Ask
any high school student what the meaning of Romeo
and Juliet is and you’ll get hundreds of variations on a similar theme. Ask
those same students what the meaning of the film The Fountain is and you’ll receive dozens of contrasting responses.
The beauty of art is displayed in these variations of opinions and views, no
matter how obvious a meaning may seem. Each text is read differently depending
on who reads them. Reader-response theory has many different facets, but is
undeniably linked with cultural studies, especially when the assumption of
significance is present. In a film like Bill
and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), meaning can easily be discovered and
significance assigned to it. However, depending on who watched it, where they
watched it, when they watched it, and why they watched it (their “culture” so to
speak), it could easily have meaning without significance, or a great deal of
significance, no matter what meaning is assigned to it.
Although
dozens of meanings can be extrapolated from any artistic text, some seem to be
more prevalent than others. In Bill and
Ted, an obvious theme is that of chaos over order. Ted’s father is a
militant leader in his household. He’s a police officer for a living and brings
his hard-nosed, no-nonsense work ethic home with him. Ted, in complete
contrast, is laid back and easy going. This dichotomy is clearly seen not only
in the interactions between the two, but in their drastically different
outfits, hairstyles, and colloquialisms. Constantly throughout the film Ted and
Bill are outsmarting Ted’s father (the fake phone call, taking his keys,
dropping a trashcan on him) proving that this stingy old authority figure is secondary
to Bill and Ted’s wild, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach to life.
The
character of Napoleon is also an unmistakable reflection of this shift in
thought. When first encountered, Napoleon is a straight-laced military leader,
calling the shots on a battlefield. After accidently being thrown into 1988,
hilarity ensues, and this French leader finds himself at a water park. Although
hesitant at first, eventually Napoleon succumbs fully to the water slides, even
refusing to leave when Bill and Ted come to find him. For someone with such
control over his life, he sure loves relinquishing that control to water and
gravity. This change in Napoleon shows the viewer how much happier he is, how
much better his life is, when he loosens the reigns a bit and allows himself to
lose control.
This
meaning can easily be ascertained by a present day reader watching the film for
the first (or fifth) time. The significance, however, comes when a reader’s
culture is included. In 1989, the year of it’s release, the United States was
coming out of the Cold War, having celebrated the collapse of the Berlin wall,
and with a soaring economy thanks to Reaganomics. The threat of communism and
oppressive governments still lingering in the air as US citizens allowed
themselves to exhale for the first time in years. The younger generation failed
to understand the gravity of what their parents went through, as younger
generations are wont to do. And their parents insisted that they knew better,
as older generations are wont to do. The threat of oppression was so palpable
that many of these parents remained, for years, on the defense. Following the
model of Reaganomics, they were strict and conservative in all aspects.
Everything from money to entertainment was carefully scrutinized. This,
however, seemed oppressive to their youth. It also seemed to echo, dangerously,
the oppression of former governments. Those of the younger generation were
fearful that their leaders’ concern might turn to oppression, causing them to
rebel against such a stringent lifestyle. This rebirth of freedom of expression
led the country into the 90s, electing a democratic president, and ushering in
such musical gems as Britney Spears, Pearl Jam, and The Notorious B.I.G.
With
this background, Bill and Ted’s
meaning suddenly has significance. It’s used as a mouthpiece for the budding
generation. The retreat into history, and subsequent clashing of time periods,
emphasizes the idea that old ways of thinking are out-dated. Socrates, who
during his time is a great philosopher, is portrayed as a bumbling idiot for
the rest of the film; Freud is constantly the butt of phallic jokes; and even
Joan of Arc is placed in stereotypical female roles as soon as she is placed in
1988. The future world is based on the music that Bill and Ted create (or will
create) and its citizens adopt their language as familiar greetings. The past
and the future both emphatically depend on Bill and Ted, the present
generation, to be leaders. When watched as a teen or 20-something in 1989, your
role in the future of the world is suddenly sitting heavy on your shoulders,
thus reflecting significance as well as meaning.
It’s
obvious, then, that a reader’s assignment of significance to any piece of art
is intrinsically dependent on his or her background. Although meaning can be
assigned by anyone at anytime to anything, and even be similar to others’, the
importance of that meaning is an entirely independent and personal experience for
each individual reader.
Amy Roskelley
09/09/2013
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