“Deep Play” while Waging War?
By Ginger Hill
April 6, 2003
In the Fun House
T.V. Cockfight (1991-2003) confounds me like a funhouse of mirrors, where I am so busy laughing I don’t realize the traps until something smacks me in the head. My thoughts that race through my head everyday at supersonic speed can be arrested by the aura of art, forcing me to pause and recognize that experiences and expressions are not always isolated, but are out there, shared, at least momentarily. I am reminded art can mean something, can reach out to my habitually wrinkled forehead and smooth it with expressions of—shock and awe. Good art jolts and caresses.
The Jolt
T.V. Cockfight was recently exhibited in Gallery Enormous in Saint Petersburg, Florida. One visitor commented to me, after she picked up her gaping chin, that the painting was so outrageous the only thing that would make it better was if it moved. It does; another visitor pranced up and lifted a few panels. She squealed.
T.V. Cockfight forces recognition in a gallery space, in part, because of its large size (72” x 96”, approximately) and its bulbous, amoebic shape. Multiple scenes have been painted onto wooden panels that fit together like a layered jigsaw puzzle. Adding to its carnivalesque flair are the bold blues, reds, oranges, and even violets. But let’s move on to the kicker: the pictorial imagery.
The main figure, whose body is cut out of wood like a paper doll, wears a disheveled suit and a percentage-symbol lapel pin rather than an American flag. His fly is undone, exposing percentage symbol boxers. A colossal, penile gas hose leads from his crotch to a scene labeled, as if a flying banner or a divine ribbon, “New Whirled Odor,” wherein the globe has been creased into a gluteus maximus, with the Middle East now the center crack. The figure’s head is, via a television screen, a president; you can take your choice of Bush I (painted in 1991), or Bush II (affixed in 2000; added to the painting in 2003). You need only lift the paper head to view the other. The elder version adds to the irreverent air; Whipple has depicted a laughing George Bush rather than the more infamous “read my lips” solemnity. The second presidential image is sketchier; it is imposed upon George the Elder with tape. The other television screens, on top of Bush’s pants, depict a fighter pilot, aircraft carrier, percentage sign and leader of the troops, and are all monochromatic, except the golden percentage sign. The first (1991) fearless military head is a painted rendition is of General “Stormin’ Norman [aka. The Bear]” Schwarzkopf, dressed in military garb, complete with a salute.1 Layered on top of the General is a more recent portrait (2003), also sketchy, of Donald Rumsfeld gazing heavenward. Again, like a choose-your-own-adventure novel, you can pick between war heroes by lifting the hinge.
The geometric television scenes are contrasted with organic cartouches; it’s as if the contents reflect the presentation: either fixed and previously dictated, like journalistic reporting, or fluid, enigmatic and metaphorical. To summarize Whipple’s own artistic statement about the work, a burning antenna is aflame with war coverage, igniting the viewing citizenry below. To the far right, a blinded citizen aims two remote controls, fighting allegiance between objective coverage and action adventure. Another, might I add less im-Mobilized, citizen is aiming outside of her realm to cut off the prick, “the oil company hose that fueled the war flames,” physiologically connected to our governmental head.2 Phalluses face-off phalluses, like East versus West, rendered through cutouts of Whipple’s characteristic background. But since they almost interlace, one has to wonder if this standoff is more like a scripted, dangerous dance. This theme is mirrored by the imminently igniting darkest image, to the far-left of the layered tableau. A seedy, smokin’, sun-glasses-sporting instigator holds back two cocks who, presumably, are fixin’ to scrap.
The thrust of this painting is funny; our heads of state are now, literally, dicks, and their connections to big oil and manipulative public polls are made blatant. T.V. Cockfight might offend your sensibilities. Yet, you don’t have to agree with Whipple’s politics to acknowledge that the subjects T.V. Cockfight addresses are of grave importance. In fact, the theme is not funny. It’s not orderly. It’s NOT right. Whipple has thrown sense aside and turned some of the gravest events of our times into a game. T.V. Cockfight is “deep play.”
ENTER THE COCKFIGHT
“Deep play” was a concept employed by Jeremy Bentham around 1931, and was used to describe men’s participation in a game, usually including betting, in which “the stakes are so high that it is…irrational for men to engage in it at all.”3 Men who participate in such games, according to Bentham, should be protected from themselves for such pathological, immoral, indulgent and dangerous behavior and, ultimately, should be prevented legally from participating. Clifford Geertz, an immanent anthropologist, revisited this idea in his now acclaimed essay, “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight (1972).” Geertz is most strongly associated with fathering an interpretivist anthropological approach, where one must consider emotions and sentiments of a group, not just cognitive structure. Men (and I would extend, of course, to women) depend just as highly on the symbolic, that which actually adds meaning to their lives, as they do utilitarian functions. Thus, practices that otherwise seem merely irrational must now be viewed within the framework of cultural expression AND cultural production. The unreasonable has its reasons.
Geertz used the Balinese Cockfight as his prime example of the act of a society transforming socially unacceptable ideas and behaviors into an acceptable, collective experience. Not only is such an act expressive; it is spiritually preventative, like a sacrifice ensuring a true blood bath will not occur. The cockfight serves as a euphemism for something too disgusting to experience in usual social interaction. It allows the unspoken to be spoken and, therefore, its power to be released; better our bleeding cocks than fighting neighbors or dead children.
This comparison is not to say that the Balinese fight mirrors the cultural reasoning for a similar tradition in America.4 In fact, the issue at hand is a painting using the cockfight as a metaphor, not actual roosters ripping themselves to shreds. But, Geertz himself argued that the cockfight was a metaphor for perceptions of animality, status and violence, and that these metaphors can be found in ‘high culture,’ or visual artwork, as well. All of these cultural productions allow hidden qualities to be displayed. According to Geertz, the function of the Balinese cockfight “is interpretive: it is a Balinese reading of Balinese experience, a story they tell themselves about themselves.”5
But in the painting T.V. Cockfight, Whipple tells a tale that many Americans do not want to hear. A brief history of the piece shows extreme reactions, either celebration or denial. It was first shown at Ringling School of Art and Design. Its next display was at an art center in Sanibel Island, Florida, in a solo show of Whipple’s work. There, the gallery powers-that-be bantered about taking it out of the show, but left it up for fear of attention and the loss of Whipple’s entire exhibition. Instead of removing it, they placed a large, portable blackboard in front of it, claiming that they didn’t want children to see the—gasp!—penises. By contrast, in 1992, it won Best of Show in an exhibit at the Orlando Museum of Art and in 1997 was included in a national exhibition concerning the Gulf War called “Lest We Forget.”
I doubt that it’s the phallic imagery that is so disturbing as to require concealment of the painting in one of its exhibitions. None of the penises are flesh colored. In fact, none of the pricks are realistically rendered by this artist who, as evident in his pointed, precise portraits, is more than capable of such. It is, instead, a portrayal of a story about us, U.S. Americans, a story to ourselves about ourselves, told in a poetic way that exposes details not heard in proper—Right—or high society. Considering that many art buyers are, presumably, politically conservative, why would Whipple wager this bet and cast this image out to potential patrons with pocketbooks? Because: it’s deep play, expressing something that must be said. Politically. Culturally. Historically. And even Spiritually. In a surely misquoted rendition of Carl Jung, if we don’t face our shadow it will destroy Us. And we should talk about it while we can, before the march of the PATRIOT prick prevents us.
But, we don’t want to see our leader as a Dick, particularly after the pundits preoccupying people with Clinton’s prick. And, in the aftermath of 9/11, it’s not only distasteful, it’s terrifying. We are officially at war; we don’t want our soldiers—our families, and friends, our loved ones—doomed in the hands of a Dick.
Or, perhaps, in times of terror, a big dick is desired, and we don’t want to see it trivialized and rendered childlike. We must believe in our might and our Right.
The original T.V. Cockfight was painted during the first Persian Gulf War. Whipple has made the corporate connection blatant through the penis gas hose. Also of significance is the insertion of the phallic smart bombs into the painting. Note that, in the 2003 version, the smart bombs coddled in Bush’s hands include the heads of the Administration. In 1991, the belief that these smart bombs, through their computerized guidance systems, would hit only military targets and minimize deaths was a large contributing factor to the soaring opinion polls in support of the war.6 These polls are metaphorically included via the televisions and percentage signs. In reality, fewer than seven percent of the bombs blown in the first Gulf War were smart bombs.7 It is estimated that anywhere from forty to seventy percent of the smart bombs accurately hit their targets.8 But let’s not get caught up in percentages. An added distress complicates matters now in 2003: the reports of depleted uranium (DU). We are not merely inserting our big oil cock into their ground; we are ejaculating DU into the environment. DU causes an upsurge in cancer and deformed infants.9 It has also been related to our American veterans’ Gulf War Syndrome.
With this as the surface of only one of the issues addressed in T.V. Cockfight and related subjects about our current political situation—leaving aside questions about international law, global stability, and the question if any of this makes us safer—why are the viewers so overwhelmingly watching, glassy-eyed AND supportive? Deep play. It’s entertaining; global turmoil adds meaning to our often-vacuous daily routines. We are connected now to the globe and our supremacy in it through our televisions—and through the sacrifice of our soldiers’ and journalists’ lives. But we haven’t given up our easy chairs and fossil fuels. Our head of state, through aggression and the sacrifice of our own men and women in the military, can express the messy things we don’t desire to say for ourselves: we want to maintain our lifestyles through world domination and we have the might and right to do so. Yet I argue that the painting’s title reveals one of the strongest, mass culprits that reach American individuals: the media. Who are telling us the stories about ourselves to ourselves—and how and why?10
THE CARESS
But the reason you should look—with gripping attention—at T.V. Cockfight is not just this jolt of cultural critique; there is also a caress. Whipple’s painting is a reverence for life through the absurd. Though Whipple’s work is, most often, humorous, it carries with it a dark, foreboding humor, like a bad B-movie where a gal is about to get hacked up and it’s so obvious we all roll with laughter, not noticing our own complicity with violence, that which makes life scary—the ultimate irony that we know life is sacred yet we constantly defile it. Bur Whipple has created something hopeful. It commemorates our daily contradictions, celebrates them even, while suggesting that life is not simply MEANT TO BE THIS WAY. Like life, his work does not lay forth a linear, fixed interpretation. Even with this particular work, which one could argue is formulaic, didactic or even propagandistic, it is not bombastic. It’s too funny. One with different politics might be offended and could write this piece off as ‘that weirdo artist and his outrageous propaganda.’ Yet, she would be confining it to only POLITICS, and it is as much about the creation of culture and the writing of history. T.V. Cockfight disrupts the notion of a marching history, that which is destined, inevitable, or solely the purported divine providence of the United States of America. We’re actually fucking the world and it’s funny, carnivalesque—Bush even floats! It is a viewer, a member of the common masses, that will disrupt the progression of history—by cutting the cord OR simply watching the tube. T.V. Cockfight is not insane, though it’s unruly. It’s deep play, telling us a story about ourselves and also telling us to tell or be told.
Perhaps the simple antidote is for Bush and his evil-flavor-of-the-month to raise their roosters and have a cockfight. Or maybe we should all take our cocks into the streets. As for me, I’ll be standing before Whipple’s painting—laughing until I cry because, though Deep Play, it ultimately raises the ante and forces us to consider real waging wars.
FOOTNOTES
1. As an aside, I think Schwartkopf was a truer patriot: sincere and dedicated, believing in his objectives and ideals. See: . http://www.usdreams.com/Schwarzkopf.html, especially the quote, "It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle." It is interesting to note that, prior to post 9/11, he defended adamantly NOT taking out Hussein and following United Nation dictates. See lengthy interview: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/schwarzkopf/2.html
2 Whipple, Jeff. “Statement about T.V. Cockfight,” February, 2003. See also: Whipple, Jeff. Field Guide to the Art of Jeff Whipple. (UTEP Special Edition, 1995), for a thorough description of Whipple’s recurring motifs, including, the three lines, percentage points, antennae and more, found at: www.jeffwhipple.com/Art%20Scans/Field%20Guide%20scans/Fieldgd_cover.jpg
3 Geertz, Clifford. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight (1972),” rpt. in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies, Eds. Chandrea Mukerji and Michael Schudson. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), p. 254.
4 Though, interestingly, there have been cockfights in America since its inception, though none have been studied extensively as in Geertz’ essay. It is even reported that Andrew Jackson held them in the Whitehouse. See: http://www.sbm.temple.edu/~thalbert/syl_gamb.html
or: http://www.vic.com/tnchron/class/Jackson.htm
6 Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States 1492-present. (NY: HarperPerennial, 1995), p. 584.
7 Caldicott, Helen. The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex, (NY, The New Press, 2002). This book, like other works by Caldicott, also has a fascinating psychoanalysis around those who make bombs and the language used to describe and discuss them.
8 Caldicott, p. 146. Zinn, p. 584.
9 Caldicott, pp. 145-161. This chapter does an excellent job of countering claims popularized in the media that depleted uranium is less dangerous than naturally occurring uranium. There are also many articles on the Internet about this subject. I urge you to look for yourself.
10 Though far out of the scope of this essay, I urge you to delve into media ownership and the construction of the news. See: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=miller. At least one U.S> Representative, Bernie Sanders, is confronting this issue. See: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0615-03.htm
For an older critical theory/pop culture approach about how cultural biases and commodification creep in, see: Making News. (New York: The Free Press, 1978).
Ginger Hill is working on her doctorate in Visual Studies at the University of California, Irvine.