4 Genet’s The Screens as Media Allegory David Feni Wile the Algerian War and the question of decolonization furnish the vious politealrefereats for Jen Genet's Te tens, thee hidden politics at work in the tex, whic focused on sass medi technology ‘and consumers. In order to explore this important, though neglected featonship, this esay rethinks Gene final playin the socal and Istoical contest ofa post-war France grapping withthe twin forces of ‘colonization and rapid modernization, The swift is of consumer cle ture in France dung the 19503 and 1960s, as Keistn Ross sgues (1995), constituted a concerted attempt to cleanse the stun’ of alge fom French national consciousness. The proliferation of inexpensive con sumabls and durable goods, slong wit the emergence of nev forms of ‘mass medi, helped Francs to forge the los oe colonial empire and {he especially horendous episode ofthe Algerian War While Te Sens {nots polital pay In ny simple ease, as Genet himself stesed ‘numerous comments, to divorce rom the specie context in which it ‘mas rested apd st performed obscures Gene's partculir tion ofthe polit, ad his unique conespton of polis! theatre “Te furore raised by the fst Fench production ia. 1966—violent protest in the theatre and onthe stats heated debates inthe French ‘media and the National Assembly—suggests ned to reexatine the play beyond abstract themes suchas entity, language ot epesetaton The challenge, then, Is to understand The Screen as somehow suspended ‘between poliical enpagemont and philosophical detachment. Nether ‘vet propaganda nor mere asteticsm, the pay ‘perfor the lation ‘of subjects ving nan age af warand pecace, ang oles an llegry fot the role of mass media communication in an era of mas consumption. It umes Is ful meaning in the confluence of the to vesions of lego, where histor as ctastophe mets the common eth‘To understand the kind of allegory enacted in The Seen and how suc an allegory might relate to mass medi technology and dispose culture, I revit briefly Walter Benjanin's work on the Tauepil— German tragic drama, ot mourning play-—and hs lates wings on Baudelsie, A notoriously polysemous and dynaiic term, bnfaie's ‘allegory is nether simply & mode of artic expresion, noe theory of language; rates, its a way of conceiving history and wali ean accor ‘ulation of rulns or fragments, olsted from each other, and ths lose of fom the possiblity of transcendent meaning. ln Th Orin af ‘German Tie Duma, Benjamin reeonfgurs the suppsed weakness of ‘German batoque rama into both a model fr his own pica ation of alegor and, in a more ambitious sense, as Mure fer westem ‘ioderityin geal. The Traurpll ale, contends Benj beets ‘he characters lacked depth, ane were caught inthe eed shea of allegorical theatre whose aruice wa ll oo apparent, especaly when compared with the moze psychological and mimetic theate of the Renabsance (Benjamin, 1998, pp. 98,184, 191), Bena ext, how. ‘er claims an ambivalent victory (or this nepleced gene, ee, nthe ulns of great buldings the idea ofthe plan speaks more impressively than in lesser buildings, however well preserved they abit, p 238). le other words, beneath the agmeatay, andom, and ovet fica signs on the stage ofthe raul, Benjamin dices grand concep, ‘amalyarfce and fragmentation themlves, tn [Benjamis’s notion ol alegony, wits jim Manse, ‘mater forma inet which sivaye ‘moribund, can never reconcile with the tanscendental desl an nevet, bh permanent. Hath ies mathe of impormancie snd ox" GOON, . 674), For Benjamin, an allegory is opposed to a symbol bce 9 Symbol bears sn apparently organic relaonaity with te efeen, wht fn allegory #8 composed of delberatly arial material gas that fragment, oppose andor replace the oiginal referent. This concept of sllegory as ruin that Benjamin fst devs fom baroque ama, ad whlch Hansen calls the ‘modbund? los of transcendent meaning, finds i ninetenth-century counterpart, according to Bensmin, Baul’ works, where the proces of alegoricl signfeton semble: the process of commodification. tn Baudelae’s Pts, allegoey as com ‘modlty comes to mean tering things out of the conten f tet sl Interelation Benjamin, 1985p. 4, ‘The ink betwen such conceptions of allegory and commodtcation for reading of The Senses n Genet use ofthe “nate forms of theatre as media which effect the disappearance of his characters. The “bua prominence of screens used Uroughout he play, the ena ole ents Te Sens ws Maia Algry 8 they perform inthe stage action, swell a the play's ie, all suggest, as Matsal MeLuban would pat i thatthe play's medium is is message (0964) Also important inthis contexts the way in which the dramatic rmedia—thiek makeup, plastic prostheses, padding, screens, poetically opaque lnguage—sppeat fo endl the very message ofthe pay es bordinaton of living begs to commodied objects and spectacular Images, Genet’ age directions indicate carefully how the sree and what they depict, shouldbe. They are tobe sppronimatsy these meters igh, and equipped with rubber whee 20 they can be moved i ‘absolute sence’ (Genet, 1962, p. 10) Inthe commentary on Tables (One the cuecions are exit, the intended stage prope undergo an tlmost fantasia metamorphosis ‘Te sree, which comes fom the right towatds the let should be ‘very lightvelght, very ele, so thatthe tagenand may py ke an acoréon: in other words either pling to make wide, jeking It abruptly, or moving it some other way, according to his ‘ancy Indeed, he mst el tat hea eal acto, fe wants to anmate the st (2000, p. 25)" "specially sthing i the degree to which thls apparently simple rea- Lonship between stagehand and sreen resembles the complex tltion- ship between contemporary society and the clemeats of is domestic eco, as elsussd by Jean Beudillrd in The System of Objects text ‘whose pubucation in 1968 roughly contemporaneous with the bench, ‘Premiere of The Semen in 1966. Genet’ seen, ke Saudis modern furnishings, are mobile and Hable. tstead of relecting the ble, ‘they work o cody her/his deny So tat it becomes» prodict of te ‘very sjstem which fhe has been compelled to azange and manipult in ‘the firs place Baudilard, 1986, pp. 24-29). The objects bea the mean. {ng not the individ ta Genet’ play, te man presence behind the ‘iid and mobile prominence of the screens becomes both subordinated to, and ersed by, stage funiture. However, while for Boudeliard this preoccupation with ordering tums the modem subject into a ‘mental Dbypochondnac . obsesed withthe absolee crelation of message! bid, p25), Geet inject the semingly mundane ask of moving stage scenery withthe patos ofa athe tender—if somewhat pathological ‘es de deux performed between stagehand and sree. The stagehand, “according 16 his ancy, both dances with, and draws a Kind of alent sic Hom, the sereen which makes him vise.© onset ‘Along withthe innovative use of the ssens themselves The Sens fxplolts uadtionaly theatrical media such as cormetic, and move technologically modern devices lke plastic prostheses, Genet ears ‘that in adltion to ‘excessive make-up, the actors should wear fake chins and nose, a proces which should be fcitated bythe owas ‘fnew plastics tat can be used In presenting pays nowadays” (1962, . 10. "No face should rain the conventional Beaty of feature Which 's played up al too often on both stage and scree! he expan 1d, . 10), Numerous instances in the ply exist where pesonalomanents: Lon and make-up serve to matk the ste of human absenceor dey 1 ‘ls commentary on Tableau Eleven, Gent cams that each chatacters aly a wound disappearing beneath omamients ad appeating tough "en (200, p14), Wards, Talen Two takes this tages tp fete ther as she declares when missing one of her bracelet that shes ike 3 ‘coin sing ahazmersroke’ (bid, p. 28). The actor plang Ward, ‘whose body spacial replaced byaceoutementsand takes aly becomes vie through her moverens within the consianed are rescibed by Genet’ stage ection. Genet instructs tha the actors ‘movements must be ‘extemely pret” and ‘very tau’ and sould Include no ‘sce gestures (1962.10) And the poetic gure of the ‘unfinished con metonymicallyiaserbes Wad se mute content, Genet’ distrust of conventional beauty” goes othe very beat a the Baudiladin concep of appearance as Something that bol esses the human and points to ts absence, To understand the ‘lstonship between medium ofthe screen inthe pay and psi acd cosmetic turn. once agzin, 9 Rowden, printpally argu tn The Gansuner Soc in ‘that tet, Bauder’ contents that mass eda technology functions lke makeup on the fae, The procs operates rough a spsematle substation ofthe el but disparate features fof the face by a network of asta, but coherent messages ug techie ‘ements and s code of imposed meaning’ (the beauty cole (198, p. 132-5). This code functions inthe sme way the codeof conven? onal beauty which Genet xticaes ax Being aloo comm ed ia theatre casting practices (1962, p. 10. Both codes ier the tel features of the human face through, a8 Budd states ‘an ete Indust production line” of substitions, turning the lace into 3 similacrum of «face, and most importantly, into 2 consumable ech (0996, p13, With the emphasis in The Screns on hewlyexggetated ‘make-up and prose features, Genet draws tention fo, ted sbvets, this code by reveling nd exaggerating the ati process by which functions iets Te Sens Meta gery 6 i addin, the play's cosmetis and costume design reveal the ace ‘ode’ which organizes the Algerians and the French Into stetetyped cariatuses: the Arb characters ae to wear ‘wathy’ mse and ery aly, oakum wig’ (Genet, 1962, p. 10), and te European characters ae depicted as outlandish earcturer of colonialist powes,westing 30 centimetre highheels, sporting thick moustaches, nd lage ginget feckles Ubi, pp. 29-30; 2000, p. 47). The Sens exaggecates ahd {hereby strises the arbitrary social meanings attached to each ofthese Individus! visual cues A theoretical nk ean be dawn between the ‘isu technology of make-up tat ite’ the ‘el feature’ of the fae snd visual media that ‘fer the "aw even ofthe Algerian Wa since both systems manufacture representable and consumable commodities. Such link reveals the unexpected way in which Genet grafts together esthetics and polis, ‘The other instance in which Genet mentions plastic inthe pla cries, suilly potent politcal and socologlal inflections. In Tableau Nine, {a lovingly pulls objects out fom under her skit cheese grater lamp, ‘as. She reson to drawing the inal objects stolen clock, which she ‘maternally calls “her latest be one’ (1962, p. 61)—on the seat ‘by means of «charcoal pencil. When The Mother sss eri ts mace of ‘matble or gate, Lala proudly replies, alate’ (2000, p. 97) (Galaithe—the tradematk forthe ist pase manufactured from easel (@ chemical by-product derived trom curled alk, hence gala meaning ‘ml, and de meaning stone’}—serves aa badge of hoaout for Let she aie ‘with pride’ thatthe clock & plastic, When the Gendarme ‘ous areat he for the tet oF te cloc, she Deshi to assault hee But the Gendarme refuses, thus demonstrating his protest against Let's affection fr psi ‘THE GENDARME: You know very well we can't treat you the way we sed fo, (Ale dscncred) We want tobe humane (tum), Pa one of those who wants tobe humane (uma), but is you who look {or ouble About the dock wel dacs it up therewith te sergeant. ‘Wsmtaton matble, rit el marble, you can bet tation, The Stuff thats sold in vilages and at fas and markets nowadays Nothing’ like wsed tobe. (1962.66). Ue this passage Is considered In teams of the function of plastic as ‘medium, and is use as the material de hos of disposable culture, new readings of Te Screens come to light, The Gendscme explains thatthe ‘sume sual that has jst taken place between him and Lele and The2 oat Mother inerogation regarding the mateial constitute ofthe ‘ock—wi lio form pat of Lea's questoning at police hescquare. He suggess that Lell's gut will depend on the contin of the