Reading Six Feet Under: TV to Die For by Kim Akass, Janet McCabe Page A
Authors: Kim Akass, Janet McCabe
Tags: Non-Fiction
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desperately to keep up appearances (Viveca’s posthumous response to his remark: ‘Men loved them! Well, real men.’).
Beyond first blush, however, this very tenor of parody –
the aesthetic of campy theatricality that prevails throughout the solemnities – can be seen to illuminate the key ‘truths’ at stake in the 51
READING SIX FEET UNDER
construction of social identities, and specifically in the presentation of a culturally viable self. As Foucault and others have argued, conventional codes of propriety serve a particular socio-economic purpose: to produce and perpetuate an industrious, efficient and essentially law-abiding workforce. In the culture at large, the control and care of the self are considered vital markers of citizenship, fundamental to the broad matrix of manners and mores that render the body ‘more obedient as it becomes more useful and conversely’
(Foucault 1977: 138). This explains, at least in part, why David chastens Nate for revelling in Viveca’s sexual exploits; he perceives Nate’s antic banter with Federico over Viveca’s cadaver – the conversation kicks off with ‘this chick fucked a snake!’ – as at odds with commonly agreed-upon business ethos, reminding him, ‘Nate.
What we do here is serious.’ The incursion of stark sexuality into the ceremony of the funeral therefore gives rise to what cultural critic Laura Kipnis, describing pornography, calls a ‘festival of social infractions … confronting its audiences with exactly those contents that are exiled from sanctioned speech, from mainstream culture and political discourse’ (Kipnis 1996: 164). In effect, the funeral goings-on become an instance of camp – by queer scholar Jose Munoz’s definition, ‘a mode of enacting the self against the dominant culture’s identity-denying protocols’ (Munoz 1999: 120) – bringing to light not simply the productive labour that self-control facilitates but the work that the act of controlling the self demands.
Returning to the notion of the money shot, then, a striking point of contrast emerges between the body that is incontrovertibly out of control – and that, by virtue of its disorderliness, smacks of authenticity and ‘truth’ – and the figure lying serenely in the slumber room, the quintessence of self-contained composure. In Viveca’s instance, ironically, the boorish elegies for the base and bodily function as a foil for the impenetrably passive corpse; her former entourage may lampoon the norms of etiquette, but Viveca’s mien is finally – if not by virtue of her décolletage seemly – at least sedate. Viveca’s body – the intended focal point of the ‘viewing’ – is, paradoxically, lacking in the potential for ‘real’ fleshly inappropriateness; whereas the money shot derives its appeal from the revelation of ‘truth’, the funereal viewing hinges on the manufacture of a facsimile, a final, artfully assembled image of the coherent self. That Viveca’s posthumously cockeyed bust has been propped up with canned goods – Federico gleefully 52
SEX, SHO CKS AND ST IFFS
admits to having wedged ‘a can of cat food under each boob’ – is irrelevant; what matters, in the words of Viveca’s former lover, Larry Wadd (Terence Knox), is that ‘she should look spectacular … that’s the most important thing’. Rather than expand the scope of what is visible, therefore, the viewing serves conversely to reiterate the parameters of what should, culturally speaking, appear on display.
Examining the money shot and the slumber room viewing side by side, moreover, points towards key questions about the nature of spectatorship, and specifically about the capacity for these two categories of image to exert any kind of compelling, transformative impact on the viewing subject. Like ‘the industry’ in the Fisher’s native Los Angeles – the entertainment business – the death care trade trucks in the production and sale of the spectacle,
Beyond first blush, however, this very tenor of parody –
the aesthetic of campy theatricality that prevails throughout the solemnities – can be seen to illuminate the key ‘truths’ at stake in the 51
READING SIX FEET UNDER
construction of social identities, and specifically in the presentation of a culturally viable self. As Foucault and others have argued, conventional codes of propriety serve a particular socio-economic purpose: to produce and perpetuate an industrious, efficient and essentially law-abiding workforce. In the culture at large, the control and care of the self are considered vital markers of citizenship, fundamental to the broad matrix of manners and mores that render the body ‘more obedient as it becomes more useful and conversely’
(Foucault 1977: 138). This explains, at least in part, why David chastens Nate for revelling in Viveca’s sexual exploits; he perceives Nate’s antic banter with Federico over Viveca’s cadaver – the conversation kicks off with ‘this chick fucked a snake!’ – as at odds with commonly agreed-upon business ethos, reminding him, ‘Nate.
What we do here is serious.’ The incursion of stark sexuality into the ceremony of the funeral therefore gives rise to what cultural critic Laura Kipnis, describing pornography, calls a ‘festival of social infractions … confronting its audiences with exactly those contents that are exiled from sanctioned speech, from mainstream culture and political discourse’ (Kipnis 1996: 164). In effect, the funeral goings-on become an instance of camp – by queer scholar Jose Munoz’s definition, ‘a mode of enacting the self against the dominant culture’s identity-denying protocols’ (Munoz 1999: 120) – bringing to light not simply the productive labour that self-control facilitates but the work that the act of controlling the self demands.
Returning to the notion of the money shot, then, a striking point of contrast emerges between the body that is incontrovertibly out of control – and that, by virtue of its disorderliness, smacks of authenticity and ‘truth’ – and the figure lying serenely in the slumber room, the quintessence of self-contained composure. In Viveca’s instance, ironically, the boorish elegies for the base and bodily function as a foil for the impenetrably passive corpse; her former entourage may lampoon the norms of etiquette, but Viveca’s mien is finally – if not by virtue of her décolletage seemly – at least sedate. Viveca’s body – the intended focal point of the ‘viewing’ – is, paradoxically, lacking in the potential for ‘real’ fleshly inappropriateness; whereas the money shot derives its appeal from the revelation of ‘truth’, the funereal viewing hinges on the manufacture of a facsimile, a final, artfully assembled image of the coherent self. That Viveca’s posthumously cockeyed bust has been propped up with canned goods – Federico gleefully 52
SEX, SHO CKS AND ST IFFS
admits to having wedged ‘a can of cat food under each boob’ – is irrelevant; what matters, in the words of Viveca’s former lover, Larry Wadd (Terence Knox), is that ‘she should look spectacular … that’s the most important thing’. Rather than expand the scope of what is visible, therefore, the viewing serves conversely to reiterate the parameters of what should, culturally speaking, appear on display.
Examining the money shot and the slumber room viewing side by side, moreover, points towards key questions about the nature of spectatorship, and specifically about the capacity for these two categories of image to exert any kind of compelling, transformative impact on the viewing subject. Like ‘the industry’ in the Fisher’s native Los Angeles – the entertainment business – the death care trade trucks in the production and sale of the spectacle,
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