Wasted: Performing Addiction in America

220 Pages·2015·3.43 MB·English

by  Heath A. Diehl

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WASTED: PERFORMING ADDICTION IN AMERICA
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The Cultural Politics of Media
and Popular Culture
Series editor:
C. Richard King
7 Washington State University, USA
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e Dedicated to a renewed engagement with culture, this series fosters critical, contextual
n analyses and cross-disciplinary examinations of popular culture as a site of cultural
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J politics. It welcomes theoretically grounded and critically engaged accounts of the politics of
5 contemporary popular culture and the popular dimensions of cultural politics. Without
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5 being aligned to a specific theoretical or methodological approach, The Cultural Politics
5
: of Media and Popular Culture publishes monographs and edited collections that promote
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2 dialogues on central subjects, such as representation, identity, power, consumption,
at citizenship, desire and difference.
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g Offering approachable and insightful analyses that complicate race, class, gender,
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Di sexuality, (dis)ability and nation across various sites of production and consumption,
n including film, television, music, advertising, sport, fashion, food, youth, subcultures
Sa and new media, The Cultural Politics of Media and Popular Culture welcomes work that
a, explores the importance of text, context and subtext as these relate to the ways in which
ni popular culture works alongside hegemony.
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C Also available in this series:

f
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y Masculinity in Contemporary Quality Television
it Michael Mario Albrecht
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er ISBN 978-1-4094-6972-8
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U Disability and Popular Culture
y [ Focusing Passion, Creating Community and Expressing Defiance
b Katie Ellis
d ISBN: 978-1-4724-1178-5
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o Beyond Hate
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n White Power and Popular Culture
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o C. Richard King and David J. Leonard
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ISBN: 978-1-4724-2746-5
The American Imperial Gothic
Popular Culture, Empire, Violence
Johan Höglund
ISBN: 978-1-4094-4954-6
Wasted:
Performing Addiction in
America
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o HEATH A. DIEHL
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e Bowling Green State University, USA
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First published 2015 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
7 11 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

7 Copyright © 2015 Heath A. Diehl
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2 Heath A. Diehl has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be
e identified as the author of this work.
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J All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form
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0 or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
5 photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
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: permission in writing from the publishers.
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t Notice:
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] Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
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g used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
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n British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
a A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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i The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
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r Diehl, Heath A.
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f Wasted : performing addiction in America / by Heath A. Diehl.
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a pages cm. -- (The cultural politics of media and popular culture)
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f Includes index.
o ISBN 978-1-4724-4237-6 (hardcover) 1. A lcoholism--United States--History. 2. D rug addiction--
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t United States--History. I. Title.
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rs HV5292.D54 2016
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v 362.29088’7910973--dc23
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2015030968
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b ISBN 9781472442376 (hbk)
d ISBN 9781315547633 (ebk)
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Contents
7 Acknowledgments vii
1 Preface: On Being Wasted in America ix
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5 Part I rePresentIng Wasted MetaPhors
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5 1 Writing Belushi/Performing America: Addiction,
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2 National Identity, and the Cultural Mythos of “Waste” in Wired 3
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o Part II stagIng Wasted hIstorIes
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2 Welcome (Again) to the Circus: Resurrecting the Freak Show
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a and the Inebriate Asylum in A&E’s Intervention 29
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ni 3 Re-Visiting Literary Realism: Adaptation, Ideology, and the
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o Metaphor of Waste in Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City and
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al Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero 59
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y 4 “My name is Jim, and I’m an alcoholic”: Peddling the Wasteful
it Propaganda of 12-Step Treatment in Peter Cohn’s Drunks 83
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ni Part III PerforMIng Wasted LIves
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y 5 “Real People With Real Stories”: Anti-Drug PSAs, the
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d Propagation of Stereotypes, and the Boomerang Effect 109
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l 6 “Didn’t [She] Almost Have It All?”: Being Whitney Houston/
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w Performing Addiction/Imagining America 133
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Conclusion: On Being Wasted in America—Redux 155
Bibliography 175
Index 189
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t For Gary and “the kids,”
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] “as long as we got each other/
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g we got the world spinning right in our hands”
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Acknowledgments
7 First, foremost, always I need to acknowledge the unwavering support and
1 the unconditional love that I experience every day from my partner, Gary
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e Thurman. Thank you for giving me the time and space to write this book.
n Thank you for indulging me in conversations about addiction for the past
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5 J four years—especially since most of the time you probably would have rather
0 been doing almost anything else. And most of all thank you for loving me,
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5 and thank you for allowing me to love you.
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2 To our “kids,” Scooter, Licorice, Ani, Kit, Melba, Jules, and Allie: Words
at cannot begin to express how thankful I am for the privilege of being your
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o human. I cannot imagine writing this book without having you on my lap and
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e in my heart.
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The mentorship of both undergraduate and graduate faculty with whom
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a I have been privileged to work closely continues to shape and define the
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a, kinds of research questions that I pose, the types of critical lenses through
ni which I respond to those questions, and the kinds of conclusions at which I
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o ultimately arrive. I am particularly grateful to a small, but distinguished group
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al of teachers who have nurtured my intellectual curiosity, have fostered my desire
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f to ask difficult questions, and have tolerated my (sometimes obsessive) need to
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y seek answers to those questions: Mary Boone, Rob Brown, Perry Bush, Gene
it Caskey, Diane Harris, Carl Holmberg, Simon Morgan-Russell, Mary Ellen
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e Newport, Pat Rodabaugh, Jim Sargent, Sue Snyder, Mary Ann Sullivan, and
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ni Susan Weisenberger.
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Special “Thank you”s to two faculty members who mentored me through
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y my first major research project and who together introduced me to the
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d pleasures of intellectual work:
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d Jeff Gundy: You once gave me the confidence that I needed to pursue
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l a project that scared me more than anything I had ever to date pursued, to
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w complete a project that challenged me in ways that I never had been challenged,
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D and to see myself in ways that I had always wanted to but had never possessed
the self-assurance to do.
Sharon Showman: Since I was 18 years old, you have been the yardstick
against which I have measured my own accomplishments and “worth.” You are
my mentor. You are my friend. You are my role model. And you are one of the
greatest gifts that the universe has ever given me. “Thank you” seems grossly
insufficient, but it is all I have.
WAsted: Performing Addiction in AmericA
To three of the faculty who mentored me through graduate school and
my dissertation:
Vicki Patraka: Working with you was one of the most difficult challenges
of my professional life, but it also has been one of the most rewarding
learning experiences that I ever could have imagined. Your influence is all
over this book.
7 Ellen Berry: Thank you for teaching me to appreciate (and to indulge in) the
1 near-infinite pleasures of theory, and thank you for always reminding me of the
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e material consequences of doing so. Because of you, my work “matters.”
n Lisa Wolford: Thank you for encouraging me to follow my intellectual
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5 J passions wherever they may lead. Your scholarship and your mentoring
0 immeasurably has inspired my scholarship since graduate school and, without
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5 knowing you, Wasted would never have been possible. Rest in peace, Lisa.
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1
2 Over the years I have been blessed with an especially generous, supportive,
at engaging, and thoughtful peer group. Some have provided me inspiration
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o and motivation. Others have engaged meaningfully with me in some of the
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e conversations that have shaped the contents of this book. Still others have been
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there “merely” to keep me sane and grounded. Whatever your contribution
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a to Wasted—large or small, in the immediate present or in the distant past—I
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a, am grateful beyond measure for your friendship, your wisdom, and your
ni being: Annie Adams, Angela Athy, Rachel Armstrong, Becky Becker, Nicole
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o Buccalo, Jessica Chung, Maria Getz, Lisa Hanasono, Tiffany “Lady Teacher”
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al Hyland, Kara Jennings, Kimberly Greenfield Karshner, Mary Krueger, Emily
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f Lanik Parr, Ellen Larabee, Jeannie Ludlow, Carrie Mast, Paul Moore, Elisabeth
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y Showalter Neal, Marissa Wagner Oehlhof, Mary Kate Riddell, Blaire Rideout,
it Leslie Robinson, Linda Rouse, Eric Severson, Diana Spiess, Christopher Stahl,
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e John Thies, Sara Webb-Sunderhaus, Gus Weltsek, and Darius Omar Williams.
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ni To one very special friend goes a very special “thank you.” Amy Rybak:
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In the words of the incomparable Bea Arthur: “Your friendship is something
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y I never expected at this point in my life … and I couldn’t have asked for a
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d better surprise.”
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d Within my immediate family, two aunts deserve special recognition.
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l Marsha Ward: You are owed more “thank you”s than I have space or time
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w or words to pen. Suffice it to say: With you, I’ve truly had the time of my life.
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D Sharon “KK” Shaw: By taking me to see my first play, you sparked in me the
life-long love affair with live performance that this book, and so much of my
intellectual work, celebrates.
Finally, to my students (especially The Thesis Class): You constantly remind
me of why I do what I do. You motivate me. You inspire me. You humble me.
And I am thankful every day that I have been given the privilege of watching
you grow as thinkers, as young professionals, and as human beings.
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Preface:
On Being Wasted in America
[O]ne cannot think without metaphors. But that does not mean there aren’t
7 some metaphors we might well abstain from or try to retire. And, of course, all
1 thinking is interpretation. But that does not mean it isn’t sometimes correct to
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n Susan Sontag, AIDS and Its Metaphors, p. 93
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5 Wasted truly became “real” to me the night that Whitney Houston died. To
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2 that point, I periodically had entertained the idea of undertaking a writing
at project about contemporary cultural representations of addiction, although
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o the ideas for that project were always only partially formed in my mind and
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e those ideas did not yet have a coherent throughline to unify them. My long-
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standing interest in the subject of addiction was shaped primarily by three
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a influences that were biographical, historical, and intellectual in nature. On the
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a, biographical front, I come from a family of addicts. Some of those ancestors
ni are only as real to me as the family lore about their drunken exploits that
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o was passed down to me throughout my childhood. One legend, for instance,
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al suggests that one of my maternal great-grandfathers, an alcoholic who also
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f was close friends with one of our city’s funeral home owners, died after
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y drinking pilfered embalming fluid for the “alcohol” content. Other family
it members I have watched impotently as the disease ravaged everything that
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e was once meaningful to them, including, for some, their lives. And I myself
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ni have not been immune to the disease. For 12 years I was a cigarette smoker,
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and for most of that time, I actively resisted (both inwardly and outwardly)
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y the label of addict, often going as far as re-producing the addict’s go-to
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d defenses like, “I can quit any time I want” and “Cigarettes—I can take them
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d or leave them,” when confronted by concerned friends and family members
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l who pleaded with me to quit.
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w Historically, I am a child of the 1970s and my formative years were played
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D out against the backdrop of the “Just Say ‘No’” decade during which American
politics were dominated by President Reagan’s “call for a ‘nationwide crusade
against drugs’” (quoted in Grim 58), and substance abuse constituted the de
rigeur subject for many a teen movie, Afterschool Special, and Public Service
Announcement. Intellectually, I have, for over a decade, been struck by, on
the one hand, the seeming resurgence of national interest in addiction (after a
decade of virtual “radio silence” during the 1990s) and the concomitant barrage
of cultural artifacts about the subject that have been and that are being produced