Well, after a bit of a delay (I'll blame it on Halloween prep, but that wouldn't be
entirely true), I'm back with my response to
Simon Abrams and his last post re our continuing discussion of
American Horror Story and this pivotal "Rubber Man" episode.
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Simon, you said something in your last post that got me thinking
again about the artistic intent behind American
Horror Story:
“That’s what I really
want from this show, I guess— signs of a guiding intelligence that can
organically establish, rather than just declare without qualifications, what it’s
trying to do.”
As I’ve said before, I came at this show in a sort of piecemeal
way, the result of professional obligation that required me to encounter the
show in a not entirely complete and certainly not chronological way. And now
that I’m looking at it episode by episode the correct order, ostensibly closer
to the fashion it was intended to be seen, it’s been a strange experience for
me to realize how more question regarding the pacing and the overriding thrust
of the show have come up. Of course part
of that is undeniably a result of talking about it with you too and having
aspects pointed out for my consideration that either went unobserved or were
less of an issue for me before. But I think in part seeing American Horror Story out of order, and having missed a few episodes,
allowed me to presume that the holes and moments of confusion I was experiencing were due to that
fragmentation of viewing, that once seen as a whole these questions, these
oddities of experience would somehow be resolved.
So here’s an agnostic point of view – what if there really isn’t a unifying, guiding intelligence behind
American Horror Story in the sense of
it being conceived thematically and within its narrative beyond being in
service to a slightly modern wrinkle on a very old horse-- a house where ghosts
are historically trapped and wreak havoc in the lives of those living who
happen to occupy the same space? And I’m not saying there necessarily isn’t. Certainly
there’s “intelligence” behind the show, but what if it’s in service to
something less than telling a coherent, thematically unified story? I offered
this facetiously a few weeks ago, but seriously, what if we’re thinking about
all of this more than Murphy and Falchuk have? It wouldn’t necessarily be a
shock to my system to consider them as something less than artists, and I’m not
exactly ready to call them hacks either—there’s passion in this show, but it
may finally only be for the execution of mood and shock and little else. And
that’s not to denigrate mood and shock—there are plenty of works in horror that
succeed precisely on those terms and not because of any underlying (intentional)
subtext that might justify the project in the eyes of fans or those who pooh-pooh
the genre.
I started off asking the question, “What is it about what we’re
going to see that makes it a specifically American
horror story to the point that you’re going to use that as the title, the unifying
concept behind the show? Murphy and Falchuk don’t exactly strike me as particularly
pretentious in the way of attaching the word “American” in search of
credibility or presumed depth. And it certainly wouldn’t be the first time in
the history of popular, well-received television (or movies) that a story
dribbled along with moments of individual strength and unity that ultimately
didn’t add up to a cohesive whole. This symptom of serialization, of filling in
the blanks with more good stuff that you may or may not need to tell the basic story,
is going to rear its head again in next week’s episode with the introduction of
another character straight out of real-life Los Angeles crime history who
really doesn’t function in any significant way dramatically to deepen the
thematic pool. I don’t think you can give as much leeway to a self-limited show
like American Horror Story as you
might Dark Shadows, which has to be
the primary influence behind what Murphy and Falchuk are up to here. If you’re
only giving yourself a pilot and 11 episodes in which to get the job done, then
the more frittering around you do the more the audience is going to suspect
what we always kind of suspected, even as kids, with Dark Shadows, that there was only the most generalized thematic outline,
that to a certain degree it was being made up on the fly.
You said something earlier on in regard to watching out for
individual bits of business that are referred to and then seen in flashback that
links to this. If it’s a mistake to assume that there’s a continuity editor keeping
an eye out to make sure all the threads of the show get tied together neatly
and logically, or at least match up with information that is given in one scene
and then comes up missing in another (I’m referring to that conversation the
cheerleader says she had with Tate re her belief in God before she is killed which
is never heard when we see the actual event), then maybe it’s also a mistake to
think that as much thought actually went into the story development as we’d
like to assume happened. Murphy has even hinted in interviews (some of which
are available on the new Blu-ray/DVD set of Season One) that, despite the sense
that of course the show has been herded into a certain mentality and thematic
cohesion, there’s also the sense which can’t be completely concealed that the
story has been in significant ways concocted as the writers lurched along. This
information was presented, of course, with an implied wink—“Of course we we’re really winging it!”—but I think there’s
room for speculation on that point.
Not to beat a nearly 50-year-old horse or anything, but
going back to
Dark Shadows, there was
a writer’s roundtable on the subject published this past summer in
Video Watchdog in which several of the
participants talked about that show’s lasting effect and influence, and more
specifically the ways in which we experienced that show, how it was constructed
to dole out its story in dribs and drabs, in more typically soap-opera or
serial fashion, building on it as it went along. The point was made that the show had constructed
into it the practical reality that no one was going to be able to catch every
single episode, and back then if you didn’t, there was no chronological time-tripping
back and forth through the chapters so one could catch up—once it aired it was
(presumably) gone. Audiences had to be able to gather the threads of the story
over and make connections that bridged the gaps of what they might have missed,
and incredibly, over a span of five years
Dark
Shadows managed to keep hold of an internal logic and low-budget mastery of
mood that it sustained marvelously, despite frequent shifts of time and space within
the multiple storylines and actors doing double and triple duties as several
different characters over the course of its run, and despite the sort of budgetary
and technological limitations that would drive Murphy and Falchuk to their own
sort of madness.
Yet within just eight episodes of American Horror Story there’s clear evidence that the ramifications
of the basic premise haven’t been fully thought through. Some of this evidence
is directly character related and therefore, presumably, of importance, yet
some of it I can paper over with my own scrambles of rationalization. Other
aspects aren’t so easily palmed off.
For example, I think I can take a swing at the inconsistency
you bring up re Tate’s questions of infidelity and the apparent schism in his list
of potential spectral screw-mates. Given that he’s got an expressed agenda to
ensure that a baby is born in the house to carry on the legacy of (traditional)
life-- he tells this to Nora—it would make sense that he sees his terrorizing
of Vivien initially as a sort of duty, above and beyond the level to which it
allows him to bend Ben’s head around, especially early on in their
relationship, before they forge their strange sort of bond. He also clearly sees
it as a way of straddling the universe of the living and the dead, of
maintaining some sort of connection to the world he chose to give up. But
within the strictly spectral universe, he has no reason to fuck Hayden—there’s
no pleasure in it for him, he gains nothing, and by this point his has his
fidelity and deepening love for Violet to account for as well. There’s another
reason, one which I’m sure you’ve caught the scent of by now, but I will
refrain from saying anything about that for the moment.
Further toward the horniness of the afterlife, maybe that ramped-up
libido is a specific joke being played exclusively for Hayden by who- or
whatever evil is guiding the universe they’re all trapped in. (Satan? Murphy?
Mitt Romney?) ‘Cause it sure doesn’t play that way for Nora, or Moira. (More on
her in a second.) I don’t think Hayden needs
to fuck Hugo, but on one level she obviously needs an outlet for this rage that is continuing to build up (an
outlet she will find very soon). Like Tate, sex with other ghosts doesn’t get
her much in the way of release, and neither does her acting out of the
murderous impulses she barely seems in control of, impulses which are obviously
not being directed in the way she’d really
like them to go. (Watch out, Ben!) How satisfying can it be when she gets to
penetrate Hugo right back and then he just gets up to go get a sandwich? Good
of him to indulge her little fantasies,
I suppose. I certainly don’t begrudge Murphy and American Horror Story staging this little episode for our benefit because
it does point toward something down the line, and it’s time spent with Hayden who, probably due to Kate Mara more
than anything, is one of the characters I most enjoy spending time with on this
show. (She has a way around Murphy’s most strident and knowing dialogue that
makes me a whole lot more tolerant of its tendency to slop over the line.) But
also I don’t begrudge the scene simply for its value as a shock tactic. A good
horror show needs good ones, and as has been demonstrated here over and over
again, though American Horror Story
has shock tactics in spades, some are, well, better, and better executed, than
others.
But what of the Moira Question? I’m afraid we’ve gone a long
way now with no strong rationalization within the Murphy/Falchuk-devised ghost
rules as to why Moira acts as a reflection of leering male sexism and the other
dead women don’t. If it had something to do with the young Moira being an
uncontrollable sexual tornado, then that might be one thing. But all
indications from the show have been precisely the opposite. Is this then supposed
to be a particular bit of ghostly irony, that Moira would be reflected back to males
who are still alive in the way she was inevitably received, as an object of
unchecked attraction and desire? Okay, I get that. She gets her revenge, and
the male population is exposed for its rampant lecherousness and general foul
state. But then what accounts for the split between young Moira and Old Moira?
Why has she aged at all, when others, like Nora, have not? It seems the split between
the two could be exploited and used as something that rises more organically
out of her character, yet despite the best efforts of Frances Conroy I don’t
see that has having happened just yet.
And it illuminates an inconsistency in Ben’s character too. He’s a psychologist
and, as you said, one from whom we would naturally be primed to expect a bit
more in the perceptivity department when it comes to the behavior of those
around him. Yet when Violet lands on him
for his weird attraction to this old crone in a maid’s outfit he never says to
himself, “What? Huh?” (Maybe we’re just supposed to chalk it up to her typical
precociousness, or maybe we’re supposed to have forgotten that she pointed it
out too—calling the story continuity editor again!)
And he never makes the obvious connection between his own level of disorientation
vis-à-vis the house and that of Vivien’s. AHS
baits the question as to the rationale behind Moira’s appearance and then
sidesteps what it might mean in terms of how the house actually works its evil by making Ben so ignorant
in this regard. If he’d just ask one or two of the right questions, questions
which it would seem his professional calling would incline him naturally to
ask, then perhaps he might have a leg up on what the house is doing to him and
to his wife with such obvious ease.
Strangely, stirring the pot in this way and focusing now on
some of the overall flaws the episode illuminates hasn’t diminished its
effectiveness for me in any way. It really is a strong episode, and it makes me
look forward to watching the show begin to tighten itself up in pursuit of what
I think is a pretty satisfying, and in some aspect unusual, conclusion. The
show still feels significantly spitballed in a lot of ways, but that’s probably
just the nature of the television beast here, particularly when the serial
format is in play. I have less faith in Murphy and Falchuk as overseers who
have perfect control of the universe they’ve concocted, but that’s okay too.
Losing one’s religion isn’t the worst thing that can happen in the process of
appreciating and enjoying the work for what it is.
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Catch up on the American Horror Story conversation between Simon and me by clicking on the following links:
"PIGGY, PIGGY" POST #4
"PIGGY, PIGGY" POST #3
"PIGGY, PIGGY" POST #2
"PIGGY, PIGGY" POST #1
"HALLOWEEN, PT. 2" POST #1
"HALLOWEEN, PT. 2" POST #2
"HALLOWEEN, PT. 2" POST #3
"HALLOWEEN, PT. 2 POST #4
"HALLOWEEN, PT. 1" POST #1
"HALLOWEEN, PT. 1" POST #2
"HALLOWEEN, PT. 1" POST #3
"HALLOWEEN, PT. 1" POST #4
"MURDER HOUSE" POST #1
"MURDER HOUSE" POST #2
"HOME INVASION" POST #1
"HOME INVASION" POST #2
"HOME INVASION" POST #3
"HOME INVASION" POST #4
PILOT EPISODE POST #1
PILOT EPISODE POST #2
PILOT EPISODE POST #3
PILOT EPISODE POST #4
PILOT EPISODE POST #5
PILOT EPISODE POST #6
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