The Indestructible Girl

There are many ways in which elements of Rosemarie Garland Thomson’s book Extraordinary Bodies come to life on screen in the sci-fi television series Heroes, written by Tim Kring. Numerous elements of her definition of “extraordinary bodies,” play out in this show, especially through the narrow focus of how these bodies align with freak shows. By just examining one episode from season four of Heroes, and comparing it to Thomson’s chapter “American Freak Shows,” it is evident how the character of Claire Bennet has an “extraordinary body” who must choose between living in a “normal” society or losing the façade and showing her true colors by joining a freak show.

Claire is a 17-year-old girl who is indestructible, much to her own dismay. Throughout the series this is made clear, but viewers can especially mark a change in her character in season four. In this season Claire has to make a choice between hiding her ability while living in a society of people without abilities or joining a band of “freaks” like herself. The antagonistic character Samuel presents her with this opportunity. Samuel is the leader of a carnival ring, Sullivan Bros. Carnival. In episode 12, “The Fifth Stage,” Claire is unavoidably drawn to the carnival, as she steals a compass from her father that leads her directly to it. She notices how the compass refuses to move its directed arrow away from the carnival, and it makes her think about how she “always said [she] belonged in a freak show, just never took it so literally.” In “The Fifth Stage,” Claire has her first experience with seeing people live out in the open with their abilities. As Samuel talks about the carnival, he presents it in appealing ways but also as American Freak Shows: “It’s actually more normal than it appears. It’s just the [air quote] “show” part of the business. We need to make money in the most honest way we can, goin’ town to town, always on the move. ‘Least for now, ‘til we find a better, more permanent way to live.” He then continues on to welcome Claire in, to “meet [his] family.” Samuel plays the role of the “showman” (79) as Thomson describes this role as the person who “offered economic independence at the expense of cultural normalcy,” and has to accept “total immersion in the freak role” (79) Samuel says this is the only way for freaks to make money and by agreeing to join them Claire would be leaving her life and existence in society to live with this new “family.”

One of the most comparable aspects of this episode is how the “freaks” are seen. Walking around the carnival, Claire, notices signs like “the amazing replicating man” and “tattoo girl: the exotic temptress” which seem similar to the names “billed”(71) to the freaks Thomson discusses. Claire meets the tattoo girl who, with her ability, shows Claire a tattoo of herself as “Indestructible Girl,” telling Claire, “This is your desire.” She witnesses a carnie use his ability to cheat a man out of winning a game. This same man is fuming and confronts Samuel by beating him up. Claire steps in, and he calls her a freak, but she is able to evoke visible feelings of terror in the man as he cuts her and sees her instantaneously heal. Thomson’s interpretation of “freaks” parallel how the carnies and people with abilities are portrayed as she discusses how it is in the “monster’s power to inspire terror, awe, wonder, and divination…” (page 57). By looking at all of these examples that accumulate throughout the episode, it is clear that these people with abilities have extraordinary bodies and the roles they play in the Sullivan Bros. Carnival are in line with how freak shows are described in Thomson’s book, as these freak shows “defined and exhibited the ‘abnormal’” (58).

The Master Signifier in “I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This”

In chapter six “Blinded by the White” from Karen Coats’ book Looking Glasses and Neverlands, one main idea presented from Lacan that she further examines is that of “master signifiers.” This concept discusses how one moves in the direction of the impossible concept of perfectibility. The idea of the master signifier is to work toward covering over our status of split subjects, and if we identify with the master signifier and can get others to provide support for this actually being our identity, then, conceivably, we can convince ourselves as well as others into believing its possibility: “This is precisely the way a master signifier works—by offering itself as a whole, a complete and ideal Thing, without qualities, it supports a field of signifiers in which it does not participate but that define themselves in terms of their failure to attain its ideal wholeness…Whiteness has attained this status of a master signifier” (page 124).

One example of Whiteness as a master signifier that Coats mentions is within Holes, the young adult novel written by Louis Sachar. Coats points out one particular instance within the novel in which Whiteness takes on the status of a master signifier, in relation to the main character Stanley. Stanley is a young, white male who ends up befriending a more under-privileged African American boy named Zero. Stanley starts out by denying his white privilege, but comes to assume this position when he starts to teach Zero how to read and expects some sort of payment in return. Zero realizes his lack of Whiteness and readily accepts the task of digging Stanley’s holes for him, i.e., adopting the African American role of doing manual labor for the white boy.  Zero is willing to do the extra labor to attain the secondary signifier of Whiteness, which is literacy, something Stanley seems to naturally have because of his white privilege.

Another instance of master signifier, not necessarily Whiteness, however, that could be examined using knowledge of this concept is within a reading of the young adult book I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This. This book, written by Jacqueline Woodson, seems to be the opposite of what one would expect with the societal “norm” or expectation of racism. The main character is a twelve-year-old African American girl named Marie, who goes to a school where the majority of the students are African American. The Caucasian students that do attend there are normally referred to as “white trash” and are usually poor. Both races of students stick to themselves until a new girl Lena comes to school one day. Marie is drawn to her and doesn’t know why. She is white, very poor, dirty, lives in a bad part of town and eventually reveals that her father touches her inappropriately. So in this instance we have the clear opposite of how race plays out in Holes, because the African American girl is more privileged and better educated, while the white girl is poor and abused. The African American girl has the traits, or secondary signifiers, that Coats states as typically being associated with the master signifier of Whiteness, like “achievement,” “innocence,” and “freedom” (126).

Crookshanks, an Uncanny Cat?

Throughout any reading of the Harry Potter series, it is evident that what we as “Muggles,” have come to associate with the familiarity of animals is not as J.K. Rowling would have us believe. The portrayal of animals is especially prevalent in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which we encounter the familiar faces of Ron’s rat Scabbers and Harry’s owl Hedwig, but we also have a brief stop-over in a wizard pet store; we meet animals ranging from a rabbit that changes itself into a top hat and back again, rats that skip with their tails, and most importantly, a bowlegged, grumpy-looking, ginger-colored cat named Crookshanks. One might call any of the peculiar creatures in Harry Potter uncanny, but upon a reading of Freud’s uncanny, any element of such fictitious stories cannot be considered uncanny: “…[F]airy stories…confirm the first part of our proposition—that in the realm of fiction many things are not uncanny which would be so if they happened in real life” (839). Therefore, skipping rats cannot be considered uncanny because they are meant to be fictitious. Even though Scabbers seems to be an ordinary rat, especially through the first two books and throughout most of this third novel, we are not allowed to see him as uncanny when we suddenly discover that he is in actuality a human, Peter Pettigrew who is an Animagus. However, let us get back to the character of Crookshanks. Here we have an ordinary cat, as J.K. Rowling portrays him. He has no special, hidden powers, besides the fact that he has an uncanny relationship with Sirius Black. His relationship with Sirius when he is Padfoot, the big, black dog, seems quite familiar, and even when he interacts with Sirius as a human the relationship overall appears familiar.

The first scene when we see the relationship between human Sirius and Crookshanks is when Hermione, Ron, and Harry meet up with Sirius in the Shrieking Shack. Here, a lot of information and relationships are unveiled, but it is the relationship between Crookshanks and Sirius that really seems like the uncanniest revealing moment. Much like many other animals, Crookshanks seems to have chosen a preferred acquaintance, demonstrated when he decides to attack Harry while Harry and Sirius fight. He shows his loyalties here in a way that is no uncannier then when two people are fighting and their pet dog decides to bark at one over the other or even tug on a particular pant leg, if the reader doesn’t mind the random tangential example here. However, it is the next instance of Crookshank’s involvement that seems to take his loyalties to his friendly human-dog pal Sirius to an uncanny level. He decides to take action at the moment when Harry’s anger at Sirius is piqued: “…Crookshanks leapt onto Black’s chest and settled himself there, right over Black’s heart” (342). Sirius tries to get him off but Crookshanks only digs his claws deeper, refusing to budge, even as Harry raises his wand to kill Sirius. Now, if we were to consider Crookshanks as an ordinary cat, one that could be seen outside this fictional novel, then I would say that we have an element of the uncanny working here, as Freud says that the situation changes when the writer “pretends to move in the world of common reality” (840). Crookshanks senses Harry’s murderous hatred of Sirius and so he steps in and risks his own life for Sirius’s life. Would your pet cat leap onto your chest when you were in a moment of imminent danger? Maybe so, but it would be highly uncanny.

Unstoppable and Turned On

The commercial posted below is a Playtex Sport brand tampon advertisement directed at, you guessed it, women who play sports. With its “unique, anti-leak back-up layer” this specially designed tampon provides “sport-level protection and comfort that moves with you, keeping you unstoppable.” When watching this in light of Barthel’s observations of the signified content of such traits as performance and power directed at male consumers, and the feminine model being to encourage a woman to please herself, it is evident that there are elements of both playing out in this commercial. The idea of this feminine product providing women with “sport-level protection” and making them “unstoppable” seems to align with the signified content of power and performance that Barthel would expect one to see in commercials directed at male consumers. The commercial consists of a montage of short action clips, showing powerful women involved in such activities as diving, playing Frisbee, and singing while dancing. But this same product that has these male consumer-driven traits of power and performance, also provides women with comfort, which is pleasing to any women, and helps her be “unstoppable.”

http://www.youtube.com/v/THYVoMW96Xc?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0

Similarly, we have the car commercials that are becoming more and more prevalent directed at women. Many commercials, like the one provided below, are using what Barthel associated with male consumer traits in regards to a female audience. We no longer just see car commercials being directed at men, men who become powerful with the power of their car, but rather power associated with speed for women consumers. In this particular instance, actress Kate Walsh is driving a 2008 Cadillac CTS. The clip shows images of her speeding along in a bright red Cadillac, “nonchalantly” listing all of its selling features, like a “40 gig. hard drive” and  “pop-up nav. screen,” while the camera does close-up shots of each feature that “doesn’t matter,” saying that the “real” question is whether or not “when you turn your car on, does it return the favor?” By providing descriptions of the car in this manner, like it isn’t really the point of the commercial, and instead focusing on whether or not the car turns the buyer on, the commercial is aimed at women. A car commercial that provides the expected traits of giving a women what matters most: pleasure. The combination of pleasure and speed makes this commercial address both the inner masculine and feminine traits that a woman has.

http://www.youtube.com/v/jkEw1rsBUak?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0