LKD's big paper

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The following is an essay I am handing in tomorrow. The assignment was to analyze a text of our choice using a Literary Approach that we have studied in class. I chose what is called Cultural Poetics, and I chose to analyze Dexter. Have a laugh, give constructive feedback, or ignore it, whatever. Just thought I'd share. No need to tell me my conclusion sucks big hairy ones, I know that already.

Spoiler

With the advent of electronic media, the way that stories are transmitted to consumers has changed. Over the past century, radio transmissions resulted in solely audio stories that entertained and informed audiences. These transmissions changed Western culture. Even earlier were the “moving pictures” that were not transmitted over vast distances and yet changed our social fabric with the introduction of movie houses. Soon, sound technology was married with the film reels to create the “talkies”, and an entire industry was born. Then came the technology that permitted visual and audio transmissions to be broadcast electronically into the homes of consumers – television. No one can deny that this technology has had significant impact on our culture and society.

Yet mass media has hardly been the only factor influencing Western society over the late 19th century to the present. A rapidly growing and urbanizing population, new political ideologies, technological advances in almost all areas of human life, and the decline of religious influence on society are only some of the factors that have altered our society in ways that few living in the 19th century could have imagined.

One fascinating approach to literary and cultural studies that has appeared in the 20th century is that of Cultural Poetics. Charles Bressler notes three characteristics of Cultural Poetics:
• It highlights the interrelatedness of all human activities.
• It admits its own prejudices.
• It gives a more complete understanding of a text than [other approaches]
It is because of these characteristics that this methodology is quite effective in the analysis of television programming. Cultural Poetics states that no text exists in a vacuum, and moreover that every text has literary, social and political aspects. The following discussion will focus on these aspects.

This brings us to a particular text to be interpreted through the lens of Cultural Poetics. Since 2006, the Showtime Network’s series Dexter has been providing both black comedy and disturbing social commentary to viewers around the world. In order to effectively discuss and analyze this text, it is necessary to give non-viewers a brief overview of the program.

Like many films and television programs, Dexter is based on a series of novels. However, more than most adaptations, the series departs radically from the books (authored by Jeff Lindsay). The protagonist is Dexter Morgan, a forensic scientist who focusses on blood spatter analysis. He is employed by the Miami Metro Police department, which also employs his adopted sister Debra. Dexter is quiet and unassuming, and he is well liked by the vast majority of his co-workers not only because he brings them doughnuts on a regular basis, but because he is very good at his job.

All of that is camouflage. Dexter is also a serial killer. In the voice over narration that he provides, he describes himself as a monster who feels nothing. He claims that if he did have feelings, he’d have them for Debra, who has always been a good sister to him. Dexter kills those who have committed heinous crimes and avoided punishment from the judicial system. He carries out these extrajudicial executions in a ritualistic manner, immobilizing his victims with drugs and copious layers of Saran Wrap, confronting them with their crimes, obtaining a sample of their blood (which he stores on a blood slide and keeps as a trophy) and then stabbing them. He subsequently dismembers the bodies and disposes of them far out in the Pacific Ocean, weighted down with rocks.

He targets unpunished criminals because his adoptive father Harry taught him from childhood how to identify such criminals and subsequently eliminate them – all the while using forensic countermeasures to avoid capture. This “Code of Harry” also involved doing everything possible to fit in with “regular people” so as to avoid attracting notice. Harry’s stated reason for this extremely unorthodox behavior is his belief that Dexter will be a killer no matter what is done, so the best that can be accomplished is to channel it in a direction that doesn’t harm innocents. The series revolves around Dexter’s efforts to understand and fit in with regular people, capture other criminals, understand his own nature, and of course avoid detection.

The cultural influences that led to a serial killer being the protagonist are far too plenteous to evaluate in a work of this length. Therefore, only a select few will be addressed. That said, it must be noted that in the interests of following the principles of Cultural Poetics, the author of this paper must admit to a few prejudices. In this case, the author is a fan of well-written television drama and Dexter in particular. Politically speaking, the author is also highly reactionary and holds many of the views he ascribes to portions of Western society, including a deep distrust of the judicial system’s ability to effectively punish or deter crime.

One cultural element that is very prominent in Western society is our fascination with crime. Myriad television shows, movies, books, plays, and other texts address crime and its role in society. One possible reason for this is that Western culture has a codified set of laws. Governing structures have taken it upon themselves to deal with offenses committed in their jurisdictions. Individuals are discouraged from “taking the law into their own hands”, and are sometimes punished for so doing. Yet despite the expenditure of vast resources to quell crime, it persists. The actual amount of crime that exists as compared to the perception held by the citizenry is something worth mentioning, though a thorough discussion is beyond the scope of this paper.

Dexter’s victims include pedophilic murderers, rapists, slavers, mariticides, poisoners, and unrepentant drunk drivers with multiple corpses in their wake. Audiences love this, and one reason for their glee is that these victims seemingly deserve their fate. No one is very sad to see them go. This reaction of the audience is likely because the perception exists in Western culture that far too many criminals are either undetected or insufficiently punished. When Dexter eliminates these people, fans vicariously experience the justice that they feel is not present in the real world.

Another cultural fascination in our society is the fascination with psychology. Many police procedurals and similarly crime related programs have a strong component of psychological analysis in their structure. In addition, talk shows such as Dr. Phil deal with everyday issues from a psychological perspective. The inner workings of the mind draw a lot of attention from Western citizens, with a large number of them becoming “armchair analysts”.

Using psychoanalytic theory side by side with Cultural Poetics, it is clear that Dexter is insane. He makes it clear that killing calms the chaos that rages in his soul. He does not kill for purely altruistic reasons, as many comic book superheroes do. In one second season episode, he aspires to be “The Dark Defender”, a comic book hero, but realizes that his efforts are not heroic in that he doesn’t have a great deal of concern for the well-being of innocents he doesn’t know personally.

The next marker of his insanity is a subtle one. In the first season, we see some of how he became the man he is in a series of flashbacks. He remembers the experiences he had with his father and the principles his father taught him. In the second season, he actually starts talking to his father, in a manner reminiscent of Hamlet’s dialogues with his murdered father. Yet there is no ambiguity in Dexter. It is made very clear to the viewer that this dialogue is one occurring only in Dexter’s psyche. There is no insinuation of an actual supernatural visitation from beyond the grave. He hears voices no one else can hear. That is a traditional mark of insanity.

Of course, anyone with knowledge of Freud can tell what is happening. The voice of Harry that speaks to Dexter is a representation of the Superego. This mental construct seeks to restrain the Id from engaging in self-indulgent behavior that can have long term consequences. It has even been said that the Superego is the voice of our parents – the people who first teach us self-control and socially acceptable behavior. The darkly amusing irony here is that Dexter’s father counsels him to kill – not socially acceptable behavior at all! Yet beyond that, Harry counsels Dexter to ensure he does not get caught. He aids Dexter in relating to his girlfriend (and later wife) Rita. These are things that the emotionally numb Dexter needs help in achieving.

Having looked at the source of Dexter’s Superego, what is the source of his murderous Id? This is a question that permeates our culture. For example, when real life criminal Paul Bernardo rapes, tortures and murders young women, and his wife helps him in these atrocities, everyday citizens ask “what would lead someone to do something so heinous?” Our culture is very interested in the root causes of crime. Discovering the root cause of Dexter’s murderous impulses is the focus of the first season of the show. He is unaware of anything that occurred before Harry Morgan adopted him. This sort of repressed memory is documented in – and likely inspired by -- real world medical records, but it also makes for a fabulous literary device.

In one flashback, Harry tells Dexter that “it got into you too early, Dex.” We are not told how this occurred. During a counseling session with a murderous psychiatrist (whom Dexter later kills), Dexter remembers what he has long repressed. His mother was murdered in a large shipping container by angry drug lords she had betrayed to the police. Dexter and his heretofore unknown brother were left sitting in her blood for two days before the police found them. Harry took Dexter and adopted him, but felt that Brian, the older brother, was not redeemable, allowing the boy to be taken by social services. The gruesome trauma related here provides viewers with a reason for Dexter’s odd obsession with and need to control blood. It also invites viewers to ask how they would have reacted to such a horrid event in childhood.

Dexter personifies his urges as his “Dark Passenger”. As time goes on with no criminals slain, his Passenger becomes more strident. While the Passenger is not portrayed by an actor (as Harry is) and we never hear his voice, it is plain to see that Dexter is suffering from a dissociative personality disorder.

Yet despite all of the evidence that Dexter is insane, audiences love him. Dexter follows the tradition of beloved yet insane characters like Batman’s nemesis the Joker, Hannibal Lecter, Poe’s Montresor, and even the non-criminal Raymond Babbitt, better known by his nickname Rain Man. Dexter is a hit that is going into its seventh season. The feedback that the culture is giving the show is an excellent example of culture and art interactively influencing each other.

One reason audiences enjoy the show is that Dexter does what we cannot do, and what we want to do but know is wrong. Our own baser urges, our Ids, if you will, enjoy the idea of criminals getting a taste of their own medicine. Ours is a highly structured society with many constraints on our impulses, and Dexter permits us to vicariously loosen those constraints imposed by society. All of us have a dark side that we hide from others, and in that sense we relate to Dexter’s struggles with regular people and social situations.

Another selling point is the dark humor that permeates the program. Dexter is highly intelligent but socially inept. His running voice-over commentary is a source of much amusement, as is the fact that he often says things to people that should alert them to his true nature, but they never realize the truth. The irony is often palpable.

Many people today suffer from what psychiatrists and sociologists term “anomie”, which is a feeling of disconnectedness from our society. Dexter obviously suffers this at the beginning of the series. Yet as time goes on, we learn that he is not as unfeeling as he believes. As episodes and seasons progress, he develops love for his girlfriend Rita and her children, and his bond of affection with his sister also develops. He also develops negative emotions for enemies like Sergeant Doakes, the only policeman who can see there is something wrong with Dexter. In this sense, Dexter is like Pinocchio – he is the unfeeling, unreal boy who strives to become “human” – like his peers around him. His efforts in this area fuel the plots of the second, third, and fourth seasons of the program, and while they often lead to tragic consequences for Dexter and those around him, his struggle resonates with viewers who feel isolated by our crowded urban culture that can make people into little more than machines.

Most crime shows focus on the efforts of the “good guys” to catch the perpetrator. The detective stories of Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, and Earle Stanley Gardner, the forerunners of these shows, were often called “whodunits”, to reflect the nature of the story. Dexter’s twist is that we know who is committing most of the murders – it’s the protagonist! The stories are often more of a “howzhegonnagetaway?” in nature. This inversion of expectations draws fans, many of whom are tired of formula in a culture that is permeated so thoroughly by formulaic texts. The very volume of texts available creates an environment that demands more and more drastic deviations from standard storytelling formulas.

Many groups in society are deeply disturbed by the content of Dexter and its popularity. These groups see such texts as a sign of the degradation or breakdown of Western society. Given the Mark Twitchell incident in Edmonton, their fears may have some merit. Yet Dexter’s advocates claim that the text is merely the product of its time, reflecting the frustrations that everyday people feel with society’s strictures and its seeming inability to effectively deal with crime.

Most cultures have a cultural hero. This is a hero who embodies ideals that the culture aspires to. The Greeks had Hercules, the Norse had Siegfried, the Americans have Davey Crockett and the Lone Ranger. After studying Cultural Poetics, this author believes the theory supports the proposition of the existence of the cultural Anti-Hero – the protagonist who embodies our less noble desires, or at least our ideals that deviate from the standards of purity and goodness. Robin Hood is a thief, as is Jesse James and Billy the Kid. Using such a classification, Dexter could be considered a cultural anti-hero in that he embodies politically incorrect opinions that are nonetheless pervasive in Western society.

Given the vast scope of culture, and thus Cultural Poetics, it is difficult to limit discussion of any topic when using Cultural Poetics as an analytical tool. This paper has striven to illustrate only some of the literary, social, and political elements that are at play in the television series Dexter.

 

Ahh frig, the indents didn't come through. Let me see what I can do.

EDIT: OK, I put in some spacers -- not easy on this iPhone! Sorry about that!