[Air-L] A Sunday morning curiosity: Marlon Brando and Medium Theory in 1953?

[Charles Ess]

Thanks for this - and thanks to several others who have responded both
onlist and off.  Some very good material is collecting and I hope to pull it
together for a unit or module in a class one of these days.

I know that "the received tradition" of the Phaedrus in media studies is
pretty much as Ravindra puts it here - again, thanks. Allow me a different
perspective on Plato, however - one that derives from my background in
history of philosophy and exposure thereby to different traditions of
reading the dialogues.
Let me emphasize that my point in the following is not to quarrel with
Ravindra. It is rather to call our collective attention to alternative
understandings that might be salutary for us as offering an additional
insight or two.

One of these philosophical traditions of reading the dialogues is affiliated
with the (inf)famous Leo Strauss - but elaborated in different ways
(thankfully) by some of his students, including two of my teachers at Penn
State (Stanley Rosen first of all).  This approach argues (elaborately and
in far more detail than I can do here) that the dialogues are intentionally
fictive creations by Plato, not ostensible transcripts of ostensible
exchanges, etc., though certainly inspired and influenced by the latter.
Reading the Phaedrus in this way then calls attention to the
dramatic-theatrical opening of the dialogue, which, to be brief, centers on
Phaedrus as an ambitious young man who seeks to impress his elders
(including Socrates) by appearing to have knowledge and skill that he does
not yet have.  Writing is his crutch and secret weapon here: he intends to
go out of the city to memorize the text of a speech, in hopes that his
subsequent performance will give a dazzling impression of wisdom and
insight.

Socrates and Phaedrus go through a number of exchanges and arguments, and
much more needs to be said about the _context_ these establish. Here all I
can do is point out that the well-known, often cited, ostensible critique of
writing, is specifically introduced as a _myth_ - _mythos_ in Greek,
literally an oral tradition.  Socrates' use of myth is fairly specific and
careful, almost technical, at least as Plato presents it (again, Socrates is
to some extent a fictive-theatrical character here, not necessarily an
attempt at a faithful portrait, etc.). In the dialogues I know best
(including the Symposium, the Republic, the Crito, the Phaedo), a myth is
most often introduced in ways similar to Jesus' use of parables (another
oral teacher, of course) - namely, as teaching devices designed to make a
particular point to a particular audience in a particular context.  Hence,
as with the parables (and, for that matter,the Analects of Confucius, still
another oral teacher), it is difficult (if not impossible) to transform them
into generalizations.

On this reading, then, the critique of writing is primarily a pedagogical
effort to critique Phaedrus' excessive (on this view) trust in writing as an
instrument or tool of deception.  (As a myth, it is also an indirect
critique - one that require Phaedrus to connect some dots: much more
effective than a direct slap-down.)
If this reading is defensible, then the critique of writing is much more
context- and character-specific - not necessarily a general pronouncement
about writing as such.
The latter interpretation would be further problematic given that the
critique of writing is exquisitely developed in a _written_ text.

There is more to be said in favor of this interpretation - but here I simply
wanted to introduce the outlines of it on the occasion of its mention.

Again, my intention is not to quarrel with Ravindra here. It is rather to
help us be aware that there is more than one reading of this (in)famous
myth.  Indeed, in my view, this alternative reading is at least as
interesting for media scholars as the received view, as it points to a much
more nuanced and developed understanding of media than we otherwise tend to
give our pre-electric ancestors credit for.

In short: more research is needed ... (smile)
- c.


> 
> The earliest 'medium-panic' that I can note is in a Socratic dialogue called
> the Phaedeus - a lament of the loss of dialogue between writer/author once
> ideas are codified and 'fixed' on a page that can be disseminated and appear
> in a context-less space without the benefit of directly interrogating the
> originator of a thought. Socrates hated writing and we know this because his
> most well known student, Plato, wrote all of his tirades down.
> 
> Neal Postman has a chapter in 'Amusing Ourselves To Death' that replicated
> this lament made by the Dunkers - an oral Christian religion - about their
> loss of identity when forced to write down their beliefs in order to be
> recognized. Harold Innis (1954, 1998) in the 'Bias of Communication' describes
> it as an unseating of monopolies of knowledge creation/control as each new
> medium is introduced and necessarily consumes the dominating medium that came
> before. 
> 
> Hope this helps
> Ravi
> 
> ---------------------------
> Ravindra N. Mohabeer, PhD
> Media Studies
> Vancouver Island University
>>  
>>> Hullo AoIRists,
>>> 
>>> I recently looked more closely at the Marlon Brando movie, "The Wild One"
>>> (1953) (the source of a long-favored response to the question, "What are you
>>> rebelling against?" (Brando) "What-a-ya got?")
>>> 
>>> About 20 minutes into the film there is, by my lights, a rather remarkable
>>> exchange between the (remarkably well-behaved) bikers and the ancient
>>> bar-keeper Jimmy. They are asking "what do you hicks do around here?", and
>>> in the course of his response, Jimmy makes a couple of interesting media
>>> pronouncements:
>>> ==
>>> Jimmy: I mind my own business. Listen to the radio ­ uh, music that is.
>>> News is no good. It excites people.
>>> 
>>> (biker): Hey Jim ­ what about TV? You like TV?
>>> 
>>> Jimmy: What?
>>> 
>>> (biker): That new thing, Jim. Television.
>>> 
>>> Jimmy: Oh, pictures. No, no pictures. Everything these days is pictures.
>>> Pictures and a lot of noise.  Nobody even knows how to talk.  They just
>>> grunt at each other.
>>> ==
>>> 
>>> This seems a striking expression - somewhat ironic as it appears within a
>>> film as another "picture" medium - of a kind of "medium panic" (my term, I
>>> think), i.e., in parallel with "moral panic," but in this case the fear that
>>> a new medium will totally displace older ones, including speech itself.
>>> 
>>> (Parallels with some contemporary critiques and concerns about more recent
>>> media are also nicely obvious.)
>>> 
>>> At the risk of revealing (yet once again) my vast ignorance -
>>> if only as a historical curiosity - though perhaps now nicely illustrated in
>>> this little example - does anyone have an idea, suggestion, vague hunch,
>>> etc. -
>>> A) where might this "medium panic" have derived from, reflected in the
>>> larger culture, etc.
>>> Especially vis-a-vis
>>> B) any prevailing theories or views on communication and media at the time
>>> of the film that would have either supported or critique Jimmy's concern
>>> about picture media?
>>> 
>>> Many thanks in advance,
>>> - charles ess
>>> 
>>> Professor in Media Studies
>>> Department of Media and Communication
>>> 
>>> Director, Centre for Research on Media Innovations
>>> <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/center/media-innovations/>
>>> 
>>> University of Oslo
>>> P.O. Box 1093 Blindern
>>> NO-0317  
>>> Oslo Norway
>>> email: charles.ess at media.uio.no (mailto:charles.ess at media.uio.no)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org (mailto:Air-L at listserv.aoir.org) mailing list
>>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
>>> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>>> 
>>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>>> http://www.aoir.org/
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
>> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>> 
>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>> http://www.aoir.org/
> 
> ---------------------------
> Ravindra N. Mohabeer
> 
> 
> On 2013-08-25, at 1:04 AM, Charles Ess <charles.ess at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hullo AoIRists,
>> 
>> I recently looked more closely at the Marlon Brando movie, "The Wild One"
>> (1953) (the source of a long-favored response to the question, "What are you
>> rebelling against?" (Brando) "What-a-ya got?")
>> 
>> About 20 minutes into the film there is, by my lights, a rather remarkable
>> exchange between the (remarkably well-behaved) bikers and the ancient
>> bar-keeper Jimmy.  They are asking "what do you hicks do around here?", and
>> in the course of his response, Jimmy makes a couple of interesting media
>> pronouncements: 
>> ==
>> Jimmy: I mind my own business. Listen to the radio ­ uh, music that is.
>> News is no good. It excites people.
>> 
>> (biker): Hey Jim ­ what about TV? You like TV?
>> 
>> Jimmy: What?
>> 
>> (biker): That new thing, Jim. Television.
>> 
>> Jimmy: Oh, pictures. No, no pictures. Everything these days is pictures.
>> Pictures and a lot of noise.  Nobody even knows how to talk.  They just
>> grunt at each other.
>> ==
>> 
>> This seems a striking expression - somewhat ironic as it appears within a
>> film as another "picture" medium - of a kind of "medium panic" (my term, I
>> think), i.e., in parallel with "moral panic," but in this case the fear that
>> a new medium will totally displace older ones, including speech itself.
>> 
>> (Parallels with some contemporary critiques and concerns about more recent
>> media are also nicely obvious.)
>> 
>> At the risk of revealing (yet once again) my vast ignorance -
>> if only as a historical curiosity - though perhaps now nicely illustrated in
>> this little example - does anyone have an idea, suggestion, vague hunch,
>> etc. -
>> A) where might this "medium panic" have derived from, reflected in the
>> larger culture, etc.
>> Especially vis-a-vis
>> B) any prevailing theories or views on communication and media at the time
>> of the film that would have either supported or critique Jimmy's concern
>> about picture media?
>> 
>> Many thanks in advance,
>> - charles ess
>> 
>> Professor in Media Studies
>> Department of Media and Communication
>> 
>> Director, Centre for Research on Media Innovations
>> <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/center/media-innovations/>
>> 
>> University of Oslo
>> P.O. Box 1093 Blindern
>> NO-0317 
>> Oslo Norway
>> email: charles.ess at media.uio.no
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
>> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>> 
>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>> http://www.aoir.org/