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Next Issue: I Love Ester Recent Issues: College Fiction Journal
As the success of the "Beavis and Butthead
Do America" movie grows, it's getting harder and harder to find the
line separating parody from deranged earnestness. Maybe Mike Judge has
cracked, and plans to build the Beavis & Butthead merchandise
franchise into something other than a mechanized branding machine for
boxer shorts and plastic chachkis for teenaged boys who still think
Spencer Gifts is cool.
If so, the first steps have been taken with
the publication of "Nurturing the Beavis Within", allegedly a real
self-help book written by an allegedly real psychotherapist, Dr. Julia
Cohen. I tried-- I really tried to figure out if it is meant as parody
-- but I couldn't, and I have a sinking feeling that it doesn't
matter.
But perhaps, just perhaps, there is a
Beavis inside of you, inside of us all. Sitting on a fast food-stained
couch deep in your subconcious, sniggering at the music video that is
your life, feeding on the stale nachos of your dreams, pathetically
co-dependent on the Butt-head bully of your fears. That, in any case,
is the prime thesis of the book.
Here's Cohen's plea to all of us to
recognize our Beavis Within:
According to Cohen, Beavis represents an
archetype, a facet of essential humanity present explicity or
implicitly both in many of the great figures throughout history, and
the huddled masses that surround us every day; moreover this archetype
has been suppressed by our society, to the detriment of all. I guess.
Things aren't that simple, of course. The
Beavis Within (or BW, in Cohen's handy abbreviation) is a complicated
animal, possessing three distinct aspects: Beavis, Man-Child in Awe of
Nature (whose easy to remember tagline is 'Dung Beatles are Cool!');
Beavis, Eternal Social Outcast ('Smell my Finger'); and finally
Beavis, Prohpet of Destruction ('Fire! Fire! Fire!').
Perhaps the most humorous part of the book
is Cohen's analysis of various historical figures in terms of the
aspects of their Beavises Within. She even exploits Mandala-like
patterns to set up a 'Cosmic Wheel of Beavis', graphically
illustrating the dynamic tension between aspects of the BW. John
'Father of the Atomic Bomb' Oppenheimer's BW is particularly strong in
terms of the Man-Child (reflecting his scientific orientation) and,
unsurprisingly, the Prophet of Destruction. Many infamous people are
listed as having a powerful Beavis Within; some have failed to acheive
balance and spun out of control (Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Nixon) while
others have harnessed the Beavis Wthin to exceptional creative ends --
paradigmatic examples include Jim Thompson and Robert Crumb.
Of course, there is a Butt-head Within as
well, the side of us that represents normalcy and social
competency. It's sort of a stretch to make Butt-head the paradigm of
social competence, but in comparison to Beavis the trend is pretty
clear. Cohen views the Butt-head within as necessary, but
overemphasized in today's society. "We must become ourselves, as
outcasts, before we can take our proper places in society." she
explains. Politicians and salesmen are particularly well-attuned to
their Butt-heads Within, about as self-evident a reason for aversion
as one can get -- although as serial killers number as those perhaps
most in touch with their Beavises Within, we seem to be presented
with, at best, a Faustian bargain.
The conclusion seems to be that we all have
a Beavis Within; most of us choose to repress it for the Path of
Butt-head, which means subverting our individuality to mesh better
with society (ok, maybe I can see that); even those of us who do make
the courageous choice to embrace their inner Beavis often fall prey to
exaggerating one of the aspects, whether violence (paradigm example:
serial killers), alienation (street people), or stupifying inaction
(depressives); only a few of us maintain the proper balance to our BW,
allowing us to grow.
I think that Cohen is trying to approach,
as close as the extended conceit of Beavis will allow, the link
between genius and madness. Just as we can't have The Great Cornholio
without Beavis' eternal failure to score, or Beavis' strange psychic
episodes of supernatural clarity without his failure to understand
Butt-head's jokes, so too is the sense of dislocation, alienation, and
borderline insanity inextricable from the gifts of many artists and
scientists. How many great thinkers and creators spent the 'Beavis
years' of adolescence happily relating to their peers? Cohen is
appealing to all of us who've suffered from alienation and awkwardness
during our adolscences, both literal and metaphorical -- trying to
show us how we can use the distance society forces on us to gain
unique perspectives, how we can use the pain of isolation as fuel for
acheivement, and finally how we might integrate ourselves back into
society as far as we can go while maintaining our uniqueness.
I tried, really tried, to imagine such a
happy ending for Beavis. Instead, I pictured a short-order cook, alone
in a filthy one-bedroom apartment, the proverbial 'loner' who crops up
in the descriptions of neighbors during local-news soundbites, after
the bodies get dragged out of the basement. Butt-head had a better
job, and a wife, although he did abuse her. It's hard to tell who
wins. Given such a stark picture of human nature, maybe it's hard to
know which one to embrace, as well.
I have witnesses. Two years ago, while
leaving a performance of "Waiting for Godot", I turned to some friends
and said "Didn't that remind you of a Beavis & Butt-head episode?"
I guess our generation gets what it deserves.
That seems to be the point made by "The
Beavis & Butt-head Guide to Modern Theater", a series of comic
book adaptations of contemporary theater standards. Volume one is an
adaptation of "Waiting for Godot" aptly named "Waiting for Todd";
volume two is "Beavis & Butt-head are Dead", based on Stoppard's
"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead". One can only imagine what's
in store for volume three -- I'm voting for "Glengarry Glen Ross".
The creepy thing is how well the
adaptations work. In "Waiting for Todd", B & B are sitting around,
waiting for Todd to show up. Along the way Van Driesen shows up,
playing a very passive-aggressive Pozzo to Stewart's Lucky. They
leave, and B & B sit around some more, and finally get up to
leave. Sound familiar?
By way of comparison, Here's the final bit of dialogue from "Godot".
And the Beavis & Butthead version:
The last panel ends with Beavis & Butthead motionless, under the
tree.
I rest my case.
In "Beavis & Butthead are Dead", things
get simplified a little -- Stewart fills in as Hamlet, and Tanqueray
provides a strange Ophelia. But still, the core is there -- the
opening scene, where our heroes are playing a coin-flipping game, and
Butthead wins everytime, sending Beavis struggling through his usual
mix of irritated incomprehension and visionary insight, is more Beavis
& Butthead than any Beavis & Butthead I've seen on MTV.
Functionally, these comics might indeed
function as educational tools, providing an interesting entre into the
modern theater for today's crazy kids-- although I can't imagine it
holding their attention for very long. But they are far more
fascinating as literary archeology -- as the 'missing link' between
art and trash. To see how far the post-war daze of Beckett and the
post-modern meanderings of Stoppard trickled down into the vast
wasteland of TV. Some who see the brilliance of the plays in question
may mark the sucess of B & B as yet another mark in the growing
list of signs of the apocalypse; but I think it's now obvious that
there's a little more in Beavis' "you said 'comes'" than any of us
want to admit.
After my aforementioned viewing of "Godot",
my friend Adee said, "Didn't you find that boring?" I saidq, "It's
supposed to be boring -- they're just waiting around. That's the
point." Much the same could be said about Beavis and Butthead,
although Vladimir and Estragon didn't have bad videos on tap to amuse
them in Beckett's shoe box. Maybe that's the point -- TV doesn't
change anything, just lays a gauzy haze over our boredom and gives us
something to talk about.
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