In this clip we see a silly example of the Oedipus complex that Freud elaborates on in his work The Interpretation of Dreams. As we discussed in class the past week there are a plethora of examples and spin offs of the Oedipus complex in the media since Freud’s time. This clip exemplifies how advertisers can use fundamental plot lines of stories, such as the Oedipus complex, to market their product.
In this short view the reason that the husband is able to get his wife’s attention back from their baby is by giving himself baby soft skin by using a Schick Quatro Titanium razor. However nonsensical this short is, its thematic and contents is in line with Freudian thought, with a slight variation. In the clip the baby, while it is still an infant, fights for the attention of his mother. This however is impossible in reality; nonetheless Freud’s description of this parallels this one. Freud suggests that the results of the Oedipus complex can affect children, specifically boys, and the effects thereof. He explains, “There is an unmistakable indication in the text of Sophocles’ tragedy itself that the legend of Oedipus sprang from some primeval dream-material which had as its content the distressing disturbance of a child’s relation to his parents owing to the first stage of sexuality. At a point when Oedipus, though he is not yet enlightened, has begun to feel troubled by his recollection of the oracle, Jocasta consoles him by referring to a dream” (816). This dream that Freud references can be parodied with the pictures on the wall of the basement that the baby is working out in. The recollection of what used to be, what he longs to have again.
I want to theorize a little bit about the last scene in this video clip, the baby confronts the father in the bathroom when he is shaving. Although the baby does not see itself in the mirror we can contemplate what may have happened in such an instance. Perhaps, I am straying too far from the topic with this theoretical exploration but up to this time, the video has not shown the child in the presence of a mirror. To reference Lacan as well, he explains, that before a child has seen its reflection in a mirror he/she characterizes him/herself based on the mother figure in the child’s life (1164). Suppose for a moment that the child saw his reflection in the mirror when he went to attack his father, what could have been different? I do not know that there is an answer to this, he could possibly have not had the desire anymore to attack the father, or he might have been too intrigued or surprised by his own appearance. There are various different scenarios that could have played out, assuming that this were an actual possibility. Another scenario as Lacan explains, “…in the case of a child [practices] a series of gestures in which he experiences in play the relation between the movements assumed in the image and the reflected environment, and between the virtual complex and the reality it reduplicates—the child’s own body, and the persons and things around him” (1164). I know it is a silly sort of thing to contemplate but as this video shows there are various different ways that the Oedipus complex can be displayed and I think that a combination of Lacan’s mirror stage could have created an entirely new element to this story.
The story of Oedipus can be a little bit confusing; however this video clip, though it may be silly clearly exemplifies this competition between father and son, or as Lacan broadens it, mother and daughter.
Works Cited
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism Second Edition. Ed. Vincent Leitch.
Lacan, Jacques. The Mirror Stage As Formative. The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism Second Edition. Ed. Vincent Leitch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA35ys91QJU&feature=related
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