Cavernous apology of transcendental consumerism

Rating: 5/10 (9 January 2006)

Replete with blatant contradictions, Cast Away serves as a highly interesting case study of Hollywood's dominating mood and the psychological repressions of mainstream American (and, by extension, so-called western) society. Its main tag line being that you need to free yourself from the material world in order to achieve true personal freedom, it paradoxically links all emotions to objects from the material world (volleyball, soda drink, ice cubes, skating shoes, football franchises, car etc.)  hence the shameless product placement that has rightly spurred harsh criticism, though cause and effect are certainly hard to disentangle. The plot itself illustrates this inherent struggle between materialism and spiritualism: the part dedicated to the protagonist's inner developments, devoid of musical score and with little dialogue (monologue, in fact), is squeezed in between two very talkative and, to say the least, corny accounts along the lines of before/after. However, what Zemeckis and Hanks attempt to achieve in the long run is no less than the reconciliation of both worlds. At the end of the inward journey stands the morale that consumerism and personal emotional fulfillment are only seemingly opposites. They can be pacified provided the individual, precisely by identifying with the objects he produces  by humanizing them, as it were (Wilson)  gains detachment from the the material world and, more prosaically, transcends the ugly things in life. And what better way to hit that home than to use real, existing brands that every movie goer in the western hemisphere can relate to? (In a way, the question as to whether or not the makers of the film should have preferred imaginary brands has no incidence.) In this perspective, Zemeckis's tale is the diametrical opposite of Robinson Crusoe, who chose to live as a free individual, distrustful of what he perceived as civilisation, whereas Chuck Noland's sole aspiration is to return amidst his peers after an incidental cathartic incursion into the cavernous shell of his inner life. In other words, where Defoe outlines utopia, Zemeckis casts dystopia. As such, the metaphor spun here constitutes a deliberate attempt to rid the sphere of culture of its persistent, though mostly latent or repressed, bad conscience when it comes to financial issues getting in the way of artistic license. Similarly, it exempts audiences at large from having to resolve the negative equation of art vs commerce, of spirit vs money, etc, thus consolidating the conservative liberal economical stance so well embodied by Tom Hanks and FedEx alike. Quite openly it says that you shouldn't feel guilty for liking products as they are part of your emotional fabric  a semantic twist more commonly known as branding. The other dominating theme in Noland's emancipation is masculinity. The character's deep psychological turmoil is chastely symbolised by the island, with its moist cavern and erect mountain. The underlying assertion is that Noland needs to crawl out of his allegedly safe hole and climb the phallic hill to restore his deficient masculinity, the very premise to reintegrate a self-assertive modern society. Ultimately, his restored maleness allows him to let go of his former love, who returns to her new family and thus reinstates (Christian) moral order embodied by the institution of marriage. In line with this bigot mentality, sexuality is alway only addressed in germ-free metaphors. Have you noticed that the lush atoll is practically devoid of animals other than meaty crabs and the occasional fish? Where are the birds, snakes, worms, spiders and the armies of undefined crawling species that you're entitled to expect in the wild? Artistically speaking, the film has a handful of redeeming qualities, one being obviously its sheer length, the freedom it takes to deploy its story, thin by modern action standards, while nonetheless omitting or merely evoking certain episodes or riddles, a choice which runs counter to current cinema viewing habits. (Incidentally, that is precisely why so many people on this site have complained about the missing suicide attempt, the undisclosed content of the parcel and the open end; it would seem that today's movie goers can no longer bear that something is not explained to them didactically, explicitly.) But all things considered, the contrite redemption theme used to validate a consumerist society and its ethic corollary, fundamental religious values, makes Cast Away a disturbing illustration of a dominant (white male) ideology. As such, it is clearly propagandist, in all senses of the word.