Misrepresentation: How the Media is Spreading AIDS

Sociological studies of The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) reach far and wide into the topic and encompass nearly three decades of research concerning the epidemic. While many studies begin their analysis with a primer on AIDS and/or HIV such information is not necessarily required for the analysis that is to follow. It is important to note that The World Health Organization tells researchers that there are three zones and patterns of infection inherent in the spread of AIDS: Asia, which now represents the majority of the infection’s growth; the entire continent of Africa, which is possibly the origin of AIDS and also is primarily heterosexual in transmission; and industrialized Western nations make up the last zone. For cultural analysis, we will limit the field of study to the third zone where it is believed that the primary modes of transmission are intravenous drug use and homosexual intercourse (Marshall, 1998).

Where other analysts might find credence in detailing the various symptoms and realities of AIDS, the intent here is to avoid such description and detail and look at the face of AIDS as it is presented to the mass populace. To put the situation in perspective, a few statistics are necessary in order to attain the needed scope in the reader’s mind. It is estimated that 33.2 million people are currently living with AIDS worldwide (UNAIDS, 2007). In January of 2006, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization estimated that AIDS has killed over 25 million people since it was first identified in 1981, making it the worst epidemic in recorded history. It has more recently been stated that AIDS claimed an estimated 2.4 to 3.3 million lives in 2005 alone, 570,000 of which were children (UNAIDS, 2006).

The history of AIDS in Western culture has been exhausted in numerous volumes of books and studies since its first discovery on June 5, 1981 (CDC). Where most social sciences concern themselves with understanding the path and trajectory of the virus, sociologically the aim of this analysis is to interpret data and various media representations of HIV and AIDS in order to better understand the cultural role that is played by AIDS. Sociological studies of sexual networks of transmission became crucial to defining the virus in the early 80’s. Other leaps in the field have concerned themselves with studying the sexual and drug-taking behavior, both KABP (Knowledge, Attitudes, Behavior and Practices) and more innovative practices that examine the qualitative research that have become necessary to monitoring the possible behavior that spreads the virus further. As with many medical sociology studies, these were mostly built upon the Health Belief Model which contextually and strategically places AIDS and HIV within the study of community/collective responses (Marshall, 1998).

All forms of AIDS sociology will be called upon for the benefit of this study which aims to reveal the bias and media tendencies in Western culture that have caused AIDS to become a thing of the past to the collective American conscience. Popular cultural representations from public service announcements, movies and branding to pornography and celebrity endorsement will all be examined on the basis that the American public (the study’s main focus) believe that AIDS is no longer a threat.

Much of the information attained and used as evidence in this article has been devised to identify and sample ‘hidden populations’ that are participants in the social construction of AIDS with or without the virus being within their own health concerns (Marshall, 1998). It is important to note that the integration of AIDS into the sociology of human sexuality has spawned many discussions, yet most sociologists agree that by far the most important aspect of AIDS sociology is the education factor.

A major shift in the perception of the AIDS threat has occurred in recent years and has many academics worried that the change in public perception will only exacerbate the problem. In 2007, a Kaiser survey returned results that showed a mere 15% of those polled were personally concerned with becoming HIV positive (a 9% drop since 1997). Where once men and women considered AIDS a reputable and serious risk, they now consider the threat to be outside of their realm. The early 1980’s brought a mass media frenzy that threatened every home with the possibility of infection by unknown sources and in unknown ways. During this period, it was not uncommon practice to use a condom, if not two, plus various other safety precautions because the AIDS epidemic was in full swing. Yet as time progressed and the epidemic killed countless millions over the years, less and less attention was paid to safety.

It can be argued that this change in perception is directly related to scientific advances in the field. AIDS previously was considered to be a death warrant for anyone who managed to contract HIV in one way or another. While no cure has been discovered, new pharmaceutical drugs have advanced so greatly in the past couple of decades that many do not believe HIV to be a serious threat to personal health. The association with death has been removed as the public believes advances in medical assistance, nutrition and sanitation seemingly eliminate the chances of transmission (Kain, 1987).

As stated before, most sociologists continue to tout the importance of education on the topic as a means for changing behavior that could lead to transmission and the continuation of the epidemic. Yet programs that had formerly concerned themselves with educating youth have now been replaced with abstinence programs. AIDS initially was considered to be associated with high risk groups which would be classified as deviant (Albert, 1986a), and it appears that the mass populace has returned to the same belief despite ample evidence to the contrary. It has been noted that AIDS is an important tool for illustrating “the influence of the mass media in the definition of a social problem and the role of the media in the social construction of disease” (Kain, 1987).

So what has caused the drastic shift in public perception of this major health threat? In 2003, a study using household survey date on 2,212 sexually experienced male and female Kenyans was conducted (all between the ages of 15-39). The participants were asked to respond to branded and generic mass media messages concerned with HIV/AIDS and condom use. Questions covered a gamut of sociological perspectives including self-efficacy, condom effectiveness and availability and most importantly the respondents’ own understanding of risk perception. The study found that the respondents who were exposed to branded messages were more likely to consider themselves at a higher risk of acquiring HIV and seemed to understand the severity of AIDS. It was also noted that a higher intensity of exposure to such messages resulted in higher condom use (Agha, 2003).

While the study is focused on a pool of participants in sub-Saharan Africa and not the US population with which this paper is concerned, one has to consider the applicability of such findings to the American populace. A similar study was completed in 1995 which examined the perceived influence of AIDS advertising. Consistent evidence has been found which indicated that the majority of people perceive themselves to be less influenced than others by negative media content. This earlier study was more concerned with the less known perceived impact of positive media content and public service announcements. Eleven AIDS advertisements with common messages were presented to a pool of participants. Results showed that student respondents perceived themselves to be less vulnerable than others to low-quality AIDS advertisements yet more vulnerable to ads carrying the same message with a higher-quality (Duck et. al., 1995).

Where the Kenyan study reflected the participants’ positive response to branded advertisements, the US study mirrors the same results yet bases the results on the quality of the delivery, not the name attached to it. Similar studies were completed in 1989 and 1991 which indicate that the use of “fear-provoking” messages greatly enhances the appeal and effect of such advertisements. The 1989 study used a multiple-indicator model which was aimed to reveal the impact of AIDS prevention advertising on dimensions of arousal and cognitive impressions of the ad. A sample of college students were polled and the results indicated that “levels of arousal and impressions of the advertisement vary according to emphasis on the deadly consequences of AIDS” (LaTour, 1989).

The 1991 study elaborated on these earlier findings and was constructed to examine the effects of fear in AIDS prevention messages on a more gender focused basis. One hundred seventy-nine junior and senior business students in a mid-Atlantic urban university were sampled. The results were conclusive that significant differences in perception were found based on the type of appeal, gender of the participant and the interaction between appeal and gender (LaTour, 1991).

The few studies that have been outlined in previous sections of this article all point to the sociological theory of the self-positivity bias. While the general populace is well aware that HIV/AIDS is an international killer, individuals believe they are less likely to contract the virus than others. A 1998 report of HIV/AIDS in relation to the self-positivity bias was completed which encompassed three studies aimed at investigating “the antecedents and consequences of the self-positivity bias in judgments of the risk of contracting AIDS”. The reports concluded that the perceived similarity of another person to oneself and the accessibility of information determine self-perceptions of risk and therefore reduce the self-positivity bias. It is also argued that the self-positivity bias is further reduced when advertisements propounding safe sex are introduced to an individual. Ultimately the report’s greatest indicator is that the more accessible information is, the more likely respondents are to becoming aware of their own chances of exposure (Raghubir and Menon, 1998).

A deeper analysis of media messages is important in understanding the sociological impact of AIDS and advertising as a means of educating. The Research Unit for Health and Behavioural Change (RUHBC) has reported that people cite television as their most immediate and important source for information concerning AIDS. Yet this presents an important contradiction as it has been pointed out that the bulk of HIV/AIDS advertisements are vague, confusing, prejudiced and manage to perpetuate many misconceptions about AIDS that have the potential to spread the disease even further (Watney 1987, Carter and Watney 1989, Holland et al 1989). It is due to this lack of true representation that the true cultural meaning of AIDS is pushed out of sight, causing vital health education messages to get lost or become misconstrued in the process (Brook 1988, McQueen et al 1989).

Jenny Kitzinger’s work, titled “Audience understandings of AIDS media messages: a discussion of methods” attempts to address the issues that accompany these findings. Lucky for Kitzinger, most of her work was already completed and ready for analysis as The AIDS Media Research Project (a three-year ESRC funded project based at the Media Unit, Glasgow University) had already attempted to answer multiple questions concerning the production, content and understanding of media messages in the field. The three main levels addressed are as follows:

1. Media Production: What determines the form of the media coverage of AIDS? How are stories/reports and campaigns produced?
2. Media Content: What information is conveyed about AIDS and how is it presented?
3. Audience Understandings: What do different audiences understand from, and think about, the media coverage of AIDS? How might the media shape their beliefs?

Kitzinger addresses the third question in her article which attempts to understand in “both how the media may structure thinking on a particular issue and how the process of audience understanding forms part of the ‘meaning’ of a text”.

Kitzinger concludes, after examining the responses of participants following a battery of different investigative methods, that the meanings of media messages do not merely lie in just the content of the messages but more likely in the readings different audiences bring to the metaphorical discussion. It is therefore argued that such messages are read based on social context and personal experience (Kitzinger, 1990).

A similar argument was posed a few years before Kitzinger’s article which aimed to identify the lay beliefs about the causes, nature and origins of AIDS among young people within the GLBT framework which was contrasted with the beliefs of comparably aged participants who were not of such minority status. It is important for this study to point out that lay health beliefs are assimilated from a variety of sources including scientific and medical sources (Helman 1978, Fitzpatrick 1984) which, within themselves, contain sources of tension and contradiction (Blumhagen, 1980). In the end, the researchers agree that “exploratory and open-ended research into lay beliefs about HIV infection and AIDS is necessary if health educators, policy makers and others are to identify the ways in which people respond to public information campaigns and health education interventions” (Warwick et al, 1988).

How HIV/AIDS is understood as a cultural object is an important sociological scope because the spread of the virus is rarely based on an educated decision. Aside from a subset of fetishists and sociopaths, no one person wants HIV or the resulting AIDS. The gap between contracting the virus and protecting oneself and others from infection can only be bridged by understanding how HIV/AIDS is perceived and commodified in mass market media.

Sociologically speaking, there are two main factors that increase or decrease a subject’s likelihood of becoming infected with HIV: individual risk and societal vulnerability (UNAIDS, 1997). The individual level of risk is based on “what people know and understand, what they feel about situations and relationships, and what they do” (Mane and Aggleton, 2001). The individual risk level can best be lowered by sex education and HIV/AIDS education in an attempt at causing behavior to change (safer sex, safer drug use, etc). Such change would, therefore, spark an increase in general knowledge and awareness and would influence other attitudes and beliefs which enhance access to commodities and services (Mane and Aggleton, 2001).

Societal vulnerability to HIV/AIDS “stems from sociocultural, economic, legal and political factors that limit individuals’ conduct and options to reduce their risk” (Mane and Aggleton, 2001). It is important to note that the societal vulnerability is far further reaching than that of the individual level of risk. Societal vulnerability covers all things from social and economic policies to laws and other social arrangements that most individuals have no agency in, yet are governed by on a daily basis.

Applying the information provided above to actual advertisements and how we understand the sociological implications of AIDS as a cultural object is the next step in solving a growing problem. Following the discovery of HIV/AIDS in 1981, many campaigns began to make the public aware of the threat posed and the actions that would instigate a higher risk of contraction. The 1990’s saw a drastic decrease in these advertisements as scientific advances made the virus less deadly to those who have the ability to attain thousands of dollars worth of medication on top of regular expenses. Now, nearly three decades since its discovery, HIV continues to spread despite public knowledge.

Recent depictions of HIV/AIDS in mass media tend to reinforce the idea that the disease can be beaten and won’t kill those who contract it. The hit play Angels in America was turned into an HBO mini-series which was highly-acclaimed, winning a landslide of awards, yet the subject matter didn’t necessarily educate many on HIV or AIDS. The timeliness of the series struck American popular culture as magnificently acted, telling and historically accurate, yet it wasn’t instilled with any sense of education. Instead, it was accompanied with the idea that the human will battle anything—even the physical.

Another Broadway play was converted into a major blockbuster film even more recently. RENT tells the story of a handful of squatters in the later 1980’s NYC, half of who just happen to be HIV positive. Somehow, despite the expense of AZT (a popular drug which fights HIV’s attack on the body) at the time, each character has his or her own pills and manages to sing without a sense of real urgency or impending doom. Perhaps the most loveable character in the play (Angel) dies of the disease, yet the end of the movie retains the same message of hope that Angels in America exploited to much accord. The reality of the disease is downplayed despite it almost being a character unto itself in the film.

More recently a few commercials and ad campaigns have brought back a resurgence of interest in the AIDS charity realm. In American popular culture, the best way to gain attention for a cause is to throw a celebrity or two in front of it. Jimmy Fallon, of Saturday Night Live fame, filmed a public service announcement reminding Americans that “AIDS is still a problem”. In fact an entire line of ads containing the same message, set against a grey backdrop and filmed on monochromatic film, features one celebrity or another.

Another even grander and more celebrity-studded campaign was released a couple of years ago which was based on the slogan “If one of us has AIDS, all of us have it.” This campaign became known as the “We all have AIDS campaign.” What made it so appealing and memorable was the image that accompanied the bold statement: a large group of celebrities, politicians and religious leaders.

It is important to note that the exploitation of celebrity in the name of HIV/AIDS is yet another misleading market tool which manages to commodify the disease without necessarily spreading awareness or education. Jimmy Fallon, as far as we know, does not have HIV or AIDS. Neither does Will Smith or Elizabeth Taylor. Instead of placing a knowledgeable person who is living with the disease in front of the camera, marketers choose to grant HIV a bit of fame and flash. The effect is that people are moved to make a donation to a random charity, yet they are no better informed of their own risks or how to protect themselves.

Even more blatant commodification can be illustrated with charities/companies such as Product (Red) which combined forces with cell phone makers, GAP Inc. and the like to create special garments and gadgets that are a special shade of red. Why? So people will purchase them and a certain percentage of the profit will go to an AIDS charity. This massive campaign is based in the United States; however the money is exclusively reserved for African AIDS causes. This helps to shift public perception by implying subconsciously that HIV/AIDS is no longer an issue in the US. Ironically, these products can be found in the clearance section of stores following the end of February (Black History Month and Valentines Day).

Alexandra Chasin, in her book Selling Out, explains how the gay and lesbian movement came to fruition when marketers began targeting their niche due to exploitable and easily spent expendable income. Yet somehow very little of the book details how the market handles HIV/AIDS. One important thing to note is that Chasin explains that much of the money raised by charities like Product (Red) send their money to groups concerned with research, care and treatment but tend to ignore the implications that lack of housing can have on citizens with HIV/AIDS (Chasin, 2000 p.202) Chasin does manage to address the market niche that HIV/AIDS has been forced into, detailing how following the AIDS crisis an “AIDS-related line of goods and services began to appear in the gay market; not all identity groups were equally implicated in the production and marketing of those goods and services. First, viatical companies (which offer cash for the life-insurance policies of people living with AIDS), then insurance companies surging to compete with them, then pharmaceutical companies have played to a gay niche…AIDS-related industries are among the biggest advertisers in the gay press” (Chasin, 2000 p.238).

The exploitation of AIDS as a commodity doesn’t end there. In most advertisements for HIV/AIDS drugs, the image that accompanies the message of hope and health is almost always that of a well-muscled white male playing some sort of hardcore sports. The image, the message and the disease are all fractured apart from each other. The advertisement’s subtext sells the idea that you can simply pop a few pills everyday and live your life to the fullest. HIV/AIDS doesn’t kill people anymore, at least not good-looking, athletic, middle-to-upper-class white men. As argued before, this type of advertisement downgrades the reality of HIV/AIDS and does nothing to educate those who see it.

The American populace has shifted the perceived threat of HIV/AIDS and shoved those who actually have the disease out of sight. Gremk, in his history of AIDS (Gremk, 1990) cites similar denials that followed the initial discovery of AIDS as the “reluctance of the blood industries in the US (and Canada) to acknowledge the potential for transmission via blood products, the resistance to behaviour change-oriented prevention initiatives, and the reluctance to view AIDS as a threat outside certain specific, unique groups of people” (Maticka-Tyndale, 2001). Maticka-Tyndale, in her own analysis of the issue, continues on with Gremk’s assertion elaborating the idea further by stating that “Denial is rooted in the early association of AIDS with sexual practices and intravenous drug use, both of which produce strong moral responses. Each individual, group and nation has justified its denial of vulnerability on the grounds that ‘our’ people, or ‘I’ do not engage in the (immoral) actions that place me at risk. Such claims have also been motivated by fears of political repercussions against countries in the form of restrictions in trade, aid, or tourism; against groups through restrictions on travel and immigration and through isolation and quarantine; and against individuals through stigmatization and discrimination; for example, in education, housing , work, travel and health care.”

One must place AIDS in the scope with all of pandemics that have plagued us as a species. Historically and culturally speaking, all “epidemics emerge and spread along lines of changing social conditions, which vary across countries and regions” (Doka, 1997: McNeill, 1976). To illustrate this point, take the George W. Bush administration, which has sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into abstinence education (in place of sex education). This move correlates with CDC data that shows there was no increase in condom use among US high school students in 2006…for the first time in 14 years.

The political ramifications of HIV/AIDS sparks many a controversy, and it appears that the American public would prefer to use the excuse of moralism to ignore a growing threat. This choice has done nothing to curtail the spread of HIV. This moral/political practice of denial in the face of fact isn’t limited to the US. American delegates to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on AIDS (UNGASS) managed to form a coalition with Vatican and Islamic representatives to exclude gays, prostitutes or intravenous drug users from their final declaration of intent (Boseley, 2001; Human Rights Watch, 2001).

All of these moves, politically and culturally, have been easily accomplished. The marginalized masses who have HIV or AIDS remain in the dark because of the stigmatization associated with the epidemic. The result of such a choice on both sides creates a relatively invisible subset of people whose agency is limited by stigmatization and marginalization. This makes it all too easy to simply blame them for their own fate (Doka, 1997; Herek and Glunt, 1995). Ultimately, this reinforces the denial that AIDS is still an issue here in the US or globally.

Understanding the cultural implications of such denial can prepare those, in the sociological field to change the path of this epidemic. Yet the field itself is limited in its ability to change public perception as AIDS is not necessarily an “arena for the academic research of theory-building and testing, but first and foremost for the application of disciplinary expertise to problem-solving…the primary purpose of research, however, is to ‘stop AIDS’.” Since 1981, sociologists and other social scientists have been called on to change sexual and addictive behavior, guide policy development, mobilize communities and reverse trends (Maticka-Tyndale, 2001).

The United States is in an interesting position in relation to HIV/AIDS. We have the distinction of having the highest rate of infection in the developed world (43 times higher than those in Canada; Health Canada, 2001). Disturbing as it seems, the AIDS pandemic is only beginning to get a foothold on the world’s population. Most countries’ citizens with HIV or AIDS make up less than 5% of their population (Hankins, 2001). Accordingly, the only way for such statistics to go is up (Maticka-Tyndale, 2001).

In order to compensate for the change in public perception regarding the cultural importance of HIV/AIDS, we must change the way it is represented in the media. The real face of AIDS is much darker than twitchy comedians and house hold celebrity names. As the studies earlier detail, perception of the epidemic is what drives the actions of those who are uneducated on the matter. If we hope to curtail the spread of this global pandemic, we have to fight the self-positivity bias by bringing the issue closer to home.

While grassroots organizations have begun to grow in number in response to AIDS across the globe (Adam, 1992; Bartos, 2001; Epstein, 1991, 1995, 1996; Patton, 1986), some members of the HIV/AIDS family have begun using the internet and mass media as a soapbox for autobiography, expertise, self-promotion and dissent (Gillett, 2003). Those who are close to the cause are the most likely to change public perception of the issue by way of media activism. The revitalization of HIV/AIDS as a threat to the individual and society as a whole is the first step towards stopping its spread and finding a cure.

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Artist Review: Beth Hart

Beth Hart isn’t a household name, nor does she strike a fan as the type of person who would want to be one. Four studio albums and a landslide of gumption have lead the songstress into new territory on the most recent album, 37 Days, which was released in Europe in July 2007. From 1996’s humble Immortal beginnings Hart has managed to harness a soul-wrenching voice and musical talent and build upon it until every song on her discography seems to build itself on top of its predecessors. While Screamin’ for My Supper (1999) and Leave the Light On (2003) fill the gap between Hart’s Immortal and 37 Days, the musical journey of Beth Hart is the real reason even the casual listener becomes an instant fan.

Born in 1972, Hart has yet to reach her 40’s yet each successive album betrays an old-soul who some believe could be a reincarnated Janis Joplin (who died in 1970) or the unknown descendent of Joan Armatrading. The story that led to such passionate and raw talent is what drives and influences every chord in Hart’s work. Hart dropped out of high school in order to focus on her songwriting in the 80s and later became a contestant on Ed McMahon’s Star Search, winning the grand prize of $100,000. A few short years after her success on the popular talent show Hart released her first album, Immortal, which revealed that Hart had grown from her earlier performances and emerged stronger, addicted and dangerous.

Immortal, a collaboration between Hart and her band, was recorded during a particularly dark time in the singer’s life. Hart, at the time, was heavily addicted to a variety of drugs which created an album saturated in anger, imbalance and confusion over where her life was headed. The second song on the album, “Spiders in My Bed” sounds about as creepy and menacing as the title suggests. Hart’s inspiration was clearly a bad trip, overdose or both yet as a listener you can’t help but listen, wide-eyed and mouth-agape at the cries and howls that emerge from Hart’s gut. It’s enough to make your skin crawl.

Her 1996 debut wasn’t that well received as many found her hard-edged vocals and controversial lyrics to be before their time. Yet any listener who has heard “Am I the One” would know without question that Hart understood how to pull in the reigns. “Am I the One” helps to round off the album with a dark, sultry and smoky blues ballad that you might expect a bar chanteuse to sing on top of a piano while smoking a cigar. Of course other gems, such as the title track, stand-out as power rock at its best. It was clear, from the beginning of Hart’s career, that her gospel was that of the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin and the Faces.

After the tepid-warm response to Immortal, Hart’s band quickly broke apart and even Hart herself seemed to believe her career was finished. Three years later she reemerged with a new album, Screamin’ for My Supper, that showcased a more astute self-awareness, a touch of cockiness and is arguably her first completely mature and fully realized album. Hart was heavily influenced by the likes of Etta James and other blues-gospel singers of a similar period. The album plays like a dark campfire tale full of ghosts and past addictions that still rattle Hart’s cages whenever she sings a note.

Screamin’ for My Supper his the airwaves with its first single, “L.A. Song” which showcased Hart’s vocal prowess and range in a tightly packed radio-ready single. “L.A. Song” reveals Hart’s inner torment regarding Southern California which is accompanied by simple piano backing and somewhat hushed vocals that created a compelling single success. Screamin’ for My Supper is chocked full of anguish and recovery songs such as “Just a Little Hole” and “Get Your Shit Together” the latter of which is the best song on the album where Hart approaches a former friend who lives on the street. All together Screamin’ for My Supper is the album that every recovering addict wishes they could produce themselves.

Four years after Screamin’ for My Supper, Hart managed to trump her last album by releasing Leave the Light On which amped up her former efforts at describing addiction recovery and love loss. The title track quickly became a radio smash in certain parts of the US yet her resistance to commercial appeal kept the album from becoming a platinum success. Leave the Light On may not have been her first fully realized album but it was definitely her finest moment to date.

Recovery and redemption are the main themes of the album which reflects Hart’s tendency to pour every grain of her soul into her songs. “Lifts You Up” starts off the album in somewhat of an optimistic direction, a song about life’s ups-and-downs. “Bottle of Jesus” returns Hart to her addiction concentration as she cries out for “somebody waiting to save me.” The most appealing and telling song on the album is the rocking “Monkey Back” which is figuratively about getting clean with a screaming animal on your back. Where other artists might sing of such serious topics with fear or timidness, Hart belts out at her demons with each chord even while singing the humorous line “God wouldn’t save me/so now its just me and my rotten friends/the drugs ain’t working/no, they’re just jacking me off again.”

Most recently Hart has released 37 Days, yet only to the European market where she spends a large amount of time touring in Denmark and the Netherlands. Hopefully the album will one day cross the pond and grace the US population with its latest incarnation of Hart’s larger than life sound. If her first three albums are any indication, 37 Days should be another rocking album with rough-edges, deep soul and enough swagger to make Church Ladies howl along.

Book Review: Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell

Daniel Woodrell now has eight novels, the majority of which are set in the Missouri Ozarks, where the author resides. His most recent work, Winter’s Bone, presents the reader with a horrifyingly primal set of characters who live on the fringe of society. The book shines as an easily readable tragedy that has much in common with Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina (Allison endorses Winter’s Bone in its long list of PR snippets). Where Allison creates a compellingly torn character (Bone) whose main goal seems to be surviving and escaping her own hell, Woodrell creates Ree, a character who is comparable but lacking any real control of her own world.

Winter’s Bone follows the tale of a young girl named Ree Dolly whose father, a “crank” cooker, disappears, leaving behind a debt that threatens to take the family home. Aside from Ree, the other characters are broadly drawn and Woodrell’s descriptions seem more focused on propelling action than explaining the motive behind such actions. This choice creates a constantly moving novel that is easy enough to read in a few short hours. The story itself is heavy-handed (such as the entire chapter where Ree spends a night in a cave, which is described in religiously stilted and overly flourished prose.) Yet at times the language of the characters that Ree comes into contact with on her search for her father seem like they are distant relatives of the psychotic mountain people of James Dickey’s Deliverance.

Woodrell does a nice job of showing the inner mentality of a depraved and oddly animalistic young girl who seemingly has the world forced on her shoulders. These are people who live outside of the reach of shopping malls and interstates. Because of this isolation it seems that only the moral code abides and they unlawfully set their own rules and practices. Character descriptions are rather lacking in weight yet always tend to elaborate on a specific distinctive physical attribute (such as Teardrop’s prison tattoos.) For example, the simple exchange between Ree and her younger brothers on how to skin a squirrel is revealed to be about describing the ritual of carving up meat for sustenance.

Family and survival are the key elements to Winter’s Bone. Ree is a character who is loved by those close to her, yet her story makes her appear to be alone in the world. Ree’s background is hardly detailed in the book but from the first paragraph Woodrell sets the tone that the heroine of this story is really just a victim of circumstance. She lives in an old mountain home with her psychologically unstable mother and her two younger brothers, whom she mothers and feeds as if they were her own. When her father runs off she becomes responsible for the family’s survival and takes quite a beating in her quest to find her father and save her family.

Woodrell’s prose can get reach out of grasp at times such as when describing homes covered in snow he likens the image to blankets wrapping the habitats in warmth. While authors such as Steinbeck or even Dorothy Allison might be able to get away with such heavy-handed imagery, Woodrell fails at such description. Within the first paragraph alone he manages to off-put simplicity for weighted prose describing, “Three halt haggard houses formed a kneeling rank on the far creekside…”

It can be argued that Winter’s Bone is a story devoid of the typical descriptive elements found in a character novel. Novels that revolve around a character’s choices and actions rarely leave much detail out. This is where Woodrell somewhat looses his footing. He creates a story that is enticing and compelling yet many of the characters blend together, despite his use of nicknames and special physical characteristics.

Many writers have a tendency to begin their works and continually edit them repeatedly, which causes the upper part of the story to be leaner and more detailed. This tendency works both as a plus and minus to novels like Winter’s Bone. While the beginning of the novel is well-crafted and worded, it is questionable whether the same attention was paid to later parts of the novel. The heavy-handed imagery that plagues parts of the novel fall off later on, leaving bare bone action sequences. Oddly enough the barer the story, the better Woodrell’s writing shines.

At certain moments the story veers off course and describes ancient Ozark religious practices that make little or no sense. A bit of attention is paid to explaining how family, heredity and the importance of family name are somehow tied to this mythology, one has to hope that Ree is simply hallucinating. In fact this pseudo-religion is mentioned multiple times later in the novel yet understanding its importance is nearly impossible.

While books such as Bastard Out of Carolina and Deliverance create stories around similar locations or characters, Woodrell seemingly tries to make use of both novels. The story comes out as well developed but the plot holds little for readers looking for surprise twists and turns. Perhaps the most appealing aspect of Winter’s Bone is that the characters almost seem like actors on a stage without the benefit of the imaginary fourth-wall. Somehow reading about survival in such an absurdly isolated world causes the reader to feel some agency in Ree’s actions. One can almost predict what she’ll do next because the instinct to protect one’s own family and kin is inherent in mankind.

By the end of Winter’s Bone you can’t help but shake your head and the absurdity of having to deal with such a situation. The Ozarks are as much a character in Winter’s Bone as Ree, and its inhabitants respond to challenges with primal grittiness that reflect their surroundings. Woodrell manages to create a memorable novel, despite its flaws. His biggest achievement is creating a central character that almost any audience can feel connected with.

Movie Review: Across the Universe

Very few modern day movies manage to combine the best of American and British culture in the past and present. Even fewer (if any) manage to do it while reworking an entire collection of Beatles’ songs and encapsulating the history of the 60’s in flashes of imagery. Across the Universe attempts to bring all of these slices of apple-pie together in a tightly wrapped package complete with psychedelic ribbon. While some consider the result to be an utter failure (“A yawn and most unforgivably features some appalling arrangements of the Beatles' best-loved songs.” –Washington Post), others believe Across the Universe is a complete ode to Americana with a modern twist (“Here is a bold, beautiful, visually enchanting musical where we walk INTO the theater humming the songs.” – Chicago Sun Times.)

Early on the film declares itself as taking two different vantage points, one of which attempts to cover the generational conflicts of the 60’s, the other being a more personal level concerned with the characters on personal torments and triumphs. Across the Universe is not only built around such context it also relies on the timelines to generalize the characters’ progression.

Directed by Julie Taymor, Across the Universe reflects her avant-garde approach to directing, which seemingly has no limits. For instance a wonderfully choreographed water ballet somehow fits into Across the Universe without coming off as fruity or overdone. This fearless tenacity gained Taymor mass popularity by turning Disney’s The Lion King into a major success on Broadway (as well as silver screen success with Titus and Frida). Of course it is important to note that this is by far Taymor’s most ambitious venture yet, not only due to her eye for her cast but also puppetry, 3-D animation and 60’s Americana (all of which she makes ample use of) but also because of everything she attempts to fit into a mere 133 minutes.

Some might expect such a grand compilation of subjects to be attacked by a directing Giant, such as Baz Luhrmann who proved his commercial appeal with a similarly tailored Moulin Rouge. While a 60’s rendition of Moulin Rouge would certainly be interesting, but Taymor’s attention to detail manages to mesh the Vietnam War, the Columbia student riots and 33 Beatles songs all into one constantly moving epic. Managing to condense so much popular culture and real-world history (albeit a bit altered) into such a small scope is worthy of praise alone.

The story, as with most musicals, revolves around a couple of young lovers thrown together by circumstance. Jude, played by Jim Sturgess, is a Liverpool dockworker who travels to America in search of his long lost father. While state-side he meets a young man, Max (played by the amusing Joe Anderson), who in turn ends up introducing him to Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), Max’s younger sister. From there the story throws the characters into a world of war, sex, drugs and rock n’ roll in a winding and sometimes sickening path through 1960s New York City.

“I Want You/She’s So Heavy” is perhaps the best (if not the most literal) example of Across the Universe’s more demented moments. Max, after being drafted, enters into basic training before being sent away to Vietnam. The first thing that greats him is a giant poster of Uncle Sam which comes to life and begins singing a cover of the Beatles song, “I want you, I want you so bad…” while pointing his large finger directly at Max. What follows is a brilliantly choreographed military dance complete with new recruits stripped to their skivvies and medically examined by G.I. Joe like figures wearing massive Expressionist masks.

Other feats include the early favorite, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” sung by Prudence (T.V. Carpio), a closeted small-town lesbian in love with a fellow cheerleader. Such a seemingly happy song is transformed into a somber and longing ballad. Dana Fuchs, who plays Sadie, portrays a larger than life character that whose inspiration is blatantly Janis Joplin. When she sings “Helter Skelter” the walls practically crumble beneath her vocal power.

The movie also manages to pull in cameos including Joe Cocker, Salma Hayek and even more recent music icons such as Bono, who plays an LSD driven New-Age doctor who takes our main characters on a magic bus tour of America. Most notable though is Eddie Izzard who makes a brief, though very impressionable, appearance as a white-faced Circus ring leader singing “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.”

By far the two stars of the movie are Jim Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood who not only carry the bulk of the vocal weight but also manage to make every song its own individual piece of the story. Sturgess, a newcomer to the big screen, not only looks like a young Paul McCartney but also sings with the soul of John Lennon. Wood, as always (Thirteen, Running With Scissors), shines without seeming to try very hard even when singing the lamenting and painful “If I Fell”.

The most striking and memorable moment in the movie comes to fruition when Sturgess breaks into the pin-ultimate 60’s Beatles song, “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Jude, a struggling artist, begins to sing following a fight with his girlfriend. Jude, while working with fresh strawberries on blank canvasses smokes a joint and somberly begins to sing. What begins simply enough eventually breaks through its own barriers as Sturgess flexes his vocal muscle while pinning strawberries to a white canvas while they slowly bleed bright red down the screen. The strawberries soon become metaphors as he throws them around the room, destroying his own work while background images transform the fruit into bombs reigning down on Southeast Asia.

This is the heavy-handed imagery that Across the Universe makes use of liberally. While the allusions and songs pull at every baby-boomer’s heart, the story and context come out of their period and manage to mirror current issues which readily avail themselves to the younger audience. The messages hidden within every Beatles song can sometimes be lost among the redundancy of such golden classicism. Across the Universe takes these messages, changes their tone and beat, throws in a storyline and the end result is a magically trippy neo-Hippie escape that is sure to entertain and keep you singing “I Am the Walrus” in your sleep.

Midwest Marijuana Trade: Local is Always Better

*Names and locations have been changed to protect sources.

____ College’s marijuana trade originates from the suburbs of Chicago and can at times come from as far as Oklahoma before being sold off in small little plastic bags. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 37.5% of full-time college students use illicit drugs. What most don’t know is that the trafficking of such substances can come from halfway across the country before it makes its way to ____ College.

“I’m just the middle-man. Correction: middle-woman.” Alice, a senior from St. Louis, explains while packing a duffle bag for her upcoming trip. Alice, like most others, agreed to be interviewed only if her real name was not revealed. She is packing for a day trip to an outlying Chicago suburb where she hopes to purchase a few ounces of low-grade cannabis.

“We don’t really call ahead because that makes our source too nervous about phone taps. Instead we just drive up there and hope he is in stock.” Alice’s roommate isn’t around, but the two have been running their own illicit drug business for the past three years since their second year at ____.

Alice doesn’t always drive to Chicago to make large purchases. Most times, her source comes from an off-campus student who has more connections outside of the area for bulk purchases.

“Danny normally does this, but the last time he went, he disappeared for over a week and never answered his cell,” Alice says this with little contempt.

“It isn’t that we don’t trust him to get it done. It’s just that this is our busiest time. Every term when finals roll around, we get a bulk amount and within two days it’s all gone. Kids just need to decompress after cramming all night.”

Danny reportedly called earlier in the day to give Alice the address that she needs. He calls again, knowing she will be leaving soon. Alice answers the phone but speaks in a low voice then hangs up with an exasperated sigh.

“Looks like we have to drop by his place. He sounds funny.”

Danny is actually a ____ student as well but chose to live off campus in an apartment complex. Ironically his home is less than a block away from Galesburg Police headquarters. He claims that his family actually emigrated from Mexico over ten years ago.

“Welcome to my humble abode, man.” Gesturing around the room like it’s a palace, he laughs and introduces the two other people in the room as friends. Alice seems to know all of the players and immediately sits on the couch waiting for instructions.

“Okay, here is the deal. The guy wants to make it clear that only you go in his house.” Alice nods, seeming to understand that the presence of a reporter complicates the transaction.

“You got your half?” Danny asks while reaching into his pocket and extracting a large wad of cash.

“Yeah. I just want to get going, Danny.” Alice makes this last statement with something close to disdain.

Once outside of the building, Alice explains that she doesn’t dislike Danny but rather his place in the food chain.

“The way this is all setup is sexist. Danny always has the hookup, and in order to get the weed to everyone we have to always go through him. For once it would be nice not to answer to a guy.” She lights a cigarette and starts the car.

The trip to Chicago goes by quickly. Alice chain-smokes most of the time while humming along to music. She explains the process of getting a large bulk of marijuana and what happens to it after it’s bought.

“Normally when Danny picks it up he calls us back to his place to break it up. The bulk dealers never break it up into baggies. So we have to sit there and weigh it out while Danny rambles on and on…” Alice doesn’t seem necessarily to like Danny that much.

“After that we send out word that campus is flush and the calls start pouring in.” She smiles when she says this, as if this final part of the process is the most satisfying.

When asked how much Alice herself makes off each sale, she shakes her head and laughs.

“I don’t actually make a dime. All of my profit goes toward my own share of the green, and by green I mean pot. Of course when I have to drive to pick it up, we split some of the profit for gas money.”

Once we arrive in a non-descript suburb of Chicago, Alice pulls out the directions she has been given and has them read to her, though she seems all too aware of where she is headed. One might imagine that the house of a bulk marijuana distributor would be a run-down apartment building similar to Danny’s. Instead, Alice parks the car on a suburban residential street that ends in a cul-de-sac. The houses that line the block are all at least two stories and typically would be associated with upper middle-class nuclear families.

Alice exits the car and approaches one of the larger houses on the block, carrying her purse and nothing else. Ten short minutes later she emerges carrying the same purse and a sour disposition.

“His damn kids were there again. I hate screaming babies.” Alice throws her bag into the backseat and starts the car, gunning the engine and rounding through the curve at the end of the block.

“We got what we came for though.”

Back in Galesburg, Alice drives straight back to Danny’s apartment. He has been called ahead of time to warn of her impending arrival. Once back in his apartment, it becomes obvious that the cavalry has been called. A large number of people sit on his couch, watching the television. No introductions are made this time.

Alice reaches into her bag and lays two large Ziploc bags containing what can be assumed to be two separate ounces of marijuana. She avoids making eye contact with anyone and leaves the room without a word.

“This is all I could get. He said the rest of his stock had already been bought yesterday,” she calls out from the kitchen. The group on the couch, including Danny, eye the bags without touching them.

A girl who identifies herself as Jaime is the first to speak.

“Well as long as my house can get what its paid for, I don’t care.” Jaime laughs, Danny does not. He grabs one of the ounces and weighs it in his palm.

“All you got was two ounces, man? Shit. Once Jaime gets her cut, we will only have like a dozen bags to sell. Wasn’t even worth the damn gas.” He drops the bag on the table and motions to the youngest looking couch-dweller.

Without a word the young man gets down on his knees in front of the coffee table and opens the bag, dumping an entire ounce of marijuana onto the table. He begins breaking it apart in large chunks. Seeming to notice that he is being watched, he identifies himself.

“I’m Shane. Sophomore.” Shane and Jaime appear to have come together and she shortly joins him on the floor to help break up the product.

Alice returns from another part of the apartment with a digital scale in hand.

“Let’s get this shit bagged. I want to go home.” She joins the other two on the floor and then helps them methodically break large “buds”, as they describe them, into smaller chunks before she begins to separate them into small piles.

“Alice is pretty good at eyeing an eighth. Sometimes I think she could do it in her sleep.” Jaime watches with fascination. With the edge of her student ID card, Alice scrapes one of the piles off the table and onto the scale that she holds under the edge. She sets the scale down and grunts in approval. Danny looks over her shoulder and nods in agreement. The marijuana on the scale is then tipped into a small plastic bag, which seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

“Danny, you going to help or just stand there and scratch your balls?” Alice asks impatiently.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m gonna get a beer. Any of you want one?” The rest of the room responds with shrugs and a few “yeah, sure”. He returns a few minutes later, passing honey beer to everyone in the room, whether they wanted one or not. Finally he joins Alice on the floor.

An hour later, both ounces have been broken into sixteen separate bags of low-end marijuana which the group calls “schwag”, a street term for marijuana that can typically be bought for $20 an eighth. Surprisingly enough, Jaime seems the most enthusiastic by the completion of their task.

“Okay, my house wants a half.” Jaime explains that she has come to help break the weed down so that she can make a multiple bag purchase for the on-campus house where she resides. Apparently a half an ounce equates four bags which she pays for with a wad of twenties. Alice watches as the money and marijuana exchange hands, passing her over and landing in Danny’s pocket.

“Shouldn’t I get a cut of that for gas?” She asks Danny while looking at the ground, picking at the shag carpeting.

“Oh yeah, sorry, man.” Danny pulls a few bills out and passes them to her. She smiles and grabs a bag for herself. Danny, too, grabs a bag of pot, perhaps two. Shane reaches into his pants and produces a twenty which grants him the right to choose the next bag. What had originally started as sixteen bags has now been reduced to nine. Danny seems to do this calculation in his head.

“That should last a day, maybe two. Lets hope Emily and Lauren bring something back when they come to visit.” It is then explained that prior to this year, a couple of roommates who lived in the same apartment building had been a major source for campus marijuana distribution. Both girls graduated from ____ but were planning a trip to see friends on campus shortly.

“Emily used to drive all the way to Oklahoma for a good buy. She would come back with some of the sweetest shit for dirt prices.” According to Danny, the Midwest is the center of U.S. marijuana growth due to marijuana’s ability to be hidden within acres of growing corn stalks.

“You know that smell when you are out on the highway? That skunk smell? That might not always be skunk, man! The only thing that gives farmers away is the smell of green growing in their backyards, but most people just think its Pepe Le Pew turned into road kill!”

Alice laughs at this while pulling out her cell phone. She presses a single button and tells the person on the other line that she has “nine bags up for sale, twenty bucks apiece.” The conversation rambles on for a few more minutes, and it becomes obvious that Danny, Jaime and Shane are all listening in as well. Alice hangs up the phone and looks somewhat dismayed.

“Looks like this might all sell tonight. My roommate’s been taking calls all day and she says over a dozen people want to buy already.” Danny is pleased by this.

“That’s good man. That’s real good.” Alice shakes her head in disagreement.

“No, Danny, it isn’t. What the hell am I supposed to tell the other kids who want to buy?”

“Just tell them that we couldn’t find any.” Alice begins to respond again but stops herself, obviously too tired to continue with an altercation of this variety. She pockets her own bag and stands up, heading for the door.

“I’m headed back to sleep. Later.” The door slams behind her and the room falls silent as the sound of her footsteps echo down the carpeted stairs. Once her motion can no longer be heard Danny quietly says “bitch” under his breath.

“What is wrong with her?” Jaime asks, while fingering the bags that are still left on the table. Shane puts his arm around her and tilts his head, suggesting that he too would like an explanation.

“Word has it that the Dean called her in his office to talk about dealing on campus. I guess she doesn’t like the administration knowin’ her shit.” Danny scratches his head absentmindedly.

“Oh that sucks. Didn’t they do that to you already?” Shane regards Danny with interest.

“Yeah man, they do every year. I’ve heard they do it with all the dealers. All that happens is Dean Romano tells us to keep a low profile and not sell anything harder than weed.”

A bong appears, signaling the end of a serious conversation. As the night progresses the door is knocked on repeatedly and by midnight, a few short hours after its arrival, all of the bags of marijuana are now sold and on their way to practically each residential campus building.

Shortly after the last bag is sold, Alice reappears at the apartment with her roommate and a couple of friends in tow.

“We need to talk Danny.” Alice and her roommate gesture to another room and tell their friends to keep Jaime and Shane company.

“Word has it you’ve already sold every bag, even though I told you that we had orders placed for each bag.” Alice practically spits the rumor at Danny, causing him to slightly recoil.

“Man, you never said I couldn’t sell it off. You left it here anyway.” Danny responds, obviously aggravated.

“This isn’t working anymore. I think we are going to take a break from dealing on campus for you.” Alice looks confident but it is unclear whether she is bluffing or serious. Danny, looking bewildered for a second, hardens his face.

“Do what you want. You two bitches can find your own hookup from now on.”

On their way back to their own campus housing, Alice and her roommate betray their real reason for dumping Danny as their source.

“Last year Danny answered to Emily and Lauren, which was fine by us because at least women were on top of the game around here. But after they graduated, we didn’t have any choice but to deal through that dickhead. We’re moving on to a different deal.”

When asked to explain further what this new “deal” meant, Alice simply responded, “I don’t want to jinx it, but it would mean I wouldn’t have to mess with that wetback anymore and our source would be local: no more driving to Chicago for ditch weed.”

Her roommate, a very quiet and reserved girl, nods in agreement. For years the marijuana trade at ____ College has been based on connections that require at least a three hundred mile drive for pickup, but the tides are turning. Before ending the discussion Alice adds one more hint, “Local is always better.”

Modern Art: Hitler's Other Genocide

Adolph Hitler and his legion of followers, better known as the Third Reich, are best known for the scores of bodies they accumulated on their path for what they considered to be Aryan supremacy. What most don’t know is that Hitler not only believed in racial supremacy, he also believed that culture, in its many forms, should also follow a certain guideline and norm. Starting January 31, 1933, the day Hitler rose to power in Germany, a massive campaign to change the face and destiny of Modern Art was undertaken. Genocide is perhaps best known as the systematic destruction of a particular race, but if you were to look up the term in the dictionary, it would become clear that genocide can also be the deliberate destruction of a political group as well as a cultural norm. In that regard, Hitler not only attempted to kill off an entire race of people, he also tried to destroy and denigrate the works of countless artists whose work he termed entartete Kuns,t which in English directly translates to “degenerate art”. Ultimately, like his other goal of worldwide racial purity, his attempts at ending the march of progressive modern art were in vain.

While Hitler was certainly the driving force behind the attempts to purge degenerate art from