The Bastard Grinds You Down
The Bastard Grinds You Down: Working-Class Disability and Repression in Terry McMahons Charlie Casanova
--by TwistaSista
You knock me, if youre so mighty, Why waste your time with me? If Im bad, ignorant and sad, Why waste your time? Youre mad. Negative Vibes, Damien Dempsey A coincidence of surname notwithstanding, it might not be all that improbable to align legendary American showman PT Barnum with Irish yuppie Charlie Barnum. After all, even if it is a sketchy premise to attribute the classic phrase, theres a sucker born every minute to the former Barnum, perhaps that is of little consequence; most of the latter Barnums goal in Terry McMahons film Charlie Casanova is still to prove that point, through his own bizarre brand of shadowy showmanship (or at least he thinks it is). In his dark, sociopathic approach to the Irish social order, Charlie takes us on a haunted house tour of his own psyche. By the end of the ride, the prizes we dizzily stumble away with are not only pictures of mental and spiritual
The Bastard Grinds You Down
derangement, but also a rather fast-paced and suffocative allegory on the faulty mechanism of upper-class privilege in modern Ireland. Indeed, Charlies gambling mans deck of playing cards provides an apt and palpable symbol for the arbitrary (but by no means accidental) nature of market-based classism, as a tiny minority holding the reins of government, media, religion, and finance make decisions affecting anonymous Irish lives every day. If it at all appeared as if those decisions were benevolent tools of spreading the good fortune in the recent past, itd be difficult to argue seriously this position now, particularly in light of a well and truly defanged Celtic Tiger. However, Charlies antisocial destructiveness in the film takes place not in a boardroom, or parliamentary body, but on the ground; his vitriolic vendetta against the lower orders of Ireland hits pay dirt when he runs over a working class girl with his car, an event serving as the pre-game show for what hes capable of, cards in tow. While Charlies sociopathic vehemence is unmistakable, it is difficult to know specifically just who he has it in for more: the working class or simply the human family in general. On one hand exists his perception of the working class as having Irish social culture wrapped around its big fat thumbs, that the track-suited masses he both despises and fears get everything that they havent earned and therefore dont deserve (including public fascination). On the other is his apparent adherence to the belief that the mores of Irish society restrict him from reveling in his nature as a fully experienced prick, unfettered and undeterred. In the tasteless and unrepentant manner of a cock-eyed Byronic hero, kinetic desire could be his to exploit, while impulse control would be non-existent. Responsibility for the consequences of his actions, however, wouldnt be his to accept if he could help it. In truth, Charlies swipes at the restrictiveand often hypocriticalnature of social custom do bear some validity. But if one is to delve into his one-man war against the working class throughout the film (as part of his response to this state of affairs), there is to be found both injustice in his actions, and an overall philosophy in counter-productivity. A number of early critical reviews for Charlie Casanova appeared to be of the consensus that Charlie Barnum is essentially a mouthyyet still dangerouscoward. Indeed, McMahons frugal yet top-notch script and direction, along with Emmet J. Scanlans eerily frenetic portrayal, leave little doubt
The Bastard Grinds You Down
that Charlies fuel amounts to nothing more than a hot pile of paranoid mania. But he is not only a coward: He is also working from a perspective rife with erroneous deliberation. Making sport of working-class lives does little, if anything, to effectively address important issues of social and moral conformity Charlie ironically raises within the film. The larger irony, of course, is the fact that the working class is more (and has been) subject to the punitive nature of social conformity than he could ever be in his present status (some dialogue in the film hint at a possible, ironic even, vacillation of class status in his case). The upper echelon powerbrokers Charlie calls his own have always set down the rules, but with a particular emphasis on proscriptive behavior for those outside its own elitist minority. As a result, much of what has lain behind both positive and negative working-class stereotype has come about, in part, because of attempts at active and symbolic resistance to such hierarchical subjugation. From revolutions, workers rights movements, blue jeans and motor bikes to punk rock, hip-hop, and beyond, such symbols have been the starter pistols for social and cultural rebellion, touchstones emerging as responses to ever increasing marginalization in political, economic, and social agency for working-class populations in the West. Charlies goal is to take the ruling tradition kicking and laughing back to its most basic roots: the ability to control public life and death on a whim, on a playing card, as a means of validating his own private, vacuous hell. Deep down, he knows it. Otherwise, he, in the echo of Damien Dempseys targeted lyrics, simply would waste neither his time, nor his humanity in pursuit of such dehumanizing work. If the position is to be maintained that Charlie Barnum functions on the level of allegorical figurecomplete with symbolic suit-and-tie ensembles, fast-talking charisma and that deck of cardsthen it stands to reason that he is the undisputed boss man of his world. As such, the films plot and action must subscribe to an outcome most favorable to upper-class victory, with little or no spiritual cost to be paid in securing that victory. As both writer and director, McMahon holds steady on this guarantee to Charlie, doing well to ensure that the audience makes no mistake in knowing who this films infamous protagonist is. Nowhere is this more glaringly apparent than when a pivotal equation is introduced into Charlies world by way of yet another allegorical figure, the skanger in the tracksuit, who turns up during Charlies one-act confession-cum-standup-comedian parody in a local pub. At the close of this exercise in
The Bastard Grinds You Down
egotistical masturbation, the fellow follows Charlie out, taunts him brusquely, and beats hima seemingly thorough and honest rebuke of the performance. In one sense, the thrashing scene is a welcome change of pace. Within films where racist aggression is the central theme (which is still classism, but with genetic markers), the victimized individual or group is seldom given the sufficient amount of indignation or agency to corporeally confront the victimization. Such physical confrontation would do little to mitigate the totality of institutionalized racism and its effects, but would validate the basic humanity of all people, as the characters in such films would be demonstrating the logical, instinctual response expected when their lives are threatened. One is reminded of Shane Meadows This is England (2007), a tour de force retrospective on the tragic perversion of working-class cultural resistance by way of the skinhead movement, marred by the severe and self-defenseless beating of Milkya black West Indian rude boysuffered at the boots of Stephen Grahams racist, speed-freaked Combo character. Another immediately glaring precedent of cinematic noble savagery is Mississippi Burning (1988), a decidedly loose biopic on the murder investigation surrounding three American civil rights workers in 1964, which seems to offer up white Southern brutality against black nonviolent bodies with particular glee. In Charlie Casanova, McMahonif only through precedent, if not for reasons of poetic justice in the films overall plothas graciously seen fit to flip this unfortunate tendency on its ear (similarly to that of Romper Stomper (1992), in which a local Australian Malaysian community does not turn tail and run from neo-Nazi Hando and his fascist chums, but instead turns the tables, making Hando and company run). And having been served such a delicious piece of primitiveyet acutely catharticretribution, it may be tempting for the viewer to leave the film either feeling vindicated or victimized, whatever side of the Charlie spectrum one might fall on, with no further thoughts on the matter. This is part of McMahons skill in fashioning this film as he does. For this point should be where the reflection begins (if not continues), not ends, where the questions loom larger than whatever answers are offered or hinted at in the initial analysis. In consideration of the brutal and often damaging abuse the working class is subjected to in life on and off the celluloid, one cant help but wonder how even more compelling Charlie Casanova could have been had not
The Bastard Grinds You Down
our track-suited pawn been hindered thematically from confronting Charlie on a level includingand exceedingthat of his fists. In this version of Irish society, where even the law enforcement entity is reduced to enraged, emasculated impotence, it would perhaps take a character equally as savvy in both the life of the street and the life of the mind to take Charlie on and best him soundly at his own game: to surpass his efforts in humiliation, to unleash controlled amounts of equal parts ass-kicking and equal parts verbal acrobatics, while still managing a sensitivity to conscience that Charlie blissfully, willfully lacks. As our track-suiter stands in the film, his chief purpose is to provide the familiar monosyllabic utterances and mere physical retaliation working-class stereotype can serve up, thus providing Charlie Barnum the warped rationale that his own retaliation later on is not only justified, but heroic. Unfortunately, this is how its supposed to be. It is Charlies spooky house, after all, and he decides how it and everyone in it behaves. Furthermore, simplicity is not on our side here. The effort needed to create an ideal antidotal figure in reaction to the venomous darts Charlie fires at working-class people with impunity isnt as succinct as taking a page from Pygmalion and going from there (the Greek myth more so, perhaps, than the Bernard Shaw play). The defeator at the very least, the humiliationof Charlie Barnum cannot necessarily come in the updating of Defoes picaresque Moll Flanders, or even the animated anti-heroes of Looney Tunes fare. Though by nature these literary and cartoonish creations show up the corruption of established society, they do so generally by thwarting the status quo without dancing too close to the flamein short, without feeling the pain of dancing too close to the flame (Moll Flanders, for example, has a grand time pick pocketing, marrying, and sleeping her way to fame, all the while with at least something of a backdoor exit handy, whatever the jam, just in the nick of time). Perhaps the best we can be offered is the example of a dual literary and cinematic character like Keseys McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (film vers. 1975): the unorthodox yet self-sacrificing inmate who stands up straight against Nurse Ratcheds authoritarian rule and challenges it head on. The tragedy of his inevitable demise is dissipated considerably, since his martyrdom leaves an indelible impression on Big Chief Bromden, thereby sowing the seeds of movementand potential revolution. Of course, this path, too, is not without its obstacles. A key reason why the division of organized human society has been able to take root in classist formand is now more
The Bastard Grinds You Down
entrenched in human social and economic behavior than ever beforehas to do with the dangling carrot of upward mobility. While the working class certainly may give voice and action to real grievances surrounding its particular dramas, a schism often exists in its reality. If a majority of its members could trade places with the exploitative and obscenely rich (or comfortably well-to-do), they would, without a seconds hesitation (Lee J. Cobbs extortionate Johnny Friendly in Kazans On the Waterfront (1954) isnt far off the mark here). If preying is not the game, then abandonment would be. No hesitation would exist either in the idea of leaving those behind not smart or lucky enough to realize a means out of economic, social, and political invisibility. After all, someones got to stay on the bottom for capitalism to work. So long as upward mobility is part of the overall selling point in maintaining this system, working-class folks are often all too willing to ingest the bitter food of self-hatred, particularly when the ruse of class transcendence is so palpably near. By extension then, Charlie Barnums slams against working-class existence, while certainly jarring, may not even arouse the kind of anger, indignation, and above all, mobilization they so richly deserve, from viewers who themselves may only be one or two generationsor even paychecksaway from working-class status, or worse still, abject poverty. Meanwhile, big business increasingly has seen fit to control working class avenues to socially inclusive political and economic agency, and has also found ways to commodify what few expressive markers exist for underclass society. Street culture has been easily hijacked by 7th Avenue in recent decades; pairs of Gold Rush-inspired trousersblue jeansoriginally made for often fruitless explorations of wealth in dust and filth, fly off runways with two hundred dollar price tags. Members of European royalty bump dance grooves straight out of American inner city ghetto consciousness in ironically restrictive nightclubs. High society and low culture have indeed become bumpy bedfellows of a sort, which reminds us of one of Charlies beefs with modern Irish culture, of coursebut also underscores how much our track-suited contender would have up against him, before he even got out of the gate. Working-class complicity is part and parcel of the quicksand that pulls it down surely enough; however, that does not mean that the Charlie Barnums of the world, the brokers for the status quo, absolutely have to have the last word. If our track-suiter is exposed to even a fraction of the effective tools he (or she) needs to fight back, the potential for profound, and more
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importantly, positive change can never be forfeit. But tools would be necessary. For there are several faces to Charlie Barnum out there (an idea marvelously accounted for in Scanlans portrayal), and each one is well-equipped to fortify its positions behind the cannons of deceit, disrespect, and disengagement against the working class. While the weapon of co-optation seems to be one of the most effective in the elites arsenal, all is not and must not be lost in the struggle for change. Our track-suiter, as allegorical figure, is representative of numbers, indeed millions of people identified as working class or poor. Surely, in that number of millions there must be at least a handful of folks with multiplicity in their own faces that can clearly understand the injustice, are incensed enough to confront power passionately and eloquently from the working- class positionand can withstand the retaliation that would most certainly be visited upon them for daring to forge an effective defense against classist assault. A tagline for Charlie Casanovas trailer reads, You may not know him, but he already hates you. But we do know him, and what hes capable of, all too well. Charlie Barnum functions as symbol, as a looming figure in the mirror reflection of class-dictated culturein this case, Irish culture, as it stands in the 21st century. Certainly, the analysis here is not an easy values-based diatribe, with a polarity constructed between good and evil. No sides are chosen for such a simplistic and disingenuous exercise. However, the alarming and detrimental trend of social inequality continues to expand like never before, and it must not be overlooked in either the microcosm of film, nor within the larger contexts of Western culture. The working class, unfortunately, remains on the chopping block, taking the heat for much of what ails society, while simultaneously being the choicest and meatiest meal for the wealthier class that feeds off its bones. Seasonings for the meat include the tacit messages that still speak to both Charlie Barnum and the viewer that somehow, hitting the skanger or chav, or, to borrow an example of American vernacular, po white trash whereand howthey live is exactly what should happen. McMahon, as Charlies creator and incubator, is hip to this line of thinking; as such, he serves us with the ugly image of upper-class nonchalance run amok, while wielding yet another mirror, this one reflecting our own opinions and perceptions, which we may not consciously reckon withbut absolutely need to. Beyond telling a story that we wont snore into our popcorn through, this is one of the duties of the filmmaker delving however he or she does into social realism: to hold up that mirror. While no McMurphy figure exists in
The Bastard Grinds You Down
Charlie Casanova, perhaps it is still possible for us to, in light of McMahons achievement, release our own inner Big Chief Bromdens, finding the will to speak, to moveto act.
January 2012
The Bastard Grinds You Down
Works Cited
Charlie Casanova. Dir. Terry McMahon. Perf. Emmett J. Scanlon, Leigh Arnold, Valeria Bandino. StudioCanal, 2012. Dempsey, Damien. Negative Vibes. Seize the Day. Attack, 2004. Mississippi Burning. Dir. Alan Parker. Perf. Gene Hackman, Wilem Defoe, Frances McDormand. Orion, 1988. On the Waterfront. Dir. Elia Kazan. Perf. Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb. Warner Bros, 1954. One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Dir. Milos Forman. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Danny Devito. Fantasy Films, 1975. Romper Stomper. Dir. Geoffrey Wright. Perf. Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock, Jacqueline McKenzie. Australian Film Commission, Film Victoria, Romper Stomper Pty. Ltd., 1992. This Is England. Dir. Shane Meadows. Perf. Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, Andrew Shim. Big Arty Productions, EM Media, Film4, 2007.
The Bastard Grinds You Down
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