Psychology is often how societies avoid looking in the mirror. It is scarcely any surprise that we are increasingly obsessed with the micro-politics of nudging, mental activation and neuro-processes, when any honest account of our political economy and sociology might be devastating. In the context of an economic depression, we are just beginning to speak about 'capitalism', but only on the premise that a small minority has gone feral and that the rest of us are passive victims.
The reaction to Steve McQueen's appalling-yet-beautiful Shame has exhibited this in predictable and enfuriating ways. Since the outset, the film was trailed, reviewed and discussed as a portrait of 'sex addiction', despite the fact that there is no reference to this disorder at any point in the film. 'Sex addiction' is a disorder that was scarcely heard of ten years ago, but it has everything going for it as a 21st century explanatory trope. It is exotic, titilating, intriguing and irritating all at once; it winds up The Daily Mail; we can speculate as to who might really have it, and who just needs to pull themselves together. McQueen himself has played up the concept of sex addiction in interviews about the film, maybe because that's a marketing message that travels best.
The main character in Shame, Brandon (played by Michael Fassbender), is emotionally muted, teeming with a sorrowful rage and physically charismatic. He may be described as 'depressed' and refuses to speak about aspects of his past, but he shows no signs of suffering any clinical condition. One of the many brilliant devices used in the film is that there is no explanation or any hint as to why he may have developed into this type of adult man, creating a gap in the plot that makes the film all the more suffocating. He hasn't begun to 'deal with' his problems, and shows no sign of wanting to. Nor does the audience receive the psychological metanarrative that we assume as our right nowadays (e.g. David Cameron: "I love the NHS because it helped my sick child"... for which read, otherwise I'm just another selfish Tory). Instead, he just appears utterly stuck with himself.
In these respects, Brandon's character is entirely at odds with the therapy culture of New York, his home city. Perhaps he represents some form of resistance to the 'psych' sciences in this respect, though not a very appealing one. If the film is 'about' sex addiction, then its message is simple: this is what happens if you don't treat your psychological and emotional ailments. But in a sense, he does treat them through relentless self-gratification, including casual sex, pornography, masturbation, drugs and virtually anything that avoids intimacy or verbal honesty. The treatments offered by the streets and bars of New York, combined with the internet, become a way of lancing some boil that never stops filling up again with toxins. Towards the end of the film, a scene involving Brandon and two prostitutes portrays sexual desire as a form of filth, that is desparately scrubbed away at through the act of sex. The shame being depicted in Shame is that of someone who wants to escape their body altogether (placed alongside the grotesque Hunger, it seems that McQueen has a thing about this). If Brandon really wants anything, it's to stop wanting so much.
And this is how the film becomes sociological and, more specifically, Durkheimian. What the psychological interpretation utterly fails to account for is the fact that Brandon lives in a culture organised around giving you exactly what you want. The film had to be set in New York, the only city in the world where you can specify what sort of sesame seed you want on your bagel in what precise pattern. A pivotal moment in the film occurs when Brandon's sister, Sissy (played by Carrie Mulligan), sings a slow, mournful rendition of 'New York New York' in a club, resulting in a single tear slowly rolling down Brandon's cheek. This is the closest he comes in the film to sharing an emotion. But why is he crying? Psychologically, the answer is deliberately with-held, both from the other characters and the viewer. But culturally, the moment feels like a requiem for New York City. Shame is never quite a satire, because it's too sad for that. Instead, it is an angry lament for a social and economic model that promised to satisfy every individual desire, and ended up with an economic and social crisis fuelled by taking this promise for granted. The decline of America, and one might even say the West, is tied up with its failure to discover a legitimate limit to egoism. As Keynes said of Hayek, he was unable to stipulate "where to draw the line".
Durkheim's Suicide, which I discussed here in relation to current communitarian politics in Britain, examines these same issues. The book begins by seeking to demonstrate statistically that there are aspects of suicide that cannot be reduced to purely psychological or economic explanations. For instance, suicide rates rise during times of rapid economic progress, as well as rapid economic decline. This is crucial for Durkheim, in establishing a separate field of sociology.
'Anomic suicide', which is the form which best diagnoses the modern condition, arises from an absence of mediating institutions, between self and society as a whole. The self suffers from a problem of excessive and arbitrary freedom, finding nothing beyond the ego to value. Psychologically, this becomes a form of depressive narcissism. The problem, as Brandon might understand, is that:
Inextinguishable thirst is constantly renewed torture. It has been claimed, indeed, that human activity naturally aspires beyond assignable limits and sets itself unattainable goals. But how can such an undetermined state be any more reconciled with the conditions of mental life than with the demands of physical life? All man's pleasure in acting, moving and exerting himself implies the sense that his efforts are not in vain and that by walking he has advanced. However, one does not advance when one walks toward no goal, or - which is the same thing - when his goal is infinity.
It's a shame that McQueen himself didn't nurture a little more ambivalence in the film's interpretations. To describe Brandon's character as a 'sex addict' ring-fences his malaise as a private one, maybe even a neuro-chemical one. To recognise that there is a gripping and disturbing sociology at work in Shame is not to say that sex addiction is a sham, or simply a medicalised version of a sociological disorder. I have no reason to believe that sex addiction is a 'fake' disorder; Brandon's character has evident emotional and psychological problems that cause misery.
But what is it about sociological interpretations and meta-narratives that eludes critics? Isn't it often more interesting to ask what is the malaise that we all share at this moment in time, than to pinpoint the weirdos, the disruptive neurons or the unruly chemicals that need targetting? Sure, Durkheim was a metaphysician, but then 'addiction' is an entirely metaphysical category in its own right (the entire notion of a compulsion implies higher order notions of a compeller, a rule and a punishment). The fact that 'addiction' is a clinical condition that is straying into more and more areas of life, is itself an interesting sociological phenomenon. It's not that the field of psychology does not or should not exist, but efforts to cram more and more into this field represents a form of societal dishonesty, to rival the psychic dishonesty of 'addicts' refusing to 'face up' to their condition.
See also: The Wire: A Weberian Take and Mad Men: A Foucaultian Take.
Interesting reading. The New York setting of Shame is also reminiscent of American Psycho, another book/film concerned with the difficulties of meaningful relationships and how these can become substituted by transactions and commodities.
There are also some pointed contrasts. Patrick Bateman's "misbehaviour" is probably a fantasy, but one that reflects a seething misanthropy beneath the concern with status goods and etiquette. Brandon has committed himself to the consumption of fantasy. It's an almost heroic level of application, far exceeding his nominal (and opaque) work. I'm sure Umberto Eco could convincingly argue that Bateman is Catholic and Brandon Protestant.
I think in allowing "sex addiction" to feature in the press for the film, McQueen may be having a sly dig at our need to define everything as a form of consumption. Addiction has come to mean addiction to stuff.
He even inserts a subtle joke into an otherwise humourless film: when Brandon is settling down for a hard night in front of his laptop, while eating a chinese takeaway, the ringtone on his phone (which Sissy has just called) turns out to be Siouxsie and the Banshees' Hong Kong Garden, a song about a chinese takeaway.
Posted by: Account Deleted | February 27, 2012 at 02:36 PM
"But what is it about sociological interpretations and meta-narratives that eludes critics?"
I think perhaps psychology is to neo-liberalism what sociology was to Keynesian social-democracy - its preferred mode of justification - with the result that sociology is now as taboo as Keynesian economics is among younger critics. Certainly the figure of the corduroy-clad, bearded sociologist is a favourite whipping-boy of rightwing commentators.
Posted by: Dick Pountain | February 27, 2012 at 08:50 PM
BTW, "The decline of America, and one might even say the West, is tied up with its failure to discover a legitimate limit to egoism" is an excellent thought.
Posted by: Dick Pountain | February 27, 2012 at 08:54 PM
Well, Dick, my corduroy collection is a little slim at the moment, but my beard is pretty sociological.
Posted by: Will | February 28, 2012 at 10:28 AM
Thanks, that's interesting. You're right about Brandon's work. You kind of wonder how a character like that can have any job at all.
Posted by: Will | February 28, 2012 at 10:31 AM