Continuing Dialogue with Tom Ferraro on the Don Imus Affair

Dear Editor,

Psychoanalyst and colleague Tom Ferraro has introduced a new angle for interpreting the recent fall from grace of the talk-show host Don Imus following his comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos” (See Clio’s Psyche, June-September, 2007, and December 2007). Since all our mental processes and actions are prone to multi-determinants and as I tend to defer to analysts who have access to core conflicts in the unconscious beyond the reach of us laymen, I am more than willing to entertain his contribution.

What I propose to do is to explore more widely his interpretative key for additional insights into cultural processes. The key is in the second part of Freud’s (1915) paper, “Some Character Types Met with in Psycho-analytic Work: Those Wrecked by Success.” This seminal study has always resonated with me due to two of its three cases being drawn from my chosen field of literature. To put matters overly simply, Freud pursues an outbreak of neurosis when early libidinal aims are frustrated by the proscriptions of later formations of conscience. Aggressive aims should be included as well. It is at a moment of triumph when these long-held aims appear attainable that conscience or superego intervenes. Lady Macbeth, for example, “collapses on attaining her aim, after striving for it with single-minded energy” (Freud, Collected Papers, Vol. 4, 1959, p. 326). Somewhat similarly Rebecca in Ibsen’s Rosmerholm is undone when the fulfillment of her desires to replace Rosmer’s wife, whom she has removed as a rival, become possible. Freud’s point is that a self-destructive force is activated at the moment of triumph because unacceptable wishes are in danger of being realized. He sees these wishes as stemming from revived Oedipal conflicts.

Over the course of time in testing out the applicability of this paradigm to the public arena, I have made a few sightings. Shifting from the creative work to its author, we may revisit the trial of Oscar Wilde who provoked one might say stage-managed his public shame and humiliation, literally the ruin of his health and premature death, brought on by seven years behind bars. How could this happen? Two weeks after the triumphant opening of his masterwork, The Importance of Being Earnest, he swore out a warrant for the arrest of the Marquis of Queensberry after accusing him of “posing sodomite.” The Marquis was the father of Losie, Wilde’s lover, and the twosome had been flaunting it in London society for some time. However, the libel trial, ostensibly to establish Wilde’s innocence, proved his

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undoing (Barbara Belford, Oscar Wilde, 2000, pp. 247-55).

In American politics, the ways in which Nixon taped himself and then allowed this incriminating evidence to be made public, suggest some very convoluted maneuvering that ultimately brought him down. Gary Hart’s campaign strategy also comes to mind. He dared reporters to prove his alleged infidelity and then led them directly to his mistress’s apartment. He never recovered. During his reelection run in 2006, Senator George Allen targeted (a la Imus) a Fairfax student of Indian descent who was working as tracker for the other camp as “Macaca” for his hair. Assuming he was not a U.S. citizen (which he was), Allen added sarcastically, “Welcome to America” (Washington Post follow up item, 30 Nov 07, p. A7). Allen, who had a dubious track record on race, displaying a noose and a Confederate flag in his office, narrowly lost to an antiwar Democrat in traditionally conservative Virginia. The remark had re-opened his past and dogged him throughout the campaign; after conceding, he virtually disappeared from the public eye, even though he had been widely touted as candidate for president in 2008. Was he ruined by success? Every case has to be looked at individually. Allen is currently working for another Republican candidate, Fred Thompson, and his own rehabilitation may be forthcoming.

Nonetheless, some of these examples reveal a sudden rise to success as triggering an inner crisis leading in turn to a climactic downfall, consistent with Freud’s paradigm. I have not found all of these features in the case of Don Imus. He had been getting away with cracks and slurs for quite a while and may have felt himself invulnerable or, conceivably, he had enough of his bluff persona and unconsciously provoked a crisis. The pivotal words appear to have been simply blurted out by him with a cue from a sidekick, but they may still be over determined by a self-sabotaging dynamic. However, since he has already orchestrated a return to radio, I hesitate to infer unconscious motives aimed at self-ruin.

Thus, instead of the classical Freudian sequence, I am inclined here and elsewhere toward a celebrity-syndrome analogous to binge-and-purge bulimia. We’ve seen this happening frequently in recent years. A media star, athlete, preacher, or politician will make a faux pas or get into a compromising position. What follows is a series of career moves performed as mea culpas offered up along the celebrity’s preferred Stations of the Cross: namely, Oprah, The Today Show, Larry King Live, Letterman, etc., where a profane priesthood presiding over a showbiz purgatory permits sufficient purging through public confession to guarantee absolution. We’ve witnessed this with Jessie Jackson, Bill Clinton, Mel Gibson, a few televangelists, and currently with the glamorous Britneys, Lindsays, and Parises who ‘fess up to their “bad,” do a star turn in their cells, and showcase their latest penitential fashions. Can anyone deny they are duly forgiven and reborn in our collective fantasy worlds? If, as our surrogates for fame and glamour, they must also suffer a bit for our sins, we can only applaud their redemption, which is also ours.

This emerging pattern is not catastrophic but cathartic (akin to bulimia). The celebrity-figure has previously binged on the public’s unconditional love with more than a little manipulation and deception, all of which has gotten out of hand and so a timely purging prior to getting re-pumped is required. It is show business, where Narcissus trumps Oedipus; stay tuned for Don Imus, sans sackcloth and ashes.

Finally, for several celebrities there is another dimension to this epidemic of celebrity bulimia. Like George Allen, Don Imus, and anti-immigration politicians, these entertainers perform as gatekeepers to protect a fanciful homogeneous majority from the perceived threat of diversity. Thus the cracks against gays, women, and other minorities. The fact that these show-people do not recognize their offensive remarks until they have been shaken up by the media suggests that they had hitherto acted with impunity; they had a free-pass from accountability. Only later does embarrassment, remorse, repentance, and blatant displays of breast-beating take over. Themes of gate keeping, of scapegoating, of splitting the world into us-versus-them refocus our attention on psychohistorical issues.

Sincerely yours,

Dan Dervin

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