Chicago Reflections on Chicago

Reflections Upon Chicago

As we have seen, Chicago is us, our own dark reflection. Chicago is a dark place, whose shadowy lessons Roxie learns. Early on, Roxie learned from Mama that it is all about reciprocity: “Got a little motto, always sees me through, when you’re good to Mama, Mama’s good to you.” Taking Roxie under her wing, Mama imparted more advice: “The truth, that’s a one-way ticket to the death house” and “In this town, murder is a form of entertainment;” that proper representation is vital and that people will want to see Roxie because she is famous, not because she is talented. Later, from Billy, Roxie learns some harsh truths about the fleeting nature of fame and the illusory nature of reality; that everything is show business, as Shakespeare and Shiva would certainly agree.

Chicago is the shadowy journey of individuation, the eternal return, Chicago-style. Through Chicago we have seen the death-rebirth process play out, both in the structure of the film and through the lives of its leading ladies. By reflecting on the archetypal aspects of play in this way, we can see how Grof's cartography unfolds, what it feels like, because we can imaginally identify with the characters. In our own lives, we may be able to use these lessons.

Chicago is about “Anger, greed, jealousy, fame at all costs” (Marshall 2003a, DVD). Along the way Chicago shows the shadow side of some of our most important institutions, the press, the legal system, and the criminal justice system. “Criminal justice system,” seems rather like an oxymoron (i.e., a combination of contradictory terms), but if we look deeper, we can see that this term shows us something: perhaps the justice system is criminal, or it is a justice system for criminals, or it is a crime what the justice system has become. Chicago deals with intensely important issues, but because “it's just a movie” Chicago invites us to consider these things in a non-confrontive way, so that we do not defend ourselves. We can laugh at the movie and this may help us to laugh at ourselves more easily and to see ourselves in a different way.

Chicago is a dark comedy. Some of the themes that we have seen throughout, as we delved more deeply into the shadow side of play, centered around cooperation and competition as different ways of dealing with opposites. We learned early on about cooperation from Mama in her solo. Although everyone in Chicago is only looking out for his or her own selfish ends (this is the shadow side after all), the winning strategy ultimately is to cooperate, to “play ball.” Cooperation ensures survival and success: By playing ball with Mama, Roxie and Velma get what they need, by playing ball with Billy and the press, they earn their freedom, and by playing with each other, they end up successful in the end and become stars. If we work together and play ball with the shadows instead of trying to repress them, perhaps we can individuate as Velma and Roxie did.

The competition between Roxie and Velma, also known as agôn or what Donaldson (1993) calls “adulterated play” does not really work out very well. Roxie and Velma jockey for position in the public spotlight. They experience that the public has a very short attention span, and that public opinion is like being on a veritable roller coaster ride: one moment you are up and the next you are down, and you never know what is coming around the next curve.

We saw the interplay between reality and illusion and fantasy; how they effect each other. We saw that you can create your own reality, and if your reality is not serving you, then you can change it. It is also best not to lose sight that it’s all just a fiction. Do not get too attached to anything, especially your identity, your story, because in the psyche, as in the world, “nothing stays.” Today, all around us we see image creation, spin, sensationalism, celebrity, and Americans are enamored with reality TV, which is anything but real.

We saw the metaphorical, playful and paradoxical nature of the psyche where things can be both true and not true at the same time. We also saw how the psyche takes elements from one place and uses them in different places, and how the psyche plays through dreams, fantasies, and symptoms.

Roxie gets a great education from Mama, Velma, and Billy in playing around with the rules of the system, using the system to free yourself from the system, and how to put on a good show for the audience, be it the press, the jury or the public. Roxie learned how to be like Velma, by imitating Velma, almost too well, which could have been a deadly error. Children learn through imitation, mimesis, and we can, too. In play, manipulation, repetition, and control help to us to master situations, but they have a shadow side as well; there are dangers if we play without ethical considerations, if “it’s all’s fair game.”

Deception, pretense, and pretend are important parts of play, and Chicago is full of them. We saw that there are consequences to tricky behavior: Fred’s lying to Roxie and using her got him killed; while Billy’s deceptions, double tricks, and improvisation ended up freeing Roxie and Velma. Fancy footwork works. Feigning fainting sometimes works out well. Roxie’s ruses worked both in jail and on the witness stand. Just as long as you don’t take yourself too seriously . . . and remember it is just make believe.

Fleeing reality into fantasy as a defense mechanism in troubled times can be a good thing. Roxie’s fantasies helped her to cope with being in a very difficult place, and her fantasies actually gave Roxie useful information about reality at times that helped her adapt. However, when she started believing in her fantasies, they also did the opposite and almost got her killed, because she got tricked by them, forgetting that they were just fantasies.

Speaking of getting tricked, the workings of the Trickster, whose trickiness sometimes ends up getting him tricked are also evident throughout Chicago. We saw how good tricks can save you from oppression, but also being tricky can lead others to try to get revenge. The Trickster is associated with the shadow, and in many myths the Trickster’s appetites get him in trouble. We see that very clearly with Roxie and her appetite for publicity. She ends up getting tricked by her own tricks, because she starts believing in her own press.

We also saw the dangers of being deluded by being “de-luded” or “out of play” and believing your own press, the hubris of getting caught in your own projections and reflections, and the nemesis that it unleashes. The dangers of narcissistic self-absorption are very clear. Just when you are at the height of success, or on the verge of success, like in the alchemical process, is a most dangerous time, because it is very easy to lose consciousness or to fall asleep like the alchemists did, and you can lose everything if that happens. At such times Nemesis comes near and can be easily invoked to counter the hubris

Our society is incredibly narcissistic, we are self-absorbed and inflated, thinking that we can do it alone. We are addicted to the “razzle dazzle,” and so maybe we can trick ourselves out of the prison of our own narcissism, if we honor the shadow and actually realize we can’t do it alone; if we give credit to the rest of creation for their part in the whole “flashing show” as Brian Swimme (1995) would call it. We know what happened to Narcissus in the myth, maybe we should take a hint, and get over it!

The metaphor of life being “show business” shows the shadow side of the imagination, which has come back with a vengeance, making a mockery of our institutions and turning the whole world into a shadowy version of itself. Since we have not sincerely sacrificed enough at the altars of gods of play, they have wreaked their vengeance upon us, intent on reestablishing harmony: they have become our Nemesis.

The imagination has come back through symptom, dream, film, and television. We are living the retribution caused by our own hubris, and we still do not get it. We continue to denigrate play, and leave play and the imagination out of our lives. Ironically, some of this is due to the litigious nature of our society, which has taken much of the play out of playgrounds. Our unconscious worship of materialism and the protestant work ethic has caused us to over schedule, over work, and over achieve. The children of Night, Nemesis and her siblings, are running rampant all around as a result. Children can no longer “just play,” there is no time. Organized activities are often all they are allowed, a poor substitute for play, or mind-numbing television and videogames.

Our refusal to honor play and give it a place at the table has had ominous consequences. When the gods are forgotten, they tend to take out their anger on us. Witness the Judgment of Paris and the resulting Trojan War—all originally a result of Eris not being honored. Incidentally Helen was the daughter of Nemesis, and both Nemesis and Eris were Nyx’s daughters.

The truth is there: it is all play, it is all a play of consciousness, but we have been so unconscious about this truth. We have been so caught up in competition and the survival of the fittest, adulterated play that we bought the Darwinian metaphor hook, line, and sinker and we are indeed sinking. If we instead embrace a more cooperative way, and recycle and reuse things more (Betts, 2004, p. 137), and recombine things in more playful ways, becoming conscious bricoleurs, we might be better off. These are some of the lessons of the psyche’s play Chicago. Now that we’re finished with this, let's go to Disneyland!

End of chapter, proceed to Disneyland