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Home Alone: Against Foucault, Against Naïveté Historically, the process by which the bourgeoisie became in the course of the eighteenth century the politically dominant class was masked by the establishment of an explicit, coded and formally egalitarian juridical framework, made possible by the organization of a parliamentary, representative regime. But the development and generalization of disciplinary mechanisms constituted the other, dark side of these processes. The general juridical form that guaranteed a system of rights that were egalitarian in principle was supported by these tiny, everyday, physical mechanisms, by all those systems of micro-power that are essentially non-egalitarian and asymmetrical that we call the disciplines. --Michel Foucault, writing in Discipline and Punish (1975) Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish posits that the transition from feudalism to bourgeois democracy coincides with a transition from torture & punishment as forms of social control to discipline as the primary mode of social control. Rubbish! Utter foolishness! We find in Home Alone a thorough refutation of every argument Foucault forwards. Broad in scope and exhaustive in detail, Home Alone was produced a full fifteen years after Foucault's tract. It was a fitting delay, reminding one perhaps of Home Alone's debutante introduction to the philosophical world's cotillion ball. Here we observe the key argument Director Chris Columbus and Principal Actor Macaulay Culkin (née Matthijs Krul) advance in antagonism to Foucault. If Foucault cannot prove that public torture is useless to bourgeois democracy, Discipline and Punish withers as Mr. Krul's erection in the confines of a women's locker room. Foucault begins his tract with something of a "meditation" on public torture. According to Foucault, public torture was intended to reflect the violence of the crime onto the convict's body, and to solidify in the public's mind the link between the law of sovereign government and physical violence. However, Foucault observes, this form of torture often had the unintended consequence of garnering sympathy upon the convict, and even of creating conflict between the public and the state upon this point. Therefore, public torture was actually counterproductive to the state's aims, and unworkable in the political framework of a democracy. What's good for the feudal barbarian is no good for the civilized bourgeois! Or so says Foucault! But without this pillar of his argument, the entirety of Foucault's tract falls flat and can be dismissed with no further thought. Home Alone effortlessly refutes this opening argument, the principal point of Discipline and Punish. Observe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90FR8m-zEH4 In this scene, we have Harry and Marv, the two criminals, the trespassers, the violent lunatics, the encroachers, the enemies, and in moral and material fact the convicts in the moral calculus of Home Alone being publicly tortured and humiliated in every way. "But wait!" you say, "this is not the public! This is occurring in the homestead!" To that, we say nay! These tortures are depicted on film, in gory detail, for America! and ALL the world! to see. These are the most public of tortures! We see a series of violent back-breaking slips; throughout, one of our convicts falls onto broken glass with bare feet, steps on an exposed nail, and shortly afterward a hot iron hurtles onto the villain's face from a great distance; later, both of the condemned men are burnt, shot, and electrocuted. And how have audiences reacted to this series of brutal public tortures? With great aplomb at first, and soon after with raucous cheers and applause! There is no audience in the world who felt sympathy for these moral transgressives. Director Christopher Columbus understands the mentality of the mob in a way that Foucault cannot dream. In fact, public torture does not create conflict between the state and the public, but brings the two parties closer and fosters a sense of delight, justice, and good cheer for all. Home Alone was a triumph not only for its value as entertainment, but in its contributions to the philosophical world, that is, a wave of the hand in the direction of silly post-structuralist rantings such as Foucault's in Discipline and Punish. In this essay we have only seen Home Alone's brutal and efficient refutation of the very pillar of Foucault's argument; there is more, much more--at points, we observe Director Chris Columbus and Principal Actor Macaulay Culkin (née Matthijs Krul) annihilating Foucault's arguments with a particular brand of cruelty, something approaching relish and glee. It is a sad sight to see. We mourn the legacy of Foucault, may it rest in piece.
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Jan 18, 2011 00:26
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i wrote mine which admittedly isnt great in comparison with some of these great entries, but i wrote mine after 8.45 hours of work and i was rushing to get out of there but i just had to write and finish it... so theres lots of screwed up stuff in mine too! e: i realy enjoyed yours stego saur. its impressive what u wrote considering the circmstance which u wrote it!
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Jan 19, 2011 07:16
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