too easy to use psychoanalytic criticism to point out Absent Ducks.
Now, to be clear, the theory that a critic might happen to use when applying Absent Duck might be brilliant or it might be dim, but that's beside the point. Using a theory to apply Absent Duck does not imply that there's anything at all wrong with the theory. It's just an empty statement. It's the equivalent of seeing a fire hydrant and yelling "Not a duck!" Which, if you think about it, is an utterly useless thing to say. It gives me only slightly more information than I started with and it's probably not information of any value.
Posted by orion at July 27, 2008 4:16 PM