CRT Dramaturgy

In 1967, French Marxist critic Guy Debord published a short

book titled “The Society of the Spectacle.” In it, he builds on

the work of earlier Marxist critics who argued that society

had become about commodity consumption, i.e. owning

things. Debord said we have moved beyond this phase,

shifting from having to appearing. What matters most is

creating an image of ourselves. Modern society is all about

appearances. He wrote, “In societies where modern conditions

of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense

accumulation of spectacles.” Like the rest of capitalism

society, the society of the spectacle is focused on

consumption, but rather than products we are now occupied,

according to Debord, with the consumption of images.

 

Many have pointed out that Debord seems to have anticipated

the impact of society media. In 1967, before cell phones and

Snapchat and the internet, he wrote that relations among

people were already “mediated by images.” One of the key

aspects of the society of the spectacle is the way in which

we are isolated from one another through these images.

 

Debord’s theories have particular resonance with That Poor Girl and How He Killed Her. The characters in this play are deeply concerned with their social media image. They relate to one another via online personas. What they eat and purchase isn’t important until it is posted online in the form of an image that can circulate and be “consumed” by others. And, just as Debord predicted, all of this is very isolating. The characters are often lonely, unsure of themselves, and unsure of where they stand in their relationships with others. Rather than bringing them closer, constant contact mediated through social media images often keeps them apart.

 

It would be easy to watch That Poor Girl and think that issues depicted in it are particular to social media or the millennial generation. But thinking about the play in relationship to Debord reminds us that these issues are not limited to the last ten years or to specific forms of online interaction. Framed in this way, we might think of social media as the logical extension of a society obsessed with celebrities, whose lives we encounter in spectacular fragments, just like how our own social media profiles construct our lives in a carefully curated series of images. How is a Facebook post of one’s meal any different than product placement in movies? Do you remember when video cameras were critiqued because they took us away from the immediate engagement with our families? Now we all walk around with a camera in our hands all the time. Debord challenges us to think about the many ways the spectacle shapes our lives and our interactions.