Representation of Suburban Consumer Culture in Film

Pants, plastics and videotape:

Dissatisfaction, but no clear alternative solution in The Graduate, sex, lies and videotape, and Ghost World

            This essay will examine the comparable and distinguishable ways in which The Graduate, sex, lies and videotape, and Ghost World position men and women differently in relation to suburban consumer culture. This paper will delve into the differences and similarities there are in men and women’s experiences of suburbia in these films by paying particular attention to space and landscape,and each film’s depiction of traditionally taboo topics in American suburban culture by exploring the protagonists’ comparable experiences with such topics, in contrast to the other characters' understanding and acceptance as they conform and abide by cultural norms, confirming the taboo status of the culturally forbidden subject matter.

            Each of these films is situated in a suburban neighbourhood. On the surface, everyone seems to be content with their current situations. It is not until the audience is introduced to the main protagonist(s) that it is realized that the idealistic suburban imagery poses a much deeper problem. While most everyone portrayed in these three films happily accepts the ideologically embedded terms and conditions of American suburban lifestyle, the protagonists challenge these norms, rejecting them, experimenting with culturally unacceptable and inappropriate realms of sex, age, and identity.

            Several characters in each of these films (particularly the main characters Ben and Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, Graham and Ann in sex, lies and videotape, and Enid and Seymour in Ghost World) experience dissatisfaction with the suburban culture in which they are situated, and they all respond to this discontent in a similar manner, regardless of the gender of the character. The initial alternative solution executed by each of the main characters is the engagement in culturally inappropriate sexual relations which defy age and/or marital constrictions.  

            Firstly, we must draw on the important male and female characters in each of the three films, in relation to their experiences of suburbia, comparing and contrasting the characters’ positioning in each film, including Benjamin Braddock, Mrs. Robinson, and Elaine Robinson in The Graduate, Ann Bishop Mullany, John Mullany, Cynthia Bishop, and Graham Dalton in sex, lies and videotape, and Enid, Rebecca, and Seymour in Ghost World, as well as a brief consideration of the other minor characters who fit the societal mould; what Enid in Ghost World calls all of the “extroverted, obnoxious, pseudo-bohemian losers”.

            Furthermore, an examination of the culturally inappropriate relationships that develop over the course of each of the three films is a significant area of exploration, as each of the main characters seeks alternative methods of satisfying their suburban and societal anxieties. The Graduate’s Ben seeks refuge in a sexual affair with an older, married woman, Mrs. Robinson. Sex, lies and videotape’s Ann Bishop encounters her husband’s college friend, who seeks pleasure through the use of videotaped interviews of women openly discussing sexual experiences and desires in order to cope with his sexual inadequacies. Ghost World’s Enid Coleslaw engages in an intimate relationship with an older societal outcast with whom she relates. The friendship eventually evolves into a sexual relationship, crossing cultural boundaries.

            Each of these relationships which transcend taboo territory initiate as an attempt to overcome societal anxieties of uncertainty. However, each attempt ultimately fails, leaving the protagonists dissatisfied, more confused than they had been prior to entering the sexual relationship.

            The Graduate’s Benjamin Braddock has just graduated from college, and finds himself back home with his parents, in an unmotivated, dissatisfied rut. Consumerism, capitalism, commercialism, and conformity drive the suburban lifestyle practiced by those who surround him, including his parents. Benjamin resists societal norms, and finds himself floating along in his parents’ pool in the backyard, wary of his foreseeable future. In order to avoid suburban consumer cultural trends, including career path, materialistic lifestyle, and marriage, Ben enters into an inappropriate sexual relationship with a married woman. Mrs. Robinson is an older woman who seems to conform to the suburban culture in many ways, including her materialistic lifestyle portrayed through the domestic space in which she lives. The Robinson home is a traditional suburban home, furnished and decorated with middle- to upper-class consumer products. Mrs. Robinson wears lavish, sexualized clothing, and looks similar to other women in the neighbourhood, such as Ben’s mother. Ben’s sexual affair with Mrs. Robinson commences when Mrs. Robinson insistently seduces the young man, having him drive her home during his graduation party, inviting him inside, and insisting that he escort her inside, and insisting further demanding that he stay with her once they are inside, to satisfy her anxieties of neglect and loneliness. She takes advantage of his young, fragile state upon his return. He feels uncomfortable and resistant, but ultimately engages in a sexual relationship as he is perpetually offered the opportunity, while other culturally normal routes offered contribute to his social anxieties pertaining to the materialistic consumer culture he fears he is inevitably and unavoidably approaching. Ben begins to date Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine, and is confronted by the consequences of his culturally inappropriate sexual relations with Mrs. Robinson, having to admit to the taboo affair. Therefore, the engagement in deviant behaviour did not satisfy Ben’s social and sexual anxieties, and only created further difficulties for him. The film ends with Ben and Elaine leaving town on a city bus, and while the audience is initially relieved that the two young individuals have reunited, the shift in their excited facial expressions to worry and uncertainty leaves the audience wondering whether the couple is rightfully victorious, or heading toward the materialistic, suburban lifestyle Ben fears most, progressing toward marriage, family, unsatisfying career, and an average American home.    

             Sex, lies and videotape portrays various characters, who are dissatisfied with their current situations, each striving to find comfort and balance in the suburban lifestyle in which they are all situated. Repressed suburbanite Ann Bishop Mullany is a passive, yet curious character, who is uninterested in sex and attends therapy as this inadequacy seems abnormal in relation to cultural standards. Her husband, John Mullany, is a financially successful lawyer, who constantly lies to everyone around him, and engages in an affair with his wife’s sister Cynthia. Cynthia is a self-absorbed, inconsiderate, sexually charged female character who seems opposite to her sister in every way. She partakes in the affair, without any sympathy toward Ann, and even goes so far as to declare her spiteful intentions. Then there is John’s old college friend Graham, who is incompetent, and therefore cannot engage in sexual interaction with women. This intrigues Ann as she has little interest in sex, and because she is not accustomed to people being so blatantly honest. Ann and the others soon discover Graham’s fetishistic approach to coping with his incapability, (which he by no means tries to hide, as he explicitly states that he never tells lies), and doors swing wide open for each of the various characters, welcoming new opportunities to explore areas which once seemed forbidden. Graham has developed and grown used to an alternative method of coping with his inadequacies. He videotapes women openly divulging sexual experiences and fantasies. He then views the homemade tapes and is able to derive self-induced sexual pleasure while doing so. Graham is able to function in society’s public spaces and interact socially, as long as he is able to fill the sexual void his incompetency entails behind closed doors, in the confines of his empty temporary suburban home. As Graham explains his habitual methods to Ann, she becomes intrigued, curiously probing details, concluding that this behaviour is not a healthy, long-term solution to satisfy his sexual anxieties. Graham asserts that this simulated method is the only solution, and that he feels that he needs to continue functioning in this manner in order to cope in society, unable to ease his social and sexual anxieties elsewhere. Therefore, Graham’s deviant, alternative approach to easing these anxieties proves to lack long-term satisfaction, and only serves as a temporary fix, much like The Graduate’s Benjamin Braddock’s brief sexual affair with Mrs. Robinson. The rebellious alternatives merely provide a temporary distraction and leave the protagonists unsatisfied.

            Ghost World follows two adolescent girls over the course of their summer after high school graduation. Enid and Rebecca deviate from societal expectations by declaring that neither of them plans to attend college. Fellow high school graduates are confused by their decision, asking what it is that they intend to do instead. The girls never do satisfy the questions they are asked pertaining to their alternative plans with a clear answer. Over the course of the film Rebecca seeks employment and continuously searches for an apartment to move into, eventually completing both tasks. Although in many instances she too deviates from the societal norms alongside Enid, Rebecca shows initiative and works to achieve her goals. Meanwhile, Enid spends her time doodling, listening to music, and experimenting with her identity, while projecting her resentment and dissatisfaction with suburban consumer culture unto her friends, family, and various individuals with whom she encounters. Enid and Rebecca play a prank on a lonely, middle-aged outcast named Seymour, and while it starts as an amusing way to pass the time, Enid comes to like Seymour as she sees her own social and sexual anxieties paralleled in him. Enid is drawn to his quirky eccentricities, and eventually engages in a brief sexual relationship with the older man. She had felt neglected and lonely when Seymour began dating another woman, so she attempts to relieve her social and sexual anxieties by having sexual intercourse with him. Immediately afterward Enid ignores his phone calls and avoids him altogether, taken aback by what had happened that intoxicated evening. Therefore, Enid’s defiance of cultural norms of sexual and social behaviour results in further discomfort and dissatisfaction in the suburban consumer culture in which she continues to feel trapped and helpless.

            The portrayed suburban spaces and landscapes are comparable and differential as they each respectively represent and reiterate the societal anxieties experienced by each film’s protagonist(s). The suburban scenery depicted in The Graduate reveals the “plastic” lifestyle which Benjamin fears he is caught in. The residence of the Braddock family is an ideal American home, complete with backyard swimming pool, situated in a friendly, middle-class, white neighbourhood in Southern California. Robert Beuka discusses the suburban landscape in the film explaining the significance of water and the swimming pool. Beuka states that the “shimmering backyard pool” is used to “symbolize not only the materialism but also the superficial, self-destructive narcissism of the suburban dream” (14). He continues with this analysis stating that the film uses the swimming pool “to suggest the depths- often depths of despair- that lurk beneath the shining surfaces of suburban life” (14). Ben is “submerged in the water of the pool” (Beuka, 14), similarly to the ways in which he is submerged in the inescapable constraints of suburban lifestyle. Ben’s driving scenes and the Robinson house are important scenes to examine as well. Throughout the latter half of the film Ben is seen driving in his red sports car between Southern California and Berkeley, representing Ben’s “wanderlust and the aimlessness of the younger generation” (Beuka, 18). Furthermore, the Robinson household looks similar to the Braddock home, mirroring the sameness and conformity that defines the suburban lifestyle. Throughout the film, the close up framing of Benjamin represents the constriction and suffocation he is feeling. This type of framing differs from both sex, lies and videotape and Ghost World.

            The landscapes, locations, and spaces depicted in sex, lies and videotape are consistent with the suburban experiences portrayed throughout the film, consisting of ordinary coffee shops and modest suburban homes. The film’s treatment of setting and space reflects the mundane routine life carried out by main protagonist Ann Mullany. The Mullany home mirrors her relationship with John: to an outsider looking in, the home looks nice, is well-kept and extremely clean (Ann obsessively cleans the house to ease her anxieties). Similarly, to an outsider looking in, John and Ann appear to be a happy married couple, meanwhile, John is shamelessly sleeping with Ann’s sister Cynthia, while “Ann, the repressed suburbanite, [is] substituting housework for sex” (Mottram, 11). James Mottram states that “dysfunction dominates all four protagonists’ lives” (11), and when the secrets and lies begin to unfold, the underlying issues finally surface. In the suburbs, families and couples strive to appear “normal” by societal standards, keeping the dysfunctional familial drama behind closed doors, much like the relationship between suburban spaces and the social interaction in the film among family, friends and spouse. As long as the outward appearance of the suburban home and family keeps the deep dark secrets hidden from curious, glaring neighbours, thanks to the overexerted performing family members, all is well in the suburban utopia. It is “all about ‘surface’, and how things look, [John] has surrounded himself with the trappings- house, wife, car, job- of what he believes is a successful life” (Mottram, 13). John feels uncomfortable when his old friend presents such honesty and openness when discussing his inadequacies. As honesty enters the suburban neighbourhood, the lies begin to unfold before Ann’s eyes. Surrounded by perpetual liars (her husband, her sister), she is intrigued by Graham’s honesty, and becomes disgusted with her husband’s betrayal, unfaithfulness, and dishonesty, and realizes that she is tired of being dishonest with herself, and decides she will no longer pretend to be happy for the sake of a soiled marriage.   

            There are numerous locations depicted in Ghost World frequented by Enid, including first and foremost, her bedroom, as well as the Wowsville fifties diner, the commercial street scenes, and Seymour’s apartment represent, which all contribute to the anxiety felt by the film’s characters. Enid’s bedroom serves as her safe haven where she can confidently experiment with her ever-changing outward appearance and identity. She retreats to her room when she is upset, and when she is on her own, or with Rebecca, listening to music or watching television. The room is overwhelmed with popular culture memorabilia, sentimental items, clothes, posters, photographs, and other miscellaneous knick-knacks. The bedroom is the primary location where teenagers are able to call their own, store all of their personal belongings, and truly be themselves. Henry Giroux explains that “for many young people and adults today, the private sphere has become the only space in which to imagine any sense of hope, pleasure, or possibility” (xii), and that “the ‘public’ has been emptied of its own separate contents; it has been left with no agenda of its own- it is now but an agglomeration of private troubles, worries and problems” (55). Enid represents a minority in her suburban town, but is comparable to many adolescent girls in North America, “[f]or many teens, the bedroom is a safe, private space in which experimentation with possible selves can be conducted…[B]edrooms are an important site for cultural reappropriation and identity construction, especially for adolescent girls” (Brown et al. 815). The Wowsville diner reflects the cultural and temporal confusion in the suburban society. Elements of America’s past live on in these nostalgic spaces, but lose authenticity in this confused consumer culture. The waiter dons an 80’s haircut, and the jukebox plays contemporary music. This cultural confusion reflects America’s yearning for a brighter past, and uncertainty about its future, as well as American citizens’ carelessness and disregard for authenticity and origin. Seymour’s apartment represents the small percentage of individuals who do care about America’s authentic past and instances of memorable quality. He has a room where he keeps all of his collectors’ items including his vinyl collection and timely memorabilia. Enid relates to Seymour and quickly befriends him, frequenting his adorned apartment often. Seymour seeks refuge through his hobbies, obsessively collecting objects because he cannot relate to other people. His apartment and Enid’s bedroom are two separate private spaces depicted in the film that provide safety and security for these anxious characters, as the suburban public spaces are threatening to them as they cannot relate to the conforming masses that populate the suburban wasteland. The environment depicted in Ghost World captures the characters at a great distance, exhibiting the vast, depthless, consumer streets of suburbia. This framing is used throughout the film, contributing to Enid’s feelings of alienation and entrapment. Ghost World effectively depicts how “the ascendancy of neoliberalism and corporate culture into every aspect of American life…thrives on a culture of cynicism, boredom, and despair” (Giroux, 58). 

            In addition to focusing on character experiences of suburban landscapes and spaces, and traditionally taboo trespassing, it is necessary to examine the recurring motifs in each film which epitomize the characters’ greatest fears perpetuated by suburban society. In The Graduate, Ben is told that “plastics” are his future, which “unwittingly offers up an apt metaphor for the very lifestyle Ben fear he may be on the verge of entering” (Beuka, 13). Meanwhile, in sex, lies and videotape, an older, seemingly more adjusted male character, Graham, seeks refuge through his fetishistic interview videotapes. He has had to develop an alternative means of functioning within society because of his differences and inadequacies. He derives sexual pleasure while no one else is present, through simulated interaction via videotaped recordings of various women discussing their sexual histories, fantasies, and confessions. Graham has created this alternative method in order to cope, and has become reliant on his collection. Ann finds his habit strange, and he becomes defensive, claiming that the videotapes are his outlet, as they help to decrease his anxieties. In Ghost World, Enid and Rebecca walk by a pair of blue jeans on the sidewalk. The girls briefly take note of the pants, and continue walking. The pants are spotted twice more throughout the film in the same spot on the sidewalk. Although these empty jeans seem less significant than Graham’s videotapes, they are arguably very significant to the film’s theme of blankness and “depthlessness”. The pants represent the society the film portrays, which is dominated by materialism and commercialism. “The jeans suggest the presence of human experience, yet the pants possess no owner, no center, and just as importantly, no depth” (Sperb, 209-210). Each of these recurring motifs symbolizes the protagonists’ anxieties about the society in which they live and cannot escape.    

            In summation, The Graduate, sex, lies and videotape, and Ghost World position men and women in similar ways in relation to their experiences of suburban consumer culture. The varying suburban spaces and landscapes depicted in each film offer different metaphorical representations, but ultimately symbolize each character’s similar feelings of social alienation and displeasure. In an attempt to diffuse their anxieties of uncertainty and belonging, the protagonists in each film experiment with their identities, transcending cultural norms, surpassing social and sexual taboos. Other characters in the films abide by these culturally accepted norms, confirming their taboo status as they question the protagonists’ unexpected actions and behaviour. Each of the main protagonists seeking to overcome their social and sexual anxieties, delving into these taboo territories, ultimately emerge dissatisfied, and realize that their deviant route would not bring them true happiness. However, their defiance of cultural norms and structure, and experimenting with alternatives allows them to realize that there must be something out there for them, something different from the suburban lifestyle.

Works Cited

Beuka, Robert. “Just One Word… ‘Plastics’: Suburban Malaise, and Oedipal Drive in             The Graduate”. Journal of Popular Film and Television 28:1. 2000. 12-21.

Brown, Jane, Dykers, Steele, Barton White. “Teenage Room Culture: Where Media and             Identities Intersect”. Communication Research 21:6. Sage Publications, 1994.             813-827.

Giroux, Henry. Public spaces, private lives: beyond the culture of cynicism. Lanham,             Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001.

Karlyn, Kathleen Rowe. “Film as Cultural Antidote.” Feminist Media Studies 6.4. 2006.              453-68.

Kraus, Rosalind. “Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism.” October 1. The MIT Press,             1976. 179-191.

Mottram, James. “Chapter 1: ‘It’s All Downhill from Here’: How Steven Soderbergh             Paves the Way for the Next Generation”. The Sundance Kids: How the Mavericks             Took Back Hollywood. New York: Faber and Faber, Inc., 2006. 5-14.

Sconce, Jeffrey. “Irony, Nihilism, and the New American ‘Smart’ Film”. Screen 43: 4.             Oxford Journals, 2002. 349-369.

Sperb, Jason. “Ghost without a Machine: Enid’s Anxiety of Depth(lessness) in Terry             Swigoff’s Ghost World”. Quarterly Review of Film and Video 21:3. Routledge,             Ltd, 2004. 209-217.

Trigilio, Michael. “Pop Abstraction, Humor, Narcissism, and God (Not God, Really. It’s             Just That When I Say “God” I Usually Mean To Say Something Like “Sex”             and/or “Death.” Mills College, 2003. 1-28.