Rushdie and the Wizard of Oz

I do not really remember watching the entire film, The Wizard of Oz. However, I remember watching scenes of it, and I remember, as a child, I thought I would like to be in the world of Oz, where everything is so bright and fantastic.

My personal experience of watching the film is not so vivid. However, I would most likely take the film as a fantasy movie, which I would not be familiar with. However, Salman Rushdie said:


“In India, however, it[the Wizard of Oz] fitted into what was then, and remains today, one of the mainstreams of “Bollywood” film production.” (Rushdie 11)

He remembered his experience of the film. He said “In the West, the film was an oddball” but it was taken well in India where cinema of the fantastic is familiar. He would watch the video of ‘Kids in India singing a song from the Wizard of Oz’ and say the kids are likely to accept the film well than kids in other countries because the film “fitted into” the Bollywood film production.


"This absence of higher values greatly increases the film's charm, and is an important aspect of its success in creating a world in which nothing is deemed more important than the loves, cares and needs of human beings..." (Rushdie 10).

The kids are surely being supervised by a “higher value”, most likely their teacher. However, the presence of the “higher value” is not seen in the movie. It seems like the kids truly enjoy singing and acting the scene. Unlike the world of adults where actors are controlled and directed by a higher value, a director, the kids are simply having fun, showing their enjoyment while doing their parts, singing and dancing.


“We are all the stars’ doubles” (Rushdie 46)

Reinforcing this quote of his, Rushdie would point out that the kids are “doubles” of the stars in the film. They are simply mimicking the stars. As an audience, we become their doubles by putting ourselves into their positions and feeling what stars would feel. As actors and singers like the kids in the video, we are recreating the stars performance simply as their doubles.

Fredric Jameson and the Simpsons

In his essay of “Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”, Fredric Jameson describes postmodernism. He links the postmodernism to the capitalism. Central idea is that “esthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production” because of the role of capitalism.

Jameson would see the painting by Matt Groening above as a postmodern artwork. Before discussing the work as postmodern, it is essential to distinguish postmodernism from modernism. While artists, in the modernism era, questioned realism, they, in the era of postmodernism, started critiquing realism. The image is a pastiche of the masterpiece, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. The masterpiece has been remade into many other pictures. This particular one replaced the feature with a female cast from the Simpsons and the whole image has been cartooned.

Jameson suggests that it is “essential to grasp postmodernism not as a style but rather as a cultural dominant” The popular culture, the Simpsons, has such cultural power that impacts on viewers. The painting appeals to viewers with its cultural power. It gives the viewers its own unique and new original meaning in this remake.

Jameson suggests that capitalism is related to postmodern movements. He claims that the capitalism torn down the barrier between high culture and mass or commercial culture.
He says, it motivated “more novel-seeming goods” and “aesthetic innovation and experimentation”. The desire for novelty motivated artists to remake masterpieces in their own ways and to create popular culture that is closely related to capitals.

The Simpsons is an internationally famous television show, which earned reputation and capital and created its own cultural power. The show is known for parodying other masterpieces in the past. However, its parodies and remakes have its own unique tastes with its cultural power. Jameson would see this painting as postmodern because it is a great example of popular culture, which is based on capitalism.

(Blogwriting-06) Freudian thinking on Jack Bauer

Freud’s infantile sexuality suggests that experience in childhood can affect the infant’s adulthood. He introduces the concept of the Oedipal complex and the castration anxiety.
The Oedipal complex suggests that a boy infant desires sexual union with his mother and his mother’s love and affection. Therefore, the boy sees his father as his rivalry. There comes the castration anxiety. The boy sees a girl infant without a penis, and thinks that the girl has been punished and castrated. He unconsciously feels anxiety and wants to protect his penis, which later becomes the symbol of power and control. This anxiety represses the desire for his mother into the unconscious level.

Jack Bauer in the 24 is the head of a family, a heterosexual man, and a government agent. He likes to have everything under his control. When his daughter runs away, he asks his co-worker to find out the password to hack into his daughter’s e-mail account. He is ruthless and confident when working for the nation. He give orders to co-workers and does what he thinks is right no matter what. His aggressive and confident behavior can be seen as the result of his castration complex in childhood. Freud would say, as a boy fears of losing his penis, a grown man fears of losing his power and control.
Jack’s masculinity is the result of his addiction towards his penis from his childhood.

[Extra]
Also, he obviously had an affair with his co-worker. Freud would link this adultery to the Oedipal complex’s characteristic of the forbidden relationship. A boy infant gradually gives up his desire for his mother because this desire is forbidden. The desire for forbidden relationship surfaces as an adultery in adulthood. This abnormal resolution of the complex resulted in, in the story, the unstable family.