The Human Drama

Summarize the documentary.

The documentary entitled “Marwencol” highlights the life of Mark Hogancamp, who
nearly died almost 22 years ago after being attacked by five men outside a Kingston, New York,
Bar years ago. He spent nine days in a coma before waking up. He had gone through brain
damage and had serious injuries. When he woke up, he had little to no memory of his life.
Unfortunately, he could not afford to stay in the hospital. Due to his predicament, Mark came up
with his form of therapy. He built a World War II inspired town in his backyard. He placed dolls
which represented his family, friends, as well as his attackers. The tiny dolls were used to
recover his hand and eye coordination. At the same time, he was going through the psychological
trauma caused by the attack by using the small town’s battles and dramas. Soon, he decided to
document these “dramas.” Mark started documenting his miniature dramas with his camera. In
these dramas, he had an alter ego “Captain Hogancamp.” He had five attackers. They seemed to
be getting along well initially, since one of them shared the same German ancestry as
Hogancamp. This lasted until Mark told them that he wore heels and nylons. The five men
waited for Hogancamp outside of the bar. According to him and the witnesses, he left the bar,
talked to his five men for a while, when he started heading home, they attacked him from behind.
Within seconds, he was already unconscious but that did not stop his attackers from beating him
up. When they ran away, he stopped breathing, with blood coming out of his nose and mouth. He
then stayed in the hospital for a little over one month but had to get out when his insurance
stopped covering the bills. For a year, he was in physical therapy. The therapy was working
slowly. He learned to walk, talk and clean up after himself. In his backyard, for three years, he
had been building the fictional World War II town called “Marwencol.” He used wood, nails,
and screws to construct it. It included carefully constructed bars. There were miniature drinks, in
which he used broken windscreen glass as ice. The miniature town was complete with a town
hall, bank, cemetery, ice cream fountain, and a gasoline station. He enacted dramas using the
figures. Mark also purchases and builds more models. Notably, he has created scenes of fights,
sexual situations, and murders. It was said that this was his way working out his rage at his
attackers. Some of the photos were presented in time lapse, to animate the work. Additionally,
Mark’s friends and the attorney who handled his case were interview and they all bore witness to
his creativity. The documentary focused more on Mark’s real story rather than his work with his
miniature town.

Integrate concepts learned from the previous lecture, specifically on the readings on Erving
Goffman.

Erving Goffman is known for employing the “dramaturgical” approach in his study.
According to him, interaction is regarded as a “performance.” This means that interactions with
other people are shaped by the environment and the audience, to provide them with
“performances” that align well with the actors’ objective/goal. Whatever the mental state of the
person is, the performance exists. The establishment of a social identity is tied to concept of
“front.” The front is defined as part of a person’s performance that works in a fixed fashion to
define the situation for the observers. Just like in Hogancamp’s story, he built a miniature World
War II town, and enacted scenes using little dolls. The whole town he has built and the dolls he
installed were all representations of the his real life. While not all of the stories and dramas were
his exact experiences, it was inspired by his personal life. In his dramas, he creates an alter ego
of himself, named “Captain Hogancamp” whom he made the hero. As Goffman established,
individuals make attempts to present an “idealized” version of the front. An “idealized” version,
in this sense would mean that the actions conformed to the societal norms, mores, and laws. It
was different from how the actor or the individual behaved without and audience. Hogancamp
presents his alter ego or his “idealized” version as a heroic airman who runs a local bar. Goffman
gives a good deal of importance to collaborative settings, in contrast with the activities of a one
performer. A lot of it deal with mutually arranged settings where there are multiple actors
involved. Goffman posits that actors usually work as “teams”, in such circumstances where the
focal point of the performance is to show and structure multiple tasks or activities rather than
show the individual characteristics of an actor. The concept of trust also comes into play. In the
area of social sciences, the study of trust has become an important preoccupation ever since
Goffman wrote and published Presentation of Self. He said a lot of things that are relevant to it.
In social situations, gaining the trust of other people is partly accomplished by maintaining an
impression of competence and “professionalism.” Professionalism from groups of waiters, airline
staff, and medical teams are highlighted in Goffman’s writings. In the documentary, we see that
Hogancamp buys military toys and sets up dolls in military uniform. These were named for his
friends and co-workers. He puts the alter-egos of these people under harmful situations in his
own world, the “Marwencol.” He lets these dolls play their respective roles while he plays the
hero. This is the collective impression. It is also important to note that he documented those
dolls and so his work became not only therapy, but also art. Erving Goffman is careful in
qualifying the dramaturgical metaphor. The “projections of the theatrical performance” part of
Presentation of Self has garnered the most attention critically. Therefore, Goffman clears up that
he has full awareness of the limitations of the dramaturgical approach. He talks about its
shortcomings. He says that the theatre is mainly about make believe and all scenes are carefully
planned and prepared beforehand. In contrast to real life, this does not hold true in majority of
the cases. In everyday life, the things that happen and the performances are not well rehearsed
and practiced. While in Marwencol, the dramas and scenes were carefully and meticulously
prepared by Hogancamp, this was not the case in real life. He made Marwencol a war-stricken
town. In the snows, there were blood, and there were also rotting bodies in the puddles, and
murdered townspeople were commonplace. The men were so brutally tortured to the point where
their brains were visible. It was creepy, disturbing but also impressive. Hogancamp also said that
he made Marwencol to kill his five attackers since he had no way of doing it in real life. Unlike
in the miniature town, where he could kill his attackers all he wants, he would get caught and go
to prison if he did it in real life. In a way, this was his method of taking out his anger.
Hogancamp brought the town and dolls to life. They were living characters in World War II
inspired story filled with violence and revenge. Mark made the fictional town to escape the real
world.
List of References:

Giddens, A. (2009). On Rereading The Presentation of Self: Some Reflections. Social

Psychology Quarterly, 72(4), 290–295. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25677370

Goffman, E. (n.d.). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Retrieved from

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ad26/49c8c32890ce1afb346b333e19bec089a6a6.pdf

Moore, R. (2018, July 19). Movie Review: “Marwencol,” the documentary that inspired

“Welcome to Marwen.” Movie Nation. https://rogersmovienation.com/2018/06/20/movie-

review-marwencol-the-documentary-that-inspired-welcome-to-marwen/

Ronson, J. (2020, March 26). Marwencol: the incredible WWII art project created by a cross-

dresser who was beaten up by bigots. The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/28/mark-hogancamp-marwencol-jon-

ronson-miniature-town-horrors-of-war