In some ways, the vision in this video is similar to Freud's views on love, but is also somewhat different . Freud saw love "as a fusion of sexuality with affection or tenderness", which seems to correspond to the story and imagery in this song. However, he considered that heterosexual attraction stemmed from the Oedipus complex, which according to him was one the core drives that led us to pursue romantic and sexual lives. In the video, there are several different types of people "children of the sun", "children of the earth" etc. that seem (to me) to represent different gender and sexuality, yet this doesn't really touch on Freud's fundamental belief in the human condition being that of yearning to kill one parent and have sex with the other. On the other hand, the various Gods desires to kill the mortals could be interpreted in a Freudian way. Zeus wants to demolish them using lightening, and Thor wants to murder them like he did the giants. One could say this is somewhat analogous to the Oedipus complex, yet here the Gods are the authority figures wanting to kill the subservient mortals, where in the Oedipal complex it's the son that wants to murder his father.
This music video from Hedwig and the angry inch very clearly demonstrates the speech of Aristophanes from Plato's Symposium. Aristophanes postulates that there were three sexes. Man from the sun, women from the earth and a third sex made from the moon. This ambiguity in sex and the definition of sexual roles is prevalent in Stella Sanford's article that argues Freud's definition of eros cannot simply be physical love or emotional love, but both. I would have to say Aristophanes view on gender conincides with Freud. Freud chooses to identify people as either pansexual (monastic, non-sexual), or sexual. This leaves little room for anywhere in between. Freud also believes that sexual desire can perpetuate and go hand in hand with emotional desire: "Sexual desire is a response to the stimulus of physically instantiated beauty, as we have seen: it is sexual insofar as the particular instance of beauty which arouses it is carnally embodied, but it is erotic insofar as it is aroused by the presence of beauty, expresses itself as an endless desire to procreate excellence therein, and ultimately aims at the lover’s perpetual possession of the good" Therefore I find that the blurred hermaphrodite version presented in Plato's Symposium very much coincides with Freud's view on love and sexuality.
There are connections to Freud's discussion of the development of love in infants. The connections that children make and the process they go through (i.e. development of Oedipus complex) have future ramifications for the child's mental development. Similarly, in the video, people wander around the world seeking for their other halves without consciously being able to know who that person is. I think this video speaks to Freud's discussion of object choice in that there is a choice of same sex pairings. (Though I guess that's debatable because they are made that way.) It is also possible that Freud would classify this kind of love as affectionate as it does not stem from sexual desire (387). I am a little confused when Freud discusses desire and sexuality (such as object choice) are they connected (and if so how much) to his ideas of love?
I found it quiet interesting how in his speech Aristophanes' declared on page 28 that "No one would think it is the intimacy of sex-that mere sex is the reason each lover takes so great and deep a joy in being with another". When looking up Freud's theories of love, I found four main ways he referred to the term "love" with one consisting of it being a fusion of sexuality and affection or tenderness. Like Aristophanes, Freud is saying that love does not stem from purely sexual stimuli, that there has to be more in order for an intimate and joyful relationship to generate between two individuals. This theme of a necessary combination of sex and affection is demonstrated in the video when the the singer states that "But I could swear from your expression that the pain down in your soul was the same down in mine". There is an empathy between the two, something more than simply sex, and thus through this empathetic affection and "trying to shove ourselves back together again...making love" the singer declares that this where love stems from.
Freud, in the first of his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, highlights that we are originally bisexual beings, possessing qualities of both man and woman. As we have evolved to be unisexual, either embodying a man or a woman, we find ourselves, in relation to love and sexuality, searching for our other half. This dynamic relates to the "normal" sexual union between a man and a woman. The evolution to unisexual identities is analogous to Aristophanes’ story in which Zeus, in a jealous rage, splits humans who were double the being in half. Now being only half of themselves, they search and cling to their counterpart engaging in love.
It is important to mention, however, the case of inversion. If we our unconscious desire is innately bisexual, how do a man and a man or a woman and a woman complete a sexual identity. Freud provides the theory of inversion, in which an inverted man possesses the identity of a woman and therefore searches for a man as his counterpart. I thought it was interesting in Hedwig and the Angry Inch's video when they provided illustrations that depicted Zeus's rage as splitting not only man-woman beings but also beings that were man-man and woman-woman. Is this an illustration of Freud's inversion theory? Since Freud mentions inverted men are physically male and identify sexually as a woman, were these illustrations therefore depicting sexual identities rather than gender identities?
I'm still trying to work out my opinion on the connection between Freud's thoughts and the Aristophane's myth on the creation of love/desire, and think that it could really be argued either way. Freud asserts that the "sexual drive is not restricted to the desire for heterosexual reproductive intercourse and manifests itself in surprising and unexpected forms" (48). In terms of object choice or feelings of desire, Aristophane's myth could be used as an example of these feelings, particularly the unconscious parts of humans that drive decisions, behaviors, mentality, etc. It suggests that there could be some force pushing us towards sexual attractions and identities.
I also thought that the idea bisexuality was an interesting connection to the myth/video. Freud's use of the term seems to shift depending on his application, but he often uses it referring to gender identities and innate "masculine" and "feminine" characteristics, as Nicole pointed out. The splitting of humans into single "units" of gender that lack other halves could be an interesting concept for Freud.
Aristophanes' story coincides with Freud's theory of sexuality in his discussion of the sexual objects of inverts. We were at once both male and female, according to the myth displayed by Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Zeus split our dual beings to make us separately male and female. This mythology overlaps with Freud in many ways -- if we are innately bisexual, and in the case of inverts, "the sexual object is not someone of the same sex but someone who combines both sexes," than it is less about being particularly sexually stimulated toward someone but rather about being at a balance, maybe having the societal standing as love or in a loving relationship. Further, perhaps the discussion of the Eros in the Sanford article helps support this idea. If, at the symposiums end, when Diotima and Socrates come to their point about Eros: "a lack of good and beautiful things is what makes [Eros] desire the very things he lacks," in this way Eros is about love as a balance of what you have and what you desire. Eros himself embodies this balance, and again his description coincides with what Freud considers love: a mix of both sexual attraction and tenderness, or a balance (and I really agree with Rish about there being an empathy between the two).
In the video we can see a couple connections to Freud's theories, but I think the most important idea relates to the ambiguity of sexuality. Firstly, the video portrays man & woman as one being, until Zeus splits them in two. The beings are now lost, looking for their other half so they can feel "whole" again. Freud believed in love not just being lust or desire, but stemming from something more meaningful - and this definitely ties in to the idea of "looking for your other half". I also thought this part of the video (where the one was split in two by Zeus) ties in to Freud's idea of bisexuality, and how each person can be more "feminine" or "masculine", regardless of what their sex is.
In the video, we see how the people are filled with great uneasiness when they are torn apart from one another. This causes the children to have great sorrow in their hearts. This relates to how Freud talks about a child not receiving affection from their parents. Freud states "one of the clearest indications that a child will late become neurotic is to be seen as an insatiable demand for his parent's affection." Since the child is not getting the love from his parents as Freud says is needed, he will grow up to neurotic. This equates to how the lovers are separated and can no longer get all the joy that they once had from being with their partner, which one could hypothesize would cause them to become neurotic.
It is an instinct that Freud talks about in his readings, a kind of sexual drive that pulls people together. In a way, that ties to Aristophane's story about the two halves searching the world to each other. There's a part in the song where it describes a meeting of the two halves who do not understand their "instinct" towards one another and yet are driven together. They do not understand that they have been "split" but understand that they are being pulled together. This sort of conflict might be described as the sexual drive that does not discriminate because of a sort of pull towards one another. Although, I think it is difficult, in the same way that Sanford discusses in his essay, to truly connect the two.
In some ways, the vision in this video is similar to Freud's views on love, but is also somewhat different . Freud saw love "as a fusion of sexuality with affection or tenderness", which seems to correspond to the story and imagery in this song. However, he considered that heterosexual attraction stemmed from the Oedipus complex, which according to him was one the core drives that led us to pursue romantic and sexual lives. In the video, there are several different types of people "children of the sun", "children of the earth" etc. that seem (to me) to represent different gender and sexuality, yet this doesn't really touch on Freud's fundamental belief in the human condition being that of yearning to kill one parent and have sex with the other.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the various Gods desires to kill the mortals could be interpreted in a Freudian way. Zeus wants to demolish them using lightening, and Thor wants to murder them like he did the giants. One could say this is somewhat analogous to the Oedipus complex, yet here the Gods are the authority figures wanting to kill the subservient mortals, where in the Oedipal complex it's the son that wants to murder his father.
This music video from Hedwig and the angry inch very clearly demonstrates the speech of Aristophanes from Plato's Symposium. Aristophanes postulates that there were three sexes. Man from the sun, women from the earth and a third sex made from the moon. This ambiguity in sex and the definition of sexual roles is prevalent in Stella Sanford's article that argues Freud's definition of eros cannot simply be physical love or emotional love, but both. I would have to say Aristophanes view on gender conincides with Freud. Freud chooses to identify people as either pansexual (monastic, non-sexual), or sexual. This leaves little room for anywhere in between. Freud also believes that sexual desire can perpetuate and go hand in hand with emotional desire:
ReplyDelete"Sexual desire is a response to the stimulus of physically instantiated beauty, as we have seen: it is sexual insofar as the particular instance of beauty which arouses it is carnally embodied, but it is erotic insofar as it is aroused by the presence of beauty, expresses itself as an endless desire to procreate excellence therein, and ultimately aims at the lover’s perpetual possession of the good"
Therefore I find that the blurred hermaphrodite version presented in Plato's Symposium very much coincides with Freud's view on love and sexuality.
There are connections to Freud's discussion of the development of love in infants. The connections that children make and the process they go through (i.e. development of Oedipus complex) have future ramifications for the child's mental development. Similarly, in the video, people wander around the world seeking for their other halves without consciously being able to know who that person is. I think this video speaks to Freud's discussion of object choice in that there is a choice of same sex pairings. (Though I guess that's debatable because they are made that way.) It is also possible that Freud would classify this kind of love as affectionate as it does not stem from sexual desire (387). I am a little confused when Freud discusses desire and sexuality (such as object choice) are they connected (and if so how much) to his ideas of love?
ReplyDeleteI found it quiet interesting how in his speech Aristophanes' declared on page 28 that "No one would think it is the intimacy of sex-that mere sex is the reason each lover takes so great and deep a joy in being with another". When looking up Freud's theories of love, I found four main ways he referred to the term "love" with one consisting of it being a fusion of sexuality and affection or tenderness. Like Aristophanes, Freud is saying that love does not stem from purely sexual stimuli, that there has to be more in order for an intimate and joyful relationship to generate between two individuals. This theme of a necessary combination of sex and affection is demonstrated in the video when the the singer states that "But I could swear from your expression that the pain down in your soul was the same down in mine". There is an empathy between the two, something more than simply sex, and thus through this empathetic affection and "trying to shove ourselves back together again...making love" the singer declares that this where love stems from.
ReplyDeleteFreud, in the first of his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, highlights that we are originally bisexual beings, possessing qualities of both man and woman. As we have evolved to be unisexual, either embodying a man or a woman, we find ourselves, in relation to love and sexuality, searching for our other half. This dynamic relates to the "normal" sexual union between a man and a woman. The evolution to unisexual identities is analogous to Aristophanes’ story in which Zeus, in a jealous rage, splits humans who were double the being in half. Now being only half of themselves, they search and cling to their counterpart engaging in love.
ReplyDeleteIt is important to mention, however, the case of inversion. If we our unconscious desire is innately bisexual, how do a man and a man or a woman and a woman complete a sexual identity. Freud provides the theory of inversion, in which an inverted man possesses the identity of a woman and therefore searches for a man as his counterpart. I thought it was interesting in Hedwig and the Angry Inch's video when they provided illustrations that depicted Zeus's rage as splitting not only man-woman beings but also beings that were man-man and woman-woman. Is this an illustration of Freud's inversion theory? Since Freud mentions inverted men are physically male and identify sexually as a woman, were these illustrations therefore depicting sexual identities rather than gender identities?
I'm still trying to work out my opinion on the connection between Freud's thoughts and the Aristophane's myth on the creation of love/desire, and think that it could really be argued either way. Freud asserts that the "sexual drive is not restricted to the desire for heterosexual reproductive intercourse and manifests itself in surprising and unexpected forms" (48). In terms of object choice or feelings of desire, Aristophane's myth could be used as an example of these feelings, particularly the unconscious parts of humans that drive decisions, behaviors, mentality, etc. It suggests that there could be some force pushing us towards sexual attractions and identities.
ReplyDeleteI also thought that the idea bisexuality was an interesting connection to the myth/video. Freud's use of the term seems to shift depending on his application, but he often uses it referring to gender identities and innate "masculine" and "feminine" characteristics, as Nicole pointed out. The splitting of humans into single "units" of gender that lack other halves could be an interesting concept for Freud.
Aristophanes' story coincides with Freud's theory of sexuality in his discussion of the sexual objects of inverts. We were at once both male and female, according to the myth displayed by Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Zeus split our dual beings to make us separately male and female. This mythology overlaps with Freud in many ways -- if we are innately bisexual, and in the case of inverts, "the sexual object is not someone of the same sex but someone who combines both sexes," than it is less about being particularly sexually stimulated toward someone but rather about being at a balance, maybe having the societal standing as love or in a loving relationship.
ReplyDeleteFurther, perhaps the discussion of the Eros in the Sanford article helps support this idea. If, at the symposiums end, when Diotima and Socrates come to their point about Eros: "a lack of good and beautiful things is what makes [Eros] desire the very things he lacks," in this way Eros is about love as a balance of what you have and what you desire. Eros himself embodies this balance, and again his description coincides with what Freud considers love: a mix of both sexual attraction and tenderness, or a balance (and I really agree with Rish about there being an empathy between the two).
In the video we can see a couple connections to Freud's theories, but I think the most important idea relates to the ambiguity of sexuality. Firstly, the video portrays man & woman as one being, until Zeus splits them in two. The beings are now lost, looking for their other half so they can feel "whole" again. Freud believed in love not just being lust or desire, but stemming from something more meaningful - and this definitely ties in to the idea of "looking for your other half". I also thought this part of the video (where the one was split in two by Zeus) ties in to Freud's idea of bisexuality, and how each person can be more "feminine" or "masculine", regardless of what their sex is.
ReplyDeleteIn the video, we see how the people are filled with great uneasiness when they are torn apart from one another. This causes the children to have great sorrow in their hearts. This relates to how Freud talks about a child not receiving affection from their parents. Freud states "one of the clearest indications that a child will late become neurotic is to be seen as an insatiable demand for his parent's affection." Since the child is not getting the love from his parents as Freud says is needed, he will grow up to neurotic. This equates to how the lovers are separated and can no longer get all the joy that they once had from being with their partner, which one could hypothesize would cause them to become neurotic.
ReplyDeleteIt is an instinct that Freud talks about in his readings, a kind of sexual drive that pulls people together. In a way, that ties to Aristophane's story about the two halves searching the world to each other. There's a part in the song where it describes a meeting of the two halves who do not understand their "instinct" towards one another and yet are driven together. They do not understand that they have been "split" but understand that they are being pulled together. This sort of conflict might be described as the sexual drive that does not discriminate because of a sort of pull towards one another. Although, I think it is difficult, in the same way that Sanford discusses in his essay, to truly connect the two.
ReplyDelete