You're looking at yourselves...

Jerry Springer: the Opera is a work of musical theatre that was workshopped extensively (at Battersea, I think) and reworked a number of times. The Beeb preceded the showing of JS The Opera with a programme about the actual Jerry Springer show and why it makes good fodder for cultural commentary (I didn't see that bit) and Ruby Wax shadowing the Jerry Springer show, which I did see.

From a musical point of view, I found JS The Opera quite interesting, though not at all in the league of brilliance. It reminds me a bit of West Side Story. which also made ripples when it came out, and which, when it was first produced, caused some debate as to whether it was "serious art" or just another Broadway musical. West Side Story different from your average musical, however, partly in that it mixed up different genres in an innovative way, and also because, like Opera, it had a sophisticated musical structure in that various different arias and characters' themes would recur in new contexts, layered together with other musical themes, making a richly layered piece, and taking it more into the realm of Opera than musical theatre. Jerry Springer the Opera goes some distance down the same track - not as artfully, but enough to make it much more interesting than I expected.

The controversy surrounding this production has to do with the narrative, and here I find myself a bit puzzled, for the vocal opposition to the broadcast had given me to expect a good deal of lambasting of God, Jesus and Mary, and some fairly disgraceful display of mockery of them. What I saw, however, was a narrative within which the elements of the show mirror some of the tendencies of celebrity culture, which are then reflected back in terms of the spiritual results - a powerless, ridiculous God, a Devil invested with all the power we let him have simply by obeying his demands to act as a manipulated audience and not think or act morally, and all these religious icons cynically superimposed on the figures who fill too many screens and too many living rooms too many hours of the week.

The ugliness and shallowness of TV culture was highlighted by some of the songs sung by the guests in Act I, who poignantly expressed the lack of truth and the longing for love and beauty - "I want to say something beautiful, I want to say something positive, I want to learn how to dream again, to feel again...", and, "I'm tired of laughing, tired of crying, I just want to dance" - and by Jerry reflecting at one point that "When I was a young man I was passionate about civil rights... Later I was Mayor of Cincinnati...". The longing for something better is also shown by Jerry's 'inner Valkyrie' whom he constantly sends away - an interesting touch, suggesting that there is plenty of conscience and plenty of longing for something better, but rather than attend to those voices, our society prefers to drown it out with the TV noise.

The most interesting part of Act I was the alternative sequences between the warm up man and the adverts. The warm-up man is there to control and manipulate the audience, to express approval for the good guys, disgust and anger at the bad guys, and deliver some kind of judgement which OUGHT to be moral judgement, but which, as he points out, is really just about "having a good time". The interjection of Advert sequences between each of the intcreasingly bizarre revelations of the "guests" on the show were adverts tapped into the fears of the audience that were later the roots of the guests' problems. Here was the set-up, then - this show epitomises what most TV does, which is to convince us we are making moral judgements whilst lulling us into a mode of entertainment. What really matters most in the whole world? it's whether I'm having a good time...

Rather apt, then, that when Jerry is shot, and Act II opens with the dream sequence that is his near-death delirium, the Warm-Up man has returned in his dreams as the Devil; the manipulator who is now asking Jerry to make REAL judgements (and now we the audience are being asked - what is this TV culture all about, then?). As Jerry's dream unfolds, some of his bizarre and disordered guests start to take on the characters of GOd, Jesus, Mary, Adam and Eve; this is the bit that evidently is supposed to be blasphemous, but within the narrative it is clear that this is Jerry's tortured conscience discovering that if you make celebrity, self and sex into your GOd, there is nobody left to stand up to the "devil".

The tragedy the opera* highlights is the moral vacuity of a society that in the end, does nothing much more than "Eat, excrete and watch TV", and looks to celebrities for their hope and inspiration. Rather than an offence against God, I thnk it's a strong statement against a Godless, individualistic, celebrity-obsessed society.

What is it actually saying about God, or about the TV-viewing public's view of God? Maybe that the immorality of TV places all the cards into the hands of evil, and incapacitates people's perception of God? As Jerry says "I don't solve problems, I just televise them"

Or, perhaps, the fact that in the end God is represented by the most Bizarre of the guests suggests that we have deified our over-individualised selves. As Jerry puts it, "It's the human condition we're talking about here." The replacement of a true sense of self, community or God is shown by the audience reaction - "Please don't die, Jerry." "Who will speak for us, when you are gone? "  (i.e. don't stay because we like you, but because you're filling the sacred space in our souls.)

Opera and theatre are not usually enjoyed to the full without some knowledge of the language, symbolism, artistic weaving of sound and image and words that they employ. I don't think this piece sets out to display God and Jesus and Mary as bizarre and powerless, as much as it shows us our capacity to create or destroy if we put all our creative power into the hands of the celebrity business; in doing so it shows that the sicker aspects of our own over-individualised yet disempowered society does indeed end up being a "blasphemous" (in the full sense of the word) society, in that we are so easily persuaded to fritter away morality and God-consciousness for something so appalingly cheap and nasty.  In other words, the work holds up a mirror to our society and asks us why we have so woefully lost our way. Who is the opera looking at? - not God, or Jesus, but you, me or anyone else who lives in this society that is hooked on TV, celebrity and 15-minutes of fame. If this was really an opera about Jerry Springer, I imagine he'd have been suing a few people by now. But it's not really about Jerry Springer, it's about you, me and TV-celebrity culture. And it's no more about the "real" God than it is about the "real" Jerry Springer. Actually who it's about is you and me. The motif "I've been seeing someone else" is, at the opening of Act i, used literally as the words of someone who is being unfaithful to their partner. At the end the motif recurs, and is suggestive of the idea that I've been seeing someone else (I.e. seeing another person on TV revealing all their sordid secrets) but really i've been seeing myself. Jerry recovers from his dream for a few moments to deliver one of his epilogues: "you're not looking at a dying man here, you're looking at yourselves..."

*(I think it mixes the genres of opera & musical)
update: Howard writes interestingly on what's allowable or desirable on TV/arts etc

Comments

[robert]

The Bernstein parallel is interesting. I thought the 'I want to say something beautiful' reminded me of something and maybe it's The Simple Song from the Mass. There's also the swearing in West Side Story

[Steve Broad]

I think William Rees-Mogg has said it well:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1052-1433276,00.html

'CALLOW SOPHISTICATION'. Yes, a good phrase to remember, O Cultured Despisers of us hillbillies ....

[Christopher Shell]

This analysis may be right. I think you are being a bit disingenuous at times (e.g., 'the bit that is evidently supposed to be blasphemous' - you know very well that that is the bit that is supposed to be blasphemous...).

I have 2 questions:
(1) What proportion of the watchers will have been educated enough to view the opera in such a subtle way (and let's forget the cliche about not underestimating the general public, since we wouldnt want to open up the possibility of any of them being harmed by it if we could help it)?

(2) What proportion of youger agegroups will have been capable of such an analysis?

All that a lot of people will have seen is a supposedly authoritative broadcasting channel acting and speaking adolescent. And authority-figures forfeiting respect is a sure recipe for chaos among those who want to have someone/something to respect, want evidence that there are some role models left.

No-one can seriously believe that most watchers would be capable of such a subtle (and non untrue) analysis.

Also in my view a partial analysis. Why is it that 'satire' so often ends up with precisely the same ingredients as adolescent humour would produce? Coincidence? Or are there other motives at work besides the satirical? Shock value? The thrill of naughtiness? Publicity? Money? Who would be so naive as to deny that these may have played a part?

[maggi]

Well, Christopher, I don't want to go too far down the track of defending JS the Opera, because I thought it was interesting but far from brilliant.

I'm interested in your comment
"No-one can seriously believe that most watchers would be capable of such a subtle (and non untrue) analysis."
If we say that we should only show things on TV that can be understood by everyone, and not demand a bit more educated listening and subtle analysis, then we're into the kind of dumbing down we all despise, aren't we? What a tragic shame it would be if the quality of TV we buy into is the kind of dumbed down redutionism of "Who wrote the Bible", for instance.
And if we decide only to show things that won't offend or might be taken the wrong way because people can't understand them, who is going to decide that? I'm well aware (indeed I've been thinking about it evere since Saturday) that issues of deep offence and blasphemy must be considered seriously. But if that leads us to cultural imperialism we'll be in a sorry state.

[Tim]

@Christopher: how many people (from younger age groups or not) do you think would have watched this production if it hadn't been given so much free publicity by CV/The Daily Mail?

Having been involved in an online discussion forum, mostly made up of non-Christians, about this, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that some people watched it purely because of the controversy, and that they wouldn't have even known it was on were it not for the protests.

[TeeJay]

I'm an atheist and don't watch much TV at all, and Celebrities don't interest me either, so maybe being Godless I just eat and excrete. And Tim is right, I only knew about this because I heard David Soul defending it on Radio 4.

[Christopher Shell]

Maggi -

Again, what you say is true - it's more what you don't say. E.g.:

You neglect the point that 'tirade of swearwords' is not merely one possible way of misinterpreting this programme, but the number one most obvious way of doing so.

I also wonder about the question of proportions. For example, there might be some programmes that 20% are liable to interpret accurately, others than 80% are liable to interpret accurately. It swould be nuts to treat these two hypothetical programmes are though they had a precisely equal chance of being misinterpreted.

Again, there are few programmes that one might want to watch for two quite separate reasons. But this one is an example - which is what makes it not a normal programme. A theatre/opera fan would watch it for one reason; someone who 'gets off on' swearing and blas-phemy would watch it for a quite different reason. It therefore needs to be assessed in a different category from programmes that would only be watched for one main reason.

Tim - you are so right. The newspapers are so counterproductive sometimes. No wonder ppl sometimes lump all 'the media' together - you can see their point. And the point has to do with double standards and mixed messages. Which is precisely my point about 'The Opera' - mixed messages.

[maggi]

Christopher, these are blogposts, not Theses. I wasn't trying to say everything. But I do think that a) we can't and shouldn't police what people watch, expecially not on the basis that they might not understand it, or might get some perverse gratification from it.

You know what? When I was a teenager there were people at school who used to read the Bible or Shakespeare to find the bits about sex in it, or the bits with abusive language in it. Funny (not) to be able to call someone a Son-of-a-b*88* or a MotherF*****r and then say "but it's in the Bible..." Do you think we should cut those pages out before we put them out for general readership? Maybe we just have to put up with the fact that whatever you do it can be interpreted otherwise. JS the Opera was not great art, but the point about censorship is so over the top as to be counterproductive.

[Tim]

Christopher,

I'm not sure who first made it into an issue, but the blame surely has to rest at least partially with CV, surely? And they're not part of "the media". They (AFAIK) were claiming to speak for all Christians, when they don't.

Either way, it's an own goal.

[Scott]

Long ago (in the days of Lord Reith) the BBC understood its purpose to be public broadcasting to the British nation, undergirded by Christian values, and paid for by a compulsory levy on listeners and viewers (the license fee); I understand this license fee is still charged there. It's a sign of how weak Christianity is in that country and how much contempt Christians are held in by the BBC that a program like 'Jerry Springer the opera' could be shown there, with not a word spoken by the Established Church (also dying of disinterest and irrelevance).

[maggi]

Er. I just pinched myself, Scott. Blood in my veins OK. And I read a few of my favourite blogs last night (howard, tom allen, rhys morgan, good in parts, jonny baker, Hopeful Amphibian, mootblog, to name a few.) We may be in missionary territory rather than the great christian empire (some consider that a more healthy scenario) but I don't think we're dead.

[Christopher Shell]

CV were naive to post telephone numbers and addresses. In some circumstances (i.e. when no-one will listen otherwise) extreme measures are necessary. Among my heroines are the Pankhursts. They rightly realised that sometimes if you dont get extreme no-one listens.

Maggi - are those words really in the Bible? What translation are you using? :o)

[maggi]

I mostly read it either in Koine Greek, Christopher (or Latin when necessary, I never got the hang of Hebrew)

[TeeJay]

Some of you at least seem to be forgetting that non-christians pay the licence fee too. Perhaps I should be burning my tv licence because they show "Songs of Praise"?

Perhaps we should all get extreme about it? We could have christian extremists against Jerry Springer, muslim extremists against songs of praise, atheist extremists against religion in general. What a wonderful world it would be...

Or alternatively we could agree to disagree, tolerate our differences, and not be so flipping daft.

[Dick Davies]

Thanks Maggie for giving me the "rosetta stone" for this. Now I understand how the opera was making its point.

Now I don't think I'm unintelligent (though many may have opinions on that...) - I did'nt get the point - and that is my point - I wrote to Jana Bennett and Franny Moyle at the BBC saying that I object to such "eliteist" art that will no doubt be widely misunderstood.

My point is that art that needs a rosetta stone to decode it for folks like me is a waste of effort - I'd like to get back to art that communicates (and I know that puts me back a century or two!) - and cares about how it is understood.

Incidentally I love the reminder Maggie that we are in the missionary "post christendom" age. A good challenge as this page demonstrates.

[andy moore]

there will always be blasphemy; we live in a world that hates us (or so Jesus said, anyway). my objection to JStO was on the grounds of erroding the percieved standards of public decency: ie broadcasting something that seemed to include far more 'bad-language' than was previously deemed acceptable.
i'd be interested to know Maggi, as a writer of such erodite and refreshing comment, wif you think such an argument is valid?

thanks for such a refreshing and enlightening blog; its nice to know UK ministers can write as well as some of the american blogs i've found...

[maggi]

I feel sure we show the real Jerry SPringer from time to time? THat is much more worrying if standards of public decency is the issue.

I don't think the issues surrounding JStO are claer or easy, but it bugs me that people will campaign with placards about this, while doing nothing at all about the pR*rn industry that resides around the corner. It's a matter of perspcetive for me. How much of Hollywood's money is made from PR*n? about half or more, if I remember the stats corretly.

[David Horne]

Hi Maggi, interesting to chance upon this website, having met you some 15+ yrs ago when you led a rather snowless Masterski holiday! I think it was Abries but senility is taking its toll...

My great fear is that all the protests against JSO are a potentially catastrophic own goal, with free speech as the ultimate victim.

Whilst I found the opera crass and distasteful, for predictable reasons, my concern is that the Government may decide all the shouting (and in the case of Bezhti, violence) is ample justification to impose the proposed religious hatred legislation. But where will this form of censorship begin and end? If politicians, comedians, journalists or just Joe Punter, cannot call a religion to account for what it teaches, or lampoon its adherents, whichever faith is involved, a major liberty under threat.

Only boneheads would wish to see people of any faith gratuitously insulted; but by the same token, surely we need to wise up, grow up, and be less precious. It shouldn’t be a matter for law, but if we don't change fast, it may soon become so. Law properly exists to protect people from real harm, not the wounded sensibilities of the overwrought, whether from Bradford, Brixton or Bromley.

Already in Australia two pastors have lost their houses for daring to speak against Islam. Perhaps they were out of order in manner or content, I don't know. But I do know this. It has been projected that well before the end of this century, Islam will be the majority religion in Britain. What then are the implications of the JSO debacle?

David

[andy moore]

i'm torn on the religious hatred issue. on the one hand i see only derision for Christians and their beliefs in the media (as onetime UK YWAM director Laurence Singlehurst challenged yesterday, can we think of a single positive portrayal of an evangelical/born-again Christian on UK TV?). Yet there is obviously a real danger of such legislation meaning that it will become illegal for differing religions to publically disagree - a legislated postmodern view of truth, if you like. I can only see that this could lead to one of two possibilities:
i) that more and more Christians are actively persecuted and prosecuted for their beliefs, and/or
ii) that the church will become increasingly timid and reluctant to speak out; thats its voice in society will die out through fear...

the danger I think is always in legislation; the law is a very blunt instrument, and can often be twisted to purposes other than its intention (anti-war protestors arrested on anti-terror legislation, for example). This is hwy I would value concertred pressure through existing channels (such as OfCOM) in the case of something like JStO...

[Hugh (Serena's Dad)]

I didn't see the show so can't comment on the content but 2 points spring to mind.

1 Would the show have been broadcast if the name Mohammad was substituted for Jesus?

2 My God, by definition, is big enough to look after Himself (or should that be Themselves?) and doesn't need the protection of a blasphemy law.