Rumpus Book Club member Jen George Burt on Deus Ex Machina.
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I think Deus Ex Machina is a modern greek tragedy – a creation myth of the new social contract.
Deus Ex Machina is Latin for “god out of the machine”, but in the Greek tragedy sense, it is more properly thought of as “god that we make”.
Certain parallels between Homer’s Illiad and DEM. In Greek tragedy, the gods create the world, manipulate it, cast their designs and dispersions on man for their own amusements. Gods are able to directly interfere by changing the weather, creating lust, clouding judgment, sending sickness or strength. In the Illiad, Fate is both a god and a thing, Dream, Death, War, Lust – the gods are the proper nouns and the verbs. However, in the Illiad, the one thing Zeus does not seem to be able to change (or want to change) is outcome – or the fated day of death. Zeus does not change the outcomes of death and dying for Achilles or Hector. It seems to me (I am no scholar on Greek tragedy…at all) that the only person who lacks free will or direct control over her own choices is Helen, who is compelled by Lust (Aphrodite) to stay with Paris. Not sure what the connection is there but there AFA seems to call out “love” in the early part of the book – how no one talks about it – maybe Love makes us slaves…not sure where that is going.
Also – the Greek gods have their own foibles and desires. In Greek tragedy, the only thing that separates the gods from man is that man dies.
DEM pg. 15 – “People like to find themselves on television. That’s all they really want. Don’t get philosophical.” DEM pg. 42 – “Viewers will see what it is like to be other people. They will learn the truth of the human heart and mind.” These lines remind me of a Rousseau quote: “Plant a stake crowned with flowers in the middle of a square; gather the people together there and you will have a festival. Do better yet, let the spectators become an entertainment to themselves, let them become the actors themselves; do it so each sees and loves himself in others so that all will be better united.” The Rousseau quote led me to this excellent essay on The Reality of Reality TV in n+1 back in 2005. I especially delight in the bit about the destruction of the golden age of social psychology. No more Milgram, Zimbardo or Garfinkel. Instead we get Punk’d, Survivor, Jersey Shore. “Watching reality t.v. is like walking one long hallway of an unscrupulous and indefatigable psychology department.”
But Rousseau also talks about the “artifice of human civilization” and our “social contract”. The social contract is remade on the island and remade according to the whims of the advertising department…
DEM also reads as a sort of creation myth with Armand functioning as some sort of wise/fallen/distant god giving instruction and direction to the Producer. I haven’t really fleshed this thought out yet.
DEM pg 45 – “the way their personalities hew ever closer to those of previous seasons and other shows, their triumphs, failures, love affairs, betrayals converging like images in an elevator mirror.” How could you not be reminded of the youtube montage, “I’m not here to make friends.”
I think that AFA is doing something very exciting with DEM. I don’t know if he is more interested in commentary than his characters, but I think that his characters are fascinating as they have been revealed so far.
