The American Spectator : An American Tragedy

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An American Tragedy

By James Bowman from the November 2009 issue

A Washington, D.C. audience reacts to Helen Mirren's performance in Racine's Phèdre as if it were watching a sit-com.

Just as we have now arrived at the cultural moment where we have to define art as whatever is displayed in an art gallery or museum, so we also have to define comedy as whatever is said on a late night comedy show. But my surprise at hearing the audience of The Late Show with David Letterman laugh and applaud its way through Mr. Letterman's account of a $2 million blackmail plot against him -- a plot based on what he hilariously described as such "creepy things" about him as his simultaneously confessed proclivity for sleeping with his female employees-was not so great as it would have been a couple of weeks before. That's when I had gone to see the British National Theatre's production of Jean Racine's Phèdre in Washington, lured by the promise of the glorious Helen Mirren in the title role. The theme of this tragedy was also, it was said, torn from the tabloid headlines. A woman -- Phèdre -- falls in love with her stepson and, when she is spurned, accuses him of rape. It ends, as tragedy usually ends, in murder and suicide. Yet there, too, the audience laughed and laughed and laughed.

I'm not ashamed -- well, only a little ashamed -- to confess that I have been a fan of Miss Mirren's since her fantastically sexy romp in the surf with James Mason in Michael Powell's otherwise lamentable Age of Consent (1969), when at the age of 23 or so she could still pass for jailbait, and I thought she was the making of Stephen Frears's The Queen three years ago. Nor did she disappoint with her performance in Phèdre, which was terrific. Moreover, it had the effect of raising the level of the whole production, directed by Nicholas Hytner. There were especially fine performances by Dominic Cooper as the stepson, Hippolytus, Stanley Townsend as her husband and his father, Theseus, Ruth Negga as Aricia, whom Hippolytus loves, and the great Margaret Tyzack as Oenone, Phèdre's maidservant, who encourages her mistress's illicit passion. The 17th-century French original had been very creditably rendered into English by the late poet laureate of Britain, Ted Hughes.

Not the least of the production's accomplishments was to make Racine enthralling. Generally one finds that, in translation anyway, a little of Racine goes a long way, and in English, even that of Mr. Hughes, you don't get the poetry. Also, poetry or no, the play adheres strictly to the French neoclassical maxim that tragedies should be tragic and comedies comic, and that Shakespeare must forever suffer from the critical taint of having mixed the two up so promiscuously. Tragedy has to be as well done as it was on this occasion not to become overbearing when there is no comic relief. And yet the audience laughed. Either they thought that Racine or Hughes, or Miss Mirren or Mr. Hytner, had failed in their attempts to avoid bathos -- which seems improbable, given the standing ovation they gave it at the end -- or they thought they were supposed to laugh. Like the "Late Show" audience, they had come to laugh and they were determined to do so.

The production took place under the auspices of the Shakespeare Theatre Company of Washington, and audiences there know they're supposed to laugh at Shakespeare, as they always do-so lustily, indeed, that it sometimes seems to me to be rather in excess of the comedy of the scene in front of them. As I noted in the July/August issue, the STC audience also laughed their heads off at a production of Noel Coward's Design for Living that I found desperately un-funny. Perhaps it is my own sense of humor that is at fault? But I made a note of a few of what the audience found to be the laugh lines in Phèdre, so you can make your own mind up about that:

• "Prudence and restraint are out of date."

• Phèdre's question to Oenone about her attempted suicide: "Why did you prevent me?"

• Phèdre to Oenone about the latter's caution regarding her wish to believe in Hippolytus's returning her love: "Serve my madness, now, not my reason."

• Phèdre's apostrophe to Venus: "See how far I have fallen!"

• Phèdre's devastation at learning of the love of Hippolytus for Aricia -- expressed, by the way, with words that sounded torn from her heart -- "I have a rival!" and then again when she said, "My hands are itching to squeeze the life out of that woman."

• Aricia to the monster-slayer Theseus, hinting of Phèdre's guilty secret: "Not every monster has been accounted for."

Funny? I don't think so. One is driven to the conclusion that some significant proportion of the audience, at least, didn't know what they were watching -- apart from Helen Mirren, a celebrity, getting herself into rather an emotional state. Since the play was, like most 17th-century French tragedy, all about honor, and as I have written a book to explain why our contemporaries in America and other Western countries have very little idea of what honor is anymore, I suppose I should not have been surprised. It didn't help, either, that a program note headed "A Myth of Desire" solemnly informed us in a subhead that "the ancient myth of Hippolytus and Phaedra is a myth of desire. It asks us to reflect not only on the terrible consequences of incestuous passion, dysfunctional love, and perverted celibacy -- but also on their conflicting explanations. How do we explain the destructive power of passion? Who is to blame when love goes wrong?"

Clearly, Racine was out of his depth in this play. Those are questions that only Oprah or Dr. Phil could answer. The "perverted celibacy" part, by the way, was presumably because in one version of the myth, Hippolytus had sworn off women, though Racine shows him as being in love with Aricia. But the popular culture today, like the British underclass, accepts what Dr. Anthony Daniels calls "the hydraulic model of human desire, according to which passion is like the pus in an abscess, which, if not drained, causes blood poisoning, delirium, and death." In other words, all celibacy is a form of perversion because it is unhealthy and an offense against the hygienic properties of coition. What better presumptive answer, then, to the question of "who is to blame when love goes wrong"?

AS IT HAPPENED, on the same day that I went to see Phèdre, my local paper, the Washington Post, ran not one but two articles occasioned by the premiere of new show on ABC television called Cougar Town which, as the review by Hank Stuever opined, "may be the most deliciously profane network show ever made." I think he meant "obscene" rather than "profane," since his example of its alleged profanity was a scene "in which a teenager discovers his mom performing oral sex by the pool." It would have been profane (that is, offensive or opposed to religion or the gods) as well as obscene in Phèdre's day, which was one reason she was in such a state but, well, as Miss Mirren's audience and Mr. Stuever remind us, times change.

The accompanying article, by Monica Hesse and Ellen McCarthy, had no fault to find with either profanity or obscenity and heartily approved of older women's couplings, sanctified or otherwise, with younger men, but it did express a primly feminist disapproval of the word "cougar."

It's not just that using a predatory animal to describe older women makes it sound like the men involved are vulnerable prey. Like sharp teeth and claws are scaring them into bed -- rather than, you know, their own desires....It's not even the double standard, though that's part of it: There's a corresponding name for single males who prefer to date younger females. They're called "men." The biggest problem with the cougar craze is that it takes an age-old dating dynamic and pretends it's something new. Sixteenth-century Frenchman Henry II was just 15 when he began a long-term affair with a 35-year-old woman. It's been more than 40 years ago since Mrs. Robinson dropped her robe in front of young Benjamin Braddock. And Susan Sarandon, 62, and Tim Robbins, 50, have been together for two decades now.

It "takes an age-old dating dynamic and pretends it's something new"? But it is new. Not the -older-woman younger-man bit but the dating bit. Up until quite recent times there was no such thing, and for most of the time there has been "dating," it would have been thought indecent by most people for it to occur in the cougarish pattern -- which is why Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate had the impact she had at the time. People were shocked at the idea of "cougars." Now they're not. Now cougars are funny, which is why they're making sitcoms about them.

Presumably, it also has something to do with the reason why the audience laughed at Helen Mirren's Phèdre. The Post writers are the ones who are pretending, by pleading with people to treat cougarism as normal and the spectacle of mature women turned sexual predators as neither shocking nor admirable but just the natural way of things. Trouble is, historically speaking, it's not the natural way of things. Even today, when cougars are no longer cried about, they're still unusual enough to be laughed at. Tragedy has been converted by history into comedy. Can it be that there are still those who are unhappy with the exchange?

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 (41) | Leave a comment

D| 11.5.09 @ 7:15AM

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Alan Brooks| 11.6.09 @ 12:19AM

Sex isn't sinful anymore.
It's just boring.

Alan Brooks| 11.7.09 @ 12:32AM

Wife: "what are you doing in the cellar?"
Husband: "I, um, I'm reading Penthouse magazine."
Wife: "no you're not; you're reading the Bible again, you perv."
Husband: "I, uh, you see, um, I..."
Wife: "you put down that Bible and come here right now, okay? I'll let it go, this time."

Appleby| 11.5.09 @ 7:18AM

You had me until you started trying to convince me (a mature woman) that 60 year old men flashing 23 year old skinny and scantily clad arm candy is *normal* and 60 year old women with 33 year old boyfriends are Pitiful Predators.

Yes, I know that a 60 year old man with a girl on his arm bragging to the world that his Viagra works fine (why else would every second ad on the teevee be for something to energize the old mans wee wee?) is not pitiful and disgusting TO YOU, but you ought to hear what we women say about you to one another.

Oh, and about people laughing at classical plays, I suspect that is mainly caused by their never having seen any kind of play, and they laugh because their friends are laughing, hoping somebody in the audience knows what on earth is going on.

Big Leo| 11.5.09 @ 3:22PM

Do you remember P.J. O'Rourke's remark on the invention of Viagra? "Great. What the world needs is more middle aged men with hard-ons.

Roy| 11.5.09 @ 8:13AM

Actually, I think Mr. Bowman was a victim of the website's indenting screw-up - the idea that men who act that way are called "men" was I believe a continuation of the quote from the WP.

Even on its own terms, it's not true. Men like that are only called "men" when that is prefixed with "dirty old".

the permanent newbie| 11.5.09 @ 6:29PM

Furthermore, the WP moron seems not aware that "cougar" is a coinage that plays on a (now probably obsolete) expression for an older man pursuing younger women: a "wolf." Masculine canine, corresponding feminine feline, that sort of thing. At least when I was young, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, it was often thought unseemly for men to act as predators too...

Deborah D| 11.5.09 @ 8:15AM

As a mature woman myself, and as one who has been pursued recently by a man 20 years younger, I was wondering -- what do you call that guy? I was and still am shocked. I think all this "cougar" talk is causing younger guys to look at older women differently, and I, for one, am uncomfortable with it.

Thunderbottom| 11.5.09 @ 9:37AM

As a middle-aged man, I call it "unmitigated gall". I remember some "horny teen" movie from around ten years ago introduced the concept of "MILF" - "Mother I'd Like to F***" - which I regard as even more creepy than the "cougar" and "dirty old man". What "society" regards as sophisticated is, in reality, demented.

Richard Baker| 11.5.09 @ 8:18AM

The "sophisticated" class isn't despite their pretentions.

Sheryl| 11.5.09 @ 11:34AM

I've always felt that laughter during productions of classical plays is often exaggerated to show off and prove to everyone that "I GetThe Joke Because I Am So Smart." So maybe that even explains the inappropriate laughter mentioned in this article. Too bad no-one has invented a way to show off that "I get the tragedy (or the drama) because I am so smart"--then people could do that instead of laughing inappropriately at things that are not funny nor meant to be.

scott| 11.5.09 @ 12:19PM

The whole "cougar" thing is simple flattery that mainly sells magazines and TV to an aging demographic that spends ALOT of money on appearance (clothes, plastic surgery, hair, makeup, shoes, teeth, exercise equipment, books, etc.). There is a huge financial interest in keeping this segment of wealth and consumption flattered.

In reality, "cougars" that actually have the stomach to live the cliched "fantasy" are quite rare. It is simply not in a stable woman's nature to stalk and sleep around with young men---there's too much danger of humiliation, embarrassment, insult, etc., not just from society, but from the young men "they prey upon". Men have to accept whatever insult, humiliation, embarrassment, etc., in taking the initial bold step of approach, and therefore have the thicker skin for its consequences. Sorry ladies, you are biologically and behaviorally different. Stop kidding yourselves--you'll thank me later.

Even attractive young women endlessly flatter themselves they have the stomach to talk that long walk, approach a guy, ask him out, etc., but most simply don't, and obviously don't have to. How in the world they're supposed to learn the uncomfortable realities of pursuit of the other sex in their 40's, 50's, and good lord, their 60's-is beyond me. The best they can hope for is to appear as attractive and available as possible without looking desperate. In other words--same-old-same-old. But now, you're a "cougar", just like Demi Moore! I'm sure Demi is entirely at peace with herself. No dreading the inevitable going on there.

Sorry to be crude with a pun, but ya can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Yes, yes, I know....I'm a misogynist. The men that encourage all ye brave "cougars"......somehow....they're not.

Bydand76| 11.5.09 @ 6:30PM

Have you ever been around an Army base or gone clubbing before?

Sorry, but you are out of it Scott.

Women are aggresive as hell and there are tons of "older" women out there who go looking for it every weekend. I am serious as a heartattack!

The "cougar" is out there and she is plenty strong. The same goes for the "sugar-daddy".

Either way its kinda creepy and wierd! I am not saying I approve, just saying that from where I stand I see this kinda stuff all the time. Especially around the bases!

Deborah D| 11.6.09 @ 8:02AM

I think there's truth in both what Scott says and what you say, Bydand76. I'm sure there are plenty of "older" women out there. But, there are also plenty of older women not out there.

My fear is that men will start looking at all older women as "cougars," which we are not. I hope respect for older women isn't thrown out the door because of today's Pop culture.

I'm also not discounting the fact that there are plenty of good relationships between younger men and older women. I don't have a problem with love. It does go beyond age.

As I've gotten older I've looked forward to being treated as a person first. That's all.

R. Dittmar| 11.6.09 @ 10:10AM

In all this commenting on "cougars", I think we are missing the men behind the curtains. While you can always find a handful of oddballs in New York and L.A., the number of older women pursuing promiscuous sex with young men is statistically nil. Older gay men however do promiscuously pursue younger men. And since gay men are so involved in the creation of pop culture, we see stories about gay lifestyles “dressed up in drag” so to speak as stories about heterosexual life. This is what is causing all the cougars/Sex in the City Samanthas to appear in sitcoms and movies. They are stories about gay men disguised as stories about older women.

Appleby| 11.6.09 @ 4:25PM

It's all a matter of taste -- his and hers. For many years I dated only men that were at least 25 years younger than I am, because they are more interesting, they have ideas, and they generally do not have ex-wives and non-custodial children. I found that if both parties were clear on the relationship, it worked fine. I actually have some friends who are young racing drivers who joke about finding a "sponsor" who is a middle aged woman with an independent income who wants a good time. Seeing Danica Patrick has "earned" her IRL drive in the same way, and seems to earn praise for it, why not?

Deborah D| 11.6.09 @ 4:53PM

Appleby -- I have no problem with what consenting adults do -- whatsoever.

I am married (for 34 years). The guy who pursued me is married with with two children. He worked in my home doing remodeling stuff. I thought we had a great friendship, but I was naive.

I am naive no longer.

Seek| 11.5.09 @ 12:43PM

Cougars are members of the cat family. And young horny men, remember this -- cats are carnivores.

MAJ Harris| 11.5.09 @ 1:25PM

In the age of Jerry Springer, is it any surprise that "incestuous passion, dysfunctional love, and perverted celibacy" are simply fodder for entertainment? A culture that teaches that nothing is shameful, infamous or subject to judgement cannot prepare an audience to react to outrageous behavior with anything except laughter. Anything else would demand moral values, standards of conduct and a belief in right and wrong.

Laura| 11.5.09 @ 3:01PM

As a woman married to a younger man (and we have two children together), I find the whole "cougar" thing insulting the way that the degradation of all male-female relationships is now insulting: trite, flippant, shallow, insecure, oversexualized, and uncommitted. EVERY male-female relationship is portrayed on TV like that - why would May-December romances be any different?

Big Leo| 11.5.09 @ 3:26PM

As the son of a well educated European immigrant, I have resolutely shied away from the easy "Americans are nitwits and Europeans are the sophisticates," mantra. It's usually said by semi-educated and sophomoric Americans. However, I remember seeing Phedre in Paris over forty years ago, and remember how deeply sad and moving it was. Just this once let me say, at least these Americans and those like them are nitwits. Felt good. Oh, and also anyone who finds "Cougar Town" anything but repulsive. American nitwits. Sorry-- that just slipped out.

Big Jim| 11.5.09 @ 4:07PM

Scott hit the nail on the head. The whole cougar thing is as mythical as Phedre. There have always been men who used older women. The women were either victims or had a willingness to exchange money for male companionship. These women are old fools and the men are gigolos. Society has and always will look down on both.

Bydand76| 11.5.09 @ 6:22PM

Does anyone remember the movie Harold and Maude?
That was a freaking hilarious movie !

"Cougars", "M.I.L.F.'s"
"Jack-Daddies"
"Viagra-Pops"

Ummm this stuff has been going on for quite awhile guys.

If a younger guy and an older female "hook-up" and it is consentual then whats the big deal? The same goes for Older men and younger females.
Hell, Hugh Heifner has made a living off of it for the past year hasnt he?

Whats all the fuss?
Isnt this what "liberation" was all about?

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore seem to be getiing along all right?

Hell there are some guys in the unit here who are dating and engaged to some older women. If your heart finds the right person then it really doesnt matter what the age is right?

Oh well. Gotta go clean the M4 now and get ready for tomorrow.

JimE| 11.5.09 @ 7:15PM

I do younger and older women, both have their postive attributes.

Alan Brooks| 11.6.09 @ 12:18AM

Sex isn't sinful anymore.
It's just boring.

Laura| 11.6.09 @ 2:02AM

Alan Brooks| 11.6.09 @ 12:18AM
Sex isn't sinful anymore.
It's just boring.
--
When I was a teen I amused myself thinking it would be funny if instead of handshakes, hugs and kisses, society accepted the same messaging out in the open in full public view from the acts of screwing, humping and blowing - on the sidewalks, in the office in plain view on the desktop, in department stores where you first walk in on top of the glass enclosed perfumery displays, in the courtroom as a fine howdie-do to the judge, jury and counsel.

Many years later and as history turns out it's truthfully not so sinful anymore, particularly boring and it's since it's become so damn common there's nothing to laugh, cry or feel emotional about what-so-ever.

Boring fits it to a tee and it may be why dramatic treatment of such fails to elicit adequate emotional response as in the prior time periods when dramas pertaining to it were written.

Derek Leaberry| 11.6.09 @ 12:17PM

Her affair with the much younger John Lynch in "Cal" was pretty absurd.

Alan Brooks| 11.6.09 @ 9:14PM

"Boring fits it to a tee "

Sex has become too much of a good thing. Say you like a good candy bar and someone leaves one on your doorstep. Then it's a treat (though today the National Guard might have the candy tested for anthrax).

But if someone left ten thousand candy bars in your front yard then it would be boring-- except as an episode of 'Punked'.

William Tucker| 11.6.09 @ 9:58PM

When I was in high school in the 1950s in suburban New Jersey, my girlfriend and I attended a local community playhouse performance of "Death of a Salesman." In the final scene, when Willie Loman has cracked up, his son comes home in the middle of the night to find out what is happening. His mother is reluctant to tell him at first but finally confesses, "He's out planting the garden."

I'll never forget how that audience of suburban commuters reacted. They howled with laughter. They had never heard anything so funny. My girlfriend and I sat there humiliated that the people who were raising us could be so stupid.

Yet about two years later, when one of those suburban fathers suffered a few setbacks - a daughter who got divorced, a son who had a serious auto accident - he went out to the local Howard Johnson's motel and put a bullet through his head. I always thought that it was the inability of such people to understand tragedy that made them so incapable of dealing with misfortune.

In later years I decided that the ability to understand tragedy was really the measure of a civilization. It's no accident that the history's greatest cultures - Athenian Greece, Elizabe
than England, 18th Century France - gave us our greatest tragedies. They were cultures that produced ordinary people who could understand the fragility of both success and failure in life and could offer appreciative audiences.

It's therefore rather frightening to read that audiences in Our Nation's Capital are laughing at tragic scenes and have no more appreciation of life's risks and retributions than those commuting Willie Lomans back in my home town. It shows how far we have descended as a culture.

Alan Brooks| 11.7.09 @ 12:26AM

I don't see the future as being a sinister brave new world, just an empty one. Se is becoming so routine that someday it will seem wholesome and empty, and reading the Bible will appear to be a forbidden thrill-- as sex used to be.
Wife: "what are you doing in the cellar?"
Husband: "I, um, I'm reading Penthouse magazine."
Wife: "no you're not; you're reading the Bible again, you perv."
Husband: "I, uh, you see, um, I..."
Wife: "you put down that Bible and come here right now, okay? I'll let it go, this time."

Catherine| 11.7.09 @ 12:30AM

These are the same kind of people who clap between movements at the symphony.

Richard Baker| 11.8.09 @ 11:07AM

Catherine:
I'e seen the same reaction and was always mystified. Dressing up and pretending to be sophisticated is, sadly, a pose for many. These people probably think that Toscanini was a member of the Mafia.

Richard Baker| 11.8.09 @ 11:07AM

I've seen, not I'e. Typo.

Alan Brooks| 11.9.09 @ 1:57AM

Maybe they confuse Toscanini with Joe Pesci?

Cynthia Yockey| 11.9.09 @ 3:06AM

I saw this production and I don't remember any inappropriate laughter at all.

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