Joseph Campbell
“Mythology and the Individual”
Metaphors are used to point past all knowledge to the experience of that which is living within you, but if the metaphor is interpreted as a fact, it’s misunderstood. The best things can’t be told; we’re going to talk about them nevertheless, but we have to talk about them by analogy, and then some clod interprets the analogy as a fact. All images, mythological and religious, point past themselves to that which can’t be told, but when you get stuck with the image, when God says “I’m no metaphor, kid, I’m a fact” you’re in trouble.
-Joseph Campbell
“God is a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all human categories of thought, even the categories of being and non-being —those are categories of thought. So half of the people in the world are religious people who think that their metaphors are facts. Those are what we call theists. The other half are people who know that the metaphors are not facts, and so they’re lies. Those are the atheists.” - Joseph Campbell
When I was little and learning about religion and bored by it all, somehow I discovered Campbell and found a reason to continue looking at religious ideology and all writings and forms of entertainment for their underlying metaphors. I still like to return to Campbell’s lectures and conversations every once in a while to refresh myself on his approach.
Joseph Campbell: The Hero’s Journey is streaming on Netflix and I would suggest it, though the 6 part Power of Myth is better but not streaming.
![Community 1x01: “Pilot”
“What is community college? Well, you’ve heard it’s all kinds of things. You’ve heard it’s loser college for remedial teens, 20 something dropouts, middle aged divorcees, and old people keeping their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity. That’s what you heard, however, I wish you luck!.”
The dean has just stereotyped many of the supporting characters into roles, and it turns out he is missing the full deck of cards to tell them how things will be different from these preconceived notions of self.
Jeff has not yet been cast in a type, but as soon as we meet him, we find that he is looking for ways to use people, and that is what we are doing too. How can we utilize him and all of these characters we are meeting for the first time, as mirrors for ourselves or models of antithesis? In his first three interactions, Jeff wants to use Abed to get to Britta, use Britta to get sex, and use his old acquaintance to cheat his way through the community college by being handed all of the answers. He is lead to believe that he might get them.
Soon, the study group meets for the first time, and Abed gives us our first Breakfast Club reference. The assigned thesis of the Breakfast Club’s essay was “who you think you are,” which is also our assignment here as engaged viewers. Which of these character stereotypes introduced in the beginning are we going to latch onto?Jeff quickly distances himself from the group and rejoins his old acquaintance Duncan, who is a connection to his old life as a lawyer, when he was able to use his silver tongue to cheat the system. He still hopes that he can get all of the answers from this link to his past, but the only answer Duncan gives is a question of whether or not Jeff knows the difference between right and wrong. Jeff responds: “I discovered at a very early age that if I talk long enough, I could make anything right or wrong, so either I’m God, or truth is relative, but in either case: booyah.”
Jeff returns to encounter the rest of the study group, and Abed gives a second Breakfast Club reference. Jeff uses everyone and plays them off one another to throw the group into turmoil in hopes of extracting himself from the group once again. Abed delivers Bender’s speech from The Breakfast Club and stops the fight momentarily. The only person his reference elicits a response from is Jeff, everyone else becomes a silent observer. Jeff retreats again to finally retrieve all of the answers from his old acquaintance. When he returns, he must once again use everyone to attempt to get what he wants from Britta. He makes his first speech:
“We’re the only species on Earth that observes Shark Week. Sharks don’t even observe Shark Week, but we do, for the same reason I can pick up this pencil, tell you it’s name is Steve and go like this, and part of you dies just a little bit on the inside, because people can connect with anything. We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark, and we can give Ben Affleck an Academy Award for screenwriting. People can find the good in just about anything but themselves.”
He goes on to recast everyone in the group in a new type. In the commentary, the creators explain this scene as follows: “He’s bringing them together [but] the character doesn’t mean it, but then again he’s not lying ‘cus the whole point of this character is supposed to be… the character doesn’t hate anybody, he doesn’t think that anybody’s a bad person, he’s too self-involved to care enough to judge anybody.”
In his speech, regarding Abed, Jeff states: “Abed’s a shaman. You ask him to pass the salt, he gives you a bowl of soup, because you know what? Soup is better.” The only person Abed connected with earlier during his film reference was Jeff, and we can see Bender (to whom the speech belongs in the film) as Jeff and perhaps the related story as symbolic of Jeff’s motivation. Jeff did confess earlier to the lunch lady: “I’m sorry. I was raised on TV, and I was conditioned to believe that every black woman over 50 is a cosmic mentor.” Though Abed does not change Jeff’s behavior with his references, he is attempting to reach him. To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, the job of the shaman is to determine what is wrong in the community, travel to the appropriate higher realm, commune with the spirits, and set it right quickly. The higher realm here is the collective unconscious of popular culture, and that is what the entire episode has been working in to set you at ease and help you connect better with the characters. When Abed shouted his reference, it was not at the group because they were not broken, but rather at Jeff who was breaking the group.
After the group is repaired by Jeff’s speech and Jeff is revealed to be a fake, he storms out with all the answers and Abed begins spouting a wider variety of pop culture references after him. Outside, Jeff tears open all the answers and rifles through a lot of nothing before coming to a single page bearing the word booyah. This recolors his speech before about his ability to manipulate truth and being God, which he ended with a “booyah.” His self addressing speech was a lot of nothing. This also hearkens back to the dean not having the cards to tell anyone how to overcome their perceived categorization in the community. Jeff has ultimately gotten no answers from his old way of life. The group comes out to find Jeff without all of the answers, and they begin to project themselves onto him and pull him back into their group.
In the opening of The Breakfast Club, the letter in response to “who you think you are” lists off the stereotype assigned to each of the members of the club and declares that they feel that they are brainwashed. However, at the end of the film the letter in response to the assignment has changed to reflect the fact that they all share commonalities. In the same way, the dean’s list of stereotypes in the beginning is eclipsed by our having found something relatable in each of the characters who form the study group by the end of the episode.
Episode 2 Analysis
Episode 3 Analysis
Episode 4 Analysis
Episode 5 Analysis](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr6y7es28q1qzh8m2o1_1280.png)
Community 1x01: “Pilot”
“What is community college? Well, you’ve heard it’s all kinds of things. You’ve heard it’s loser college for remedial teens, 20 something dropouts, middle aged divorcees, and old people keeping their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity. That’s what you heard, however, I wish you luck!.”
The dean has just stereotyped many of the supporting characters into roles, and it turns out he is missing the full deck of cards to tell them how things will be different from these preconceived notions of self.
Jeff has not yet been cast in a type, but as soon as we meet him, we find that he is looking for ways to use people, and that is what we are doing too. How can we utilize him and all of these characters we are meeting for the first time, as mirrors for ourselves or models of antithesis? In his first three interactions, Jeff wants to use Abed to get to Britta, use Britta to get sex, and use his old acquaintance to cheat his way through the community college by being handed all of the answers. He is lead to believe that he might get them.
Soon, the study group meets for the first time, and Abed gives us our first Breakfast Club reference. The assigned thesis of the Breakfast Club’s essay was “who you think you are,” which is also our assignment here as engaged viewers. Which of these character stereotypes introduced in the beginning are we going to latch onto?
Jeff quickly distances himself from the group and rejoins his old acquaintance Duncan, who is a connection to his old life as a lawyer, when he was able to use his silver tongue to cheat the system. He still hopes that he can get all of the answers from this link to his past, but the only answer Duncan gives is a question of whether or not Jeff knows the difference between right and wrong. Jeff responds: “I discovered at a very early age that if I talk long enough, I could make anything right or wrong, so either I’m God, or truth is relative, but in either case: booyah.”
Jeff returns to encounter the rest of the study group, and Abed gives a second Breakfast Club reference. Jeff uses everyone and plays them off one another to throw the group into turmoil in hopes of extracting himself from the group once again. Abed delivers Bender’s speech from The Breakfast Club and stops the fight momentarily. The only person his reference elicits a response from is Jeff, everyone else becomes a silent observer. Jeff retreats again to finally retrieve all of the answers from his old acquaintance. When he returns, he must once again use everyone to attempt to get what he wants from Britta. He makes his first speech:
“We’re the only species on Earth that observes Shark Week. Sharks don’t even observe Shark Week, but we do, for the same reason I can pick up this pencil, tell you it’s name is Steve and go like this, and part of you dies just a little bit on the inside, because people can connect with anything. We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark, and we can give Ben Affleck an Academy Award for screenwriting. People can find the good in just about anything but themselves.”
He goes on to recast everyone in the group in a new type. In the commentary, the creators explain this scene as follows: “He’s bringing them together [but] the character doesn’t mean it, but then again he’s not lying ‘cus the whole point of this character is supposed to be… the character doesn’t hate anybody, he doesn’t think that anybody’s a bad person, he’s too self-involved to care enough to judge anybody.”
In his speech, regarding Abed, Jeff states: “Abed’s a shaman. You ask him to pass the salt, he gives you a bowl of soup, because you know what? Soup is better.” The only person Abed connected with earlier during his film reference was Jeff, and we can see Bender (to whom the speech belongs in the film) as Jeff and perhaps the related story as symbolic of Jeff’s motivation. Jeff did confess earlier to the lunch lady: “I’m sorry. I was raised on TV, and I was conditioned to believe that every black woman over 50 is a cosmic mentor.” Though Abed does not change Jeff’s behavior with his references, he is attempting to reach him. To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, the job of the shaman is to determine what is wrong in the community, travel to the appropriate higher realm, commune with the spirits, and set it right quickly. The higher realm here is the collective unconscious of popular culture, and that is what the entire episode has been working in to set you at ease and help you connect better with the characters. When Abed shouted his reference, it was not at the group because they were not broken, but rather at Jeff who was breaking the group.
After the group is repaired by Jeff’s speech and Jeff is revealed to be a fake, he storms out with all the answers and Abed begins spouting a wider variety of pop culture references after him. Outside, Jeff tears open all the answers and rifles through a lot of nothing before coming to a single page bearing the word booyah. This recolors his speech before about his ability to manipulate truth and being God, which he ended with a “booyah.” His self addressing speech was a lot of nothing. This also hearkens back to the dean not having the cards to tell anyone how to overcome their perceived categorization in the community. Jeff has ultimately gotten no answers from his old way of life. The group comes out to find Jeff without all of the answers, and they begin to project themselves onto him and pull him back into their group.
In the opening of The Breakfast Club, the letter in response to “who you think you are” lists off the stereotype assigned to each of the members of the club and declares that they feel that they are brainwashed. However, at the end of the film the letter in response to the assignment has changed to reflect the fact that they all share commonalities. In the same way, the dean’s list of stereotypes in the beginning is eclipsed by our having found something relatable in each of the characters who form the study group by the end of the episode.
There are a couple of episodes of Community that I want to go back and look at more in depth. The first is episode 2x05 titled “Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples”
“The ego can’t reflect upon itself unless it has a mirror against which to read itself, and that mirror would be the mythological schedule that let’s it know where it is. It’s a mirror with a schedule on it —a patterned mirror— and the ego sees itself in that reflex and knows where it is on the scoreboard.”
- Joseph Campbell
Abed decides to compare himself against the Jesus mythology to find his current place in life as a filmmaker, just as he has seen so many other filmmaker’s do (the life of Jesus is compared to E.T., Edward Scissorhands, Back to the Future, The Matrix, Robocop, Superman Returns, and Star Trek II within the episode). Of his film he says:
“In the filmmaker’s film, Jesus is a filmmaker trying to find God with his camera. But then the filmmaker realizes that he’s actually Jesus and he’s being filmed by God’s camera and it goes like that forever in both directions like a mirror within a mirror because all of the filmmakers are Jesus and all of their cameras are God, and the movie is called ABED, all caps.”
The film is Abed’s examination of ABED. It is a mirror of Jesus and God to which he will compare his life. Ultimately, he finds it lacking, but he does resign himself to his fate after praying to God in the garden of Gesthsemane. To simplify Joseph Campbell’s theory of the monomyth, all religions and mythologies share the same metaphorical waypoints to which people are to compare their lives. Abed has been hitting the waypoints in order of the myth he has chosen so far. In Abed’s prayer to God in the garden, he describes his film as “a self-indulgent adolescent mess” and says that the “critics are gonna crucify me.” He returns inside anyway, having heard nothing from God. As Campbell says when he explores similar rites of passage in other cultures, “the burial isn’t as important as the kid thinking he’s dead” and “what has died has been infantile ego.” Though Abed is not necessarily crucified, he has believed himself to be dead and therefore killed his childish ego. At the end of the episode we see the piece he ends up making is a rap song about Heaven. No one cares. The reason no one cares is because in Campbell’s interpretation, Heaven was never meant to be an actual place. A better word for the same idea would be Nirvana or Enlightenment. It is a place of personal growth, to which Abed has arrived, and no amount of prosthelytizing can force it on anyone else.
Pierce’s parallel story is one without mythologies. He is comparing himself to his peers and finding his life empty.
