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Tomatoes and Puberty |
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Kimberly Leung In 1963, Alfred Hitchcock made a motion picture entitled The Birds,
a film which depicted a savage attack upon human beings by flocks of winged
creatures. People laughed. In the fall of 1975, 7 million black birds
invaded the town of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, resisting the best efforts
of mankind to dislodge them. No one is laughing now. These are issues feminist philosopher Judith Butler addresses in some of her works, most particularly in “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution” and Bodies that Matter. While she specifically discusses gender as this questionable reality, her theories about gender nonconformity are applicable to other aspects of human culture. By relating these theories to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, I will argue that, although the film is parodying the assumptions of naturalness in human culture, it also makes assumptions of its own. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes begins with a series of killer tomato attacks in typical American suburbia. As the terror continues, the Department of Agriculture puts together a secret investigative team, headed by obscure government official Mason Dixon. He is assigned a small force of completely unhelpful specialists (including Lt. Finletter, an overzealous soldier, and Sam Smith, master of disguise) to investigate the killings and find a way to stop them. Meanwhile, Jim Richardson, the President’s press secretary, is in charge of keeping the “tomato menace” quiet, and reassuring the public of their safety. This may all be well and good, but a copy of the top-secret report has disappeared and is in the hands of inexperienced “society” reporter Lois Fairchild – who, in a moment of staff shortage, was pulled from her department. As Mason and Jim Richardson attempt to keep their investigation quiet, Lois clumsily conducts her own investigation. Just as Mason’s resources begin to disappear (several of his specialists
unsuccessfully battle the tomatoes), he discovers that the power-hungry
Richardson is behind the whole plot and knows how to control the tomatoes.
Before Mason can find out the secret, however, his well-meaning assistant
Lt. Finletter bursts in and kills Richardson. Mason, in frustration, is
about to give up, when he stumbles across the answer: the song “Puberty
Love” by Ronny Desmond has the power to calm and turn away the overgrown
menace tomatoes. In looking more closely at the implications of this film, it is helpful to first gain a deeper understanding of Butler’s theories and attitudes about the reality of the natural. In her essay “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” Butler responds to the history of feminism and its historical definitions. She believes that much of it was based on essentialism, the idea that gender identity is based on physiological sex. To Butler, gender is not only a physiological distinction, but also a performative act that is based on societal views (271). She examines “in what ways gender is constructed through specific corporeal acts, and what possibilities exist for the cultural transformation of gender through such acts (272).” Butler claims that the gendered body is constructed through a history of performative acts (272). Before discussing what Butler means, it is necessary to define several concepts. First, “performatives,” in the linguistic sense, are words that effect an action, while the audience is under the impression that they merely describe something. In a similar way, gender performatives are not indications or expressions of physiological sex or inner reality; rather, they create the illusion that they are describing gender based on sex. Since this illusion appears as a description of what really exists, the audience does not question its accuracy. Performatives contribute to the “act” mentioned above in Butler’s claim. She defines “act” as a “socially shared and historically constituted” performative (281). By this she means that the act is not only an expression of meaning, but also becomes part of the meaning through its continued performance. “Gender,” as Butler sees it, is not the physiological distinction we will refer to as “sex.” She says, “… gender is in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceed; rather, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time – an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts (270).” This identity is unstable because it continuously changes and shifts in time – there is always the possibility for someone to question the basis of this identity, and with this comes change. Nor is it a “locus of agency,” since the acts are not an expression of what actually is. In fact, Butler asserts that there is no agent prior to the acts – that the cultural conventions which form gender pre-exist “embodied selves (277).” Gender identity is developed through the repetition of these acts that have been influenced by history and society. As the acts - which are not necessarily expressions of reality – are repeated endlessly, they eventually become a truth of sorts, forming society’s perception of gender. Butler claims that with these perceptions come societal pressures and expectations of what each gender should be (279). This leads to a gender system that is founded on construction – there is no reality, but no one notices it is absent. She further addresses this gender system in her book Bodies that Matter, where she also considers the construction of sex – suggesting that even the material, physical body is not as real and given as is it assumed to be. If we consider Attack of the Killer Tomatoes as a cultural text, we can see how Butler’s basic principles are demonstrated in several ways. In an early scene, we witness a meeting of the secret investigative team, which consists of obscure military officers and scientists, including Mason Dixon. At one point the tomatoes are referred to as “vegetables,” and the Japanese scientist says, “Technically, sir, tomatoes are fags…” The other scientist interjects with, “Hemeans fruits.” While it would be easy to assume that this was merely an attempt to poke fun at the term “fruit” as a nickname for homosexuals, a closer look will show that there is a more serious meaning to the exchange. Butler argues in “Performative Acts” that gender categories are “socially compelled (279),” constructed rather than real, and any deviation brings forth societal punishment. Those who fail or refuse to perform the accepted act suggest that the categories our society is based on are, in fact, constructed, and therefore fragile and susceptible to breakdown. Anxiety about this uncertainty unsettles people’s constructed lives, and the only way to maintain these categories – and life as we know it – is to constantly remind society, through punishment and reinforcement, that these categories are the only ones that may exist. Butler says, “Performing one’s gender wrong initiates a set of punishments both obvious and discreet, and performing it well provides the reassurance that there is an essentialism of gender identity after all (279).” Homosexuals are one such group that is not included in the accepted categories. Their presence is particularly unsettling because they are not marked physically as being different. Although they may be homosexual, they appear as the desired heterosexuals. The categorical uncertainty leads to the said anxiety. Tomatoes and their perceived vegetable-ness can be viewed in the same way: the tomato is really a fruit, but most people perceive it as a vegetable. They are constantly presented as vegetables, and even in every other reference in the movie they are called vegetables. In order to “remain” a vegetable, their vegetable status must be constantly reinforced. Another well-loved and constructed institution portrayed here is suburbia. At the beginning of the film we are given several scenes of excessively serene suburban life, interrupted by the aforementioned tomato attacks. A housewife washing dishes is brutally killed by a tomato emerging from the drain of her sink. A man sitting at breakfast with his wife is struck dead when he drinks tomato juice. Grandparents sit calmly reading their newspapers while a tomato attacks their grandson. In America, suburbs are intended to be safe, ideal neighborhoods, constructed and assumed to be “normal” with homogeneous unobtrusive houses, tree-lined streets, and parks – noticeably omitting suggestions of criminal activity and other threats that might differentiate from the norm. Here we have another example of repetition to provide reassurance. Attack parodies this assumption of safety by showing that even suburbia is no safety zone from the breakdown of assumed boundaries, since this security is not based on reality. This radically natural and normal construction is under threat of usually harmless garden vegetables (fruits), showing that even the most natural-seeming things may one day prove to be unnatural. In Bodies that Matter, Butler predicts this very breakdown of boundaries. She says that the constant repetition of constructed norms opens the possibility for failure, that the necessity for repetition suggests that there is an anxiety that can never be completely remedied, and that the “idealizations can never be finally or fully achieved (125).” On the other hand, while Attack seems to be parodying assumed “natural” aspects of American life, demonstrating the construction and unnaturalness, it still makes some assumptions about what is natural. Towards the end of the film, after Mason’s “Puberty Love” victory over the tomatoes, he hears a woman scream and rushes to the rescue of Lois Fairchild, who is being pursued by a giant tomato wearing headphones (and thus unable to hear “Puberty Love”). Once he saves her, they realize they are “in love,” and dramatically rush into each other’s arms. With all the parody of constructed reality, the film still assumes the naturalness of a heterosexual norm by presenting us with a typical, end-of-the-movie, heterosexual love scene. This is an ending repeated in almost every mainstream film on the market. Although Attack has nothing to do with love, the filmmakers felt the need to include another reminder about the naturalness of heterosexuality. Butler argues in Bodies that Matter that the necessity to reiterate regulatory norms of sex is “a sign that materialization is never quite complete, that bodies never quite comply with the norms by which their materiality is impelled (2).” The reiteration of the heterosexual union therefore shows the construction of heterosexuality, and further suggests its fragility. Curiously enough, however, it is Dixon who jumps into Lois’s arms, and not the traditional vice versa. This, partnered with the unnatural uprising carrots, demonstrates an even further ambivalence, and shows that even though the heterosexual assumption is made, the film does not take it too seriously. A more concrete example of the film’s ambivalence can be seen in its assumptions about race. In two separate scenes, race is assumed to be essential – completely natural and unchangeable. Revisiting the scene of the meeting of the investigative team, we see that the Japanese scientist never speaks English; his lines are always dubbed over. His “natural” Japaneseness is demonstrated by his inability to change his language. Later we see Sam Smith, the African-American disguise expert, consistently fail with his attempts at disguise, due to his “natural” blackness; in one scene, even his German uniform, moustache, and German phrases fail to pass him off as Adolf Hitler. In Bodies that Matter, Butler addresses society’s anxiety about the breakdown of sexual norms – she claims that the suggestion of the construction of even physical differences such as sex threatens the heteronormative (3). This same anxiety can be seen in the film’s treatment of race as an essential difference. Race is assumed to be a physical distinction that is inflexible and much of human culture is based on these differences. Suggestions that race is not as essential as it is thought to be threatens the very society developed upon it. Ultimately, although Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is almost solely a parody of the assumptions we make about the naturalness of human culture, and about the imminent threat of differences invading, it fails to fulfill its mission in two places. Despite the film’s attempt to mock everything and to keep us from taking anything seriously, the two assumptions it does make about essential race and heterosexuality detract from the overall context of superficiality. Works Cited Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”. New York: Routledge, 1993 Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An
Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Performing Feminisms:
Feminist Critical Theory and Theatre. Ed. Sue-Ellen Case. Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. 270-282.
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