“Madonna On the Couch”

Content

1. Introductory Remarks page

2. Part I - Preliminary Theory
2.1 Psychoanalysis And Film: A Theoretical Cross-Over
2.2 The Dream Screen: Dream Work And Cinema

3. Part II - Madonna Meets Freud
3.1 Die Another Day or: “The Dissection of the Psychical Personality”
3.2 Human Nature or: “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”
3.3 Frozen or: “The Uncanny”

4. Conclusion or: “Psychopathic People On the Stage”

5. Bibliography

1. Introductory Remarks

This paper is taking interest in Madonna and psychoanalysis, yet it is not supposed to conclude as an analysis of Madonna and her psychic condition as a patient. However, what I am trying to do on the following pages is to detect and employ various concepts of Freud’s revolutionary theory (or rather theories) in the context of pop star Madonna and her music videos in particular. Initiated by a seminar on psychoanalysis and literature, this paper tries to portray how influential Freud’s findings were and to this day still are, but probably also that the post-Freudian society at times seems to escape into thoroughly explaining matters with the help of their layman understandings and ideas of psychoanalysis. What I am trying to say is that one is tempted to overdo interpretations with the help of psychoanalysis, ignoring the fact that it has limitations as well. I noticed myself, especially, becoming oblivious to that fact when analyzing Madonna. That occurrence, however, exemplifies how prone we are, as post-Freudians, to employ this theory in our thinking, understanding, and interpretation of ideas and concepts; not only in academic spheres, but also in everyday life.

I have tried to structure this paper in accordance of the various psychoanalytic concepts that I chose to discuss in regard to Madonna’s music videos. However, my intended agenda for this essay proved somewhat incompatible with my findings, which means that quite frequently there was no clear-cut distinction to make between, for instance, the universal prominence of sexuality and the dream and their overall importance in applying psychoanalytic theory on literary texts (in this case on music videos and sequences). Owing to better readability and coherence, however, I still arranged this paper in chapters, pointing out once more that crossreferences and repetitions to some extent are indispensable.

Since the focus of this paper is on Madonna’s music videos, visual representations so to speak, I start out discussing the importance of psychoanalysis and its ramifications for film theory. I have struggled with the equalization of entire films, in which film theory is based, and music videos; yet I have found that these sequences, in a way, tell entire stories as well, and, owing to their limitations in regard to the time frame, are condensed to a much larger extent than are ordinary films, which is reflected in the frequent employment of symbolism and ciphers in music-video composition (This condensation itself implies a close similarity to Freud’s comments about the dream-work.) Beginning with general theoretical observations on film theory and psychoanalysis in terms of modes and conventions of perception I will lead to the discussion of the actual contents of Madonna’s music videos in regard to at least some of Freud’s ideas.

2. Part I - Preliminary Theory

The noticeable affinity of literary studies and psychoanalysis not only becomes prominent when taking into consideration that psychoanalytic models and theory development were contingent upon or at least oriented themselves on myths rather than having a distinct scientific basis but also, and probably to a much higher degree, considering that both concern themselves with language and texts and, accordingly, decipher or decode them to expose latent meanings and separate them from the manifest contents. That linkage between the two disciplines would be conferrable to film theory as well.

2.1 Psychoanalysis And Film: A Theoretical Cross-Over

Whereas the discourse in regard to psychoanalysis is based on practical (“talking cure”) rather than theoretical grounds, discourses in film theory emphasize a cultural practice of imagination (Kappelhoff 2002: 130). In that respect, cinema and film are media of exchange processes maintaining specific relationships to the unconsciousness of society and its individuals.¹ Stressing this relationship, film becomes comparable to the analytic discourse, i.e. conscious symbolic actions correlate with unconscious psychic activities (Kappelhoff 2002: 130).

Independent of the actual contents of films, they generate and convey ideological consciousness, meaning that display formats, narrative structures, and cinematic codes stress the consciousness-building function of film and modes of its reception. Thus, psychoanalytic concepts in film describe a cultural practice which is primarily determined by exercitations of imaginativeness and the satisfaction of lusts (Kappelhoff 2002: 133). The realistic effect of cinematic images, in that respect, constitutes, in a way, an ideological delusion which conceals the technical construction, the aesthetic conception, and the ideological function of an artificial aggregation of cultural practice. The core of this practice described in terms of perceiving is the convention of employing the central perspective. This codification of visual perception, to a certain extent, ensures the integrity of a subject’s relation to the world and compensates the loss of the totality of the metaphysical view of the world by means of that subject’s unifying view. Accordingly, this stylistic convention enables the subject to identify with the representation and make sense of it by the illusion of a universal gaze² which converts the fragmentary reality into totality and, thus, allows the viewers to conceive themselves as omnipotent subjects and to cater to their fantasies of power. In this context, identification is feasible on two distinct levels: a primary identification of the viewer with the gaze of the camera is confronted with a secondary identification of the viewer with the protagonists of the film (Kappelhoff 2002: 134). The psychoanalytic model of the apparatus of the psyche can, thus, be transferred to the cinematographic apparatus and, ultimately, ascribed the ideological function indicated above:

The ‘reality’ mimed by the cinema is thus first of all that of a ‘self.’ But because the reflected image is not that of the body itself but that of a world already given as meaning, one can distinguish two levels of identification. The first, attached to the image itself, derives from the character portrayed as a center of secondary identifications, carrying an identity which constantly must be seized and reestablished. The second level permits the appearance of the first and places it ‘in action’ - this is the transcendental subject whose place is taken by the camera which constitutes and rules the objects in this ‘world.’ (Baudry 1986: 295)

In the context of the theoretical observation on how psychoanalytic theory can be employed in the discussion of film and film theory, and especially in regard to the elaborations concerning identification, I would like to refer to Lacan’s theorization of the psyche. Lacan, similar to Freud, distinguishes between different divisions of the psyche: the Real, the Symbolic Order, and the Imaginary Order. To cut it short I only summarize the importance of Lacan’s theoretical conceptions for this paper: the Real marks the materiality of existence which always exceeds the meaning structures of the Symbolic Order and, thus, is incomprehensible for the individual. The Symbolic Order is about language and narrative and, through language, is “the

pact which links [...] subjects together in one action. The human action par excellence [sic] is originally founded on the existence of the world of the symbol, namely on laws and contracts.” (Lacan 1991). The concept of the Imaginary Order corresponds to the mirror stage. It describes the subject’s relation to itself, which is primarily structured by the image of the similar, the image in the mirror, and not by language. In correspondence to the discussion of identification the mirror stage is a model of primary, narcissistic identification in which the subjective and objective world, mother and child, conflate (Kappelhoff 2002: 136). In opposition to the Real, the mirror image constitutes a comprehensible, controllable entity securing the psychic integrity of the subject. Thus, this identification serves as a phantasm in which the subject deceives itself upon its “real” powerlessness. In film theory, the original mirror-image concept is applied to the screen. Identification, then, goes as far as to say that the self (or the viewer) incorporates the images of the others (on the screen) as if they were traits of the “self in the mirror.” Those characteristic traits, to Lacan, are always images of others’ desires (Kappelhoff 2002: 138). The Imaginary and the Symbolic are, according to Lacan, inextricably intertwined and work in tension with the Real. In the context of cinema, of course, we have to distinguish the all-perceiving gaze from the look of the child in front of the mirror as exemplified in Lacan’s theorization, but only in so far as that in film theory we have to keep in mind the cinematographic perception as a process, not a mere look or gaze.

Moreover, Kappelhoff states the closeness of the cinematographic imagery to narcissistic forms of perception: the viewers ascribe affections to the images they perceive and, thus, turn them into signs or symbols of their own wishes (Kappelhoff 2002: 142). In the process of watching, those cinematographic images converge with the mode of their phantasms and wishful images and become signifiers of the viewers’ imaginary.³ The concept of cinematographic perception is then linked to the primitive curiosity, which is based beyond the Oedipal identity structure and surfaces in the hallucinations of the dreamer or the hungry child:

Das frühkindliche Leben wie auch das der Primitiven ist voll von Lust am Sehen und der Lust, sich über Bilder zu verständigen. Es gibt eine Zeit in unserem Leben, in der die Erfahrung mit Sehen zu tun hat; Sehen ist voll von ’Schaulust’. Die Erfahrung über Sehen bleibt in uns als altes psychisches Erbe erhalten.⁴ (Montani/Pietranera zit. n. Zeul 1994: 984)

Even though the functional need for a primary identification ceased to be relevant for film viewers (they are necessarily older than children before acquiring language), however, this psychic activity remains existent beyond the symbolic level (Kappelhoff 2002: 143). According to Freud, every wish states a thriving backwards. The decreasing psychic activity beyond the developed self, or Ego, (as is happening when dreaming or, as argued, when sitting in the dark auditorium watching a film) Freud termed “regression” and presented it as a preliminary for the dream process.

2.2 The Dream Screen: Dream Work And Cinema

Now that I have built the theoretical bridge between the disciplines of psychoanalysis and film theory and have exposed the relevance of the first for the discourse of the latter, I will, furthermore, move about to discuss how films and dreams (as an important instance in the practice of psychoanalysis, according to Freud “the royal road to the unconscious”) share an astonishingly striking common ground. The “film condition” is a dream condition with the awareness of dreaming, a psychic activity on the borderline to sleep; in its motoric inhibition it resembles a sleeping state (Metz 1994: 1020). So dreaming and sitting in an auditorium watching a film employ equal conditions: not only do we have in both instances a volatility of images, a kind of twilight or comatose state concerning the dark space where processes of perception take place, but we also associate images and scenes as mere spectators not being able to intervene. Similar to the analysis of dreams, we have to penetrate various levels of imagery to comprehend what is projected onto the screen and how aesthetic conventions, such as light, music, cuts, camera perspective etc. employed in the film, may have different impacts on our perceptions and, ultimately, cater to our understanding of the film.

Dreams are, as already pointed out, regressive processes and represent somatically a reactivation of the pre-natal phase in the womb, meeting the conditions of rest, warmth, and the shelter from external stimuli (Freud 1917: 179). This form of perception, thus, is a withdrawal from motility and the attention from the external world, in other words the dark space and the immobility of the viewer seem to meet the conditions of the regression of the sleep so that the very act of the cinematographic perception converges with that of a dream. Moreover, in the reminiscence of pre-natal life the dark room of the womb (and the auditorium) is an image of the unconscious (Kappelhoff 2002: 152).⁵

When I am arguing that dreams and films can be interpreted in similar ways, it is helpful, especially for the second part of my paper when I look at some examples of Madonna’s music videos, to understand how the dream process, or the dream-work as Freud termed it, is constituted and what mechanisms are at work when we dream. The concepts I will discuss in this context are the concepts of condensation and displacement. Dreams can be seen as a secondary processing of the fantasy or the wish that is presented in the dream and the dream imagery is owed to regression, which enables the individual to unconsciously switch from the symbolic process of thinking to the primary activity of an associative way of thinking in images. Thus, images assist the dreamer to imagine what he or she is not capable of thinking consciously, i.e. to symbolize linguistically (Kappelhoff 2002: 149). Freud compares dreams to fantasies by which means individuals are able to process their drives, lusts, or wishes, which are normally repressed as a sort of censorship mechanism by the conscious.⁶ During sleep, the repressed gains power, or rather the censorship decreases, and, thus, the repressed finds access to the conscious. Censorship, however, never recedes completely, which is why the repressed has to accept a sort of compromise. This compromise with the conscious is the employment of condensation and displacement, by which dream-censorship takes place in the context of the distortion of dreams.

Condensation suggests that a number of images may constitute a dream, similar to, for example, a photograph which has been exposed various times and, thus, images interfere with each other. What we get then is a picture displaying different images captured in one. To understand this mechanism of condensing images it is important to distinguish between latent dream-thoughts, which represent the broader sense behind the dream or fantasy, and manifest

[...]

¹ In his essay “Civilization And Its Discontents” Freud concerns himself with the emergence of culture within society and discusses concepts which are essential for the functioning of society and the establishment of culture. Freud himself stresses the projection of individual psychic processes onto the level of general society in one of his self reflections: “Immer klarer erkannte ich, daß [sic] die Geschehnisse der Menschheitsgeschichte, die Wechselwirkungen zwischen Menschennatur, Kulturentwicklung und jenen Niederschlägen urzeitlicher Erlebnisse, als deren Vertretung sich die Religion vordrängt, nur die Spiegelung der dynamischen Konflikte zwischen Ich, Es und Über-Ich sind, welche die Psychoanalyse beim Einzelmenschen studiert, die gleichen Vorgänge, auf einer weiteren Bühne wiederholt.” (Freud 1950: 32) A detailed discussion of that matter will follow in chapter 3. 2 Human Nature or: “Beyond the Pleasure Principle.”

² Especially Jacques Lacan in the context of psychoanalysis has widely theoretically discussed the term.

³ Kappelhoff argues that within this process the film can be watched just as one may watch a dream, which one does not dream, but actually could have dreamt (cf. Kappelhoff 2002: 143).

⁴ In that context Freud’s reflections on culture and its functioning come to mind in the way that for society to work, not to fall apart, and, furthermore, to be able to establish what we call a culture, it is essential for the individual to suppress primitive, or rather immediate, urges and drives to secure the general good and enable (co)existence (cf. chapter 3. 2 Human Nature or: “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”) Felix Guattari even conceptualized cinematographic perception as the “couch of the poor” and juxtaposed it to the talking cure (Guattari 1977).

⁵ Following this argument, the dark room of the auditorium represents the space of a former life, in which the subject (the viewer) tarried with a sense of security, without ever having perceived an image of that space. Consequently, cinema is less a regression, but more of a dreamed condition of regressivity, a yearning for the reestablishment of that condition. Thus, cinema is more of a dream of dreaming (Kappelhoff 2002: 152).

⁶ In his later works Freud extended his model of the conscious and the unconscious to refine the depictions of, for example, repression mechanisms with the help of the model distinguishing between the Ego, Id, and Super-Ego, by which means Freud structured the psychic personality.