34 pages • 1 hour read
Chris HedgesEmpire Of Illusion: The End Of Literacy And The Triumph Of Spectacle
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “The Illusion of Literacy”
A man named John Bradshaw Layfield stands at the center of a wrestling ring at a World Wrestling Entertainment event. Tonight, Layfield plays the role of a successful CEO who capitalized on the 2009 recession while others lost their savings. He announces to the excited crowd that another wrestler named Shawn Michaels has accepted his challenge to fight. When Michaels comes out to the ring, Layfield taunts Michaels about losing money in the 2008 recession and then offers him a job. The crowd encourages Michaels to fight Layfield, but Michaels chooses to leave the ring, having accepted Layfield’s offer of a job.
From 1950 through 1980, professional wrestling personas like Layfield’s CEO role depended on different kinds of narratives, all of which were intended to give viewers an opportunity to experience emotional and psychological drama. Wrestlers such as “The Russian Bear” stoked fears of communism, while “The Iron Sheik” fanned tensions during the Iranian hostage crisis (6). In 1985, a former prison guard named Ray Traylor played a wrestler named Big Boss Man who is most famous for taunting the wrestler Big Show when Big Show’s father was said to have cancer. To inspire the audience to feel emotion on Big Show’s behalf, Boss Man hires a police impersonator to tell Big Show that his father had died before a match. Boss Man then forces Big Show’s mother to confess on camera that Big Show was an illegitimate child.
Highly emotional and manipulative wrestling narratives involve women as well men. For example, a female wrestler named Melina appears, attempting to seduce a male wrestler named Batista in order to persuade Batista to withdraw from a match. After Melina suggests that they sleep together, Batista declines to withdraw, and the crowd chants the word “Slut!” (14) at Melina.
World Wrestling Entertainment is just one example of spectacle which favors inauthenticity over realism. Wrestling’s theatrical techniques, however, have been incorporated by many mediums, including politics, news, education, and religion. Celebrity worship, another kind of spectacle that stimulates vicarious emotion, has become pervasive throughout American society. At the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, visitors can locate the graves of many famous actors and actresses, and fans can pay large sums of money to be buried next to one of them.
The film industry is also guilty of presenting false representations of actual events in order to send a message to audiences. The realities of war as depicted in film, for example, differ from film versions of war in significant ways. In the film The Sands of Iwo Jima, one scene recreates the iconic photograph of five American men raising the flag at Mount Suribachi. Three of the surviving soldiers who raised the flag during the war were cast in the film. These men then did publicity tours in an effort to fundraise for the government. Their traumatic war-time ordeals were transformed into a single heroic, but artificial, image, and the men soon became depressed by the incongruity of their experiences; two of them became alcoholics.
Celebrity culture, like film, often values appearances over character. In the reality show, The Swan, a woman is given extensive plastic surgery in an effort to transform her into someone who looks like a celebrity. The inauthenticity of such an extreme gesture does not faze the woman, who simply seeks to imitate the look that characterizes celebrity culture. Even more problematic is the “moral nihilism” of celebrity culture. On Survivor, a reality television show, a woman named Tina votes her friend Maralyn off the island, despite the fact that Maralyn trusts Tina as a close friend.
A necessary counterpart to celebrity worship is “degradation as entertainment” (34), which is another expression of moral nihilism. Acts of humiliation are presented to American viewers for their enjoyment. On The Jerry Springer Show, for example, a man’s wife is made to dress up as a cheerleader and then strip to her underwear while the audience laughs at her.
In a celebrity-worshipping culture, a person yearns to be seen and watched all hours of the day. This phenomenon means that popular shows such as Survivor, Big Brother, and The Real World all normalize the existence of a surveillance state. Such surveillance is idealized, and many participants experience being watched as validating. Reality star Jade Goody, for example, had a role on Big Brother 3. Cheerfully ignorant, she was popular with audiences for being herself, but after she made a racist remark, her popularity floundered. Jade entered the spotlight again after it was announced that she had cancer. A television series documented her battle with cancer until her death at twenty-seven.
Celebrity culture has given rise to “junk politics” (47). In junk politics, large, complicated issues are made small, and politicians employ slogans and gestures to connect with voters on a superficial level. Hedges maintains that the meaninglessness of both celebrity culture and junk politics do not bode well for the future of America.
Chapter 1 Analysis
Hedges makes a connection between the “stylized rituals” of World Wrestling Entertainment and the real lives of Americans who watch such matches. He points out that many wrestling fans are amongst those who were devastated by the 2008 financial crisis who may feel used and abused by the CEOs and elite of the world. Watching wrestling matches provides fans with a fantasy of revenge against their superiors. As Hedges says, “For most, it is only in the illusion of the ring that they are able to rise above their small stations in life and engage in a heroic battle to fight back” (5).
As well, wrestling matches reflect the fears of American society at various points in time. In the 1950s, wrestlers like “The Russian Bear” reflected American worries over the rise of communism. According to Hedges, in modern times, wrestling reflects an anger at an elite class and a social breakdown in the working classes. Figures like Layfield, who plays an arrogant CEO, are created purposefully to ignite audience reactions and anxieties.
Another modern value that plays out in the ring is the notion of winning at any cost. Morality is an anachronism, and in American society, as in the wrestling ring, all is permissible in the quest for victory. Just as wrestlers resort to proverbial low-blows in order to gain the upper hand over an opponent, the acts of cheating, lying, stealing, and committing betrayals are all warranted if employed in order to advance oneself. Such behavior is justified because the system is “stacked against the little guy” (11). In the wrestling ring, referees look the other way and fail to notice when someone breaks the rules. In real life, judges look the other way as corporate CEOs walk away with large bonuses after bankrupting the American economy. In such a world where no one is held accountable, cheating is not only acceptable, it is necessary and expected.
Americans, Hedges believes, are enthralled by the images, illusions, and spectacles of celebrity culture rather than genuine expressions, events, and relationships. A vast web of people helps create the illusions of celebrity culture, including filmmakers, advertisers, publicists, and photographers, all of whom aim to hold attention temporarily. Celebrities are phenomena empty of any value, yet many people mold their lives around the individuals they revere in an effort to resemble the celebrities they idolize. As a result, these people become empty and superficial themselves.
Celebrity culture also motivates common citizens to aspire to be seen and validated publicly. Critic William Deresiewicz writes: “This is what the contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible” (22). This visibility can come by way of posting to Facebook or Twitter or by appearing on television shows such as Survivor or The Real World. The desire to be seen as a celebrity, however, throws one into a “moral void” (32), arousing selfishness. Though morally questionable, this quality serves a person well in a system of “unfettered capitalism” (33), where unchecked self-interest can be a helpful, even expected quality.
Hedges notes that in a celebrity culture, voters do not verify false facts or allow for the full complexity of issues to come to the surface; rather, “[t]hey repeat thought-terminating clichés and slogans” (48). This inability to grapple with complexity has a direct link with the culture-wide decline in literacy due to the still-growing popularity of televised programs. The rise of television has allowed for the rise of “junk politics” (47), in which voters value a politician’s appearance and gestures more than their substance as a candidate. Insubstantial and irrelevant news fare such as celebrity gossip is consumed more eagerly than news involving topics such as international diplomacy. Substantial news is often boring and complicated, while sports and gossip items are entertaining and easy to follow.
A culture which chooses to engage with illusions rather than reality ultimately flounders, and Hedges warns readers of “impending disaster” (52). While the health of the environment falters and the economy fails, many Americans remain engaged in illusions that have no bearing to the real world around them.
