“The burden of my Father’s name” – Neurosis and George W Bush

In W (2008), Oliver Stone delivers something truly surprising. A long-time critic of the Bush administration, Stone caused a stir in moviemaking circles by offering, to use his own term, a ‘compassionate’ representation of George W Bush – a President who Stone paradoxically singles out as the worst politician in American history. Like most people in the world, the legendary director is furious about the damage left in George Junior’s wake. ‘Pre-emptive’ military action in foreign policy, unilateral defiance of UN resolutions, lack of leadership in the fight against climate change and world economic disasters are only a few of the reasons to look back with anger on the Bush government. But unlike so many other dissenters, Oliver Stone, in highlighting the psychological mechanisms underpinning the public persona, puts personal anger to one side and addresses his subject with a much kinder but ultimately more revealing technique: bringing humanity to George W Bush. The path that leads to Bush as a hate figure is an all too familiar one but it doesn’t add anything new to our understanding of him as a person. What Oliver Stone has done in his film is to focus on W’s fallibility as a man, the fact that fundamentally W does not know himself and makes life decisions that are rooted in his lack of self-awareness. This approach, however controversial, might prove to be a much more powerful and far more consequential protest song.

Psychoanalysis enables a more enhanced perspective on George W Bush’s unconscious motivations, through a study of the unresolved conflict highlighted in his relationship with his father, George H Bush. According to Jacques Lacan, unconscious experiences predispose a person to relate a certain way to entering the realm of language. Parents play a crucial role, as mothers are intimately connected to nature and the body (pregnancy, breast-feeding, bathing, clothing) and fathers are responsible for introducing children into society (setting rules, discipline, shaping goals for success). Language is a direct result of the paternal influence, as words are structured together in a ‘lawful’ manner and a socially constructed semantic authority (e.g., school) assigns meaning through speech. When a baby learns how to talk, it is essentially forming its identity through the course of language, and the way in which the child grows up to relate to words and to language is a reflection of how they come to view the father/authority/society’s law. On the one hand, if the relationship with words is a seamless and comfortable one in which the speaker masters language and uses it to gain power, success and credibility, then there is a positive identification with the paternal agency. On the other hand, the linguistic experience may be a tumultuous one, in which the speaker feels the perpetual sense that words do not capture the exact idea they want to vocalise or on the contrary that words have the power to expose more than initially intended. This second way of relating to language is a hallmark of the psychological structure referred to by Lacan and Sigmund Freud as ‘neurosis’. The typical neurotic speaks beyond the words he knowingly employs. Moreover, neurotic speakers are incessantly aware of the inadequacy of language for conveying their experiences – they may be clumsy or indeed terrible speakers but they remain painfully preoccupied by their own ineptitude in the realm of language. An inability to conform to the father’s establishment of law and order results in the neurotic person to work feverishly to justify his existence by performing some compulsive rituals to escape the terror of the father’s disapproval.

These psychoanalytic principles allow the viewer to obtain clarity in Oliver Stone’s portrait of George W Bush, especially as this is a story that revolves around a trauma of the father-son dynamic. W was his father’s namesake, but the burden of the name was greater than he could endure – he was a wild child, a drunken frat-boy who couldn’t please his business-like and unfeeling father. Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush, W’s mother, exclaimed, “You’re like me son, you’re hot tempered! Your brother Jeb, he’s like your Daddy, he’s got a cool head.” This was devastating to W, who desperately wanted to be like his father, to have his approval, but doing so meant going against his own nature. When he partied and got into trouble, George Senior admonished him, “You’re not a Kennedy. You’re a Bush – act like one!” These are the mixed messages that set the tone for W’s life. Who was he? What was the purpose of his existence? As he struggled with addiction and various professional failures, the constant presence of his father’s faultfinding tone permeated all aspects of his life. It was a tug of war in many ways, as his rebellious streak wanted to be free to enjoy a career that brought him mostly pleasure (i.e., managing a baseball team) without political influence. But the overwhelming lack of fatherly acceptance and encouragement fanned the flames of W’s neurosis, causing the sacrifice of his personal values in order to comply with the imagined ambition set by his father: Bush in name, Bush in nature.

George W Bush’s reassessment of his life and the single-minded pursuit of a career in politics occurred, probably not due to mere coincidence, when he became a ‘Born Again Christian’. His conversion to religion is a symbol for an altogether more essential ‘rebirth’, a re-emergence into language itself – wiping away past mistakes and reappearing on the scene of a clean linguistic slate. All the arguments with Daddy, the insults, the criticisms, the doubt that was expressed, all of it cleared out to make way for a new speaker, a new W, one who could proudly occupy the territory of his father’s name. W became George Senior’s mini-me; he not only began talking the talk, he also started walking the walk! In 1995 W was elected Governor of Texas, rubbing elbows with the powers that be, becoming a power in his own right. And when the US election was (dubiously) won in 2000, W reached the pinnacle of his father’s professional stature as the most powerful man on the planet. A President and his President son – had W finally realised his greatest ambition?

Unfortunately for George W Bush and for the world, an ascent to power that is based on unresolved unconscious conflict can only lead to dire consequences of its misuse. W was not rid of his neurotic tendencies – his uncomfortable relationship with words and language betrayed the façade of mastery and confidence that he and his administration tried to construct. Two wonderful examples are featured in Oliver Stone’s film. The first when, early on in W’s political life, he declares that he’s “no good with words”, that it is Karl Rove’s job to select the words that capture W’s message. The second event takes place during a press conference in W’s second term in the White House, when a reporter asks W how he will be portrayed in history – thus directly hitting the nerve of W’s existential angst. Feeling the pressure of this loaded question, W panics, stutters very badly and mumbles some sort of incoherence (typical of the ‘Bushisms’ that are now a universal joke), obviously not providing a meaningful answer. Once again, W is confronted with his inadequacy in the realm of language, which is inherently the realm of authority/power/law. The tragedy is that he’s the President, he’s at war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, his name is George Bush – but he’ll never be his father. W’s neurosis rages on, his suffering continues.

3 discursive positions in The Hangover

A 24-hour stag party in Las Vegas is the premise of 2009's The Hangover (Dir Todd Phillips). Before Doug marries Tracy, he and his two best friends Phil and Stu, and Tracy's brother Alan, head to Sin City for a party-filled time. High school teacher Phil rebels against the eradication of masculinity, setting the stage for a real man's debauchery session. Stu, a dentist, worries a lot, mainly about not offending his overbearing girlfriend Melissa. And Alan seems to be totally unaware of the social graces of Western society. The morning after their arrival in Las Vegas, they awaken in their hotel suite with the worst ever collective hangover. Nobody can recall what happened the previous night, the suite is in shambles and Doug is missing! Worse for wear Phil, Stu and Alan proceed with the business of rushing madly about Vegas town desperately seeking the groom-to-be, and in the course of the manhunt they effectively reform the missing pieces of the forgotten night.

Left to right: Alan holding mysterious baby, Phil and Stu

So what's The Hangover really about? You could look at it in a thousand different ways, I choose Lacanian psychoanalysis because it makes sense to me. This essentially involves a study of language with a poetic twist, and it goes a little something like this...

Jacques Lacan described 3 basic types of speech:

• Neurotic: over-preoccupation with the shortcomings of language, impression that words do not capture precisely what is intended, a struggle that leaves the speaker stammering, hesitating and subservient to a more strong-willed other

• Psychotic: lacking the accepted assimilation of cultural laws of language, speaking without a 'filter', disorganised stream of consciousness, off the wall comments at inappropriate times, impulsive and confusing speech

• Perverted: reducing the other to an object of bemusement in a linguistic game, shock value is a really big turn-on here, enjoying the look on the listener's face when witty and/or provocative words are spoken, this is a very masterful speaker

Based on this classification, we can start to see where the men in Doug's wedding party slot in:

Stu: not a confident speaker! This guy is totally whipped by the overactive superego posing as his girlfriend Melissa. That he is a dentist is telling, because in psychoanalysis teeth are symbolic of words inside the mouth, and Stu makes his living from regulating and straightening teeth, placing order inside the mouth and seemingly in his linguistic tendencies as well. Melissa runs a tight ship at home and Stu responds obediently. As a result Stu becomes preoccupied with maintaining the order he's worked so hard to establish, and in The Hangover we see him lying to Melissa about the location of the stag party, since the lascivious connotations of Vegas are too hot for his girlfriend to handle. When Stu wakes up from the night of mystery he discovers that one of his teeth is missing, which suggests that the perfect little order in his language is disrupted and so his neurotic tendencies flare up. More panic ensues when it is revealed Stu has married a stripper/prostitute/single mother in his inebriated state... At this point Stu says he wants to "torch the evidence" of the bachelor party and wipe away all trace of the shocking events - this is a classic neurotic tactic of denial and the desire to 'mortify life' as Lacan would say. Keep things clean and sterile, that's what Melissa would want!

Alan: talk about being diametrically opposed to Stu! Besides the fact that Alan's speech is unpredictable and ungoverned by any discernible principles, let's linger on the Bearded One's sartorial style because this dude is insane. After checking into a swish suite at Caesar's Palace, the men change into slick suits before stepping on the party scene, but Alan doesn't quite manage this. He remains in an outfit that straddles the cusp of nondescript and nasty. We soon learn that Alan marches to the beat of a batshit crazy drummer. A case in point is Alan's toast to Doug, which is rather long-winded, labyrinthine and flighty - all hallmarks of psychotic discourse. We also learn that Alan dabbles in recreational drugs, and he's not averse to spiking the men's drinks with unidentified pills he bought from a random dealer in a liquor store. Right! No wonder they couldn't remember the party last night. The role of drugs here is significant because it is a disinhibiting element - these guys were unwittingly tripping on mysterious substances, breaking all conceivable social boundaries, stepping over lines of accepted Vegas decorum, and their shit got so crazy they couldn't even remember what they got up to in the morning! Thus is the discursive position for dear Alan, living in a state of absolute linguistic impulsiveness and lunacy. When Alan slipped drugs in his pals' drinks, one could say his psychosis became contagious.

Phil: this guy is smooth. He's economical with words (in dramatic contrast to Alan) as in his rooftop toast to Doug, declaring simply "Here's to a night we'll never forget"... see what they did there? So what else do we know about Phil? He's a high school teacher whose moral code is suspect: he tricks his students to pay for a non-existent field trip as a way of funding his Vegas escapade. He is also basically the leader of he pack: when everything is a mess he makes practical decisions about the men's next move. He steps up to the plate and works out a plan to retrace their steps, negotiating with hostile opponents when necessary. He also makes and breaks the rules when it suits him, and this masterful quality is reflected in his speech - we know Phil is married but he also wants all the lust-filled fun Sin City has to offer. Having lost their car, the men ride in a stolen police vehicle (Phil driving of course) and when they hit traffic on the road Phil steers onto the sidewalk, snaking his way through the bemused crowd of pedestrians. And this is how a perverted speaker conducts himself in language: Machiavellian cop whose use of power is sensationalistic and attention grabbing. The pervert has contempt for authority except when he is in charge, and his desire for power has nothing to do with regulation (as in the neurotic sense). For the pervert, power is a commodity for pleasure and fun! It's the look of shock on the other's face he finds entertaining, it's all just a game to him.

So we've diagnosed Stu, Alan and Phil but where does that leave Doug? Well, Doug is missing for most of the film so we really don't know that much about him. Ah-ha! In Lacanian terms, the lack itself is significant of desire. Doug is the fantasised ideal for modern man - and that's why he doesn't exist! He's calm under pressure, serious when he needs to be, loose when the occasion calls for it, tends to the insecurities of his friends and doesn't appear to have any neuroses of his own. He also strikes the right balance linguistically because he's compassionate. Come on, nobody is that perfect! This is why psychoanalytically Doug must disappear because he is the incentive the other men require to 'correct' their own pathological discursive positions. The drama rests in the bachelor party bridging the linguistic gap to bring them closer to the elusive Doug. It is a manhunt in more ways than one.

I will end this entry with this thought: Tracy's father entrusts Doug with his beloved Mercedes convertible for the duration of the Vegas trip. Doug is specifically instructed not to let the groomsmen drive the car. In this instance, Doug's future Father-In-Law is setting the boundaries for respectable behaviour. Doug is marrying Tracy and soon they will start a family of their own - there is a certain etiquette to abide by and Tracy's father is laying down those laws. In Lacanian terms, this is actually called Name-Of-The-Father, which is an anchoring point in language. The Mercedes being a token of successful masculinity, Doug knows what's expected of him. And still Tracy's father does manage to concede that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, so there is some room for mischief!

Reality, cinema and freedom from the cave.

Cinema is often associated with escapism and losing touch with reality, but the centrality of fantasy in spectatorship does not diminish film's superior force in our search for truth. In The Pervert's Guide To Cinema (2006), Slavoj Zizek says: "In order to understand today’s world, we need cinema; literally. It’s only in cinema that we get that crucial dimension which we are not yet ready to confront in our reality. If you are looking for what is, in reality, more real than reality itself, look into cinematic fiction."

In his allegory of the cave, Plato imagines a group of chained people living in a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on a wall by objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Plato, the prisoners accept the shadows as reality. The philosopher however searches for another explanation, struggling for freedom from the cave, eventually discovering the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

The process of becoming a philosopher in film spectatorship is contained in the commitment to the search for meaning. Psychoanalysis helps to transform the mundane experience of passively watching projected images on the wall to the journey out of the comfortable chair, onto a dark path, where distance enables a new perspective and we can finally identify the original light source and know the true 'forms'. Meaning at this point is more real than reality itself - we are in an evolved state, and how refreshing it is not to be dictated to! The artificial shadows are cast aside and we become the creators of our enjoyment. Imagination comes to life and we bask in the glow of beauty.

This trailer of 'The Truman Show' (1998) illustrates the struggle of freedom from the cave:

A decade of material: 1999-2009

Titles from the last ten years which would benefit from a psychoanalytic interpretation...

Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000)

David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Pedro Almodóvar’s Hable Con Ella (2002)

Lars von Trier’s Dogville (2003)

Brad Anderson’s The Machinist (2004)

Dominik Moll’s Lemming (2005)

Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain (2006)

Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There (2007)

Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir (2008)

Neill Blomkamp's District 9 (2009)

The unconscious is structured like cinema.

Freud called dreams the "royal road to the unconscious." Lacan gave this notion a Saussurean twist, evoking the centrality of the signifier, famously stating: "the unconscious is structured like a language." So there we are, at the intersection of the image and the word, caught between sight and sound - is this a blueprint for the ever-elusive unconscious? I think so, and poets would agree with me. Cinema captures the stunning chemistry between dreams and language in a most unique way because there seems to be a direct pathway between the projected story and the spectator's heart. Cinema, therefore, is a fantastic device to locate the unconscious and I thought it would be fun to write a blog about the process.

I should say, I don't intend to dwell on obscure references in psychoanalysis or film because I want this to be an inclusive atmosphere for sharing ideas. I don't proclaim to be an expert in these fields. Kenneth Rexroth said: "The accepted, official version of anything is most likely false. All authority is based on fraud." Cinema, like poetry, is too beautiful, too marvelous, to be reduced down to tedious struggles of expertise. That's not the point of this blog. The pursuit of the cerebral is fine and good, but not at the price of the visceral. So if film pulls at your heart strings and you are looking for a device to enhance the quality of your experience as a spectator, then I would suggest psychoanalysis.

Herewith a clip from L'année dernière à Marienbad (Dir Alain Resnais, 1961), a film that highlights the aspect of repetition in language, producing a dream-like element in the story: