Robbie on the Kushner "paradox"

Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 23:54:27 -0800
From: Robert Rachins 
Reply-To: rachins@sas.upenn.edu

THE OBSCENE PARADOX
                    summarized by Robert Rachins

Graham Dixon’s essay "The Obscene Paradox" asks the question whether, as
Baudrillard suggests, AIDS may actually be our savior, raising us up
above the surface of hyper-reality, and forcing us to deal with a
three-dimensional reality, allbeit one in which we are dying. First,
before delving into his argument, I feel that I should probably supply
at least a little foundation to understanding Baudrillard, since the
entire essay relies so heavily on his theories.

Baudrillard believes that we live in a postmodern hyper-reality, which
is beyond the real because the real has vanished. This disappearance of
the real is due largely to the idea of simulation and simulacrum:
everything today is perfectly reproducible, a copy of something else,
and if the simulacrum is indistinguishable from the original, they are
simultaneously both copies and both originals; in other words, they are
hyper-real. Dixon quotes Baudrillard: " the sudden whirlpools which we
dub catastrophes are really the thing that saves us from catastrophe."
So there is the obscene paradox: AID saves and destroys simultaneously.

Dixon sees chaos as "the dominant feature of most of the character’s
lives," which, of course, adds another layer to the postmodern,
simulated existence, for fractals are at once complete patterns and
replications of themselves. Dixon cites Roy’s desk with all its phones
as "the perfect image of this ‘chaos’" Roy begins conversations but
never finishes them: "words have no meaning, they drift with Roy in the
postmodern ether." Dixon points out that the lack of semantic is implied
by poststructuralism, deconstruction in particular. Harper is juxtaposed
in opposition to Roy: "immobile, lonely, alienated from Roy’s system."
According to Dixon, Louis hides his vulnerability with the mask of an
intellectual, but the abstract notion of the intellect soon disappears
in the face of the physicality of AIDS. Part of this chaos is a
synthesis of "Brechtian objectivity…with the dizzying onslaught of
hyper-real sensation."

Commenting structurally on the play, Dixon takes note of the split scene
method utilized by Kushner so that "one half of a scene ironically
comments upon and reflects the other half." The paradigm of this
technique is the scene (act 2, scene 4) where Joe and Roy are in a
"fancy straight bar" while Louis and a Man are in Central Park. "The
superficially polite but wonderfully vicious platitudes of the bar
conversation contrast hilariously with the strangely unaroused sexuality
of the park pick-up." Shortly thereafter in the essay, Dixon comments
that "AIDS is the common background to all this…" and "real sex is
diminished, fragmented, and eventually destroyed."  Dixon thinks that
Kusner would, perhaps, agree with Baudrillard’s contention that "the
screen and the mirror no longer exist," because "Angles in American
(AAI) does not mirror the world as much as it produces a fragmented
impression of it" (Dixon noted earlier in the essay that the audience is
not allowed to pay attention to any one character for too long).

The end of the first part of this essay blatantly states what Dixon’s
conclusion is and will be at the conclusion of the essay (I am
withholding it until the end of my little essay). In the second part of
his essay, Dixon turns with greater attention to the impact of chaos in
the play, superficially citing that the very similarity between the
first and second part of AA ("same characters, themes, and dramaturgical
devices") is chaotic, since chaos is "constantly different and yet
constantly the same."  With regard to the Angel, Dixon points out that
"The Angel’s presence and message were negatively ambiguous in AA1, in
AA2 the ambiguity is transformed into a clear (if initially tentative)
message of hope…": she induced his first orgasm in months.

As the analysis of chaos unfolds, Dixon brings Baudrillard’s theories
back into the essay and formulates the central dilemma: " Humanity has
imagination and the ability to change events…Mankind is thus a kind of
AIDS of the universe, or perhaps more precisely, is the HIV of the
universe…which allows chaos to ensue…" and of course "the Angel is
infected with the HIV of the universe." The only message in this chaos
comes from not from language, but rather from "all of us who are dying
now." Thus "each [character] is inevitably, irrevocably part of the
eternal commutability of the postmodern sign": the signifieds are no
longer tangible. Ultimately, "sexuality is the driving force behind
humanity’s endless search progress," for humanity cannot control their
sexuality, and AIDS may be "the last-ditch effort of God" to retain his
sovereignty.

Dixon concluded that despite "AIDS is not a Savior for Reality in the
face of Hyper-reality; in fact, the diametric opposite is true—it
catalyzes, crystallizes, and eventually embodies the simulacrous heart
of the hyper-real. The final message is one of despair, the Great Work
is merely a cycle of anomie."

I have tried to summarize the main ideas of Dixon’s essay, but it raises
many fascinating theoretical ideas, and not all of them could be
covered. Do not accept my notes to his essay as a simulacrum of the
essay itself. Although it may have to do as the replacement, it
certainly does not pretend to be the original.