The possibilities for contemporary popular culture to reach larger
audiences have increased considerable during the last two decades with
the emergence of different arenas associated with the Internet. This is a
report from a pilot study of a fieldwork conducted mainly on the
Internet, YouTube to be specific. The object of study is an iconic piece
of cultural performance; the “You talkin' to me?”-scene from Martin
Scorsese's film “Taxi Driver”. The film was released in 1976 and this
scene has since then been reenacted many times. The re-enacting occurs
in daily life, in advertising and commercials, in films and TV-series.
The basic thought in this text is that that re-enacting could be seen as
a chain of events (you watch, you imitate and thus something is
transferred) that together form a cultural performance in its own right.
Even this study of the possibilities to conduct a fieldwork on YouTube
can be seen as a cultural performance.
Establishing the topic > My 26 year old son is standing in front of the mirror in the
hall of my apartment flexing his muscles after taking a shower. “You
want something to eat before you leave?” I ask him. He looks at me
through the mirror, his back still in my direction and he starts
talking: “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then
who the heck else are you talkin’ to? You talkin’ to me? Well I’m the
only one here. Who the heck do you think you’re talking to?”
I
immediately recognize this as a quote from a scene in the Martin
Scorsese film “Taxi Driver” from 1976. In the movie the protagonist
Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, stands in front of a mirror.
Travis tries on the contraption he built to sit on his forearm allowing
him to quick-draw his pistol and talks to the mirror and/or an absent
antagonist. Taxi Driver is 110 minutes long, this scene occurs at the
65th minute and is in a way a plot-point as Travis after this scene
changes from being a spectator into being a player in the plot. It can
be argued that this scene only is a piece of a much larger cultural
performance, i.e. the entire “Taxi Driver”-movie. This part of the movie
can still be said to conduct a cultural performance of its own as it is
quoted and re-enacted over extended time throughout different media.
Travis is one of several anti-heroes of the 70ties, another of wholly
different character is Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) in John
Schlesinger´s “Midnight Cowboy” from 1969.
A female friend in
her sixties working as a high-school teacher in media remarked in
conversation: “I never saw the movie “Taxi Driver” because I don't like
violent films. But I have used the quotation “You talkin' to me?” now
and then in a joking manner. I reckon I am influenced by my students who
through the years have come up with solutions to assignments that
include this quotation”. Even this mild lady has found something
compelling in the quotation and played out part of it.
A
security guard in the subway of Stockholm is accused of manhandling a
man in handcuffs. Before the police arrive the guard performed a “dance”
beside the victim. “I was only mimicking a sequence in a movie there,
the guard states while interrogated by the police.” (Metro, October
17th, 2001). The performance of the guard may indicate that we all have
memories and capabilities to mimic or re-enact scenes from books, movies
and other performances we have watched.
On YouTube > In the “YouTube Reader” Peters & Seier
(2009) comment on the attraction of up-loading video-clips on YouTube.
The authors argue that what attract people to place videos on YouTube
has to do with self-expression in an easier manner than going through
traditional media-channels (Peters & Seier 2009:201). You may
wonder if that means that it is easier to express yourself publicly
today, compared to the time before YouTube, which was launched in 2005.
With more than three billion views everyday, 800 millions users and 45
hours of video material uploaded every minute is a powerful media hub
(YouTube blog: Pressroom). Just looking at the figures that YouTube
presents gives an idea of the impact this media channel have on the
audiences around the globe. YouTube has become a major player in the
world of popular culture.
YouTube is here looked upon as a
public space in the way Habermas (1984) saw it. That is a realm away
from the sectors of family, government and commerce (Habermas 1984:46).
In thinking with Habermas the idea is to show that YouTube is a channel
for public ”conversation”. YouTube is a business, so it is not totally
alienated from the commercial sector, but the limitations of that seems
to be marginal. YouTube has rules governing the kind of material you may
upload.
Methods and ethics > The
methods used for this assignment are observation in a virtual field
called YouTube, locating re-enactment pieces through search on key words
like “You talkin” and “Taxi Driver”.and categorizing a selection of the
found clips. To get a sense of what it is like to re-enact and upload
material on YouTube I did a recording myself and uploaded it on YouTube.
Robert De Niro himself even did a re-enactment of the scene on screen
in the movie “The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle” in the year
2000.
The numbers of found video clips are astonishing “You
Talkin´to me?” 1.870 and Taxi Driver 33.300. Some of these video clips
cannot be categorized as re-enactments of the scene that is the object
of this study – there might be rock bands or parts of other films or
plays. The creators might have received the inspiration from the same
source. To limit this fieldwork only around one hundred video-clips were
categorized. Categories for these video clips are: private, comedy,
commercials and homage in films.
Some of the individuals
uploading re-enactment scenes on YouTube have done several other
re-enactments. One of them, at least, seems to be a professional actor
and has around 20 re-enactments on YouTube. I e-mailed six of the
“owners” of video-clips that I found, asking them what is driving them
to upload re-enactments. None of them had answered after 12 days as of
October 24th.
YouTube officially does not allow offensive
material in any way and you are supposed to upload only material you
control the copyright of. How the participants obey these rules is open
to debate – there seems to be a lot of copyright infringements,
especially regarding clips from movies and television shows.
In
order to complete this assignment material from YouTube has been
downloaded. I have tried to contact six of the uploaders, but they did
not reply. Due to that I do not have their consent to use their
material. Since the thought of uploading material on YouTube is for it
to be watched I have disregarded that lack of consent for the benefit of
this assignment.
Culture
> Since I have been trained in Ethnology, I see the Ethnological
concept of culture as an explanation of the meaning in our lives.
Culture is a process that keeps us afloat and accessible to others
within the same sphere. It is the “glue” that binds individuals
together. Culture is as important to us as air is to birds. Without air,
they would not be able to fly, but fall to the ground. Without culture
in this sense we would not be able to live our lives as we know them
today, nor have functioning societies. This way of thinking suggests
that culture is a process that creates meaning, but also that culture
change over time, since the meaning produced is fed back into the
culture. Ethnologists refer to the outcome of culture as “culture
products”. In this concept we find books, paintings, movies and even
ideas, and of course, performances, etc. Sauter (2000) is on to
something similar when he suggests the human encounter as the center of
the communication process (Sauter 2000:97). Sauter is talking about
cultural objects, but they could be the equivalent of the cultural
products Ethnologists speak of. Similarities exist since both terms
indicate entities of cultures that not necessarily have to be consumed
in the moment they are created.
Loxley (2007) describes Richard
Schechner´s understanding of key terms like drama, script, theatre and
performance. Schechner imagined four concentric circles stacked on top
of each other, the smallest one was drama, the next one script, then
theatre, and at last performance as the largest circle (Loxley
2007:149ff). Schechner, according to Loxley, meant that the largest
circle was attributed to performance since Schechner saw performance as
encompassing everything that could be related to the staged event. That
means that Schechner saw the preparations before the event and the
postproduction as part of the performance. This also suggests that
Schechner, since he placed theatre in the middle as the smallest circle,
regarded the theatre-part as the core of the event. That in turn can be
applied on the re-enactment of the “You talkin´to me?”-scene, the
theatricality of the scene being what might be carried on through all
the different interpretations there are to be watched.
Davis
& Postlewait (2003) argue in accordance with the actress Fanny
Kemble that theatricality is an effect produced in the actor´s
performance through mastering of skill (Davis & Postlewait
2003:19). The actors do not dupe themselves or confuse their own
psyches. They mastered the ability to act according to the role they
were playing and thus can be said to create an effect even in the
spectator.
Why re-enacting? > Why
re-enacting? Is it about to produce meaning? The original scene can be
said to be a plot-point in a specific story, the re-enactments can be
said to be either conveying a similar feeling of empowerment, or
creating something new. Then, what is that new? Is it about magic
simulation ”Travis was tough and I´ll become tough if I say the same
words”? Or is it about belonging to a ever growing bunch of people that
do this re-enacting?
Another example is the music industry
where reenactments are called “covers” and are the bread-and-butter for
many artists that do not write their own material.
We also do
see that the advertising world has adopted the re-enactment of the “You
talking` to me?”-scene as there are several examples of re-enactment in
television commercials. Have the creators of these commercials been
aware of the individuals re-enacting the scene? This might be a way of
conveying a message to the part of the viewers that recognize the scene
in the commercial.
What is the plot of these re-enactments?
There is a plot within the re-enactments following the original script.
To add to the confusion the original screenplay only says: “In the SHOTS
that follow TRAVIS gives the audience a lesson in gunmanship:”
(Schrader 1976:61). Robert De Niro improvised the scene on the set.
Following that line of thought it might be argued that the re-enactors
do not re-enact a fictional scene, but are re-enacting De Niros
perception of what ought to have been said in the scene. This stands in
contrast to the case where the re-enactment is about re-enacting a scene
written by the scriptwriter.
A thought that might be off the
track is: why do we regard it as alright to reenact performances and
not re-enact writing and photography/paintings. A couple of weeks ago
Bob Dylan showed his paintings at the Gagosian Gallery in New York: When
a critic wrote that he thought they were rip-offs of famous
photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson the gallery owner changed the
subheading in marketing material from “a visual travel” to “”visual
reflections” (New York Times, September 28th, 2011 & Dagens
Nyheter, September 28th, 2011). In this area the verdict on the
presentation or the performance seems to be similar to the one we cam
expect if we copy a novel like James Joyce's “Ulysses” and only change a
couple of words, i.e. the name of the author and present it as a stand
alone work of art.
Re-enacting it > When
I started to think about re-enacting the “You talkin´to me?”-scene
myself and uploading it on YouTube I was not totally sure I wanted to
do it. It really did not matter that I have presented several speeches
in front of audiences in excess of 200 people. At those occasions it was
about topics I was familiar with. That was of little help, I still had a
severe case of cold feet. It was not easy to place the camera so it did
not show in the mirror, it took me 8 takes before I got a decent
performance in Swedish, uploaded on YouTube October 18th, 2011 (Snackar
du med mej? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djIdxr6WpqQ). Swedish was
chosen because I was no good at being menacing in English – and hardly
any better in Swedish. I thought it would give me insights in the
process if I did follow the path of the other re-enactors, but I had not
anticipated that it was to become a struggle to actually act it out.
Final comments >
The basic thought in this text is that that re-enacting could be seen
as a chain of events (you watch and you imitate) that together form a
cultural performance of its own kind. I try to see the re-enactment of a
particular scene of the movie Taxi Driver as a Cultural Performance.
The cultural performance is the spreading on YouTube as individuals that
get inspired by watching others doing the re-enactment. It can be
argued that the plot of the re-enacting also adds a dimension as you
prepare to stage it. You have to set up your camera, learn the lines,
trying to be menacing, edit the video clip and upload it on YouTube. It
could also be argued that the completion of this assignment became a
cultural performance since I “went so native” that I actually did a
video-clip and uploaded it on YouTube. That performance will last, at
least, until the day my video clip is removed from YouTube.
If you are wondering: yes my son and I had a meal before he left.
------References
Davis, Tracy C & Postlewait, Thomas. 2003. Theatricality, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1984. Borgerlig offentlighet. Malmö, Arkiv förlag.
Loxley, James. 2007. Performativity, London & New York, Routledge.
Peters, Kathrin & Seier, Andrea. 2009. Home Dance: Mediacy and Aesthetics of the Self on
YouTube. In: Snickars, Pelle & Vonderau, Patrick. YouTube Reader. Mediehistoriskt arkiv
12, Lithuania, National Library of Sweden.187-203.
Sauter, Willmar. 2000.”Culture as Human Encounter – A Theatrical Model of the Cultural
Event”, In; The Theatrical Event: Dynamics of Performance and Perception. Iowa City, pp
95-109
Schrader, Paul. 1976. Taxi Driver. Original screenplay,
http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/taxidriver.html (retrieved 2011-10-16.)
Web pages
Bob Dylan pekas ut som plagiatör.
Dagens Nyheter, September 28th, 2011.
http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/konst-form/bob-dylan-pekas-ut-som-plagiator
(retrieved 2011-10-17)
Här stampar SL-vakten på en man i handbojor. Metro, October 17th, 2001.
http://www.metro.se/nyheter/har-stampar-sl-vakten-pa-man-i-bojor/EVHkjq!SM69ND7b8TuQw/ (retrieved 2011-10-17)
YouTube blog: Pressroom http://www.youtube.com/t/press / (retrieved 2011-10-17)
Questions raised about Dylan show at Gagosian. New York Times,
September 28th, 2001.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/questions-raised-about-dylan-show-at-gagosian/
(retrieved 2011-10-17)
