The
cultural fetish object that has filled Breaking Bad's enormous void so far in
2014 is without a doubt HBO's True Detective. The Internet is overrun with
theories, speculation, and gushing praise from critics and general audiences
alike. It has, after only five episodes, reached Lost and Breaking Bad levels
of fan obsession, critical attention, and overwrought analysis of any minor
detail that could be considered a precious, mystery-revealing Easter Egg.
True
Detective is an entertaining, often riveting show, anchored by compelling star
performances. What it is not, however, is even half as deep or wrought with
meaning as the Internet wants it to be. Take the national fervor over the
identity of the Yellow King, the main villain of the show, whose existence
we've known about for two episodes, and who was announced by an interrogated
character we'd never met before as if there were supposed to be some meaning
behind it.
Part of
the fascination with the Yellow King was in how McConaughey sold his reaction
to it, by freaking out as only he can at the mere mention of the Yellow King's
name. This, again, was the first time we had any idea that someone named the
Yellow King existed. Since then, there have been maybe a handful of hints at
the crimes of this Yellow King, and fervent speculation as to his/her identity.
The Yellow King, remember, replaced Reggie LeDoux as the main villain of the
show, another character who had maybe three minutes of screen time, and who
also captured the national mind, although somewhat less inexplicably, given how
creepy he was. We know less about the Yellow
King than we did about Ledoux, and we knew almost nothing about Ledoux.
The
problem is that there is nothing to go on, but we want there to be. If you
bring this up, people will insult your intelligence or taste, and say you just
don't get it or haven't been paying close enough attention. You will be
ridiculed for not mistaking a void for content. And not just content, but top
shelf content.
This, it
seems to me, is an interesting example of smarm at work in our culture in a major
way. What is smarm? Tom Scocca's recent but already kind of seminal
essay spells it
out pretty devastatingly: "Smarm is a kind of performance—an assumption of
the forms of seriousness, of virtue, of constructiveness, without the
substance. Smarm is concerned with appropriateness and with tone. Smarm
disapproves." Smarm is a "content-free piety" wherein "Debate
begins where the important parts of the debate have ended." The debate, in
this case, being whether the plot of True Detective is as meaty as we would
seem to like it to be. That debate is unallowable. (Of course, that this essay about detached disapproval appeared on Gawker is about as rich as it gets).
The way
that the Yellow King has become a mythical figure out of all proportion to any
established development or story-based content is a fascinating performance of
smarm. It reveals how desperate we are for some kind of actual meaning,
purpose, solidity, or you know, real content, that a cultural product with all
of the trappings of those qualities is seized upon as its paragon. We have
found a perfect totem for the lack of content to be celebrated as the best
possible piece of content, and we will defend this endlessly. The basic
self-deception involved in this maneuvering is perhaps why the Internet is
tying itself in knots analyzing every coffee mug for meaning--it requires a lot
of effort to make something that isn't there appear to be there. We are
endlessly industrious in grafting content and substance onto a frame that we
have identified as being suitable for holding it.
"Smarm
disapproves." What does smarm disapprove of? In this case, it disapproves
of the disapproval of its false imputation of content. Smarm, as speaking
through the True Detective fetishism, says, "How dare you not approve of
viewers grafting meaning onto places where it isn't?"
