Up With Contempt!

First of all, I have to say that you brought out a very good point on how critics and audiences tend to accuse directors of showing dislike for their characters or their audiences.

But I do not think that your post was a sufficient defense of these film-makers.

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I sometimes wonder if those who worry about expressions of contempt for characters (particularly "ordinary people") in movies have ever had jobs in which they had to deal with the general public. Or have ever attended some kind of party or social function at which they have met some people they would rather not have met.
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All people at some point or another do indeed meet people worthy of dislike but that still doesn't excuse film-makers from taking a simplistic narrow-minded worldview that all people are in the end uncouth bastards. It's as simplistic as to assume that all people are good and kind-hearted.

A film like Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange or for that matter The Shining depicts a worldview of weak and/or venal human beings yet does not develop or explore these ideas. They are so simplistic as to be easily dismissed. I have nothing against artists with a bleak worldview but what they should set out to do is explore their ideas and worldview and present it so taht we, the audience can think and explore for ourselves.

A master like Luis Bunuel was often contemptuous of organization and in his career has offended about every ideology known to man, even anarchy but Bunuel never preaches or sermonizes he explores and presents it for the audience to think for themeselves. If an artist wants to criticize something, the best thing is to show what they are criticizing as it is.

It's actually quite funny to me that your latest blog should happen be about contempt (both the concept and the Godard film) because just today I was preparing to send in another candidate for your ongoing "Opening Shots Project" (I wrote one about The Godfather a while back, but I'm not 100% sure it went through). Guess which film I was gonna pick?

Very nice peice. I've probably alternated between both of these "sides" - laughing at and recoiling from so-called contempt - with equal regularity. I think the deciding factor in my book generally comes down to how I view comedy (and indeed, most art) as a whole: context and significance. A balls-out send-up like Talladega Nights or Anchorman very lovingly points some of our less admirable traits (stupdity, selfishness, divisiveness - geeze, I sound like a certain Mr. W----), while The Life of Brian, dealing with more widely affecting matters, does so more scathingly ("I was blind! I can see!"). What tends to get my goat, however, are examples where the characters/us are made fun of simply for existing in the presented conditions; not for what they do, but who they are. This is a fine line, I'm sure, which explains why some filmmakers/comedians that I generally like have sometimes disastrously trodden into that territory (Trey Parker & Matt Stone, the Coen Brothers, among them). Lately, however, my own expectations regarding comedy - particularly the taste of different audiences - have been testing to their limits so rigorously that I may very well have to re-evaluate them all from the ground up.

Jim, I'm just throwing out my 2 cents about some of the things you're talking about. I've never felt that Robert Altman (who I know you're a huge fan of) had any contempt for his characters or his audience but rather I felt that Altman (due to his directorial style) seemed uninterested in his characters. By having them talk over one another and rarely staying with the same set of characters for any length of time his movies always seemed to have a lack of character development and narrative structure, but I never felt any contempt from Altman. Stanley Kubrick always felt more interested in the technical aspects of the movie and always left me feeling coldness from him but I never felt contempt from him or for his characters, just disinterest. I believe Sacha Baron Cohen has contempt for a certain type of person (racists, idiots, etc.) and uses the characters that he plays to let these people reveal themselves and be put on display for our ridicule (Cohen also always makes sure that the characters he plays are funny). I always felt contempt for certain ideas from him but not necessarily contempt for this particular guy or that particular guy. I also agree that the characters on Seinfeld are all people we would not want to know or even meet in real life because they are horrible people. Their complete acceptance of their horribleness, or sometimes their complete ignorance or their horribleness, is what I love some much about the show. I felt more contempt for the audience from "Moulin Rouge" and "XXX" than I ever have from the Coen brothers.

This subject fascinates me because I have found that when I dislike a film because of what (I perceive) as a contempt for its characters (and the audience), very often I will resort to charges of misanthropy as a sort of superficial criticism, without closely examining my own feelings and understanding why some contempt works and some doesn't.

As with all things, there's a very fine line between contempt that works and contempt that seems mean-spirited and smug. When I examine the films that I love that have been accused of misanthropy or contempt ("Dr. Strangelove", "Borat", "Viridiana", don't shudder..."American Beauty", the Christopher Guest films, pretty much anything by the Coens, Errol Morris, and Michael Moore), I find that the humour works because it emerges out of genuine human nature...traits and flaws that we can all identify with and therefore laugh at. We may mock people who are deserving of it, but we also develop a better understanding of their flaws, and of our own. Not to sound too heavy-handed (given that very often these satirical films are primarily interested in making us laugh), but there is a kind of mockery that, when done right, can actually expand our view of human nature...it might even make us better people. "Waiting for Guffman" and "Fargo" are two perfect examples of this: some people felt they were smugly satirizing small-town America, but they were in fact loving, affectionate digs at the dreams, limitations and mannerisms of many Americans.

Conversely, though, there is also a kind of misanthropy (which I like to call "cheap-shot filmmaking") that emerges in movies that I find smug, superior and completely off-putting. This ranges from the juvenile mocking of any sort of human feeling in "Fight Club" (I know you love it...but really, the testicular cancer scenes are unforgiveable) to the callous disregard for any human life that isn't a major character in so many Hollywood films ("Total Recall" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" spring immediately to mind for their reprehensible use of human shields) to "Natural Born Killers" and "Very Bad Things", which should hold their own special circle of hell for the degrees of misanthropy they achieve (added to which they are, indisputably, the two worst films ever made).

Sometimes I am even put off by what I perceive as contempt in some films that I otherwise admire. "A Clockwork Orange", for example, deservedly pokes (insightful) fun at several institutions of power. But what, really, is achieved by the cartoonish portrayal of Alex's parents?

Perhaps no filmmaker better exemplifies the fine line between productive contempt (for lack of a better phrase) and downright misanthropy than Robert Altman. For the most part, I think that Altman's portrayal of humanity is brilliantly realized, showing us with all our warts in an oftentimes humourous, compassionate way. I suppose I could see how some people could find contempt in "Nashville", but I don't see it ever outweighing its tremendous empathy...as I believe I've mentioned before on this site, in my opinion Haven Hamilton best embodies "Nashville"'s unique balance of sly mockery and noble compassion. "The Player", one of my favourite Altman films, is clearly contemptuous of the Griffin Mills of the world...what with their mineral waters, Land Rovers, and general lack of creativity. Yet there ARE people like Griffin Mill (I'm too young to remember, but wasn't the 80s full of them?), and Altman points out the flaws in all of us who occasionally strive for success symbols. Where I think Altman loses his way and crosses the line into outright misanthropy is in his portrayal of the army superiors in his most overrated film, "M*A*S*H". Major "Hot Lips" and the Robert Duvall character are so thoroughly degraded that any humour or insight is lost in favour of a sort of fatigued pity on the part of the audience (the sort that emerges at around the 8th flogging in "The Passion of the Christ"). "Hot Lips", in particular, is not a real human being...first she is a symbol of military rigidity, then she seems to be a dumb, overly peppy blonde cheerleader at the climactic football game. Her character doesn't tell us anything about humanity, she's just a punching bag.

I suppose this is where I draw a distinction between the contempt that you (rightfully) advocate and the contempt I find, well, contemptuous. I think you might have a slightly higher tolerance for it than I do (I'm basing this solely on your appreciation of "Fight Club", and the fact that you adore Kubrick just a little more than I do), but I also enjoy digs at our messed-up species when they are illuminating, insightful, or just plain funny. When individual characters (or, in the case of "Natural Born Killers", the whole human race) are used as mere punching bags for the filmmakers to demonstrate their smug superiority...well, that's when the contempt the audience perceives is real, and that's when the tomatoes and fruit start flying toward the screen.

Mr. Altman’s ”contempt for his characters” was not a myth, but a real thing, at least in his less restrained (read: most personal) works. I was quite appalled recently by his “Brewster McCloud” (as earlier by “Kansas City”). Not only did he totally subvert the genre (of “Bullit”-like urban crime thrillers) without making parody of it (ie. being funny), he also discarded all the characters for being either males (not only the masculine genre´s stock characters but also the nerdish hero who eventually commits the supreme crime, ie. sexual intercourse) or females (conformist vehicles of the down-to-earth sexuality). Being cynical and morbid without any trade-off (sense of characters or humor), what is left?

Thank your for your defense of contempt. I for one, think that complaints about "contempt" are akin to ad hominim attacks on films that refuse to play nice. Don't we NEED films that don't play nice? Don't we NEED cruel satire from time to time? Don't we NEED nasty, even nihilistic horror films from time to time? Not valuable every idea translates into a humane, empathetic film. Perhaps humane empathetic films ARE the best ones, but don't we need the other kind too? Without contempt, we'd have no "Borat," no "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," no "Clockwork Orange" . . .

I don't have anything really smart to add to the conversation, but I just this looked like a good place to reiterate how much I really, really hate Todd Solondz.

Actually, I'll try to say something sort of smart. The reason I hate Solondz while I like other "contemptuous" filmmakers (like the Coens or Altman or Kubrick) is that, as others have said, those people sometimes mock or disdain characters for representing negative and recognizable human characteristics. Solondz, on the other hand, mocks the inhabitants of his films for the crime of simply existing; he creates characters for no purpose other than to destroy them.

Thanks, Matt -- I knew I was forgetting someone. I'll add Solondz to the list. I think he displays a lot of contempt in "Palindromes"... but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.

Alex,

I'll drop my two cents on this very interesting topic later, but for the moment, re: your disturbance over the use of human shields in "Total Recall". The emerging genius of Paul Verhoeven continues to delight me: that scene always used to bother me in my younger years, but when I recently caught the film again on one of its innumerable late-night showings, I realize how deliberately Verhoeven had set the scene up for maximum (and utterly unbelievable) character cruelty. Not only does the poor sap on the escalator get perforated dozens of times by both sides, but when they reach the top floor, Verhoeven actually takes time to cut to a shot of the villains running over his body. This is where general disdain for humanity rises to some sort of art.

As said earlier, the whole contempt thing is a very, very fine line to walk. And while the "contempt for the audience" line is awfully vague, we all feel it about some films (you do about Alan Parker's, I agree with Alex about Natural Born Killers and Very Bad Things). Determining whether or not a film has "contempt for the audience" almost becomes as slippery as defining pornogrpahy - "I know it when I see it."

Oh, and a minor point - when you list reasons people pull the "contempt for the audience" card, your 2nd reason, "if you got the joke you wouldn't feel like you were being laughed at" is a huge critical pet peeve of mine. Thinking someone who didn't like, or was offended by, something you happented to like just didn't get the joke is at least as much of a cop-out as a critic referring to a filmmaker's "contempt for the audience." When describing my dislike of Natural Born Killers, or even South Park, to fans of either, I often find myself telling them that I do get it, I just don't like it.

Great comments! This is the kind of discussion I was hoping we'd have.

Getting into the contrarian groove, I was obviously (I hope) making generalizations meant to underscore other generalizations (in a "dialectical spirit" -- as Andrew Tracy put it in his piece on "The Departed").

First, let me respond that I feel strongly that "Natural Born Killers" is the most despicable movie ever made (neck-and-neck with "Mississippi Burning") -- mainly because of its glib contempt. I'm not so sure that contempt is focused on the characters (because once Stone was done re-writing Quentin Tarantino's original screenplay, there were no characters), or on the audience (because I think it placates the audience rather than challenges them), so maybe it's the director's own self-contempt that's coming through. What do you think?

I'll have more on this, but I think Fritz has a good take on it: My feelings about when a filmmaker's "contempt" (if that's what it is) is justified or not varies from director to director, film to film, character to character, scene to scene, even moment to moment. Criticism is about trying to figure out when it's phony and when it's satirical or subversive or something else. Sometimes I think "South Park" is so smug and scattershot that it sucks all the air out of the room (the desperate attempts to "offend everyone" are so transparent they seem cowardly, even timid, and therefore fail to offend anyone); other times ("Trapped in the Closet," for instance) I think it's brilliant, inspired satire.

As for the "joke" line -- that came from specific conversations I've had with people, particularly about the Coens. My point is that just because you don't see why someone else would find something funny, that doesn't mean the filmmakers are laughing at you. Some people think "Fargo" mercilessly ridicules its characters -- not just Marge and Jerry, but particularly Mike. But I think this on-the-edge feeling you get (laughing at the characters, even feeling superior to them, feeling uncomfortable about the film's and our own attitudes toward them, but not necessarily disliking them) is essential to the movie. Mike (Marge's former classmate) comes out of nowhere -- we're as disoriented by his appearance as Marge is -- but he's the key to Marge breaking the case. Through Mike, she realizes something about Jerry's "Minnesota nice" passive-aggressive behavior.

On the other hand, there's "Welcome to the Doll House." I love the scene where Dawn is mean to the kid with the ball -- simply because he's lower in the pecking order than even she at that moment. That's a strikingly accurate observation about human nature, and it underlines conflicting feelings about Dawn, and the cruelty of children in general. But the movie is told through Dawn's sensibility, so we are meant to have contempt for her tutu-wearing little sister. We need that contempt in order to experience the true horror of the film's climactic moment: when Dawn approaches her sleeping sister, brandishing a hammer. At that moment, we believe that ANYTHING could happen, and that takes us to some disturbing places. I also happen to think it's very funny -- but not in a belly-laugh kind of way...

I've enjoyed reading these posts very much.

I think the guy's name is Mike, not Steve, in Fargo. I've heard debates about why that scene was in the film, but you're right, that awkward meeting in the bar does help Marge crack the case.

I completely agree with your disdain for Natural Born Killers. Both times I've seen it (and I regret giving it a second chance), I had this inescapable feeling that all of Mickey and Mallory's victims "deserved" it, as if the killers were exterminating rats. Talk about contempt! "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" is not something I can watch everyday, but at least it knows who the real bad guys are.

As for Kubrick's misanthropy, I've never felt he "hated" humanity. Instead, he was angry at the shackles humanity has always placed on itself. Indeed, his 2001 suggests that man's potential is "beyond the infinite."

JE: Thanks for the correction, Robert. I've fixed the Steve/Mike mistake.

A delightful post. I particularly like the "up with" it part--it's not an apology, a defense of the acceptability of contempt, but an encouragement of it. Cinema, art, and above all politics, needs a healthier dose of contempt--and of its complements, embarrasment and shame. We should gladly, proudly be contemptuous of truly bad, egregious taste in culture, art and politics. And those with such taste should truly be ashamed, and encouraged to feel shame.

However. The question is precisely when is contempt appropriate? What counts as truly egregious taste? Contempt is not simply good, bad, or neutral. Up with contempt! But only toward what the truly contemptible. That is why, I suspect, many have in good faith often complained about the contempt they detect in a films attitude toward its characters, its audience, or to the members of the audience that it intentionally seeks to consternate. In such cases, the claim is not that contempt is bad, but that the contempt is contemptable because it is directed toward an undeserving or false target.

In these instances, and they are very common, what's really at work is the Simpsons Comic Store Guy version of contempt. To have contempt for or mock those in the audience who don't know which episode number an obscure bit of Star Trek trivia comes from is contemptible, and this is the sort of contempt such complaints are usually directed at (or at least accusing a film of being guilty of). That's not surprising, since it's a very common form of contempt in all cultural and artistic products, since part of the function of cultural commodities is define and produce cultural identities to enable participants to mutually reinforce each others' self-worth by establishing their position in an in-group contrasted with an out-group. That, and not the healthy, admirable contempt for the truly contemptible, is the form found most frequently in "high" film.

RE: The human shield scene in "Total Recall".

I must admit I haven't seen the film in a number of years, but I remember being disgusted by that scene's implications. I had forgotten the bit about the corpse being trampled on, but now that I remember it, I still don't really see the humour in the scene (and I usually like excessive humour).

Verhoeven in general is not someone whose films (or at least his Hollywood output) I respond to. A friend of mine that I really respect keeps trumpeting the virtues of "Starship Troopers", but I just don't see anything there. "Robocop", "Total Recall", the dreadful "Basic Instinct", "Showgirls"...I understand the temptation to see some sort of "so bad it's good" pattern, but very often I just see something that's so bad it's bad.

To be fair to Verhoeven, I haven't seen any of his pre-Hollywood work, which I understand is quite well thought of. I need to catch up on "Turkish Delight", "Soldier of Orange" and "The Fourth Man" before I can make any blanket pronouncements.

Personally, I have no idea, really, what contempt for the audience means. I suppose I've just never seen it.

But contempt towards characters is a more interesting dynamic. As many have stated, having contempt for some characters is not necessarily a bad thing. Some characters are thoroughly unlikable, and should be regarded with contempt. I take no issue with that.

What I do take issue with is when the storyteller cheats. Characters should be presented fairly, not as cardboard stereotypes. In other words, characters should be given at least a modicum of chracterization. The characters earn our contempt. Otherwise, then the storyteller is merely telling the audience whom they should dislike.

This is what nearly ruins "Million Dollar Baby" for me. Maggie's family is treated like a collection of loathsome cartoons. There is nothing behind the characters at all. They are merely put on the screed for the audience to boo.

Moving on, in his post on Solondz, Matt wrote, "he creates characters for no purpose other than to destroy them." Is this contempt? Aren't people born for no other purpose than to die? We do horrible things, and have horrible things done to us. And then we die. We also do good things, of course, and have good things happen to us. So perhaps Solondz isn't entirely even-handed. But he's not cheating either. His characters are given their chances.

This discussion made me think of Kilgore Trout's dilemma in Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions." Trout feels that he has been created only to suffer. Vonnegut writes himself into the book later, and tells Trout not that he hate him, but that he loves him.

So does Vonnegut have contempt for Trout? Does Solondz have contempt for his chracters? Does God have contempt for Job?

I don't think this is contempt. This is something different.

Contempt is when a character isn't even given a chance.

Jim, Sorry to be contrarian but I don't feel like celebrating contempt at this particular juncture in history. I know, I know, you're not saying up with the "real life" kind that has America forcing its supposed values down the world's collective throat but I think, culturally speaking, it has become so ingrained as to have lost its edge. This isn't to say it can't be done well or to go after the right targets but meeting those criteria are as rare as ever while the gratuitous practice is at an all time high (I think). Seinfeld was brilliant but it was of a different time and even they felt the need to apologize (in a very weird way) at the end of the run. Just in case people failed to note their self-contempt, I guess. The Simpsons early years, when it was good, don't fit the label, at all, and the Coen Brothers? I've been watching different movies, apparently. Their best films are extraordinarily affectionate of almost all their characters, short of murderers, usually, and look at the types: "Fargo", unsophisticated yokels; "Raising Arizona", "trailer trash"; "Big Lebowski", unemployed slacker. I think the Coens are sentimentalists with irony, and I'll take their vision over the marginally similar true contempt of David Mamet, say, any time. I'm not looking to criticize Mamet, South Park, definitely not Stewart or Colbert but even so these are just the very best floating atop a roiling sea of contemptuous swill and I wouldn't mind seeing an overall shift in direction.

And here is a real novel thought: I think we are at a moment when we need less, not more contempt for politicians. Because we actually need them sometimes. Contempt has led to apathy has led to venomous partisanship. If Americans, of all parties, were not contemptuous of the whole process of electing leaders we would not be watching a "regular guy who would be fun to watch a football game with" running and ruining the world. It is now a parlor game to label every single person who has just left the room as an idiot because he didn't get the Star Trek reference or a loser, because he did. I'm not talking about "let's all try to get along" or "if we just joined hands there's nothing we can't do," nor am I singling out any particular person, movie, etc. I just think the contempt thing is old and tired in the culture as a whole and, worse, is leaning much closer to group nihilism than healthy skepticism.

This is pretty similar to my feelings about violence in the culture. I'm not for censorship and I think violence, like contempt, can be done brilliantly and in a way important to art and to public discourse but if asked I would say there is too much of it. That's speaking from an artistic, not a prudish viewpoint.

Wow, this is getting long, I certainly wouldn't blame you if you don't post it, but damn it's been some week, huh?

I guess my bottom line is that contempt is easy, respect is hard, and that's why we need the practice. Not blind patriotism sort of respect but in looking harder to try to find the things worthy of it. To bring it back around to movies, I think it's quite fashionable to use words like "treacly" or "sentimental" about even the best films that show some real warm feelings for their characters. Most of these kinds of movies are phony I'll grant you, but that's why I cherish the occasional "You Can Count on Me" or The Up series. But maybe respect, for deserving targets, can be a future topic.