Subverting Eden: Ambiguity of Evil and the American Dream in Blue Velvet

Abstract

In his early writing on language, truth, and art, Nietzsche notes that art treats illusion as illusion; therefore it does not wish to deceive; it is true.' Insofar as art is an illusion whose only truth is that it is illusion, art is only true as a lie. When the illusion of art is mistaken for truth, art is destroyed. Nietzsche's observations about the truth of a work of art are instructive when considering the questions raised by postmodern artworks such as Blue Velvet, a film written and directed by David Lynch. As Lynch explores the consequences of mistaking illusion for truth in Blue Velvet, he offers a disquieting analysis of the Dream, its icons, and the cultural idolatry that sustains it. With a degree of suspicion characteristic of postmodern interpretative strategies, Lynch examines the values that define the American Way of Life2 and provides evidence to challenge the truth claim of traditional notions of good and evil. In this essay I argue that as Lynch scrutinizes the values and verities of culture, his focus is on the ambiguity implicit in the experience of good and evil. His exploration of small town America and its commonly held beliefs leads him to conclude that things are not always what they seem. Ambiguity is an essential element of both the narrative and its telling. Lynch creates images, characters, and situations that are intrinsically ambivalent. In larger than life icons of Americana that fill the screen-beginning with a picture perfect blue sky, a white picket fence and red roses-Lynch interrogates the underlying assumptions of the values that define the American Way of Life. These assumptions provide the foundation for the differentiation between what is believed to be good and what is judged to be evil. For Lynch, the distance that separates the culturally inscribed icons of good and evil from lived experience engenders a radical decomposition of the moral superiority that is identified with culture and its religious dimensions.3