Icons of Transgression

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Icons of Transgression

• Bent Sørensen
• Aalborg University

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Icons of Transgression

• All iconic representations of actual persons
  (living or dead) are caught in a dichotomy
  between elements of normality/familiarity and
  elements of transgression.
• Manipulation of representations of celebrities or
  famous persons into hero- or other-images can
  either constitute adversarial or collaborative
  icon work.
• In adherence with the conference theme of E
  Pluribus Unum or E Pluribus Plura it would be
  interesting to examine iconic images that are
  meant to be particularly transgressive and
  challenge stereotypical images of American
  wholesomeness.

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Icons of Transgression

• I propose to look at specific collaborative, yet
  provocative representations of two 1960s icons of
  transgression Charles Manson and Patty Hearst,
  and to analyze how these particular images
  simultaneously stylize and sacralize these
  counterculture (anti)heroes, turning the viewer
  of the icons from passive consumers into ardent
  worshippers, consumers or cultural agnostics, all
  according to our ideas regarding the subjects and
  symbols in question.

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Icons - thesis 1

• The commercial icon or pictogram works through
  simplified representation It is stylised
• The religious icon works through embellished
  representation and through symbolic detail It is
  sacralised
• Iconic representation of persons combines these
  two modes of representation It presents a
  stylised and sacralised image of the person.

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Icons thesis 2

• A person who achieves icon status has to be
  recognisable to the majority of a specific group,
  whether that is a subculture (defined through
  age, race etc.), a nation, or the global
  community Iconicity presupposes familiarity.
• A person who achieves icon status has to be
  extraordinary, whether through his/her
  achievements, or through image. Iconicity
  presupposes transgression of normality.
• Iconicity is only achieved when the person imaged
  represents a combination of familiarity (fame)
  and transgression (cool).

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Icons thesis 3

• Iconicity is a form of immortality
• Iconicity has a history, i.e. not all icons are
  permanent.
• Icons can become dated, and consequently slip out
  of their apparent immortal status.

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Icons thesis 4

• Icons place us, as viewers and readers, in
  communi(cati)on with the icon
• We are not ourselves icons.
• Icons thus enforce a passive role on us as
  viewers or voyeurs, a role which we may resist
  but are doomed to re-enact whenever we
  communicate with an icon. The relation between
  icon and viewer is thus basically unequal.

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Icons thesis 5

• From the religious connotations of iconicity we
  inherit the position of worshipper.
• From the industrial, service and information
  oriented connotations of iconicity we inherit the
  position of consumer.
• Both these positions are well served by dead
  icons, and by marketable icons, which offer no
  resistance to commodification.

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Icons thesis 6

• Icons can become overexposed.
• As a result, people may attempt to actively
  resist icons, e.g. by defacing them or tampering
  with them (slander, rumour-mongering, gossip,
  satire, co-optation etc. are all possible
  strategies) The formerly passive worshippers
  become iconoclasts
• All of these activities ultimately serve chiefly
  to perpetuate the iconic persons status and
  longevity.

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Icons thesis 7

• Iconicity means a reduction of the person behind
  the icon (the iconic subject) to image, to
  object.
• Iconicity is a form of martyrdom.
• Iconicity is a reduction or translation from
  individuality to symbol

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Icons thesis 8

• The need for icons is an expression of our
  longing for something beyond our own
  subject-hood, a desire to idolise
• The need for icons is no longer fulfilled in
  traditional religious ways, but has become
  transferred onto other manifestations of the
  extraordinary.
• The need for icons has not diminished over the
  last 50 years, on the contrary there are more
  icons now than ever, despite the acceleration in
  cultural change.

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Icons thesis 9

• Iconography reveals by concealing and conceals by
  revealing.

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Manson 1
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Manson 2
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Manson and John Kerry
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Manson as George Ws ambassador to the Klingons

• Manson's confirmation stalled by politics
• President Bush urged the Senate today to "put
  aside politics" and confirm Charles Manson as
  ambassador to Qo'noS.
• Future ambassador Charles Manson
• "Charles Manson is a good man," Bush said.
  "Questions about his ... management style
  shouldn't be part of the confirmation process."
• The president is dismayed, said White House press
  secretary Scott McClellan, that scarcely three
  months after the first Bird-of-Prey entered
  orbit, Democratic obstructionism has already
  begun.
• Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has critized
  the two delays that have already occurred as a
  result.
• "The president deserves to have the person at the
  Klingon High Council that he thinks best to carry
  out the job," Rice said.

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Manson Icon
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Patty Hearst 1
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Patty Hearst 2
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Patty Hearst Icon 1
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Patty Hearst heard the burst

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vWhRRWwH3Fro
• http//www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/rolandth.htm

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Patty Hearst Icon 2
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Resource page

• http//www.hum.aau.dk/i12bent/DoingCulturalStudie
  sWorkshop1.html
• http//www.hum.aau.dk/i12bent/Future_Lectures/Osl
  o.html (abstract for this presentation)