Shawyer dissertation May 2008 final version - The University of ...

protest against the order, rules, and traditions of a culture by showing what lies beneaththe veneer of civilization.In one sense, Artaud’s critique of Western art is echoed in McLuhan’s critique ofthe electronic media environment. McLuhan believed that the media oppresses humanityby offering little opportunity for individual intervention in a pervasive environment thatis already organized and produced for human consumption. Thus creativity and criticalthinking are deadened by the ideology prepared by the media environment. Artaudbelieved that the continued praise and consumption of Western art masterpieces “petrifiesus, deadens our responses, and prevents us from making contact with that underlyingpower, call it thought-energy” (78). Canonical tradition stifles creativity and criticalthinking. The Yippies too felt stifled by the traditional cultural Establishment, with itsunspoken expectations of clean-cut hair in youth and orderly protest from demonstrators.Just as McLuhan suggests the use of humor as an “anti-environmental” tool to helpchange perceptions and awareness of the media (Medium 92), the Yippies used humor asa tool to provoke controversy and debate in the media. Artaud, on the other hand, arguesfor mass spectacles which bombard the senses and can tap into the public’s unrealizeddesires to break through the civilized veneer of traditional culture. Artaud named thesespectacles the Theater of Cruelty.Artaud’s vision of exposing alternatives to current culture is the Theater ofCruelty, a kind of theatre that is not only vital and necessary, but that also taps into theaudience’s unconscious desires. Artaud imagines a drama created “around famouspersonages, atrocious crimes, superhuman devotions, a drama which, without resorting to183