Heineken Beer Dismantles the Traditional Family

family in heineken commercial with caption "Tradition doesn't always have to be traditional"

by Caity Bell

The holiday season is fast upon us and with it a substantial rise in commercials meant to tug upon consumers’ heartstrings, to invoke that special sense of holiday cheer that drives us, no doubt, to purchase more products than we have year-round.  If you don’t run from the room the second the commercials start rolling then perhaps you’ve seen Heineken’s most recent holiday-themed ad, wherein those traditional notions of the American nuclear family are torn away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G15pfHZfNg

As you can see in the video above, while the camera pans around the room—with Dean Martin’s classic You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You playing in the background—we’re exposed to what at first appears to be a holiday gathering composed of that classic family schema we’ve come to expect in American media. The father (as designated by small white text which briefly lights the screen) sits in a corner of the room, bottle of beer nearby (this is after all an advert for Heineken), while across from him sits the mother and sister, both pleasantly smiling at the camera as it glides across the large living room. Then, however, the camera shifts to a man cheerily painting, who’s designated to be the mom’s new boyfriend and from here we continue on our tour of the busy household with introductions to the boyfriend’s stepdaughter as well as various members of the dad’s “new” family (and a quirky moment when an apparent stranger is present, introduced as simply “and whoever that guy is”).  The commercial ends with the image of this diverse family standing poised together before the fireplace while the words “tradition doesn’t always have to be traditional” flash across the screen.

Yet has tradition ever been traditional? In short, no. Tradition, rather than being some ancient, set in stone way of doing things, is more often than not a more recent invention, a way of authorizing one group’s set of ideals over another’s. A tool for providing a sense of social cohesion within a group, tradition serves as a means of binding present ideals and beliefs to some distant past as a way of validating their continued persistence. The word itself becomes invoked when something is at stake, a way of bringing value or necessity to some practice or ideal as being time-honored and revered when in fact it may not actually be so.

Take, for example, a 2014 Supreme Court case wherein the language of tradition was used by the defendants to win their trial. In the Town of Greece v. Galloway hearing, the town, brought to court on charges of violating First Amendment rights by beginning their council meetings with Christian prayer, was allowed to continue this practice on the grounds that, rather than being religious, the practice was a part of the town’s “tradition”. Thus, by rooting the practice in the town’s history, it was granted a semblance of authority and presented as a seemingly unbiased argument rather than a practice with some utility or underlying motive for an interested party. Have the town’s meetings always, in fact, began in this fashion? Perhaps, perhaps not, yet what is interesting to note, rather than debating the authenticity of this claim, is how the label of tradition comes into play as soon as the practice is contested.

The idea of the American nuclear family as well, with its image of one mother and one father together raising 2.5 kids, is not as traditional as we believe it to be, the idea largely popularized after the emergence and success of capitalism during the Industrial Revolution and only further cemented as the American ideal through popular television shows aired in the 1950s. Throughout our history families have held to many molds which don’t fit this traditional image—as long reaching and ever-present as it may seem. Even our beloved holiday traditions bear roots to a less distant past, as Christmas itself, with its festive trees and jolly ol’ Saint Nic, was banned for a time in the U.S. by Puritans who saw those traditions as having no place in a Christian nation. In fact many of the traditions now prominent in Christmas celebrations were not in practice until the late 19th century when they were merged into popular culture by the immigrants who brought them over.

So then, tradition doesn’t always have to be traditional? Well, it seems that tradition itself has never actually been “traditional.”  Thus the Heineken ad’s final line is absolutely right. Using the language of tradition to describe a family or a practice does not have to reflect some longstanding form; tradition has never been traditional.

 

Image credit: Still from video by HeinekenUSA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G15pfHZfNg

Well Scientifically… Traditions are an Idiot Thing

by Matthew McCullough

So, are traditions really an “idiot thing,” as Rick declares? Not quite. As we’ve seen in the clip above, tradition, appearing in various forms, is a device that’s used when something is at stake. There is no real tradition of science projects being done by fathers and sons. Projects are just as likely to be completed individually, with one’s mother, with a group, etc. What is important to note is that Jerry uses the language of tradition here because something is at stake. Jerry is insecure not only about his intelligence but about his relationship with his son Morty. He feels his father-in-law Rick overshadows him in terms of influence on and respect from his son, and Jerry worries that this science project is just another occasion when he will be subordinated to Rick. Rather than having to state this incredibly uncomfortable reality, Jerry instead uses the language of tradition as a basis to argue for what he wants. This turn shifts the issue from violation of his ego to the violation of a tradition, a longstanding practice that therefore merits repeating. Continue reading “Well Scientifically… Traditions are an Idiot Thing”

On Modern Retellings

By Savannah Finver

Photo of Lin Manuel Miranda in musical Hamilton

Given the explosive popularity of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway hit Hamilton, it appears that the United States has recently been preoccupied with questions regarding the history of its citizens of African heritage and the slave trade which brought so many of them to American soil. One of my favorite songs on the Hamilton soundtrack is “Cabinet Battle #1”in which Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson go head-to-head over states’ rights. During his portion of the rap battle, Hamilton mocks Jefferson by repeating one of his earlier lines: “’We plant seeds in the south. We create.’ Yeah, keep ranting. We know who’s really doing the planting.” Continue reading “On Modern Retellings”

Selective Storytelling

By Savannah Finver

“Hey, how was your weekend?”

It’s a question we hear all the time, one which we don’t put much thought into. After all, we spend a good portion of our lives telling stories. Storytelling, however, is a social tool we use to exchange information, and like any skill, it needs to be taught to us if we want to be able to use it effectively. What often goes unexplored, however, is that how we narrate our stories depends upon who is asking us about our weekend in the first place and why. And telling the stories of history is no different. Continue reading “Selective Storytelling”

Disconnecting Truth from Free Speech

Image of cylinder with shadows of square and circle, illustrating perception does not equal truth

By Ana Schuber

Harry Potter, or in human form Daniel Radcliff, is currently acting in an off-Broadway play titled The Lifespan of a Fact.  Timely and satirical, the play posits a contemporary political pastime of major and minor news agencies across the world:  fact-checking truth.  Perhaps the more important question one might ask today is:  is there truth out there to be found by all these fact checkers?   For Radcliff, there are no magic wands, no all-knowing Hermione Grangers and no easy answer to this question as he portrays the dedicated fact checker. Tim Teemen in his review of this play for the Daily Beast explains that the play is about “what counts as fact and the perception of fact in what we read and visually and aurally consume every day.” Continue reading “Disconnecting Truth from Free Speech”

Is this “Rising” or even Equal?

By Ana Schuber

So, here in the middle, actually right up on the final run toward the mid-term 2018 elections, it was amazing to see a political advertisement that turned the standard dialogue about women running for office on its head.  Paid for by the Serve America PAC, a democratic effort, this ad features eight first time congressional female candidates running across the United States for elected office. You should watch it here:

I have a long and varied path from my early identification as a feminist in the 1960s to the present Pussy Hat wearing throng of women with political ambition or political desire.  This ad was new. Continue reading “Is this “Rising” or even Equal?”

Who’s a Good Boy?: Moonrise Kingdom and Value Judgements

By Emma Gibson

If you have not seen Moonrise Kingdom it is about two children–Sam and Suzy–who fall in love and runaway from their troubled lives together. There is a scene in the movie when the two encounter Sam’s Khaki Scout troop while navigating through the woods. Things turn violent when the Khaki Scouts try and capture Sam and Suzy to bring them back to their families and the Khaki Scout dog, Snoopy, is shot in the neck with an arrow and killed during the altercation. When the Khaki Scouts retreat, Suzy looks over Snoopy and asks, “Was he a good dog?” To which Sam responds, “Who’s to say?” (See clip here.)

This exchange got me thinking about the use of categories like goodness and badness as tools for authorizing one’s personal interests.

Suzy’s impulse to measure the value of Snoopy’s life in terms of “good” or “bad” is a move that reduces a lifetime into a single label, a move that Sam avoids. “Good” is not a universally agreed upon concept. A hunter may believe a dog is good if it is obedient while a family might argue a dog is good if it is loving. Some cultures see dogs as a nuisance rather than pets which would lead to an entirely different approach to the animal’s death. The goodness or badness of the dog’s life may be irrelevant in the moment of death because value judgements are overpowered by the fact that the number of stray dogs in a particular area is causes several problems for the community. The death of the dog may help solve a larger problem of overpopulation.

Sam’s question “Who’s to say?” pushes the viewer to rethink who gets to decide which person, society, or culture gets to define what it means to be good.

Snoopy might be a good dog in the eyes of the Khaki Scouts because he is a faithful companion to the boys all summer, not because his attributes are inherently “good”. If Sam told Suzy that Snoopy was good, Suzy’s idea of Snoopy is influenced even though she never knew him. To acknowledge that he does not have the ability to authorize goodness or badness, Sam avoids marginalizing those who disagree with him. He recognizes the implications that come when one assumes authority over value judgements. To deem Snoopy a good dog ignores the fact that reality is made up of multiple conceptions of goodness. Sam opens the doors for discourse that does not submit to categories, but wrestles with the intricacies of belief, authority, multiplicity, and truth claims.

“Hello, from the children of the planet Earth!” : The Voyager Golden Record and Judith Butler

By Emma Gibson

Before Voyagers 1 and 2 were sent into space in 1977, a golden record was attached to the outside of each. The record includes encoded images, an introduction by the U.N. Secretary at the the time, spoken greetings in many different languages (The title of this post comes from this section.), a compilation of the sounds of Earth, and a musical playlist comprised of twenty-seven songs. It was put together by a small team led by Carl Sagan during the months leading up to the launch and sought to capture the essence of human beings through media created for any form of life that happens to find the record floating in space. (Included in my post are a few of the encoded images on the record.)

This record reminded me of Judith Butler’s Giving an Account of Oneself and her claim that accounts given by a subject are tailored around their interests because they are put together in response to a call from the other. Butler asserts that people would not give an account of themselves to themselves. It is only when ‘the other’ requires that we give an account that we are inclined to give one. By ‘other’ she means that-which-is-other-than-ourselves–whether that be another individual or any circumstance that prompts us to reflect on ourselves. An ‘account’ is essentially a narrative given to paint a specific picture for the other, a picture that maintains the interests of the subject giving the account.

 

After passing by Jupiter, the Voyagers are on course to continue their journey into deep space forever (or until they fall apart) which, I believe, acts as the call from the ‘other’. The possibility of a human object venturing into the unknown prompted NASA to try and answer the question, “Who are we?” Looking at the contents of the record, I would argue that the creators wanted anyone who found the record to see humans as peaceful, diverse, and rich in culture. There images are of people eating, human anatomy, objects and beautiful landscapes but none of war, murder, or illness. There are sounds of laughter and heartbeats but none of screaming or weeping (with the exception of a baby crying). Atrocities are left out because, ultimately, accounts are for the people who make them. The account given on the Golden Record was fabricated to satisfy the interests of Carl Sagan and his team: to persuade life in other galaxies to think fondly of us here on Earth.

 

And I am not trying to say the record should never have been created. I love the soundtrack and highly recommend listening to it all the way through. I am only suggesting that it is merely another account that ignores a reality that rests in a slew of experiences and interactions that in no way amount to a single linear, digestible narrative.

First image from Flikr user Ian Burt. CC BY 2.0.                               https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/#

Other images from Flickr user Jerome Gangneux. Public Domain Mark 1.0. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/  

True Crime and Truth Claims

portrait drawing of Grace Marks and James McDermott

 

By Sarah Griswold

I recently finished watching the Netflix Original series Alias Grace, based on Margaret Atwood’s book by the same name. I haven’t yet read the book (I do plan to), but would I have understood or enjoyed the series differently if I had?

The series is marketed as an historical fiction. It would seem that this term is self-contradictory. If fiction is by definition a falsehood, why pair it with “historical” which elicits ideas of fact and truth? The very ideas of these terms contradict one another. But I would propose a more complex reframing. What if it is not truth, but rather truth claims? Whenever a history is told, it’s always in the form of some type of narrative — be it literary like in the form of a book or in physical sites like the well at Cawnpore or other memorials. Narratives necessarily exclude some information and embellish in certain areas for the sake of comprehension. The term “historical” doesn’t necessarily imply complete truth, but rather truth to the person telling the history. So perhaps the term “historical fiction” makes perfect sense.  And this is precisely what we’re given with Alias Grace, a historical fiction that at once claims truth and falsehood. But why has it been classified as historical fiction and not true crime? And what difference does that classification make?

When I first came across the series, I was hardly familiar. I watched the first episode knowing only that it was set in Canada during the 19th century. And I was hooked. The story itself feels novel and yet familiar. As a casual fan of true crime, I’m familiar with how the story is structured. Something bad happened. We don’t really know what, but we do know who has been blamed. We’re then taken through a serialized journey to discover what happened and who did it. Or maybe we’re left hanging, having to come to our own conclusions. In each episode one major twist and several minor clues are revealed — breadcrumbs on the proverbial path. In Alias Grace episodes two and three seem to divert from the path until connections are made later on that lead to the peak of the narrative hill.

It was around these episodes that I started to google and learn more about the series. This was when I learned the book on which it was based was written by Margaret Atwood. Personally (and I know this is controversial), I’m not that into Atwood. I read The Handmaid’s Tale, set it aside, and didn’t particularly care to return. This is not to say that I don’t recognize its value and contribution to popular culture. I just doubt I would’ve watched Alias Grace if I had known going in about its connection to Atwood. Our own preconceived notions of what a thing is determine how we consume or interact with it. Starting this series with fewer preconceived notions allowed me to give it a fair shake. Later, once I had done more reading, I learned Atwood based her novel on real events, keeping as close to the historical record as possible. This becomes much more complicated in analyzing Atwood’s own understanding of the events. What were her preconceived notions? Why did she interpret the court records in certain ways? These are all important questions to explore.

But this all leads me to wonder, why has Alias Grace been classified as historical fiction rather than true crime? Are true crime narratives somehow not historical fiction? Atwood seemingly adhered tightly to what might be considered the “facts” of the case. Perhaps it has to do with when the murders and trial took place. Perhaps it had to do with (spoiler alert) Mary Whitney’s apparent possession of Grace Marks. Perhaps it even has to do with Atwood’s identification as a fiction writer rather than a reporter or historian. Or perhaps all of these and other factors I haven’t even thought of play a role in this classification. But at the end of the day does the classification of Alias Grace as historical fiction rather than true crime effect how we interact with it? For me (and probably you), the answer is a hard and resounding yes.

 

Photo credit: Special Collections Toronto Public Library via Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0.

Ignatian Yoga?

https://www.facebook.com/FrJamesMartin/photos/a.139618381495.120357.46899546495/10154868158071496/?type=3&theater

 

By Sarah Griswold

Recently, while I was sitting on my couch, scrolling through social media with Netflix playing in the background, I came across this post on Facebook. At first I was taken aback. Ignatian spirituality and yoga didn’t seem to make sense together in my immediate reaction. Then I remembered all the other things I had seen like it in recent years — SoulCore and Holy Yoga among them. Ignatian Yoga actually isn’t any different than these other forms of Christian influenced yoga. The only thing that was new to me was seeing something that was both explicitly Catholic and explicitly yoga. So what is Ignatian Yoga anyway? And what were my preconceptions of these terms that contributed to my initial surprise?

First, “Ignatian” refers to a particular type of Catholic spirituality founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola. St. Ignatius founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) which now has more than 16,000 members. One of the Jesuits’ foci is on spiritual direction. It follows, then, that their retreats (including this one for Ignatian Yoga) would feature talks on Ignatian spirituality and spiritual direction. While the Jesuits (like all groups) face opposition to their ideas from time to time, the idea of Ignatian spirituality seems fairly straightforward — at least in concept.

More complicated, however, is the idea of yoga. What is yoga? Is it religious? I vividly remember a yoga instructor once beginning an academic class on the subject by saying, “Before we begin, you all know yoga’s not a religion, right?” For the purposes of teaching yoga as an academic class at a public university in the United States, this claim makes perfect sense. By declaring yoga to not be a religion, the instructor was intentionally creating a barrier between yoga as good exercise and yoga as religious to avoid trouble under the first amendment. But the religiosity of yoga is actually a lot more complicated than that. The history of yoga in the United States is complex, but includes a particular trajectory of secularization — or does it? Andrea Jain has an interesting and concise book about this history. Suffice it to say that “yoga is not religious” is quite a bold claim.* To many (particularly outside of the U.S.), yoga is religious. Some see it as a positive, others see it as a threat to their own religious life. But none of this explains why the words “Ignatian” and “yoga” were put next to each other to describe this retreat.

By putting these two terms together the Jesuits running this particular retreat are making a few implicit claims just in calling it “Ignatian Yoga.” Because Ignatian spirituality and Christianity more generally act exclusively and reject non-Christian religion, “Ignatian yoga” can only exist if yoga is considered to not be religious. In this case, yoga provides the added component of exercise. Therefore, yoga could hardly be religious as Ignatian spirituality already fulfills that role. But beyond the question of whether or not these things are “religious,” we also see a combination of things from two seemingly different cultures.

In New York, the Jesuits ostensibly participate in and produce western and American cultures. On the other hand, yoga’s roots are often placed in Indian culture. From this perspective, how do we wind up with Ignatian Yoga if the two terms come from such different cultures? The answer here lies in how we conceptualize culture. Because of the more modern adaptations of yoga into American culture, the combination of Ignatian spirituality and yoga is actually not all that surprising. Cultures are often defined by their difference. So the idea of Ignatian yoga becomes possible first by the adoption of yoga into American culture itself. Then, after its recreation as non-religious exercise, it can be adopted into the folds of of Ignatian spirituality at this retreat (and other products like it).

The answer to how we wind up with “Ignatian Yoga,” then, seems to say a lot more about the person answering this question than anything else. So at first, I was surprised because this concept was outside of what I am most often exposed to. My preconceived notions of Ignatian spirituality and yoga were exclusive of one another. But as I thought about it more, I realized that this is precisely how culture is continually reproduced and recreated. After this brief pause, I kept scrolling through Facebook.

 

*For a fun introduction to the complications in this claim, I recommend Rough Translation‘s “Om Alone In India.”