Critical Essay Presentation Part Two

Nicole Pennington Critically Analyzed Paul McCarthy's work Family Tyranny/Cultural Soup

She summarized Family Tyranny as an instructional video on how to force feed son filled with verbal abuse.
The cinematographical elements she saw was first, an external shot superimposed onto an extreme close-up on certain objects as well as two types of viewpoints- external voyeuristic and close-up intrusive.
This gives the video a dreamlike feel or something similar to memory.
This memory trance feeling is reiterated by incoherent, repetitive dialogue- much like the brain does in a memory like a broken record. He says "Daddy come home from work" over and over again in a sing song voice, but the childish song is juxtaposed with violent behavior.
Two examples of phallic representations in the video are the styrofoam ball on the broomstick and a bat churning the mayonnaise soup. This serves as a signifier to direct the audience to a Freudian state of mind.
She interpreted McCarthy's piece using psychoanalytic theories like phallic stage and Oedipus complex where the heightened emotions resides in subconscious. In the question of to cope or not to cope this video depicts a non-coping scenario, where Kelley throws a tantrum and McCarthy speaks in an incoherent banter. There is also a castrating of father figure. McCarthy dominated Kelley and the same domination is seen in force feeding the styrofoam ball.
The idea of Introjection, when a person will inhabit the characteristics and morality of another is repeated in the video. Introjection is used as a defense mechanism. Introjection is a depiction of institutional abuse and criticizes and makes absurd the idea of inheriting a sense of morality and idealistic viewpoints from a parent
manifests as an abusive reaction.
The dialogue "the son begets the daddy and the daddy begets the son" is repeated while the actor is violent to the doll.
It shows the father son relationship when the little tin bowl's movement is dictated by the large tin bowl.