Mechanisms of Contradiction: A  Formulaic System of Distraction
Nathaniel Pope
April 2007

    Feminist film scholars such as Chuck Kleinhans and Laura Mulvey have argued that melodrama is an emotionally powerful genre in its ability to evoke “contradictions in the sphere of personal life,” acting on a deep psychological level to “reconcile the irreconcilable” (Kleinhans 201-202). In the bitter aftermath of September 11, Reign Over Me (Binder 2007) offers a surprisingly provocative commentary on the synthetic distinction drawn between familial and social roles of work and play, specifically in terms of ideology and gender. In this film, friendless family man Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) befriends former college roommate Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler) who suffers from post traumatic stress after losing his family in the attack. While traditionally, friendship and caring have been associated with femininity (Hatch), this film works to problematize that distinction through masculine depiction of self-abnegating, therapeutic male bonding as distractive love. The result is indeed an emotional return of the repressed, achieved through spectator positioning and the recognition of virtue in Alan’s character. However, the film is unable to resolve these contradictions, instead reinstating patriarchal norms of love and friendship through comedic episodes of sexuality, addiction, and fear. 
 
   In order to explore the film’s provocative messages of gender and ideology, it is useful to examine the mechanisms of contradiction at work: spectator confusion, distractive manipulation, and patriarchal reinforcement. The way the audience is addressed to associate with Alan is of primary concern in that it allows the film’s underlying message of distractive love to be decoded. To what extent these contradictions are resolved depends greatly on this underlying message. Yet before the message itself and its effects can be examined, it is necessary to reveal the extent to which these fundamental mechanisms work to emotionally blind the audience to their presence. In particular, I will be examining the scene in which Alan has just returned home from a night “jammin” in “Charlie World.” In this three part sequence, Alan argues with his wife Janeane (Jada Pinkett Smith), apologizing for his “unacceptable” behavior, engages in further excess of therapeutic bonding, and finally receives news of his father’s death. Each of these parts embodies a formulaic system of distraction that works throughout the film and will be taken in turn.
 
   With respect to Alan’s apologetic argument, spectator confusion works through association and gendered contradiction, simultaneously invoking images of a self-abnegating man trying to do good for a friend while condoning and denouncing self-rewarding means of distraction. The argument begins with a medium shot of the wealthy couple’s lower Manhattan apartment at dawn and just before the scene cuts to an interior medium shot of the two, we hear Alan pleading with his wife, “Baby, I’m sorry. I messed up, but you know I’ll never do anything like that. I didn’t want to call and wake you up. I was stuck in ‘Charlie World’. I couldn’t leave.” Up until halfway through Alan’s explanation, only he can be seen on the right of the screen, her silhouetted back to the camera. The effect on the spectator is a contradictory feeling of remorseful guilt caused by marital issues of trust, as if somehow neither Alan nor the spectator should enjoy the preceding and subsequent display of friendly therapy and are being punished likewise. After all, how can a man have such noble intentions in mind? This is accentuated by Janeane’s cognizant, yet emotionless and oblivious reaction to Alan’s altruistic behavior. It is this lack of recognition of virtue that fuels the audience’s sympathy towards Alan, further reinforced by his desire to please his wife, the immaculate condition of the apartment, and his unyielding desire to help Charlie all the while he prepares his daughter’s lunch: “Im just saying the guy’s in a lot of pain. It’s sad over there baby, just a sea of sadness.” Yet the viewer remains skeptically confused, fully aware that Alan emotionally benefits from “Charlie time.” This is, however, a distraction that empowers the manipulation of the scene to come.
 
   The subsequent comedic display of “Charlie time” functions to temporarily undermine traditional notions of gendered friendship, simultaneously laying the foundation for its reversal. Through the distractive manipulation of entertainment, Alan and the spectator begin to forget why such distinctions exist, allowing friendship and caring to exist in a masculine therapeutic context.  Alan and Charlie immerse themselves in an evening of “Shadows of the Collosos” in the glowing darkness of Charlie’s dimly lit apartment and an all night Mel Brooks marathon at a Manhattan theater. After Alan has finally learned how to play the game, despite not having “an addictive personality,” and is about to conquer the colossus Charlie begins to encouragingly pat his shoulder. It is this subtle display of affection that allows the spectator to associate friendship and caring in the masculine context of video games as Alan cries out “C-O-L-O-S-S-U-S” in triumph. This manipulative technique is repeated as the two arrive on Charlie’s scooter to the theater advertising “High Anxiety and more.” Alan, skeptical of whether or not he should partake in the marathon and violate his role as father/husband/son is persuaded by Charlie’s humourous attacks on his sexuality– he must be a “faggot” to not want some “mel.” As the Brooks films progress Alan and Charlie once again become completely immersed in a form of therapeutic distraction, allowing male bonding to distract the viewer from ever faulting Alan’s powerless will to draw the line between roles precisely because he is helping a friend and himself.  However, the homophobic and xenophobic images of Blazing Saddles, Young Frankinstein, and High Anxiety offer a subliminal easement of the patriarchal reinforcement to come.
 
  Whereas spectator confusion and distractive manipulation engage viewers in an explorative tale of emotional contradiction, even encouraging them to question traditional norms of gender and friendship, patriarchal reinforcement as Charlie and Alan exit the theater, reject the idea of consumerist male bonding as therapeutic friendship, instead reinstating the woman as object of desire. Such reinforcement comes in the form of punishment by telephone, confirmed by the context and means by which Janeane informs Alan of his father’s death. After having been called a laughable fifteen times during the marathon, Alan, joyously yet apologetically high on “mel,” returns Janeane’s call. He belligerently exclaims “I’m sorry. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. This thing is crazy. I’ll have to bring you down here” only to discover that during his excess of childish irresponsibility, his father had died in his sleep. Meanwhile, his mother, children and most importantly– his wife–  needed him. Although Janeane’s frustrated, then compassionate reaction seems benevolent in the context of the situation, her condescending verbal and facial demeanor in the greater context of the film works to re-inscribe patriarchal norms. This maniputavely works through the spectator who is lead to believe that had Alan not engaged in such pathological behavior no harm would have come to his family. The viewer is left with an abrupt reinstatement of the woman (and family she signifies) as a man’s sole object of desire. This is consummated as Alan angrily refuses to “hang” with Charlie whose only response is to want to go to a paint store and eat Chinese, methods he uses to suppress memories of his family. The viewer has come to associate with Alan, rejecting use of “Charlie Time” for non patriarchal purposes.
 
   Reign Over Me embodies the irreconcilable nature of our nation’s tragedy, still very much at the heart of American social consciousness– it is after all a therapeutic film that helps individuals collectively mourn. The primary message of the film, “let in the unexpected” and “only love will make it reign” grounds the clear answer in the love of a woman. The path to America’s recovery, therapeutic friendship, is the distractive quest to find the love of a woman– whose absence is initially and ultimately the source of Alan and Charlie’s emotional needs. By revealing what was lost and subsequently repressed in the terrorist attacks, the film suggests new ways to unite, but simultaneously subverts any contradictions encountered along the way, reinstating them under the cloud of a patriarchal quest for love. What’s masculine is masculine and what’s feminine is well- outside the scope of the film.


Bibliography

Hatch, Kristen. Email to the author. 20 April. 2007

Kleinhans, Chuck. “Notes on Melodrama and the Family Under Capitalism.” Immitations of Life: A Reader in Film and Television Melodrama. Ed. Marcia Landy. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1991. 197-203.

Reign Over Me. Dir. Mike Binder. Columbia. Madison 23/Sun Light Productions. 2007.

Williams, Linda. “‘Something Else besides a Mother’ : ‘Stella Dallas’ and the Maternal Melodrama.” Cinema Journal 24.1 (Autumn 1984): 2-27.