Kara Ireland
AMST 7000
Dr. Lieberman
April 13, 2021
Happy(ish) People
CAST:
ADORNO & HORKHEIMER—CHARLES
MANNING—MARCELINE
MANN—ALLEN
AHMED—THE GIRL
We’re all performing, but for which shows and/or audiences? By using Adorno & Horkheimer, Manning, Mann, and Ahmed, I want to create a social situation in which the idealist meets the cynic and contrasting ideologies are aired in some discourse. I’m taking a bunch of creative liberties in this story (instead of a traditional essay) but I intend to address how happiness remains an unattainable goal for most because of the effects of mass deception, consumerism, and the constraints of culture. I’m using Ahmed as a lens for the scope of the latter portion of the conversation (the promise of happiness and affect theory) and featuring Adorno & Horkheimer, Manning, Mann’s perspectives to bolster the discussion. My tentative topic centers the effects of capitalism and how the media shapes and reinforces what happiness looks like. I am still working on the larger, specific research question, but I wrote this short story as a means to digest the dense materials and to reinterpret it in my own words.
For the purposes of this story, all direct quotes will be italicized.
HAPPY(ISH) PEOPLE
Marceline always overheard the best conversations while working at Mitch’s Diner. She wondered if the patrons could tell if she was loitering while she wiped the same area down for the sixth time. As she moved the rag in slow, calculated motions, she eavesdropped on an older man and another who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. The older man was leaning over the table, eccentrically gesticulating and speaking with excitement; the younger man was captivated.
“Just watch the people for a second,” he said, then paused. “Go ahead, watch them.”
So, Marceline did. When she looked past the plant-lined window, she took note of who was out there. Three teens were excitedly recording a dance video in front of the coffee shop. Their laughter was muted from the indoors, but Marceline saw their open-mouthed joviality as they rushed to get in place for the video. One of the girls—a Latina, she presumed—was wearing a baggy white tee-shirt with “RESIST” printed across the chest in pink, bold letters. The curly-haired white boy had dyed his hair bright blue. The other girl had on cuffed overalls and platform shoes, but her several facial piercings were reflecting the sunlight. Walking brusquely around them was a chubby guy in a checkered shirt, sloppily tucked into his khakis. A middle-aged woman stood in stilettos and a tight, red dress, attuned to her phone as she waited at the crosswalk.
“They are the perfect example of exactly what I mean,” the man said, leaning onto the table. “You see, we’re all just prototypes of the capitalist machine. It spits us out one by one and the slightest variation of them feels like something new. The punks with the green hair and the barbie doll with all the product in hers—they buy from the same places. Their money goes to the same things and there they are, thinking they’re all so different. You buy your brand. Everyone’s a fool.”
“The capitalist machine,” the other, younger man breathed. “I don’t think that makes us fools, though.”
“The kids, their smart phones, their streaming programs. The man with leisure has to accept what the culture manufacturers offer him … but industry robs the individual of his function. Its prime service to the customer is to do his schematizing for him. They think they’re winning because they have options.”[1] The older man sipped his coffee and wiped his lip.
“Oh, I see. And those kids out there making Tik Toks are part of this because Tik Tok is what our modern culture has manufactured?” the younger man nodded slowly.
The older man smiled. “Bingo. Welcome to the absolute power of capitalism.”[2]
“Sorry to interrupt,” Marceline said, discarding the towel onto the counter. “But I couldn’t help overhearing… You think everything in this life is made for us? It’s all predestined?”
“I don’t know about predestined, but I do know that The Powers That Be all have a name. The movers and shakers, big wigs—everything has been touched and curated by someone. Worst part is, we let ‘em. Then we thank ‘em.” He took a sip. “Matter of fact, they say the standards were based in the first place on consumers’ needs, and for that reason were accepted with so little resistance. The result is the circle of manipulation and retroactive need in which the unity of the system grows ever stronger.”[3]
“That’s pretty bleak,” the younger one said. “It’s like no matter what we do, we’re powerless.”
“It’s the truth, son. You know, movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. The truth is that they are just business is made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce.”[4]
“Need any more coffee, hun?” Marceline asked to make herself useful, but lingered when they said no. “I really don’t mean to listen in on y’all, but I’m just not sure what you mean.”
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” the rugged one asked, and when she told him, he grinned. “Charles. Now, Miss Marceline, tune into this song playing here over the radio. Go ahead: listen.”
Marceline listened to the upbeat pop music. It was the same repetitive chords, the predictable melody, and a shrill, autotuned voice; the stuff her grandkids liked to play. “Alright. I’m listening.”
“The need which might resist central control has already been suppressed by the control of the individual consciousness. The step from the telephone to the radio has clearly distinguished the roles,” Charles said. “Not only are the hit songs, stars, and soap operas cyclically recurrent and rigidly invariable types, but the specific content of the entertainment itself is derived from them and only appears to change. The details are interchangeable. The short interval sequence which was effective in a hit song, the hero’s momentary fall from grace (which he accepts as good sport), the rough treatment which the beloved gets from the male star, the latter’s rugged defiance of the spoilt heiress, are, like all the other details, ready-made clichés to be slotted in anywhere; they never do anything more than fulfil the purpose allotted them in the overall plan.”[5]
“You know what, those same Powers That Be are the ones making all the markers for us. They tell us what’s a good life, what we need to look like, what we need to have. They tell us who’s in and who’s out. Talking about the movies and the radio, Hollywood [has] sold us a very parochial picture of perfection: one man married to one woman, blessed with children, devoted to God and country and an American way of life that never really existed beyond the back lot,” Marceline said with a hand on her hip.[6]
The young man had been listening intently, but he tilted his head at that. “Would you say that whatever mode of capitalism we prefer, we’re all just striving to fulfil the roles laid out for us from generations ago?”
“You could say that.” Charles shrugged, forking some pancakes into his mouth.
“And then, we’re all just being performative without having any real agency?” the young man continued.
“Performative,” Marceline furrowed her brow, “What do you mean?”
“Well, as you know, to perform generally means to carry out, to complete, or to accomplish as well as to act in a play, to execute a dance step, or to play a musical instrument. However, in its new usage, the connotation of the verb shifts from the achievement of an action to the embodiment of an identity.”[7]
“Yeah, okay…” Marceline nodded uncertainly.
Sensing her confusion, Charles supplemented her with information she didn’t ask for. “Allen is a—what do you call it? A racial studies major?”
“I’m in the American Studies program,” he laughed. “So, to explain a little bit more, everyone in society can be considered a social actor. And how social actors perform race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, profession, region, and nationality. This usage of “perform” … implies a process whereby physical bodies accrue social identities. It also underscores how some bodies become legible as “masculine” or “black” or “mainstream,” while other bodies become legible as “feminine” or “white” or “marginal,” Allen said confidently.[8]
Their spirited conversation had roused the attention of another lone patron in the diner. A brown-skinned girl with glasses turned her seat around and straddled her chair backwards. “Hey guys. I figured that since it’s a party over here, you wouldn’t mind me jumping in. I have a question for all of you—if you’re willing.”
Marceline stepped aside so everyone could see her. When the young woman got an agreeable consensus, she continued.
“I’ve been listening to everything. If you, sir, claim that we’re basically all cogs in a machine that have no real sense of autonomy, and you say that we’re all being performative to fit into that prototypical role, and you, ma’am, say that all of these things are pretty much being reinforced by the media…” she trailed off, making eye contact with each of them, “Can we ever truly be happy in a system like that?”
Silence settled over their table for the first time in a while; they all seemed to seriously deliberate over her question. All of their perspectives molded with one another but still retained some distinct differences.
“Let me add something else: Happiness is precarious; it does not reside in subjects or objects, but is an effect of what gets passed around. The family for instance might be happy not because it causes happiness, but because of a shared orientation towards the family as being good,” she said. “Which feeds into what you were saying about Hollywood—and now social media’s—continual reinforcement of something being good.”[9]
“I would say that most people are happy,” Allen said.
Marceline shook her head. “Look around this place. You got single people who have their heads buried in the telephone, and couples who got nothing to say to each other. You got me at sixty-three working at a diner to pay the bills and a husband who’s been dead ten years. This guy is over here crushing this one’s optimism because he just knows too damn much. By the end of this, he will be different—jaded. Nobody is happy if you ask me.”
“I guess that much depends on how happiness is defined,” Allen said.
“We live, we work, we die.” Charles shrugged. “But that’s not all. We take pleasure in the small things—spending time with my grandson, having conversations with good people; that’s the stuff that makes life worth living. If you ask me if I’m happy right here right now, I’ve got to say yes. You start to dig a little, you get something else. How deep under the surface do you want to go?”
“Okay, fair. My American Studies brain is working overtime right now. What I see when I look at these people is pretty simple: if they could get past the barriers of [race and] gender and sexuality they might actually obtain the very things they're so frantically seeking: love, sex, happiness, riches.”[10] Allen proposed.
“Like—I guess that one of my key questions is how such conversions happen, and ‘who’ or ‘what’ gets seen as converting bad feeling into good feeling and good into bad,” the girl clarified.[11]
“Ah, that I’ve already told you. While the mechanism is to all appearances planned by those who serve up the data of experience, that is, by the culture industry, it is in fact forced upon the latter by the power of society, which remains irrational, however we may try to rationalise it; and this inescapable force is processed by commercial agencies so that they give an artificial impression of being in command,” Charles said plainly, clasping his hands over the table.[12]
“Just because we’re being sold a bunch of dreams means we can’t believe in them? What if I like my smartphone? And my cheesy, predictable movies? My repetitive pop music? Why is it so bad?” the girl asked.
“Whether it’s good or bad is up to you. But they call themselves industries; and when their directors’ incomes are published, any doubt about the social utility of the finished products is removed. If you have gotten to the point where you know the system and you’re comfortable navigating it, have at it! I was just telling Allen here, just don’t be deluded into thinking you’ve got a dog in the fight.”[13]
“If you want to bog everything down with cynicism and hopelessness, that’s real easy to do. Step outside and walk a few feet, you’d find more than enough reasons to quit believing. The work comes in fighting for the good parts, fighting for the laughs and the hugs. The world is not a happy place, but I reckon we can choose to be happy people.” Marceline said. “Easier said than done.”
“Happy-ish,” Charles added with a wink.
“You say we can choose to be happy people, and I think that’s the best word, honestly. We choose to perform and uphold the system because it’s easier than challenging it; tearing it down isn’t possible right now.” Allen pursed his lips.
“It isn’t possible now because people are ‘happy’ within the current systems,” the girl added.
“These dynamics continue to shape US performance … for decades to come,” Allen said.[14] “But in taking the cultural studies approach, when you know too much, I think it has a great potential to ruin your outlook.”
“See? This kid’s sunny disposition is shot,” Marceline laughed and nudged Charles, who also chuckled.
“Exactly. Happiness is partly an illusion that imagines that multiculturalism can deliver its social promise by extending freedom … on the condition that they embrace its game. So, like you said,” she gestured toward Charles, “we take our pre-packaged lives, we smile, and we say thank you.”[15]
“Right, so we buy and buy and buy, and we wait and wait, thinking that our next break is at the bottom of this serum everyone’s got for us. Losing weight and eating this and wearing that—it’s all a sham,” Marceline said, both hands on her hips now.
“Uh-huh,” the girl nodded. “When we consider the cultural politics of happiness, we need to consider the relationship between this (an action, belief, a way of living) and that (what is presume to follow). We know this, and we also know that it does not give equal value to the objects in which good feelings come to reside.”[16]
Marceline straightened up and shook her head. “That’s too much big thinking for this old girl. I’ll get your checks and circle back soon,” she said abruptly, as if she’d just remembered she was on the clock.
As she walked away, she heard the continuation of their discussion, and wished she still had the willpower to take things apart piece by piece like that. She rounded the corner of the podium and overheard two women in a booth discussing their diet programs; she found herself pitying them. While printing their receipts, she heard a man and a woman debating the social commentary of some blockbuster; she smirked, thinking about how much of it was scripted. In some ways, she wished she hadn’t barged in on Charles and Allen’s conversation because now she was seeing things differently. Already, the cynicism set in. Already, she was unhappier because she knew more.
Works Cited
Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” from The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
Ahmed, Sara. “Multiculturalism and the Promise of Happiness,” New Formations, (2007). 127.
Mann, William. “Nobody’s Perfect,” A New Literary History of America. Last modified, April 2021, https://search.credoreference.com/content/title/harvardhoa?tab=entry_view&entry_id=11905387.
Manning, Susan. “Performance.” In Keywords for American Cultural Studies, Third Edition, edited by Burgett and Hendler. (2020).
[1]Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” from The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 96.
[2] Adorno and Horkheimer, The Culture Industry, 95.
[3] Adorno and Horkheimer, The Culture Industry, 97.
[4] Adorno and Horkheimer, The Culture Industry, 95.
[5] Adorno and Horkheimer, The Culture Industry, 98.
[6] William J. Mann, “Nobody’s Perfect,” A New Literary History of America, last modified 2021, https://search.credoreference.com/content/title/harvardhoa?tab=entry_view&entry_id=11905387, 1.
[7] Susan Manning, “Performance” from Keywords for American Cultural Studies 1.
[8] Susan Manning, “Performance,” 1
[9] Sara Ahmed, “Multiculturalism and the Promise of Happiness,” New Formations, (2007). 127.
[10] Susan Manning, “Performance,” 2.
[11] Sara Ahmed, “Multiculturalism and the Promise of Happiness”, 127.
[12] Adorno and Horkheimer, The Culture Industry, 108.
[13] Adorno and Horkheimer, The Culture Industry, 95.
[14] Susan Manning, “Performance,” 3.
[15] Sara Ahmed, “Multiculturalism and the Promise of Happiness”, 131.
[16] Sara Ahmed, “Multiculturalism and the Promise of Happiness”, 128.