It is commonplace in cultural studies to claim that
everything is constructed. Therefore, to
state with an air of certainty that fatherhood is a constructed role formed
from the images and expectations of any given society at any given time would
hardly surprise many. The
father’s underlying image, at least in the Western world, has been profoundly
shaped by Greek mythology, Roman law, Christianity, and both the French and
Industrial revolutions. Representations of fathers and fatherhood are influenced
by both historical and contemporary forces and often reveal a great deal about the
cultures that produce such imagery. Moreover, the father figure remains more
than just a representative of the personal father, the individual man known to
his son or daughter. This figure also becomes a symbol standing in for all
authority figures, for order, law, and government. Michael Bader
argues that the nation, an ultimate authority for many, is often viewed as “a
metaphor for a family” and that “we project onto ever-expanding forms of social
authority the longings originally satisfied by parents” in our childhood
(582). He continues that “on a symbolic
level, we look to our leaders to provide the protection and strength usually associated
with fathers” (582). Even the terminology
utilized for government heads, phrases like “the Founding Fathers,” reveals
this conflation (Bader 582). With this
dual layer to the father figure, it should not be surprising that narratives
across popular culture are ripe with complex father figures and offer up a
multitude of telling father issues. In
American texts at least, this bombardment may likely be the result of two completely
unrelated conditions: the changing
status of the father in the 21st century and the national crisis in authority
and security after the 9/11 attacks.
This
first motivating force means that fictional fathers stand in for real fathers
and that the narratives in which they appear are trying to work through
problems of domesticity and patriarchy in the family – private zone issues
transferred into the public space of mass mediated entertainment. For example, the past century has seen a
rethinking of the role of the father and traditional male expectations in
general. Samuels credits the 1970s women’s
movement for assisting in this re-visioning (3). Psychologists now report seeing a “new kind
of man” with new kinds of problems:
He is a loving and attentive father to
his children, a sensitive and committed marital partner, concerned with world
peace and the state of the environment; he may be vegetarian. Often, he will announce himself as a
feminist. He is, in fact, a wholly
laudable person. But he is not happy –
and bids fair to stay miserable until either the world adjusts to him or he
manages truly to integrate his
behavioural and role changes at a level of psychological depth. (Samuels 3)
Part of this adjustment the father has had to make, one that
conflicts with centuries of cultural training, stems from a shift that has
occurred within the past few decades from viewing the father as “the head of
the family” to viewing him as a “co-parent” (Zoja 9). And, in more and more families, with the
father’s financial responsibility as the head of the family becoming less necessary
and divorce becoming more common, “it
has been said that the father is becoming a luxury” (Zoja 225). Zoja explains that “his traditional
psychological functions are exercised to an ever slighter degree. His material tasks are conferred to mothers
or institutions. His erosion as a psychological
figure is often now accompanied by physical disappearance” (Zoja 225). Studies have tracked this trend of the
disappearing father in the United States throughout the last decades of the 20th
century and into the 21st.
Although this disappearance is often physical, in many cases it is
simply emotional. It has been reported
that American fathers “spend an average of seven minutes a day with their
children” (Zoja 225). This lack of
quality time spent between father and child is viewed by many as a failure to
fulfill the parental role.
However, the personal father is not the only authority
figure being accused of failing to live up to his obligations. The
second motivating force behind the plethora of failed father figures plaguing
fictional narratives might be indicative of other larger authorial failures:
for example, governmental failures post-9/11.
This would mean that these fictional fathers are allegorical in nature,
and that these storylines are working through problems of national concern. ABC’s groundbreaking television drama, Lost, offers a multitude of father figures that suggests not
only a crisis concerning the role of the father in the 21st century
but also the crisis of national security experienced by Americans after the
attacks. In particular, the program
showcases three specific types of troubled father/child relationships: those in
which the father is absent and/or dead, those where the father is portrayed as
abusive and/or evil, and those where the father and child are estranged and/or
their relationship is severely damaged.
The Importance of
“Dead” Dads in Narratives Across Media
Scholars have long been fascinated with the problematized
father/child relationship and its portrayal in narrative works. Of particular interest is often the
representation of the absent and/or dead father. Roland Barthes boldly suggests that the
absent father is almost a prerequisite to narrative success, stating, “every
narrative (every unveiling of the truth) is a staging of the absent, hidden or
hypostatized father” (10). Other
scholars have agreed that for both narrative and character development to
happen, fathers must be absent. Jason
Bainbridge, for example, argues that “for a great variety of stories, from Oedipus Rex to Harry Potter to Equus to Dexter to any of the Pixar movies, it is
the absence of the father that initiates the narrative and, in many cases,
forces the protagonist to assume the role of the hero” (1). However, it should be cautioned that for the
absent father to really have a narrative affect, he must be more than simply
absent and missing from the storyline; “he must be alluded to, represented
(often metonymically), and affect the action” (Dervin 53).
This figure of the dead father is often analyzed through a
Freudian or Jungian lens. One common way
that academics read such narratives is through Freud’s discussion of
father-murder and father-rescue – the theory that children simultaneously long
to bring about their fathers’ downfall and salvation. Michael Zeitlin analyzes Donald Barthelme’s Dead Father, claiming it is involved in
a complex (and direct) commentary on this Freudian notion (197). Zeitlin draws attention to this moment within
the text: “On the rescue of fathers… When
you have rescued a father from whatever terrible threat menaces him, then you
feel, for a moment, that you are the father and he is not. For a moment.
This is the only moment in your life you will feel this way” (198). In this passage Zeitlin claims that
“Barthelme is following and reiterating the original Freudian explication of
the rescue fantasy: ‘All [the son’s] instincts, those of tenderness, gratitude,
lustfulness, defiance and independence, find satisfaction in the single wish to be his own father’” (198). Barthelme’s novel explicitly addresses
Freud’s belief that many children long for the death of the father as much as
they wish to be his savior in passages such as this one: “We want
the Dead Father to be dead. We sit with
tears in our eyes wanting the Dead Father to be dead” (5).
In a Jungian reading there might be a valid reason to “want”
the father dead. Only in that (ideal)
form, it seems, can the father ever reach his full potential. Barbra Greenfield
explains, “For Jung the father is a mental spiritual principal that is ‘above’
and ‘beyond’ the material world […] a sort of divine perfection […] beyond the
reach of mortals still tied to the physical world” (204). When he is portrayed as bodiless, as a
deceased father would be, he can represent more than he was; he can stand for
the Law, for the Idea of authority, for the Symbolic realm as a whole. Bainbridge analyzes villainous father figures
in popular culture, reading them against the theories of fatherhood proposed by
Freud and Jung, theories which he finds to be problematic in nature (1). He
concludes that narratives “evince a desire to return their bad fathers to this
Jungian state through death,” and that in doing so “they all become literally
bodiless (leaving the trappings of their materials selves and the blame for their
crimes behind them) to become truly Jungian-like and redeemed” (8). Bainbridge argues that only in absence, in
death moreover, can “the good father be truly made present again” after he has
fallen from that pedestal of perfection within narrative spaces (8).
Getting the Picture
on the “Small Screen”: Televisual
Critiques of Failed Fathers
ABC’s Lost is
quite unique in its extensive, critical portrayal of multiple father figures. While other contemporary television programs
have included similar critiques of fathers, these have existed on a much
smaller scale. In Masculinity and Popular Culture, Rebecca Feasey analyzes a variety
of late 20th and early 21st century television programs for
the ways they portray male characters.
Her comprehensive project covers much ground: representations of gay men on sitcoms; gender
bending in science fiction; and masculinity as defined by sports media, reality
television, and advertising. Most
relevant, however, are the moments when she focuses on television fathers. For example, in studying the soap opera,
Feasey notes that the recurrent theme of unknown paternity currently challenges
the importance of the fatherly role (16).
Her discussion of the failed father figures found on contemporary adult
animated sitcoms – such as The Simpsons,
King of the Hill, and The Family Guy – can be related to Lost.
Feasey argues that these programs make it clear that the principle male
characters – portrayed regularly as incompetent family men – are not to be
viewed as upstanding “role model[s] of masculinity, fatherhood or parenting”
(36). Although without a doubt
ineffectual, the fathers in these programs differ greatly from those on Lost:
while their parenting practices may occasionally qualify as neglectful,
they are rarely depicted as purposefully abusive, and, unlike the majority of
the fathers on Lost, they remain in
the household as members of relatively traditional nuclear families.
Although many popular culture texts, televisual and
otherwise, have housed problematic fathers, no narrative to date has showcased
as many flawed father figures as Lost. The program offers a running commentary on
father-child relationships; this focus even appears in episode titles like “All
the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues” (1:11).
Perhaps this focus on the father can be partially attributed to the
show’s use of character backstory – its flashback-heavy narrative form that
pairs events from the present with crucial scenes from the past. In fact, these storylines may be necessary
because “stress between parents and children drives many of the personal
histories of the characters on Lost,
and is the reason many of these people were on Oceanic 815,” the flight that
would land them on the island where the narrative unfolds (Wood 23). But, whatever the reason for this plethora of
father-child storylines, their purposeful inclusion is hard to miss. In season one, 18 episodes included
references to father-child relationships. In season two, 13 episodes developed
such storylines. Season three included
13 episodes with this focus. Season four, a shortened season due to the 2007
writers’ strike, had 8 of 14 episodes touching on this motif. In season five, almost all of the episodes –
12 of 16 – further developed father-child conflicts, or even introduced new
ones. And in season six, even as the
series reached its close, Lost continued
its steadfast commitment to father-child storylines by expanding upon existing
relationships and debuting new ones in 9 of its final 16 episodes.
Fathers who “Lost”
their Lives: Murder, Mayhem, and Magic
Lost offers
viewers storylines that fall within the most outrageous of this category:
fathers who died at their children’s hands.
Three storylines are devoted to the murder of evil fathers on the
program: John Locke, who arranges for
the murder of his con man father, Anthony Cooper; Benjamin Linus, who murders
his abusive and neglectful father, Roger Linus, leaving his body unburied; and
Kate Austin, who murders her father, Wayne Janssen, in an attempt to save her
mother from his perpetual physical abuse. While the deaths of these men and
their physical absence from their children’s lives are important, more
important is the influence they wield from beyond. These murdered men are alluded to frequently
within the series, appearing in the memories of their children via flashbacks,
and ultimately influencing their actions (and therefore the plot more
broadly). One such example of the dead
father’s lingering presence can be seen in the storyline devoted to Kate and
Wayne Janssen. Kate is haunted, quite
literally, by the memory of murdering her father. He appears in visions in the form of another
character on the island and in the unlikely form of an unexplained horse which
wanders around the tropical landscape.
This notion of father haunting carries over, becoming a reoccurring plot
line for a major father-child relationship arch on the show – that of the relationship
between Jack and Christian Shephard. The
latter relationship, between Jack and his father, results in regular visions,
or seemingly hallucinations, of the dead man’s presence on the island and
later, post-rescue, off the island as well.
Lost’s focus on
the past might seem to conflict with a Jungian reading, or more accurately,
Jungian analytical practices, that emphasize the here and now rather than the
patient’s past. However, the flashbacks
(or memories) and hallucinations found in Lost
are very much a part of the characters’ “here and now.” And it is largely
through these memories, and more importantly the hallucinations, through which
the characters work through their father issues. This is important because Jung saw value in
hallucinations. One criticism that Jung
had of Freud was that he made too great a distinction between hallucination and
reality (Samuels 9). Jung’s work was
concerned with “psychological reality as
experienced by individuals as opposed to what Freud termed ‘actual reality’”
(Samuels 9, emphasis added). The
program often leads viewers to ponder the question, “What is reality?,” leaving
them with an answer close to Jung’s – that reality is variable and
individualized. Jung did not view the
unconscious as an enemy to be thwarted but as a potentially empowering,
creative, and helpful force within individuals (Samuels 9). Therefore, the characters’ hallucinations on
the show can be read as therapeutic and self-healing rather than as detrimental
to their mental stability.
However, not all of the characters work through their father
issues. Although Lost does provide detailed
storylines devoted to the dead or murdered father, it offers up more examples
of partially developed storylines hinting at the negative effects of the absent
(although not always dead) father. This
category would include numerous characters such as Claire, Hurley, Anna Lucia,
Sawyer, Eco, Desmond, and Miles. Their absent fathers inadvertently impact the
narrative through their children. For
example, Claire’s lack of a father (both her own father as well as her child’s
father) results in her insecurity in raising the child she births on the
island. This child and its wellbeing
become a recurrent focus of the show.
Another character with absent father issues is Sawyer. The suicide of his father drives most of his
pre-island existence and shapes his renegade personality both on and off the
island. And the absence of other
characters’ fathers simply leaves them with personal problems that they must resolve
even after the crash of Oceanic 815. For
example, Hurley’s flashbacks indicate that his compulsive eating disorder stems
from the day his father abandoned Hurley’s family. In their analysis of paternal failures on Lost, Holly Hassel and Nancy Chick note
another set of characters that would fit loosely into this group: Jacob and the Man in Black. They argue that since these twins are “at the
heart of the island’s origin story,” their fatherless childhood is quite
important as they then have “no model of fatherhood, or even manhood” (Hassel
and Chick155). They claim that this
“fatherless origin story retroactively explains the inadequacies of the (other)
fathers on the show” (Hassel and Chick 169).
However, not all absent fathers impact their children in
such negative ways. As Bainbridge’s
analysis of popular culture texts suggests, more often the absent father exists
within a narrative to force the protagonist into the hero’s role (1). Lost highlights
this narrative function of the absent father in an early episode of season one
devoted to the central father-child dynamic of Jack and Christian Shephard. In this episode a flashback reveals a
confrontation between a ten year old Jack and his father after Jack has been
severely beaten during his failed attempt to defend a school friend from
bullies (1:5). Of his failure his father
remarks: “You don’t want to be a hero;
you don’t want to save everyone, because when you fail you just don’t have what
it takes” (1:5). As is usual on the
program, the flashback is relevant to the present happenings on the island
since Jack is being called to the hero’s role by the episode’s end. In this episode, Jack’s hallucinations start
and he begins seeing his deceased father walking about on the island. He ultimately follows this supposed figment
of his imagination through the jungle and ends up discovering a cove with
drinkable spring water – something of which he and the other survivors are in
desperate need. He returns with the good
news and, despite his father’s childhood warnings, rises as a leader with his
infamous speech: “If we can’t live
together, we’re going to die alone” (1:5). Jack’s words unite the survivors,
and for the remainder of the series he remains cast as the central hero of the
program.
Lost Souls: The Scars of the
Evil/Abusive Father
When Lost does offer
a father who remains in his child’s life, it is often a father the character
could have done without. These
depictions would include: Sun’s father,
Mr. Paik, a corrupt businessman with mob connections; Penelope Widmore and
Daniel Faraday’s father, Charles Widmore, who systematically destroys his
children’s happiness; and Alex’s father, the already mentioned Benjamin Linus,
who becomes her surrogate father only after stealing Alex from her birth
mother. The two latter fathers, Charles
Widmore and Benjamin Linus, both eventually contribute to the deaths of their
children, making them fall easily into the classification of “evil”. Charles Widmore quite directly sends his son,
Daniel, to his death by ordering that he travel to the island on a scientific
expedition, knowing that he will be murdered once there. And, in a much more shocking scene, Benjamin
Linus stands by and watches a mercenary shoot his daughter, Alex, in the head
after attempting to call the man’s bluff during a hostage situation. The last words Alex would have heard
were: “She’s not my daughter. I stole her from a crazy woman when she was a
baby. She’s a pawn. She means nothing to me. I’m not coming out there, so if you want to
kill her, go ahead and do it” (4:9).
What is interesting to note is that all of the “evil”
fathers on the show occupy leadership positions: Both Benjamin and Charles are the leaders of
the island at different times, and both Charles and Paik are corporate powers
off the island. Each of these men’s
political or business success comes at the expense of their children’s
happiness and/or lives. In this way the series echoes the claims that Feasey
makes in Masculinity and Popular
Television concerning medical heroes, like those found in ER and House, and crime heroes, like those found in 24 and Spooks, who all
sacrifice family for career accomplishments (68-93). However, there does remain a noteworthy difference: the characters of Feasey’s analysis all work
in fields where their sacrifice ultimately is for the greater good of others;
this is not the case for the powerful fathers portrayed on Lost. Also, in choosing the
most powerful men to be the most evil fathers, Lost sets up an interesting analogy: the abusive, evil father as the corrupt, failed
governmental leader.
The
Estranged/Strained Father-Child Relationships
While many of the fathers on Lost cause their children serious emotional and physical damage,
others exist to show less dramatized examples of strained father-child
relationships. The motif of the
estranged father-child relationship began in the very first episode of the show
when viewers were introduced to Michael Dawson and his son Walt Lloyd, arguably
one of the most important father-son dynamics the show offers next to Jack and
Christian. Their fellow survivors on the
island witnessed their struggle to cope with becoming father and son after
years apart and often engaged in an ongoing commentary about their relationship
struggles. Although Michael ultimately
goes to extreme lengths to see that his son is able to leave the island, his
initial frustration and discomfort with fatherhood is noted by his fellow
castaways. In one episode devoted to
this father-son duo, a passing comment from Hurley to Jack showcases this
fact: “He seems to hate it, doesn’t
he? Being a dad” (1:14). While Michael and Walt’s relationship sparks
the earliest conversations on the show concerning this theme, other characters
reference their strained father-child relationships as the series
progresses. This list would
include: Charlie, Sayid, Claire, Tom,
Miles, and Ilana. Out of all the
estranged father-child relationships on the show, the only one that nears
repair is that of Hurley and David Reyes – a father who abandoned his child for
17 years only to reappear when his son won the lottery. One additional relationship that hints at a
father-child reconciliation is s that of Miles and his father, Dr. Pierre
Chang. It turns out that Chang did not
abandon his child for selfish reasons but sacrificed his relationship with him (and
perhaps his life) to save both him and his mother. This revelation in season five potentially
shifts his father from this category and into the next to be discussed, the
suffering good father. With its plethora
of absentee fathers, Lost’s familial
depictions mirror realistic societal patterns.
In many ways these fictional fathers align with Zoja’s research
concerning the disappearing role of the father in American society during the
21st century and studies concerning the current crisis of
masculinity. Concerning the latter, David Magill argues that, indeed, Lost is “a meditation on masculinity”
(137). He also reads the show’s
“narrative of wounded white masculinity” as symbolizing “the wounds of war”
felt by all of America post-9/11 (Magill 137, 141). In this way, his analysis of the show hints
at the way Lost’s fathers represent
post-9/11 fears.
One
final father-child relationship that could be classified as estranged is one
that is also an anomaly since the father was actually, for the majority of the
character’s life, a caring, consistent presence in his child’s life. Jin was raised by Mr. Kwon, a fisherman in a
poor village. Jin is so ashamed about
his background that he lies to everyone, even his wife, about his past,
claiming that his parents are dead. Viewers
are unaware of what type of father Kwon was until Sun, Jin’s wife, learns of
his existence and visits him. He
explains to her that he had been involved with a prostitute who left Jin in his
care as an infant. Although Kwon never
knew for sure if the child was actually his, he raised him as his son
(3:18). Quite obviously, against the
backdrop of horrific father figures, Kwon represents one of the few good
fathers that Lost depicts. He also aligns with most of these good
fathers in another interesting way: most
of them are not fathers in the traditional definition. Most of the positive paternal figures are
father stand-ins – stepfathers or surrogate fathers. Another example would be Sam Austen, Kate’s
stepfather. Sam raises Kate as his own, concealing that the abusive, alcoholic Wayne
Janssen is her biological father – a fact that he knew would hurt her. Although much of Kate’s past is linked to
pain, she and Sam have a very positive relationship during her childhood, and
she looks back upon it fondly during her time on the island.
The Price of Playing
the “Good” Father
While Lost makes
such positive representations few and far between, it also combines them with a
surprising narrative twist. Most of the
good father figures are punished and/or meet their untimely demise. Two key examples are Charlie and Jin. Charlie had struggled throughout his early
years with various problems. He often
played a fatherly role to his drug addict brother, Liam, resolving the problems
Liam caused during their early years spent playing together in the band, Drive
Shaft. However, the roles eventually
switch when Liam goes through rehabilitation and becomes a functioning family
man while Charlie takes over his role as a heroin addict. In the first few seasons on the show, Charlie
constantly struggles to believe that he will ever be good enough to take care
of someone other than himself. However, his friendship with a fellow castaway,
the pregnant Claire, eventually develops into a romantic relationship wherein
he becomes a surrogate father for her son, Aaron. Although the path is not problem free for the
three of them in their island quasi-family, Charlie enters the role of a good
father. However, his duration in that
role is short lived as he soon becomes aware that he is destined to die. Rather than trying to dodge fate, he gives in
to it when he realizes that his death can save all his friends on the island,
most importantly, Claire and Aaron. In a
touching scene before he dives to the ocean bottom to willingly enter his watery tomb, he takes
off his ring, a family heirloom, and places it in Aaron’s crib (3:21). This coupling of death with acts of fatherly
protection is not isolated. Another
character who shows the price a good father pays is Jin. Although he is only presumed dead (during a
cliffhanger break between seasons four and five), his act of dying in an effort
to stop a freighter from exploding,
after ensuring that his wife and child make it to safety, again shows
that no rewards are given to the fathers who act in the best interest of their
children.
Many questions arise from these few storylines. Why not let these positive father
representations exist as foils for the numerous negative
ones? After all, most narratives rely on
such good versus evil character pairings.
What exactly is the show suggesting by allowing these visions of the
good father to be fleeting? What does it
mean that these characters’ efforts to protect their children result in their
downfall and death? The answer may lie in
the parallels that can be made between the fathers/leaders on the show and the
figureheads/leaders of American culture.
The answer may be that Lost is
simply not interested in depicting positive father figures because the program
is much more concerned with the negative ones existing both within and outside
its narrative constraints.
The (Paternal) Hand
of Fate
With 73 episodes devoted to developing father-child
storylines and 23 characters with “daddy” issues, this is not an accidental
motif but a purposefully developed theme.
But the question remains:
Why? Why would a complex show
like Lost develop so much of its
narrative material through father-child dynamics? Such motivations may tie into its devotion to
character development.
With its flashbacks, and later flash-forwards and
flash-sideways, the program intentionally allows viewers to parse out the
characters’ motives for their actions and the experiences that shape their
personalities. Some of the most influential experiences that shape an
individual’s life are those of father-child interactions, and he father’s influence
is tied to the child’s fate. On this,
Jung writes:
If we normal
people examine our lives, we too perceive how a mighty hand
guides us without fail to our
destiny, and not always is this hand a kindly one. Often we call it the hand of God or of the
devil, thereby expressing, unconsciously but correctly, a highly important
psychological fact: that the power which
shapes the life of the psyche has the character of an autonomous personality […]
The personification of this source goes back in the first place to the father.
(“The Significance” 240)
For Jung, the actual, physical father may not have this
all-powerful influence, but the father figure often becomes a symbolic
representative of this imagined force. However,
sometimes the actual, physical father does act in this direct role. For example, the majority of the program’s fathers
(the absent or dead fathers) would fall into Jung’s category of the
“non-existent” father. In his studies,
Jung found that “without the father’s emotional support […] it becomes almost
insurmountably difficult for a child to be properly born and confirmed in his own
identity” (Seligman 81). Since many of
the characters on Lost struggle with
identity issues, the father issues are in place to account for these
problems. Although the show’s writers
and producers may be as well versed in psychology as they are in philosophy and
physics, an alternate explanation for their focus on the father figure exists.
Searching for a
Savior
Lost is a show
with salvation as a central theme. All
of the characters are physically awaiting rescue from the island and are
constantly in need of salvation from mysterious forces, outside threats,
communal disturbances; often they need to be saved from themselves (or their
pasts). Most of the characters are
waiting to be saved in one way or another.
Symbolically, the figure who most often plays the role of savior in a
person’s life is a parent, or more stereotypically, a father.
Part of the cultural mythos of the father is that he should
be a strong empowering force able to protect and improve his family. According to psychological theory, when this
cultural myth plays out correctly, the child’s developmental process is a more
positive one. When fathers fail to
protect their children (either by absence, neglect, or abuse), these children
grow up in a perpetual search for safety, mistrusting themselves and
others. This is clearly seen in a host
of characters on the show.
However, with the focus on these failed fathers, they must
represent more than just a gathering of poor parents. It leads to the question: what do fathers represent or for what is
fatherhood a symbol? Bainbridge argues
that “the existence of fatherhood as a cultural construction […] permits
fathers to exist as father figures for a much wider group of people than just
their biological offspring” (3).
Therefore, father figures, persons not related to individuals by blood
and perhaps not even connected to them, can take on the father’s symbolic role
and wield psychological power. This echoes
Bader’s argument that the nation, through its leader, takes on the symbolic
role of a father and is sought for protection and strength (582). Assuming this transference to the national
father is happening on Lost, the
program is not simply critiquing individual fathers. As a cultural product of post-9/11 America,
the show is instead making a more indirect statement about the “father” figures
of the country.
Lost as a Product of the American Post-9/11 Cultural Climate
Cultural artifacts are often the product of their time, and Lost is the product of a “bad dad.” It
was written and produced when failing government and weak figureheads
prevailed. President George Walker Bush
was, arguably, a man with his own “daddy issues.” The Bush administration had ulterior motives for
entering into the 2003 war against Iraq, and an address President Bush made six
months prior associates these motives with fatherly influences. Before the war, when addressing the Senate on
homeland security issues in 2002, Bush discussed the threat posed by Saddam
Hussein. In this list he included
Hussein’s failure to comply with United Nations’ regulations; his advancement
of chemical, biological and
nuclear weapon programs; and his hatred toward the United States (King par.
13). In an aside, Bush said, “After all,
this is the guy who tried to kill my dad” (King par. 14). Bush was referencing the alleged
assassination attempt of former President Bush while visiting Kuwait during the
Clinton administration (King par. 15). Revenge
was not the primary motive for the Bush administration’s declaration of war,
but this affect-driven presidential afterthought is intriguing
nonetheless. Zoja argues that “there is
a relationship between the feelings that a leader awakens in his country’s
citizens and those which a father, in the same country and period, awakens in
his children” (197). The most prominent
feeling awakened in the United States during the Bush administration was fear –
to such an extent that it was the shared national affect the first decade of
the 21st century. Reflecting
this fear, Lost’s fathers provoke
responses of fear and insecurity in their children on the small screen.
Lost remediates many post-9/11 fears
throughout its run, discussing topics ranging from torture to biological
warfare to the threat of governmental surveillance. In Living
Lost: Why We’re All Stuck on the Island,
J. Wood explains how Lost accomplishes
this:
What Lost does so successfully is take these
very real concerns straight off the front pages, abstract them into their
psychological impression, and then crystallize that sense back into the
framework of the narrative. These
characters aren’t being threatened by otherworldly aliens or vampires,
creatures normally only seen on the screen or in pulp fiction; this situation
involves the psychodynamics of terrorism that the contemporary audience
experiences in the everyday world and plays it out on television 24 times a
year. As such, Lost performs a very necessary function: It gives a narrative (and a safely distant
context) to a real-felt sense of trauma.
By giving these abstract ideas a tangible narrative with a beginning and
ending each week, that sense of terror is contained by the show, and thus
becomes something that might actually be manageable. (ix)
In Wood’s reading, “the show abstracts and
co-opts our very real concerns over the War on Terror” and becomes a sort of
“repository for the sense of distress that has been generated, rightly or
wrongly, through our media, government, and the collective cultural response to
such voices” (ix). As Sarah Burcon
aptly points out, the program also acts as a sort of wish fulfillment,
showcasing viewers’ desire to return to a pre-9/11 state (126).
In this way, the series explores the notion
of post-trauma survival. Wood notes that
what the fictional survivors on Lost
have that most Americans do not is a membership in a “group that has all
survived the same unbelievable trauma to support both the individual and the
individual’s need to be part of the group [… ] This aspect of the psychology of
the show shouldn’t look unfamiliar because it’s what most people think happened
after our own big plane crashes on September 11, 2001. But that kind of response doesn’t just
automatically” occur (54). Wood
compares the sacrifices made following WWII to 9/11:
[the
same] things didn’t really happen after September 11th, as we were
told that our comfy lifestyles would not have to change and no sacrifices
beyond simple symbolic gestures were necessary – just think of all the flags
posted on gas-guzzling cars in the months after September 11th,
while next to nothing was done to lessen U.S. dependence on a fossil fuel
economy and its crazy market fluctuations due to events in the places that
provide a good deal of those fossil fuels.
In its own manner, Lost became
a model for how we could have responded as a group after a trauma, but weren’t
able to or chose not to. (54)
Although Lost
does offer a community united, it also delivers fear through narrative
moments grounded in the problematic “us” versus “them” binary. Although this opposition has long been
utilized to stimulate dramatic conflict, in Lost,
it is tied to the media rhetoric of 9/11.
Bader explains that the “feelings
of insecurity and disconnectedness that plague us in our personal and social
lives” are often “blamed on the actions of some ‘other’ who is then demeaned
and attacked” (584). This problematic
practice of “projection is deliberately used by conservatives to solidify their
base. By creating an imaginary ‘us’ and
‘them,’ they can then promise satisfaction of deep and legitimate longings for
a community safe from both real and illusory threats posed from the outside”
(Bader 584). This us-versus-them binary
also exists to nurture a superiority complex common to U. S. citizens.
In Lost,
the us-versus-them binary showcases itself within the community of survivors
but also externally between the community and “the Others.” The inner group
conflict begins in the second part of the pilot episode when Sawyer accuses
Sayid of being a terrorist and having caused the plane to crash, simply because
of his middle-Eastern background (1:2).
But the mysterious “Others” exist as the dangerous “them” that sparks
fear in the survivors throughout the first few seasons of the show. In fact, the island leaders sometimes
capitalize on this fear to condone unethical behavior. For example, as the unofficial leader of the
castaways, Jack allows Sayid to torture a captured “Other” (Ben) in order to
extract information from him. And on the other side of the island, both Widmore
and Linus (each a temporary leader of the “Others”) participate in massacres to
ensure their community’s survival.
The term “Other” is packed with cultural
baggage, but, in a post-9/11 American cultural text, does it necessarily mean “terrorist”? Wood answers this question directly: “Are the
Others terrorists? Not exactly, not in
the popular sense: Terrorists need to be
dehumanized in the rhetoric used to describe them in order to reinforce their
difference from us. This often comes in
the form of turning them into animals and monsters. The Others don’t use the same tactics we’ve
come to associate with terrorism, like beheadings and suicide bombings…” (107-8).
Michael Newbury likewise distances the behaviors of the Others on the program
from that of terrorists in the real world.
In his view, the Others behave like cold war nation-states, relying on
the technological superiority of their military and surveillance systems (204).
Overall, many scholars caution against simple readings of the show. Jesse Kavadlo argues that reading “Lost as a political parable risks reducing
the show to a cardboard morality play” (232).
Likewise, Wood clarifies: “it’s not as if Lost’s writers and producers actively set out to create some sort
of allegory of the times. When you’re
steeped in the culture (as an artist or consumer), some kind of reaction to
events and circumstances will exercise itself through a work, whether directly,
obliquely, or actively ignoring those circumstances” (121). Wood suggests that
we are “stuck in a state of unconscious distress because we don’t have any clear
grasp on what it is we’re supposed to be afraid of” and, therefore, “can’t
really confront that distress directly (because) we just don’t know enough
about it” (121-22). As a result, the
fear we feel as a nation post-attack unconsciously resurfaces and seeks
resolution in narrative spaces through repetition. And, in
the case of Lost, this repetition
often comes in the form of quite telling father-child conflicts. Regardless, whether inadvertently or
purposefully, the program ultimately reminds viewers of the source of their
fears: the post-9/11 rhetoric concerning terrorism and the hyperbolic
depictions of terrorists made readily available by government figures in the
wake of the September 11th attacks. With its direct attention to
“othering,” Lost asks its viewers to
contemplate the consequences of this practice and invites critiques of those
who perpetuate it: governmental
“fathers.”
Conclusion
Twenty-first century fictional narratives like Lost are full of flailing father figures
whose prevalence is indicative of cultural problems outside those fictive
realms. For decades scholars have been
analyzing televised portrayals of fathers as simple familial symbols – the
fictional representatives of cultural norms, or, more accurately, cultural
desires. And while these characters may represent
our societal wish list for a perfect family (as they may have in the days of Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver), and while some may
exist to work through current cultural concerns about shifting familial structures
(as in the declining presence and importance of fathers in the 21st century),
today these fictional constructs may represent much more. Somewhere along the line there may have been
an evolution from fatherly portrayals as familial symbols to fatherly
portrayals as signifiers of national affective states. While a cigar may be just a cigar, it seems
that in 21st century narratives a “father” is no longer just a
father.
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Note: A version of this article was first published in
The Journal of Popular Culture 47.3
(2014): 430-450.
