Dirty Words in Deadwood: Literature and the Postwestern

4. “Land of Oblivion”: Abjection, Broken Bodies, and the Western Narrative in Deadwood

72 4 “Land of Oblivion” Abjection, Broken Bodies, and the Western Narrative in Deadwood John Dudley Like Tim Steckline, John Dudley examines Deadwood’s “penchant for the macabre ,” its treatment of “corpses, bodily fluids, filth,” focusing in particular on its treatment of female bodies and sexual violence. Dudley turns to Julia Kristeva ’s conception of “abjection,” arguing that “like Trixie’s battered body, images of abjection haunt the streets of Deadwood, inviting our fascination and repulsion.” Abjection inevitably leads many of Deadwood’s female characters back to childhood traumas, explaining their apparent inability to break away from those who seek to control their bodies. Kristeva’s connection of “colloquial speech and emotional violence” helps Dudley consider Deadwood’s concern with the “obsessive violence and power of language.” Ultimately he suggests that the traumas are both “personal and historical,” evident not only in a contemporary television production but in the very narratives that emerged from events such as the forced removal of the Cherokees, the California gold rush, and Custer’s defeat at the Little Big Horn. The “theory of abjection,” Dudley concludes, “provides a vital context through which to reexamine the dynamics of the frontier thesis, its ongoing fascination for audiences, and its representation in the seemingly mindless pandemic of violence that erupts in Deadwood.” Since its debut in March 2004, Deadwood has attracted as much attention for the rawness of its language as for its claims to be yet another in a long line of “revisionist” Westerns. According to the show’s creator, David Milch, what drew him to this subject matter is the central question: How can a society without laws maintain order? The answer, it would seem, is violence—or more precisely, the threat of violence—as conveyed through language. For Milch this function has everything to do with the nature of speech itself. In the commentary track that accompanies the first episode of the “Land of Oblivion” 73 dvd edition of the series, Milch establishes a relationship between the show’s language and what he has frequently identified as its major thematic concern, the “discovery of the various principles by which a society ordered itself”: If the theme you’re working with is the negation of law, how do you make a viewer experience what it’s like to be in an environment without law? Because obviously the viewer’s experiencing in a passive way an entertainment, and the assault of the language , the sense that there is no protection for the viewer’s own sensibilities, I think, begins to establish that kind of lawless atmosphere , emotionally, where . . . it’s a kind of battering that I think ultimately brings the viewer to some sort of felt, emotional participation in the environment.1 The connection between verbal and physical violence is reinforced by the context in which these remarks are presented. Milch speaks over the miner Ellsworth’s memorably profane oration, with which viewers discover the unique mix of vulgarity and syntactical density that defines the show’s rhetorical style, and Milch’s comments continue into the next scene—one featuring a more literal “battering.”2 Trixie, the lead “whore” at the Gem Saloon, is found to have shot an abusive customer in the head. When her boss and lover, Al Swearengen, hears the gunshot, he says to his henchman Dan Dority, “That’s her derringer. I warned you about that loopy cunt!” (1.1). Upon entering the room, Swearengen and Dan find Trixie, her face bloody, desperately repeating her explanation, “I said not to beat on me! I told him!” Swearengen angrily silences Trixie, telling her pointedly, “No one asked for your version!” (1.1). The john, a gaping wound open on either side of his head, has remained inexplicably and grotesquely alive while the doctor is summoned ; the small group that has gathered watches him die. This image helps establish the show’s penchant for the macabre, when a curious Doc Cochran passes his medical instrument completely through the dead customer’s skull. In conjunction with the horror of its imagery, this scene also introduces a crucial thematic concern, played out through the entire series, which involves the struggles 74 dudley of women to achieve subjectivity within a violent patriarchal society, the boundaries of which are defined and maintained by the unique characteristics of a sensational, stylized, and violent language. Trixie enters the narrative as both victim and aggressor, a...