The American Spectator : Must Read After My Death

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Must Read After My Death

By James Bowman on 3.19.09 @ 6:02AM

The latest example of conformity in the exposure of 1950s conformity.

I remember when I first heard the word "conformity" used as an abstract noun. I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now. Conformity to what? What is the opposite of conformity? Originality, I suppose. But who is truly original? We are all conforming to something or somebody. We could scarcely survive if we weren't. Yet the cant term so often used to refer pejoratively to the dominant culture in America and the West during the 1950s has had a remarkably long and productive life as an inspiration to writers, artists and film-makers -- people, in other words, who are unlike ordinary folk chiefly in their reverence for, even worship of, originality. Now, having reached the bottom of the cultural food-chain, the hatred of "conformity" has become the conventional wisdom of the media.

This is partly because the crusade against conformity makes a dramatic, easily graspable story with the individual as its hero, autonomy as his quest and "repressive" society as the villain.

Nature and nature's way lay hid in night: God said, "Let Kinsey be," and all was light.

Or, for Kinsey, substitute Elvis or any of the other harbingers of the Great Awakening of the sexual and spiritual revolution, as so many in the media still see it, of the Age of Aquarius. And yet, there must also be some degree of insecurity about this implicit belief in the liberationist fairy tale, since the media go on repeating it endlessly. Of course, it also provides a justification for media's worldview and the freedoms they enjoy to tear down the monuments of what we used to call "the establishment" once thought to be worthy of public veneration. That's the reason for a movie like Revolutionary Road-- which I didn't see because I saw no reason to suppose it would differ appreciably in outlook from its director's earlier American Beauty of 1999, a film which I loathed as I have few others in the nearly 19 years since I have taken up the reviewer's pen.

Now, however, I have been caught unawares by a movie that could be the documentary counterpart to Revolutionary Road, American Beauty and all those other hit jobs on respectable, middle-class, suburban America before it learned, like the heroes of those films, to follow its bliss. The movie is called Must Read After My Death and has been made by Morgan Dews, who tells us that

The project started with a suitcase of 8mm films from my grandmother, Allis. One uncle sent me ten hours of dictaphone letters; his ex told me about a box of reel-to-reel diaries Allis had made for her psychiatrist. It was a friend, though, who ultimately told me about a file of tape transcripts and notes labeled Allis's "Must Read After My Death" file.

Caught your interest? Relax. Allis's dark secret is nothing -- or at least not much -- more remarkable than that she is a Betty Friedan-era housewife who has been persuaded by Betty Friedan or someone like her that doing as her neighbors do is somehow destructive to her personal essence, which must therefore be redeemed by massive doses of grandiose fantasy and self-pity. Or, as the press notes put it, Allis is "a modern woman at least a decade ahead of her time" because she "struggles against conformity, against the conventional roles of wife and mother."

Does she indeed? In retrospect, this seems remarkably conformist of her. The one unusual and therefore perhaps, to Allis, shameful thing about her life is that she and her husband, Charley, seem to have been "swingers" well before "swinging" became sort-of fashionable in the '70s. Charley's business took him to Australia for something close to a third of the year, and during his absences he wrote to her of his liaisons, actual or attempted, or included cryptic references to them on the audio tapes he sent which have now proved so useful for Mr. Dews's project. He seems to have had expectations of her doing the like and reporting back to him about it. Of what she did or how she felt about this, however, the movie has almost nothing to tell us.

Instead, we see Allis, Charley, and their children in home movies of the 1960s in which they look pretty much like any other family of the period. These images serve as counterpoint to the dark side of family life in some of Charley's reports from Australia and Allis's formulations of her grievances and anxieties for her therapists on audio tape. To me all this smacks so of the jargon and assumptions of the period as to be perfectly useless as a communication of anything real. Allis thinks Charley suffers from "a perfect inferiority complex," for instance, because he is less educated than she, but that he needs "a woman with a capital W," in which department she finds herself lacking. She doesn't believe in conformity for conformity's sake, it appears, and at times she feels like "the whole family's committing suicide." At one point she even says, "I understand people who kill their children" -- but she doesn't kill hers.

Why do all these inert emotions, expressed by a woman long dead in unoriginal language strike Mr Dews as something worth violating all his natural sense of reticence, discretion and loyalty to his family to bring to light? I suppose this is because, however familiar it has become to us, there is still money to be made and fame to be won in flogging the dead horse of 1950s-era suburbia. In the same way, there was for the generation of Allis and Charley's parents and grandparents always a market for another hagiographical study of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, or another heroic narrative on celluloid about the winning of the West. Audiences never got tired of those things either -- at least until they did. I guess it's just that the fashion for what people like to remember has changed.

About the Author

James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (12) | Leave a comment

Culper, Jr.| 3.19.09 @ 8:06AM

Thanks, Mr. Bowman, for putting another nail in the coffin of the American Beauty/Revolutionary Road worldview.

My own childhood was effected by some of the almost pathological dread of "conformity" that so troubled suburban America. My mother suffered from a vague sense of discontent, and so sought out a therapist to help her work through her unhappiness.

My mother also suffered from bi-polar disorder and alcoholism. This made her, in the mind of her crusading therapist, a perfect candidate for independence and single-motherhood. The diagnosis be damned--there's a higher standard to uphold here! The therapist encouraged my mother to divorce my father and live a life of perfect freedom, happiness and "non-conformity".

She was in the process of divorcing my father when, whether on purpose or by accident, she walked out in front of a speeding car.

A little less fear of conformity--and a therapist who wasn't a charlatan and an idealogue--and my mother might be alive today. Do you suppose that Sam Mendes will ever make a film about that?

R.| 3.19.09 @ 8:58AM

Culper, Jr. I had a sister whose struggle with bi-polar disorder caused her to walk out in front of a truck. Her act was definitely intentional, as she left a note. I just thought you may be interested to hear that it’s happened to others as well.

As for the movie in question, I too am repulsed by Hollywood’s endless portrayal of 1950’s “misery/conformity/repression” and the “utopian” liberation thereof brought about in the 1960’s. I appreciate Mr. Bowman’s fine work in exposing these awful things, which helps me avoid being subjected to them anymore than necessary.

Berl G.| 3.19.09 @ 9:21AM

This discussion has made me think twice about "Dead Poet's Society." It hinges on the same contempt for society's institutions. What was memorable about Robin William's role was his conspiratorial enthusiasm in waking up young minds. And what was long and tedious about the movie was it's gratuitous depiction of 1950's family life as being almost evil.

Jack Olson| 3.19.09 @ 10:12AM

"American Beauty" is as bad as Bowman says it is. The protagonist extorts money from his employer with a phony sexual harassment charge, he lusts for his daughter's classmates, his wife cheats on him and eventually murders him, his neighbor is a Marine veteran with Nazi sympathies and homosexual leanings and the only sympathetic characters are his daughter and her drug-dealing boyfriend. Why would the Hollywood elite award this movie five Academy Awards? Because these caricatures are how they really see middle class Americans. It is always a great irony when Hollywood produces an attack on somebody else's supposed conformity, considering how powerfully the American movie industry enforces anti-American conformity among its own members.

mwv| 3.19.09 @ 11:10AM

Its such a joy to realize there's someone out there besides me who is sick to death of hearing about how awful the 50's were. I might add, this is usually told from a boomer perspective, hence they have no frame of reference for the fifties and what came before it, something called the great depression and WWII, and thus have very little room to bash it, since, uh, they were only four years old in 1950! Thanks for the great piece!

PolishKnight| 3.19.09 @ 11:58AM

I have an explanation for why the left seems to have a love/hate affair with the 50's: Because they aren't really happy with the modern era they've created. In programs such as "Mad Men" or films such as "Pleasantville", they bash the 50's and all the flaws (or what they see as flaws) of the culture but can't help admitting that there were elements of the era they yearn for: Well dressed and mannered people, cities that were livable rather than office parks, and even a Reaganesque kind of optimism.

In Pleasantville, the protagonists introduce "color" which is a metaphor for the seeming liberation and non-conformity that leftism offered America at the time. And in the film, it's beautiful since they take existing and charming 1950's style and art, that had been suppressed in black and white, and colorize it.

In one scene, a graffit artist makes a beautiful art deco fresco. I was chuckling because that fresco was clearly not in the same universe as the gangland tags and crude curses scrawled on the buildings in most urban areas.

It's not an irony, Jack, that the left bashes non-conformity in others. It's called projection and a pre-emptive strike. It IS ironic that marxism which had sought to build a society by taking advantage of "reactionaries" non-thinking responses to their changes would, themselves, become nothing BUT reactionaries who are berefit of any actual ideas other than bashing the working class they claim to represent. They have ot make fun of the 50's culture because they don't have one of their own to even talk about. A leftist without conservatives to make fun of is like a TV without any content.

Rong| 3.19.09 @ 1:13PM

Well, here we go again. I was born in 1944 thus (thankfully) missing the Boomer Generation by two years. My actual life experience during the evil and repressed 50s (from age 6 - 16) was diametrically opposed to what Hollywood would have us all believe. The adult narcissism of today was not present in my experience and thankfully so. Children ran about the neighborhood without the constant concern of abduction, etc. that we focus on today. Children were just running around acting like children.

I once has a young man who was born in the mid 70s and grew up in the eighties tell me about the horrible repressed 50s that he had been taught about in his American History class in college. When I challenged his professor’s and text book assumptions about the period with actual life experience, he was incredulous. No amount of contrary real life experience could dissuade him from his short held beliefs. Is it little wonder that Hollywood can’t give up the stereotype?

While I certainly wouldn’t welcome back Jim Crow or the Cold War among others, there are many, many things that I would love to return to our culture that left with the end of the 50s and early 60s.

tc| 3.19.09 @ 2:23PM

If you don't like the movies that are out there make some others. But remember that the patrons are customers and are not obligated to attend.
The studios may be a bit leftist but the main interest is money.

Litvi| 3.19.09 @ 3:29PM

20-30 years from now, we'll see movies about the 80's telling us how everyone in Middle Class America was addicted to cocaine and maliciously pursuing S&L scams, repressing inner city school children and battling the heroic councilmembers and district supervisors who just needed a little more money to make utopia a reality. Economics will only be remembered for the downward slide that continued until 1982 (after which -- poof! -- the economy is a "non-issue"). Reagan, because he was a hero of the middle class, will be that mean old man who so was so rude he walked away from Reykjavik, but only because he hadn't fallen asleep first. And Gorbachev alone will be responsible for ending the Cold War, despite America's efforts to protract it.

Can't wait.

Trotter| 3.19.09 @ 5:20PM

Litvi:

Heck, we can witness current social thinking and see the same type of attitude towards 2008 middle class, middle America. Even the GOP elitists don't even bother hiding their disdain at those lesser-intellect folks in the burbs and middle parts of the country.

Angela | 6.2.09 @ 2:02AM

With all due respect, Mr Bowman,
you're so clueless I would hardly know where to start commenting on your critique. I can only say that this movie is a question, not an answer. I think Mr Dews has done his grandmother the greatest of honors by following her wish to "read" all this after her death. He is also following an ancient tradition of reading it aloud, as those few who could read in the ancient world were called upon to do for those around them so that important knowledge could be shared. As if America and the world were all one family that needs to understand it's history in the words of an honored ancestor. It's wrong to say that "they" were swingers. Charley was a "swinger" and Allis wasn't! That's the essential conflict here. You have completely misunderstood it. It's the clash of values personified by each of them, and her anger at having to "cover " for her philandering husband, as well as endure his torturing criticism
of herself, and the children that makes her feel such a desperate need to be free. Because she is a women she is trapped in conformity trying to shield the children from the pain and humiliation a divorce might cause. Because he's a man, he feels entitled and superior, to the point of looking down on his wife who initially only wants to be a good wife and mother.
It doesn't surprise me that your "read" of this movie is so far off .
You seem to have stopped thinking in 1959.
Talk about freedom, and all you can see is "red". Grow up will you? Communism was just a red herring.
Sadly, I believe there is no hope for you, and your narrow-minded kind, except to keep your blinders on, and be lost in the dusts of history. Godspeed, Sir!