Essay 1

The Filth/Ticket That Exploded:Given that portions of both The Filth and The Ticket That Exploded depict very dark, strange, and unhealthy representations of sexuality, a subject that already evokes closely guarded responses, I think most people not only had a difficult time talking about these books without the comfort of anonymity but had a difficult time confronting the work in general. Classroom discussion did not get far past rectal mucus regarding the Ticket That Exploded, and complaints did not stop when discussion moved to blogs and plurking though it sounded like the book finally grew on several people by the time they finished it. In this case the different mediums of communication and their degree of identity shielding, plurk and blogging ranging from slightly to completely anonymous depending on user information like screen names and whether a picture is posted, may not have had as much to do with peoples’ outward opinions of The Ticket. Burroughs has a very abrasive, surreal writing style that really may have caught students off guard, I know it personally did for me. It takes a while for the sickening world he weaves to start making sense around you because it comes off as being so foreign and nauseating. The same can be said for Morrison who was clearly influenced by Burroughs. If the reader misses the humor and satire, it becomes exhausting and just a bit like brain rape. Being that The Ticket That Exploded was published in the early sixties and much of it was probably written in the late fifties, a decade of American mass repression, along with the fact that Burroughs was writing from the perspective of a homosexual man during these times, the frequent sex scenes in TTTA reflect this repression, having the jarring tone of a subconscious sorting through confused fantasies that have fermented, unacknowledged in the mind. In a way much of the book is repression word stew. Because of the cut-up technique, Burroughs is literally taking the consciousness of the country through its media, splicing it and fashioning it in a collective subconscious that comments on everything from sexuality to the tensions of the cold war.
In the red states we have a culture that possesses a conservative view point that is not too far from cold war era America. On one hand they condemn the idea of pornography inherently in their values, but on the other…apparently they are trying to ease repressed desires in private, at least that is what a reading of Burroughs would imply in Benjamin Edelman’s Harvard Business School study. In The Filth much of why porn works, why there is a consistently high number of subscriptions in the red states, is demonstrated. Surrounding Tex Porneau’s twenty four hour a day, seven day a week orgy are your average characters going about their mundane lives. A delivery man comes to the door and, not knowing what he has gotten himself into he is thrown into a mound of naked bodies in the middle of Tex’s house. Detectives Whim and Welliwell come to investigate the Porneau house at one point, Whim holding a crack pipe in hand and Welliwell saying “Don’t you think you’re starting to abuse that stuff?” He gets the response “Fuck you. It’s recreational. It’s under control.” This is juxtaposed over the image of Whim ringing the doorbell of Porneau’s mansion. Needless to say they are both thrown into the orgy whether they like it or not just as the delivery man was. Detective Whim serves as a strong metaphor for the introduction to pornography. He has the job and the outward appearance of a law upholding man, but he is also occasionally pictured smoking from a crack pipe and claiming that it is just for recreational use. This translates to pornography, the curiosity (which may be driven by repression) of this man who starts to investigate a pornography ring and has an attitude towards his present addiction of “I just do it for fun”. It does not take long before he is thrown into the depravity without wanting to be and turned into a victim of pornography just as a crack addict is turned into a victim of the addictive properties of crack. It is easier to begin watching pornography if it is anonymous, like the internet sites in the red state study. You would have special incentive for anonymity if you have an image of holding conservative values.