Blue Velvet

This was originally written for my cinema class in college.

The academic analysis I am going to review for my midterm project is Subverting Eden: Ambiguity of Evil and the American Dream in Blue Velvet by Irena Makarushka. In her paper Irena Makarushka discusses how David Lynch breaks down the traditional illusions about American Dream and the ambiguity of the good and evil definitions in society. She supports her thesis with a lot of examples from the film. In addition, she shows parallelisms between David Lynch's style of questioning things in Blue Velvet and some concepts that are discussed by Nietzsche; like nihilism and postmodernism.

According to Irena Makarushka David Lynch subverts the idea of the Eden; the “American Dream” for Blue Velvet. She gives the opening scene as her most significant example for this. In the opening scene of Blue Velvet we see the traditional icons of the American Dream; a home securing fence, beautiful flowers, a smiling and waving fireman, a crossing guard that helps school kids on the street, etc. where the main colors are simple primary colors like red, blue and white. Then David Lynch tears this too perfect image of the town Lumberton, the town where the film takes place, by showing Jeffrey's dad having a heart attack. Following this event Jeffrey founds the mysterious ear on the floor which emphasizes the idea of “things are not always what they seem” (Makarushka, 31). With these disturbing events David Lynch starts to show us that the dream is not that simple and perfect. Colors get more complicated and darker and we see that the “American Dream” is tentative like Eden was tentative for Adam and Eve. There are so much more underneath the surface in reality but the people, like the people from Lumberton, tend to deny that reality and turn a blind eye to it. Irena Makarushka especially gives the examples of how Jeffrey's mom and aunt behave throughout the film for supporting this idea. Jeffrey wants to open his eyes and dive into places where he can get more knowledge about the world but this is going to cause him and Sandy to leave their illusionary Eden, “American Dream”.

Irena Makarushka also argues that in Blue Velvet David Lynch questions the ambiguity between good and evil, right and wrong, and shows that their definitions are not that simple as they exist in traditional sense. The film's narrative starts with characters that seem to represent those traditional simple definitions but then as we start to know them more the answer to what is good and what is evil gets complicated. Irena Makarushka says “The narrative, which follows the classical lines of a detective fiction, appears to be quite simple and straightforward. Jeffrey, the handsome and brave hero, with the help of his beautiful blond girlfriend, sets out to rescue the dark lady, Dorothy, from the clutches of the evil drug dealer, Frank. However, upon closer scrutiny, the story is far from simple.” (Makarushka, 33). Irena Makarushka gives Jeffrey's inner battle as an example for this. Jeffrey, who thinks himself as a good boy, realizes that he also has some evil in himself from his experiences in Dorothy's world. Both Jeffrey and Sandy think they are in this detective mission for good but especially Jeffrey sometimes finds himself in the position of a pervert after spending more time with Dorothy. According to Irena Makarushka, David Lynch supports as people start to experience things rather than just believing their simple illusionary surface they realize the ambiguity in traditional definitions. David Lynch does not show good and evil or right and wrong as opposites but instead he shows they exist together and this is especially emphasized in Jeffrey's inner struggle after he experiences Dorothy's and Frank's world. This is Jeffrey's loss of innocence and as Frank says in the film Jeffrey is like him.

In addition, Irena Makarushka informs us about how Nietzsche argues on some definitions that are related with David Lynch's narrative style in Blue Velvet. She gives the definitions of postmodernism of reaction, postmodernism of resistance, passive nihilism and active nihilism and she interprets them according to Nietzsche's arguments. She claims that David Lynch work in Blue Velvet uses postmodernism of resistance while questioning the traditional images that are represented by postmodernism of reaction and David Lynch also presents the ambiguity between passive nihilism, which can be thought as people wanting the illusionary comfort of the past and traditions, and active nihilism, which can be associated with people's resistance against the old fixed traditional beliefs.

I am not going to comment on how David Lynch's work in Blue Velvet can be explained with Nietzsche's ideas about postmodernism of resistance, postmodernism of reaction, passive nihilism and active nihilism because I do not have much knowledge about these terms. However, I agree with Irena Makarushka on her thesis about how David Lynch questions the “American Dream” and ambiguity between good and evil in Blue Velvet. When I tried to read the subtext of Blue Velvet for the first time what immediately came to my mind was “American Dream” is being torn down. Then after I have read about some symbolisms that were used in the film I realized that the film was also about Jeffrey's inner struggle while dealing with the concepts of good and evil.

Most obvious example on the subversion of “American Dream” is the opening scene of Blue Velvet as Irena Makarushka also mentions. For me those images at the beginning were so disturbingly perfect that I was happy when I saw they were interrupted by Jeffrey's father's hearth attack. Then David Lynch dives his camera to the ground where he makes us see lots of bugs under the beautiful green grass. This emphasizes the idea of things are not what they seem like on the surface. You have to start to look beneath the surface to wake up from the dream and face the reality; and the reality may contain non-pleasant things, like bugs. After that, Jeffrey finds the ear and things get more and more complicated for the simple “American Dream”.

David Lynch also plays with the simple traditional definitions of the concepts good and evil or right and wrong. Questioning the ambiguity between good and evil becomes the maturation process for our protagonist Jeffrey. He realizes he is not just a good boy-next-door but he can also experience evil in himself. For example, in the scene where he first refuses Dorothy's sick request but then does what she wants, which is hitting her, David Lynch places a roaring sound in the background which can be thought as the sound that represents evil. Then we hear a similar sound when Frank is shot by Jeffrey and it is like David Lynch wants to make us hear the moaning of the devil at that moment when he is shot. In traditional definitions Frank is already an evil and he is also aware of that. Therefore, hearing that kind of a sound when Frank is shot is normal for us. However, David Lynch show us under the perfect handsome-good-boy image of Jeffrey we can also hear that evil sound because once Jeffrey starts to experience things rather than believing the illusions of the society we see that he can do some evil, too. Therefore, good and evil are hand-in-hand in every person no matter what they believe about themselves.

To sum up, I agree with Irena Makarushka's thesis in her paper Subverting Eden: Ambiguity of Evil and the American Dream in Blue Velvet. David Lynch subverts the idea of the “American Dream” and shows the ambiguity between good and evil in his film Blue Velvet. He tries to show us what are behind the curtains and makes us realize that they are not as simple and perfect as some people blindly believe them to be. Therefore, although Blue Velvet is not an entertaining film to watch; it leaves you with a lot of important questions to think about which I think what makes this film or any other David Lynch film great.