Nicolas Cage is divisive. As both an actor and a public personality, he draws equal amounts of awe and ire. There are those that find him both fascinating and frustrating, profound, and perfunctory, badass and batshit. Books, academic courses, video essays and the general public discourse have all, at one time or another, attempted to crack “The Cage.” In all of these earnest and thought provoking attempts, none have used the sociological perspectives and concepts to try and understand the cultural icon that Nicolas “Rage” Cage has become. By putting Cage, his acting style and influence in context, we can better understand some of the more complex, sociological post modernly pretentious theoretical explanations of society; as only an analysis of Nicolas Cage can. The icon of Nicolas Cage is the conduit by which the Millsian quote: “Sociology sees the strange in the familiar and makes the familiar seem strange.”, is embodied.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Basics
Born Nicolas Kim Coppola on January 7th
1964, Nicolas Cage assumed a stage name (that he got from Marvel Comics
character Luke Cage) to distance himself from his famous family. He wanted to
mitigate, but not completely erase[1], the nepotistic influence
his last name would create. After being radicalized into acting by seeing James
Dean in East of Eden, Cage decided to become an actor.
Throughout his sorted and
varied career, Cage has been rewarded and reviled, with scorn and scrutiny in both
Hollywood and in the public discourse. Amassing
a whopping 114 film credits over a 40-year career (an average of nearly 3 a
year), Nicolas Cage became known as the hardest working actor in Hollywood.
This moniker was aptly applied in part because Nicolas Cage loves acting, and the
fiscal repercussions the combination of copious spending and tax evasion create.
This thespian proliferation and lower status nature of the “Direct to Video”
market, obfuscates the quality of Cage’s performances. The thought and care
that he places in his body language, to every syllable he utters (if he speaks
at all) is carefully crafted, regardless of the film’s critical reception and
profitability.
Roots of Performances
Early on in Cage’s career,
he decided to reject the naturalist acting method that was cultivated by the Meisner
and Stanislavski methods. These methods then became popularized by the “New
Hollywood” of the 1970’s, becoming the default acting approach for most film
and television today. The belief being that this naturalism allows for greater
intimacy and relatability between the actors and the audience; that through
this technique, the strength of the cinematic illusion can be solidified. Currently,
naturalism has such a strangle hold on the industry, that people do not
remember that there even were other styles of acting in other eras. The
over-exaggerations of the 1930’s films, itself a consequence of the silent film
era, are often ignored. In fact, the acceptance of the naturalism method also
informs criticism; with awards going to those performances that best exude the
realistic form, while at the same time condemning other acting styles of other
eras as being “hammy”, or lacking in subtlety.
As Gibb (2015) points out Cage “embrac[es] the unnaturalness...what [he]
finds interesting is contradiction. (8).
Nicolas Cage is a consummate preparer for all his roles. However, because he is a lover of all film, and has the willingness to experiment, many of the influences that he has for certain roles, and the explanation for the choices that he makes, are often lost on both the production crew and his fellow co-stars. The being of Nicolas Cage’s acting is consistently aloof, until he starts to explain it. Nicolas Cage being greatly influenced by German expressionism, has explained his acting style in increasingly complicated and frustrating terms, such as “Nouveau Shamanism”, or “Western Kabuki”. Yet, when he gets to talk through his roles and the motivations behind his choices, he makes perfect sense.
SOCIAL ANALYSIS
Foundational
Cage (Berger and Luckmann)
Before
we can look at the Sociological study of acting and specifically the acting by
Nicolas Cage, we need to set some foundational understanding before we move
forward. For the purposes of this essay, that foundation comes in the form of Berger
and Luckmann’s seminal work The Social Construction of Reality.
Basic
Tenets
1) Everyday
life is fluid, a negotiated achievement by individuals through social
interactions
2) Through
interactions, individuals create social worlds (“universes”) by use of language
and adherence to a socially agreed upon set of symbols; thereby developing
solidarity among people.
3) That
social world constructs institutions that fulfills needs and provides a setting
for the development of routines and behavioral patterns, which is often used to
legitimate the social order, (The Criminal Justice System) knowledge production
(Education), and pacify the populace (Media, Religion).
4) The
individual is then alienated, repressed, and controlled when the constructed,
is understood as natural. Usually completed through the generational social
learning process. For example: digital natives vs digital immigrants, and generational
social mobility for whites
5) Through
this internalization, the social worlds that we create constantly try to
dominate us. (i.e. Frankenstein’s Monster) such as Bureaucracy, Capitalism,
Militarization, Globalization, and social media. It often succeeds because by
this point, we feel too small and insignificant to tackle such a problem. We
believe it is beyond us.
Berger and Luckmann’s point about the social
construction of reality is what allows for Pop culture to be soft power. We
often do not recognize, nor accept, where we pull knowledge from, especially
when it is outside of either learned or experienced information. We do not want
to admit that we shape our perspective of the world (thereby constructing our
reality), around a passive acceptance of information without critical thought,
regardless of the frequency in which we employ such behaviors. Through subtle socialization,
internalization, and normalization, some information that may seem ridiculous,
false, dangerous, or all of the above, suddenly becomes plausible. Whether that
be because the information plays on biases that we already have, confirm previously
held beliefs, or are from sources that we “trust”, this information
proliferates in our mind. Compound this with the Tv watching rates rising over
the last 15 years, while concurrently, reading for pleasure is declining, media shapes the way that we understand the world
regardless of whether we want to admit it. Thus, shouldn’t we pay more
attention to film and TV? After all, because of Naturalism/ Realism’s hold on
acting, it blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction; allowing the storylines
of the former, to affect our understanding of the social world (Bauman 2014).
The
Acting Cage (Goffman)
The Sociological
understanding of acting can be easily understood through the work of Erving
Goffman. As a symbolic interactionist, Goffman first developed a dramaturgical
analysis to explain micro social interactionist behaviors. This eventually culminated in his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, where Goffman (1959) saw the theatre
as a metaphor for social interactions:
According to
Goffman (1959), we all perform our “selves/ identities” for a particular
audience. Aided by the Teamwork of our fellow actors, we all participate in impression
performances both on a micro (individual teacher, student), and Macro (the
group impression The college classroom) level.
For Goffman(1959), there are two types of impressions that exist.
Impressions that are given, (This is what you openly present to people either
verbally or through a sense of self definition) and Impressions that are given
off (This is insight or information that someone gleans from observing your
behavior).
Since impressions that
are “Given off” are more powerful in determining our “Self”, Goffman (1959)
says these are the impressions we attempt to control…in other words, we attempt
to control how other people see us. We do this through products (clothing,
cars, etc.) behaviors, languages, and speech patterns (slang, rate of speech). This
process takes place in two different stages: The Front Stage and The Back
Stage: The front stage is where the
performance is given and when the audience members for that performance
lies. This is the space for individual
performances of a particular impression, and
the space where teamwork is done to maintain a much larger impression. The
Back Stage is where the performance is dropped and worked on.
According to Goffman (1959),
we all have multiple Statuses and Roles
we need to play in our society. Each of these statuses and their corresponding
roles have their own Frontstage
performance and Backstage Maintenance. These different stages for different
impressions overlap with one another. Which is why Goffman says that the world
is divided into Front Stages and Back Stages. One performances Frontstage is another performance’s Backstage. Goffman (1959) also
identifies what happens when these impressions inevitably fail. When
impressions fail, we employ an elaborate Impression
Management. This is when individuals use Protective and Defensive Practices to repair and improve a
particular impression. Protective
Practices are the type of practices that we employ to protect the entire
impression. An example of this is Tact:
Identifying you are not an audience member for the impression that you are
witnessing. This is done out of a sense
of self preservation. We protect the entire impression so that when we find our
self-slipping up, we hope that others will be as tactful. Defensive Practices are the type of practices that we employ to
protect our own impression. This is done through lies, denial, distractive
behavior, such as when your stumbling turns into mock dancing to hide your embarrassment.
Through all the management
of impressions, types of identity, and their performance and maintenance, Goffman
(1959) ingeniously grafted the idea of performance to daily interactions so completely,
that this dramaturgical analysis has been used in gender studies, sexuality studies,
and race scholarship for generations; causing the idea of performativity in
social situations to become as undisputed as social constructionism. The
normalization of Goffmanian ideas of social performance, parallels the rise and
dominance of naturalist/realist acting in its profession. This then creates a self-fulfilling
prophecy for the dominance of both Goffman’s and Naturalism’s perspectives;
they validate each other. By using Dramatic terms as a framework, Goffman
validates realism in acting as a legitimate form of getting at social truth,
and Naturalism’s continued dominance maintains the relevance of Goffman’s ideas
as a valid analysis. Yet, Nicolas Cage,
his acting style, and his persona cannot be understood through Goffman. For
answers to the existence of “Cage Rage”, we must turn to Baudrillard.
A Postmodern Cage (Baudrillard)
The historical validation
of Sociology as a discipline has always carried with it a weakness; an
inability to accept the messy tangled aspects of society as it happens
organically. Part of the flaw in the understanding of society rooted in the
Positivist/Structural Functionalism of the early thinkers of Comte and Durkheim,
is the belief that everything needs to fit some preternatural paradigm of
social organization relative to other ‘established’ disciplines to have meaning
(Bauman 2014: 31). Similarly, the naturalism/Realism acting style
gives value in only performances that seemingly represent the genuineness of
human emotions even though many of these performances are using unbroken
complex dialogue, often without interruption in an overly melodramatic fashion which
in no way represents actual conversations. Regardless, both Naturalism and
Functionalist Sociology does not deal well with disorder outside of the system
that it has created. This is one of the reasons why a lot of Functionalist can’t
understand (or find validity in) postmodernism (and Baudrillard) and why the
structure of Naturalism in Hollywood can’t get a handle on Nicolas Cage.
Baudrillard (1994) challenges the very notion of
what constitutes viable knowledge and an accessible reality. While he concedes that constructionism is a
social process that indeed is going on, defining, and using symbols to
construct an understanding about the world, yet to him, the result is not an
autonomous reality; but a delusional trap…a hyper reality.
For Baudrillard (1994), the search, and the
attempt to produce knowledge is a fruitless endeavor; mainly because the
barrier to total knowledge and true understanding is in the world of signs and symbols
we create to try and understand it.
Therefore, our reality is only understood through the reproduction of,
and interaction with, Simulations of the reality and knowledge that we seek. The more wrapped up we become the further
away from reality we are. This is the
seduction of the Subject (Humans) by the Object (Non-living things)
These simulations take on four forms, each moving farther away from
reality:
1) The Faithful Copy- The perfect reflection of reality. We think it
may even be real. Ex: TV dinners, Meat from a grocer.
2) The Perverted Copy- The Simulation those masks and obscures
reality- Ex: Plastic surgery,
Professional athletes/Celebrity persona, Candy (Starbursts), HD TV, “Facing” in
retail stores.
3) The
Pretense of Reality- The copy is formed, but there is no basis for reality Ex: TV shows, Movies and Video Games,
high end Sex Dolls (simulation of the unobtainable), Las Vegas, The World
Showcase (DisneyWorld)
4) Pure Simulacrum- No relation to reality whatsoever Ex: Soft Drinks especially Mountain
Dew, Coke and Pepsi Disneyland and other Theme parks.
Movies, and the
predominance of the naturalistic acting style, as mentioned above, is “The
Pretense of Reality” for Baudrillard. However, because pop culture is soft power,
we often engage with movies and TV as if it was a faithful copy of reality (Baudrillard
1994). And while we do not think of them as completely real perse, the
naturalism/realism acting style allows for the illusion to continue; and the
social power of the cinema to remain intact. Nicolas Cage moves beyond this into “Pure
Simulacrum”. Whether it is roles at his most manic, contemplative, or
everything in-between, a lot of what Nic Cage does, has no relation to the
reality of the scene he is helping to create. Often, what he creates has a
backstory and an interiority. This method allows that backstory to inform his
performance, without overtaking it.
Gibb (2015) points to
this versatility:
“His career, like his
life, is an ultimate work-in-progress. It’s performance mixed with performance
art and with every film we see, every meme we share, we are part of it.”
Gibbs’ statement is a
testament to the Simulacrum of Nicolas Cage. He is not just acting; he is a
performance artist. Because it is often absent of reality, we as an audience
have as much of a hand in crafting the performance as Cage. Rather than just be
a spectator, we accept or reject a Cage performance through our participation
as the audience, transforming it into something great or ghastly. Therefore, a
Cage performance, like postmodernism, is subject to analysis and interpretation
at different socio-historical intervals. Chronology contextualizes the Cage;
his performances always benefiting from reexamination.
“Every time critics want to write him off as a guy doing paycheck movies and bizarre performance choices, he does Joe [or Mandy or Pig] and suddenly you are like, ‘Well, that’s fascinating and now I have to reset again.’… Cage is a reminder that it’s okay to care, even if it makes you look ridiculous.” (Gibb 2015: 74-75).
Critical of
Cage
Nicolas Cage has played a
wide range of roles in his varied career. From high school outcasts and lovesick
bakers, to soldiers, thieves, and fear demons, his work encompasses a dedication
that is a rarity considering the saturation of cynicism in the media (Gibb
2015). Regardless of his dedication to a role, Cage fans need to examine the roles
he takes and ask why so many of them are misogynistic and commit violence
against women. This is especially jarring given the context of his own arrest
for domestic
violence in 2011. While no charges were filed, this should
cause any fan who is even remotely aware of The
Rape Culture and the way power and trauma can be
exercised, to raise an eyebrow in suspicion.
Additionally, an alarming number of Nic Cage performances from Vampire’s Kiss, Deadfall, Kiss of Death, 8MM, and The Wickerman, to lesser known direct to video films like Seeking Vengeance, Vengeance: a Love Story and Looking Glass have either at least a scene of rape and sexual violence, or rape, sexual violence, and violence against women are used as motivation for Nic Cage’s characters. Yet, because the Rape Culture permeates everything, the question is, is this disgusting trend a product of Cage’s choices (since he is not only an actor on a lot of these projects but also a producer) or is this the symptom of the overall misogyny in masculine Hollywood storytelling? Given the plethora of hostile images he has contributed to the culture through these roles, motivation seems like a moot point. The effect has already been made, and Cage, in his image and persona, have been consumed by society as something that, whether it represents the man himself, has been woven into the fabric of our culture; ironically making the image and persona of Nicolas Cage Baudrillard’s hologram hyperreality. The idea of Nicolas Cage has become more real than the actor himself.
The Cultural Capital of Cage
When
artists generally make the statement that “art is subjective”, they mean to
allow for the interpretation of art by their audience. This also causes the audience
members to manufacture their own understanding of that which is produced. While
this practice is understandable for art to reach a wider audience and minimize
gatekeeping (that also has classist implications), the more that art becomes
widespread, popular, and summarily internalized as meaningful parts of people’s
identities, the more the public becomes the product’s gatekeepers (Spector 2019)[2]. Therefore, there is a danger in the art being accepted
as something that either the creator didn’t intend, or the public’s sense of
ownership impacts the cultural product’s authenticity.
Through the internet and
social media, likeminded people have been able to find each other and share
interests. This has given rise to a viscerally vocal public ownership of
cultural products; especially if they have fandoms surrounding it. We have seen
the denouncement of the Star Wars sequel trilogy and the erasure of the
Expanded Universe, while at the same time, there is a broad acceptance of the “Filoni-verse”.
This points to the fluidity of the cultural capital[3] of pop cultural products.
Yet, while some may see this as a public form of quality control; essentially
the customers (audience) telling the creators what they want, at the same time,
the creators are not obligated to give the audience anything. While
the latter is an unpopular opinion, there are several
examples of creators feeling pressure to produce something, then what they end
up producing, being lower in quality or ill received. Whether we are talking
about Justice League, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Indiana Jones, or Harry
Potter, more isn’t always better, and a lot of time it’s not what people wanted. While I still have a nagging question as to
whether content creators should feel obligated to explain their art[4], maybe instead, we
shouldn’t hold pieces of media at such high esteem that it’s change, or
continuation negatively impacts our self-identity; and
be comfortable with disappointment.
The image and persona of Nic Cage has been thoroughly consumed and regurgitated by the public into memes, resulting in the public perception of Nic Cage, and his abilities to be warped by the way this persona has been culturally consumed. He has been viewed, praised, and embraced by the public as an unhinged, violently extreme madman, that always produces a spectacle. There is an expectation that when you watch a Nicolas Cage film, you are just waiting for “the freak out” scene. The popularity of Cage being in his ability to be over the top, ultimately minimizes the recognition of the work, craft and talent Cage has for his artform. Thus, he is considered hackneyed. And because people have a difficult time separating the actor from the project, in addition to the cultural expectations of Cage, much of Nicolas Cage’s pained complex preparation and thoughtfulness for each role is ignored.
A perfect example of this
limitation is in the cultural expectation of Michael Sarnoski’s first feature, Pig.
When word of this independent film hit the public, it was described in very
lean terms: Cage plays a reclusive man whom, after an assault, goes looking for
his stolen pig. Given the public perception of Cage being wild and irrationally
violent, so many people believed that this film was going to be “Jon
Wick with a pig”.[5] Instead, what they got was
a meditative drama about loss, grief, and finding yourself. Thankfully, based upon critical reviews, this was one time where the audience did not mind
that their expectations were not met. Yet, how many people, believing they know
what a Nicolas Cage film was, and assuming Nic Cage is doing a “Jon Wick”,
completely avoided this film and its subtle brilliance? This is a problem with cultural
consumption of an image or persona. It inevitably leads to expectations that
pigeonhole a performer into what “works”; which unfortunately is often only
what the public accepts.
Cage Range
While a lot of Cage’s work
gets exaggerated and overlooked, I wanted to provide a list of must watch
Nicolas Cage Performances beyond the usual, and why they are remarkable:
Lord of War- Nic Cage and the Military Industrial Complex
Moonstruck- A Lovesick
German Expressionist Cage
Raising Arizona- Nic Cage as Woody Woodpecker
Matchstick Men- Cage taking on Neurological Disorders
Leaving Las Vegas- Oscar Winning Cage
Adaptation- Double dose, a Blended Cage
Joe- Internalized Cage
The Family Man- Holiday Cage
Pig- Mournful Reflective Cage
Mandy- The All-Around Best Cage
Also, Read
the review
CONCLUSION
Nicolas Cage is Sui generis. He is the Simulacrum of Hollywood, always being informed by Hollywood while folding it in on itself. That uniqueness was built on various amounts of privilege he has from his family, his whiteness, his maleness, prestige, and wealth. Because of this, he has been able to reinvent himself and lean into the cultural consumption of his image; to the point that a book on Hollywood is coming out through the prism of his career, and his next project, as of this writing, The Incredible Weight of Massive Talent, is a meta textual, self-deprecating action comedy, where Nicolas Cage plays a version of himself, who is so strapped for cash, that he agrees to recreate a lot of his famous roles at a Drug Lord’s birthday party. Here, he seems to be leaning into his place in cinema culture while still benefiting from his identity and status. It is in the vein of this criticism, that I feel guilt over my fascination with Nicolas Cage. While he is compelling, there are so many roles that have aggressively misogynistic tones and attitudes with sparse roles for women. Still, for every The Humanity Bureau, and Between Worlds that we must stomach, we also may get gems like Mandy or Pig. Thus, I am willing to watch the first 10 minutes of any Nicolas Cage film. This is the gamble that I am willing to take with him. Because, even if he is not in a quality film (which he is often not), what he is doing in those films is still captivating. It is whether the rest of the film holds up around him which determines whether I stick with it or wait for the next one.
REFERENCES
Berger,
Peter and Thomas Luckmann 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise
in the Sociology of Knowledge New York: Anchor Books.
Baudrillard,
Jean 1994. Simulacra and Simulation Michigan: University of Michigan
Press
Bauman,
Zygmunt 2014. What use is Sociology? Cambridge: Polity Press
Gibb,
Lindsay 2015. National Treasure. Nicolas Cage Ontario: ECW Press
Goffman,
Erving 1959. The Presentation of Self
in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor
Books
Spector,
Josh 2019 “ You get the Audience You Deserve.” In For the Interested. Medium
.com Retrieved at https://medium.com/an-idea-for-you/you-get-the-audience-you-deserve-5598aeadbf56
Retrieved on 11/05/2021
[1] He
had roles in Rumble Fish and Peggy Sue Got Married. Plus, name
change or not, family lineage is still widely known in Hollywood (i.e. Carrie
Fisher, Jamie Lee Curtis etc.) not to mention the Class, Race and Gender
privilege he emits
[3] Cultural
Capital is the value of knowledge skills and experiences within a particular
social situation. This type of capital can be acquired individually (through
personal experiences and independent reading/research) or collectively as a
part of a larger structural mechanism of order and socialization (Schools).
This is the value we place on “what people know.”
[4]
Which is often necessary to understand a Nic Cage performance.
[5] However,
one of the meta-textually interesting things about Pig is, that its
premise is so sparse and direct that this could easily be transformed into a
Action film with bombastic fights, an irrational villain with buckets of blood
and gore. But rather than make these
easy choices, Sarnoski and Cage decide to defy the expectation and the genre.
Instead of murdering people in a violent rage, Cage causes people to question
their life choices through presenting them an existential crisis through quiet
contemplation and inquiry
