Ghost World: The End of Alienation?

This review was posted originally on cinekklesia on August 23, 2005.

Perhaps the sweltering mid-August heat has me thinking about the upcoming autumn, high school, and teenage alienation. Perhaps I merely procrastinated in reordering my NetFlix queue. In any case, shortly after viewing Brian Dannelly's take on Christian adolescence in Saved!, I again plunged into the abyss of the teenage mind via Terry Zwigoff's Ghost World (2000), a bittersweet tale of love, disaffection, and the ingredients that make up relationships.

Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) are two young women who have just graduated from the clutches of high school (well, okay, Enid finds out that she has to take a lame art class over the summer) and who are itching to taste the fruits of adulthood. They're eschewing the conformist mundanity of college for a life of independence and creativity. Granted, they're going to have to work retail, but they'll be able to share an apartment and finally do their own thing (which, for Enid, involves sketching her life's activities in a sort of visual journal).

Enid and Rebecca also have a penchant for playing mean practical jokes. In particular, they target Seymour (Steve Buscemi), who has placed a personal ad in the local independent weekly in order to track down a woman he briefly met. Since Seymour indicated in the ad that he was the guy wearing the "green cardigan," Enid and Rebecca figure that he must be, well, a dork. Thus, Enid calls him, pretending to be the woman in question, in order to get a laugh at poor Seymour's expense.

Yet, what starts out as a joke turns out to be an unusual love story. Even though Seymour is twice Enid's age, they develop a bond based on their perceived alienation from society-at-large. Seymour feels that he can't relate well to others, so he retreats into the world of old, collectible blues records. Enid finds herself intrigued by Seymour's collection, and being a bit of a pop culture maven herself (e.g., she uses Don Knotts as the subject of an art class project), she can relate to Seymour's perspective.

Relationships, romantic or otherwise, that develop out of alienation are a common milieu in cinema, particularly in high school films. (Thanks to Tim Conder for recently elucidating this point.) Just take a look at the friendship between the title character and Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite or the camaraderie among the outcasts in Saved!. In one sense, the alienation theme is common because audiences love underdogs; when outsiders work together to defeat the establishment (even—or especially—at the high school level), we cheer. In another sense, it is perhaps easier for a screenwriter to develop relationships among the disaffected because they already have something in common; if commonalities make up relationships, then disaffection can work as well as, say, sports or music, to bring people together.

Yet, does alienation follow the same pattern, regardless of place or time? Do majority groups around the world alienate minorities or outcasts in the same way? I hypothesize that there are general methods in which elites ostracize others: gossip, mockery, denigration, and at worst, dehumanization. However, does alienation work the same across time? This is a trickier question because it appears that high-tech, post-industrial societies, such as ours, have instigated two trends: (1) a decentralization of popular culture and (2) greater opportunities for previously alienated individuals to find each other.

If today's huge number of cultural options (as described by anthropologist Grant McCracken and writer/editor Nick Gillespie, among others) denigrates what previously had been considered "mainstream" or "popular" culture, then "alienated" groups no longer should feel "left out." If, for example, we all can eschew "pop" radio in favor of online broad/podcasts, personalized playlists on ultra-convenient MP3 players, or even the local college station, then any notion of a "cultural center" fades. Much to the chagrin, even horror, of traditionalists, we each can determine what "counts" in our own microculture. We don't have to feel alienated — after all, what, exactly, could alienate us?

This, however, may be too optimistic. While it is true that those with marginalized views, tastes, and methods of social interaction have more niches to explore and more opportunities today for personal development—away from the glare of a disapproving mainstream—we humans still have an uncanny way of making the "other" (forgive the academic cliche) feel bad. Seymour has been able to retreat into his world of collectible records and even has developed a network of relationships with like-minded folks; however, he still feels like a social outcast and loser. Enid, seemingly secure in her identity as an artsy, rebellious young adult with little empathy for the victims of her practical hijinks, ends up showing us that she's just a lonely soul lookin' for love.

Yet, at this point, let's remember the second cultural trend of post-industrial societies: greater opportunities for previously alienated individuals to find each other. While Seymour and Enid stumble into each others' lives through decidedly low-tech means, we nevertheless live in an age in which people with similar interests, whether "mainstream" or not, can find each other through technology. The mere existence of cinekklesia and the fact that we receive comments/feedback from a variety of folks around the country is testament to that. Thus, even if I feel alienated from my immediate neighbors, I still can interact and develop relationships with others of like mind. Thus, while Ghost World has a downbeat ending, I still felt heartened by watching this unlikely encounter between two socially disaffected people who are somehow not disaffected by each other.

So, should Christians care about these social trends? Churches seem to waver constantly between welcoming the stranger and the outcast on the one hand and maintaining theological standards—which end up alienating somebody—on the other. What is most interesting, however, is the fact that outcasts of all stripes can find a church home. An American can choose from a veritable menu of churches, based on theological perspectives, musical preferences, and, sadly, social inclinations (read: race and class). It is practically impossible to speak of a single "church culture" in the U.S., even among Evangelicals currently enjoying a dominant position in American life.

Of course, the splits within Christendom are fundamentally the result of sin, but so are the flaws within any given denomination / Christian organization. Martin Luther was forced to choose between supporting a corrupted Christian unity (Medieval Catholicism) on the one hand and following both Scripture and conscience on the other. We know how that story turned out, and we today are reaping the benefits of being allowed to exit a "mainstream" culture—religious or otherwise—that we find morally problematic. Sometimes we become alienated because we're doing the right thing, and perhaps it's good that—in the post-industrial West, at least—we don't have to remain outcasts for too long.