to be bored, or not to be bored

One of the things I noticed during our in-class Warhol screenings was that not everyone spent the whole time watching the films. When the screen didn’t hold our rapt attention, some of us did our readings, surfed the internet, went for bathroom breaks or even took little naps. Whether we attempted to hide our diversions or not, the fact is that these activities were in some ways small acts of defiance. Turning away allowed us to express our dissatisfaction with the films and look for interest elsewhere. I think this highlights one of Warhol’s basic challenges to his audience, and an important one for boredom more generally: that is, the notion of choice.

In the “Time” essay, Warhol asks: “What makes a person spend time being sad when they could be happy?” (112). He argues that whether we want to laugh or cry at a something is our prerogative - a person with a flexible mind can take what she wants from a situation and make it work for her. He presents his argument almost as a challenge to his reader: “You decide what you want to do and how you want to spend your time” (112). Ironically, he adds that this trick is easier for him because he lacks ‘responsibility chemicals.’ On the contrary, isn’t choice bound to responsibility? In choosing how to feel about things we claim accountability for the way the world affects us.

This idea comes up again in some of the interviews on Susan’s handout. Warhol claims that movies and television are superior to plays or concerts because they allow you to “do more things” (44). Particularly with his films, he argues, a spectator doesn’t have to just sit there: “You could eat and drink and smoke and cough and look away and then look back and they’d still be there” (44). Consequently, the film becomes more about the viewer, and how she chooses to respond, than its own content. Warhol seems bent on emphasizing this quality in his pictures, even going physical lengths to provide his audience choices during their viewing experience. In another interview, he says:

The first time we showed [Sleep], we had a radio on in the theatre. Instead of recording a soundtrack, we just put a radio next to it and every day put on a new station. And if a person were bored with the movie, he could just listen to the radio … I put two things on the screen in Chelsea Girls so you could look at one picture if you were bored with the other. (46)

Both Kiss and Empire, and even “The Tingle” confront the audience with a similar choice: we can look away. And often we exercise it, either by skipping over a few pages when B’s narrative gets too tedious, or putting our heads down when the flickering window light stops being interesting. Many critics note that Wahol’s films seem to demand a machine-like tolerance for monotony, “a massive, absurd act of attention that nobody could possibly want to give or sit through” (58). Yet what they emphasize is in fact a very human quality: the ability to select our responses, or at least to direct our attention elsewhere.

The notion of choice also came up way back when we looked at Kierkegaard. The very structure of Either/Or suggests the possibility of selecting one set of discourses over another: either A’s or B’s. Yet, as I recall mentioning in class, I’m not sure I feel this is a particularly empowering version of choice. The unreliability of both narrators, the inherent contradictions in both of their arguments, and the way they simultaneously contradict and complement one another complicates the idea that it’s reasonable to privilege one over the other. Kierkegaard practically presents this choice as irrelevant, writing as Victor in his Preface to the papers: “Read them or do not read them, you will regret it either way” (56).

However, in the chapter we read, “Crop Rotation,” A does present a version of choice that is in some ways similar to Warhol’s (weirdly also known as A). He argues that the way to not feel bored is simply to choose not to be. Rather than turning continuously to outside sources in the hopes that they will provide more stimulation, we can choose to adjust our feelings about the things at hand. He writes: “One’s enjoyment is not immediate but is something quite different which one arbitrarily injects. You see the middle of a play, read the third part of a book. In this way one derives quite a different enjoyment from the one the author has been so good as to intend for you” (70). The choice, and therefore the responsibility not to be bored lies with the individual, not the artist.

But I remain sceptical of both Warhol’s and A’s solutions for boredom. Both seem to want to turn it into something that it’s not. Warhol says: “I like boring things,” but how can something be enjoyable if its boring? I think it’s choice he enjoys, the power to transform the meaning of boredom into its opposite. Is this really a way out of boredom, or merely a way of avoiding the issue?

The fact is, very few people, given the choice between boredom and excitement, would pick boredom. Nevertheless, we all experience it. “To be bored or not to be bored”: is that really the question?