TY - CONF
T1 - It's a shark eat shark world: Steven Spielberg's ambiguous politics
AU - Brown, William John Robert Campbell
N1 - Spielberg at Sixty. International Conference at the University of Lincoln, 20-21 November 2007
PY - 2007/11
Y1 - 2007/11
N2 - Repressed American guilt during the Vietnam era. A swimming penis. A vagina dentata. Critics have interpreted the eponymous monster from Jaws (1975) in a variety of ways, prompting Morris (2006) to conclude that this Great White is a blank screen on to which many interpretations can be projected. However, precisely because of its ambiguity, the creature can also be interpreted as a metaphor for Spielberg’s own ambiguous relationship to the system that produces his films, namely Hollywood. Thanks to Deleuze and Guattari’s (1977) definition of capitalism, Hollywood, which is arguably the capitalist system par excellence, can be read as an all-consuming ‘shark’ that must always move forward—for, like a shark, it runs the risk of sinking if it ever stops. Having established the above premise, the paper then erects a playful argument (a ‘spiel-berg’) about Spielberg’s political position in relation to Hollywood. Is he himself one of a shiver of sharks, reinforcing the capitalist ethos of consumption (Spielberg as businessman)? Is he a shark hunter, whose work, ostensibly pro-Hollywood, in fact spears the shark of capital (Spielberg’s commonly a-capitalist heroes)? Or does he play a more ambiguous role, creating big budget movies that critique capitalism and yet which also reinforce, not least through their popularity, the very system they critique?
AB - Repressed American guilt during the Vietnam era. A swimming penis. A vagina dentata. Critics have interpreted the eponymous monster from Jaws (1975) in a variety of ways, prompting Morris (2006) to conclude that this Great White is a blank screen on to which many interpretations can be projected. However, precisely because of its ambiguity, the creature can also be interpreted as a metaphor for Spielberg’s own ambiguous relationship to the system that produces his films, namely Hollywood. Thanks to Deleuze and Guattari’s (1977) definition of capitalism, Hollywood, which is arguably the capitalist system par excellence, can be read as an all-consuming ‘shark’ that must always move forward—for, like a shark, it runs the risk of sinking if it ever stops. Having established the above premise, the paper then erects a playful argument (a ‘spiel-berg’) about Spielberg’s political position in relation to Hollywood. Is he himself one of a shiver of sharks, reinforcing the capitalist ethos of consumption (Spielberg as businessman)? Is he a shark hunter, whose work, ostensibly pro-Hollywood, in fact spears the shark of capital (Spielberg’s commonly a-capitalist heroes)? Or does he play a more ambiguous role, creating big budget movies that critique capitalism and yet which also reinforce, not least through their popularity, the very system they critique?
M3 - Paper
ER -