Sisyphus and Suburbia: A Contextual Study of David Lynch’s Dumbland

An Introduction to David Lynch and his animated series Dumbland

The last thing most would expect from any three-decade auteur would be the sudden, inexplicable release of a crude, vulgar, and satirical flash-animated comedy series focused unflinchingly upon the obscure goings on of a frighteningly bizarre über-dysfunctional family –but of course, David Lynch is not the average auteur. Staying well-grounded in his self-reflexive themes and motifs –though giddy in his surreal, playful and crass romp through the stereotypes of Americana dynamic– Lynch has released an eight episode animated series appositely and bluntly entitled Dumbland. [1] The series is certainly a work of absurdity, chronicling with zeal the hyper-violent banality of a Neanderthalian alpha-male named Randy, who terrorizes his family, neighbors, and himself, all remaining perpetually enveloped in the meaninglessness and repetition of the suburban everyday and framed within Lynch’s blackly absurd comic lens. Though the series remains rooted in Lynch’s characteristic surrealism, it plunges vastly beyond most Lynch films in its puerile humor and crudeness of medium –all of which deceptively mask the real grit of Lynch’s message: a skewering of the rotted and dysfunctional nature of the American nuclear family– a family immersed in banality, and drowning in absurdity –left only to violently self-destruct. Similar to themes explored in his short film The Grandmother, and in his films Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me [2] –all of which containing intense and nightmarish studies of the family dynamic– Lynch wishes yet again to examine the nature of absurdity, violence, and primitivism in the human condition, as well as in the family structure, using his characteristic flawless sound design, nightmarish slapstick violence, and esoteric Dadaist character behavior, with an episodic pacing and a very enjoyable disregard for any sort of polite restraint.

It is of course, however, no surprise that most critics –ranging from Lynch cult fans to structuralist cinephiles– totally miss the point of the series’ much necessary raison d’être. While structuralists attack the “crudeness” and alleged “pointlessness” of the series, using the infamous accusation of “weirdness for weirdness’ sake,” supposed Lynch fans simply relish in that alleged “reasonless weirdness,” without care or respect to any sort of real artistry or social commentary. Both camps of critical reception seem to be oblivious to the true brilliance and intensity at work here, and even more oblivious to the message, as well as Lynch’s origins: the Camus-inspired Theatre of the Absurd, the movements of Dada and Anti-Art, and the overall surrealism Lynch is perfecting, following of course in the footsteps of Buñuel and Dali. There is a lot of progression, sincerity, satire, and stark beauty in Lynch’s work –all of which impatiently ignored by critics, under the pretense of “incomprehensibility.” Lynch, however, is strikingly personal when it comes to his work –work that is more often than not extremely self-reflexive– and refuses to let any critic own his interpretation, challenging them to find their own: a radical post-structuralism and audience-trust that should be greatly appreciated, though, unfortunately, results in frustration from those who want immediate answers and understanding to everything they see –a rather languid characteristic very frustrating to the responsible cinephile. Notoriously cagey and hesitant in press conferences, Lynch remains resistant to the culture’s demand to have an easy explanation for everything, opting always to work with intuitional narratives versus logical –a rather eastern and patient approach that reflects his admiration for transcendental meditation– and refusing to fill up those beautiful pockets of vacuous ambiguity with “language” and stilted words. For to Lynch, words can never be film –and they shouldn’t try.

But Lynch’s work is by no means as esoteric as enervated audiences would have one believe. If an individual would just feel Lynch’s work versus trying to deconstruct it, new possibilities would abound, because Lynch likes to roam the hidden, layered lusts and evils of the subconscious, and certainly the meta-conscious, not simply explain them away with turgidity. Often, these pockets of ambiguous horror remain –linger– even after being filmed, which is a beautiful and stunning experience to take part in.

However, a quick look at the history and development of Dada, of Absurdism, and maybe a very surface understanding of the teachings of Freud, and already Lynch’s oeuvre begins to blossom with new meanings, layered meta-texts, and an exciting and challenging density; for though this knowledge is not necessarily needed to enjoy, it is certainly illuminating. In a filmic landscape plagued with post-modern ennui –a landscape catering to the recycling and repetition of b-movie trash (a la Kill Bill, Jackie Brown), a fascination for the visual cliché (this neo-noir phenomenon that won’t desist, e.g. The Black Dahlia), and a love for the irrelevant (art-house sentiment a la Me and You and Everyone We Know) [3] –Lynch’s work stands in stark opposition to all the popular drivel of modern film, not to mention the Hollywood mainstream movie assembly-line. His sincerity is certainly striking, though in a post-modern world where sincerity and truth are lame –and the cliché, self-conscious texts, and apathy are hip– Lynch’s work is often ignored, racked with languorous frustrations, and dismissed, if not publicly lynched –pun fully intended.

But before I go into a look at the many shocking and comical satires and texts Dumbland has to offer, I want to give a brief history of Lynch’s predecessors, which seem to have been all but forgotten in the critical realms of today’s cinematic landscapes. Structuralism and sentiment seem to abound in film today, with no real ambition for the radical and almost violent 20th century philosophical arts of Absurdism, and Dada –art forms that attack and scrutinize the very nature of the human condition. And if we are going to understand Lynch, it is necessary to study him in proper context, and not in comparative critiques to other dissimilar works of art or art genres. Lynch is a rather isolated figure today in his art –a fact that has made the term “Lynchian” a rather common denotation– though he is certainly not without origin and pretext. And while it is true that the characters and themes of Dumbland are crude, vulgar, and no doubt grotesque, we are reminded of absurdist author Eugene Ionesco, who announced, “People drowning in meaningless can only be grotesque,” [4] –and there is certainly ample fragments of meaningless within the suburban world Lynch is attempting to reflect– a world many of his films hint at, though have never penetrated the way Dumbland does. But be careful when critiquing Dumbland, for it is not so much the series that is “crude, stupid, violent and absurd,” [5] but the world it wishes to reflect. And as such, with a successful representation of the series to its absurd focal point, the series must also follow suit –as it certainly does.

A brief history of Dada, Absurdism, and the art of Anti-Art as a very necessary introduction to Dumbland:

“If it’s funny, it’s funny because we see the absurdity of it all,” says David Lynch of his series, [6] and – appropriately– let us familiarize ourselves with absurdity.

In the early 20th century, both during and after World War I, an artistic, avant-garde movement called Dada quickly and suddenly emerged throughout Paris, New York, Berlin, Cologne, and from its starting point, Zurich, Switzerland. The movement peaked between 1916 and 1920. [7] Represented by a core group of prose and theatre writers, as well as musicians and crude sculptors, Dadaism was, essentially, “an international artistic and literary cult” that violently and nihilistically protested against –via art– “all aspects of Western Culture,” especially war, as well as the bourgeois values thought to have caused it. [8] The main inspiration for this violent artistic protest would be, of course, the first World War. The advocates of Dada saw the very existence of this “grotesque” and “evil” war as proof that society had corrupted the inherent moral goodness of the human being, and that the human, who is immersed in this rigidly exploitative and morally vacuous society, must be exorcised and saved from his or her decayed surroundings. [9] As such, this corrupting and rotten Western Society, the origin of evil capable of causing something like the World War, should be destroyed, reexamined, transvalued –hence the attack on all artistic and societal conventions, as well as language and logic. [10]

The Dadaists believed, like the Romantics and the Transcendentalists before them, that humans were inherently “good” beings, and that it was only through a “morally bankrupt” society and culture that this goodness is corrupted and made rotten. [11] Society must then, under these circumstances, be radically altered –and even destroyed– should humanity wish to survive itself. This –the destruction of society through the anti-war and anti-art politic– was the outcome the Dadaists wished to create with their radically transgressive art. The faux definition for the word “Dada” was, according to a popular but potentially false legend, seized upon by a group of people in the Cabaret Café when a paper knife was inserted into a dictionary, pointing randomly to the term “Dada,” a word that once represented in French a children’s word for “hobbyhorse,” which the Dadaists immediately transvalued to signify the “infantile” nihilism and anti-art regression they themselves wanted and represented. [12] Dada was therefore first a state of mind, then an art form –or rather, an anti-art form– seeking to save humanity from a meaningless and decaying immersion in a sullied and banal society. [13]

But how was art’s antithesis, this attack, executed? Marcel Janco, a friend of Dadaist principle founder Tristan Tzara, recalls, “We had lost confidence in our culture. Everything had to be demolished… [and] we began by shocking common sense, public opinion, educations, institutions, museums, good taste, in short, the whole prevailing order.” [14] Dada would thus concern itself with a “shocking” and “bewildering” of its audience to functionalize its attack upon convention, and upon modern rationale, to shock its audience into a reexamination of all aesthetic, societal, and moral values. [15] To do this, they used non-traditional prose, non-sense poetry, found-art, and even music loops. [16] Essentially, the art served to combatant everything rational and traditional –for if reason and logic led people to war, the only route to salvation was to reject logic and embrace anarchy and irrationality, the idea being to shock people somewhere other than where they are. Dada then, in its most condensed definition, served to shock and bewilder, which in the end, became “nothing but an act of sacrilege.” [17] A sacrilege, of course, that is ironically meant to save. However, by 1924, the Dada movement would be so large and inconsistent, that the artists broke off, generally becoming surrealists: a much larger and more expansive movement, though certainly similar to Dada. [18]

Yet by World War II a comparable phenomenon with a similar premise and cause, but a more powerful discipleship, would emerge, principally in Paris. The movement would be called Absurdism: The Theatre of the Absurd. [19] Fostered by Sartre’s proto-Existential work Being and Nothingness, [20] and led primarily by Camus’ The Stranger [21] and The Myth of Sisyphus, [22] Absurdism –a term coined by critic Martin Esslin– [23] was rooted in the avant-garde and nonsense works of Dada, but had a more focused following, and a more singular and better developed message, carried and given force via the phenomenological genius of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Like Dada before it, it had been another war which would highlight the cruelty, meaninglessness, and alienation of the human race –forcing art and philosophy to answer for it. But while Dada sought to “bewilder and shock” to save human nature, Absurdism sought to bewilder and shock to outline the nature of the human race. The art of the absurdist was not attacking art itself, but simply mimicking what they saw as real life: “The human condition is essentially and ineradicably absurd… this condition can be adequately represented only in works of literature that are themselves absurd.” [24] In a departure from realistic characters, situations, and all accepted convention, Absurdist’s sought to shock people out of their accepted –and false– realities, and force them to see the true nature of both themselves and the world around them. [25]

In the world of absurdism, be it theater, poetry, or prose, the set and plot is darkly surreal –seemingly symbolic– yet holds no meaning or solution to its cryptic code, just as life, to the absurdist, holds no purpose for its being. In these works, time, place and identity are ambiguous and fluid, and even causality often breaks down into bizarre, incoherent –absurd– forms. Meaningless plots, repetitive or inconsequential dialogue and dramatic non-sequiturs are used to create dream or nightmare worlds, and it now can certainly be seen why the movement is relative to David Lynch. It is also shown that everything critics use to attack Lynch –that his art is too “surreal, illogical, plotless, conflictless” – are exactly the forms of narrative an Absurdist strives for. That is not, of course, to say that the Absurdist tries to be as incoherent as possible, without anything to say. It is exactly the opposite. Both Kafka and Camus, both absurdists, wrote very straightforward pieces staged in banal atmospheres, yet, with one or two violent absurdities, filled with social commentary, philosophical progression, and political or self-reflexive critique. And like the films of David Lynch, these works often require a intuitive guidance versus a logical one –though no power seems to be lost in the medium. The popular denotation “Kafkaesque” means exactly this: “mundane yet absurd and surreal circumstances,” [26] and it comes as no surprise that Lynch is an avid fan of Kafka, even drafting a script for Kafka’s seminal work The Metamorphosis. [27] Yet modern critics ignore the nature of this art, holding some sort of pre-art structuralist supposition about how the nature of narrative should be: that it should be easily explained, easily classified. Of course, to an absurdist, such laws are simply absurd.

Unlike Dada, the effects of Surrealism and Absurdism –and especially Existentialism– are still very evident, especially in literature. However, in film, experiments in surrealism and absurdism are somewhat rare, though it could be noticed that some, such as Alejandro Jodorowski, attempted to resurrect surrealist/absurdist values in cinema –perhaps unsuccessfully [28]– though Luis Buñuel has obviously worked in surrealist cinema for decades. It could perhaps be argued that Tarkovsky, Svankmajer, the Quay brothers, and some of Godard were somewhat philosophically surreal or absurd, though not to the extent the former were, as these latter filmmakers were more symbolic or cryptic than purely absurdist. In modern times, some directors such as David Cronenberg, Takashi Miike, Bruno Dumont, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, and a few others, are operating inside radically absurdist or surreal values –though no one seems to execute the same sorts of absurdist dream archetypes as David Lynch, nor works so consistently and passionately with surreal narratives. Lynch is no doubt taking the baton from Buñuel, his trajectory the same lonely and often misunderstood road that Buñuel inhabited, with just as much passion and conviction –and just as much critical distaste. From Eraserhead to Inland Empire, [29] Lynch has continually returned to the absurd, to the bizarre, and to the esoteric in his cinematic attempts, and has continually been misunderstood out of context.

Now that a brief understanding of Dada and Absurdism has been provided, I will take a look at how Dumbland should be understood in light of its artistic context, and argue that it is, in fact, everything the critics say it isn’t: a very relevant, extremely dense –often hilarious– nightmarish satire of the absurd, grotesque side of banal Americana.