Act 1
Scene 3 What types of Spectacle?
Spectacle has a very technical definition that begins with Guy Debord’s (1967)
Society of the Spectacle, where the first three types of spectacle (concentrated, diffuse, &
integrated) are developed. The fourth type, megaspectacle, is from Best and Kellner’s
(2001) Postmodern Adventure. My main point is that corporate theatre is a series of
spectacles that have antenarrative roots and consequences. In sum, Enron is a emergenthybrid of four types of spectacle: concentrated, diffuse, integrated, and mega. Within
each there is an antenarrative theatrics, a bet that a drama can be staged that will persuade
that masses through are cathartic process well known to Aristotle (350 BCE).
To get a proper theory of spectacle, we need to revisit Aristotle. For Aristotle,
spectacle was the least worthy of six dramatic elements (plot, character, theme, dialog,
rhythm, & spectacle). Burke, as we will explore below, rewrote Aristotle, substituting act
for plot, agent for character, scene for spectacle, agency for dialog and rhythm, and
purpose for theme. My contribution is to redefine Aristotle and Burke’s dramatic
elements, so that can deconstruct theatrics of capitalism. The structure of the paper begins
with a review of spectacle and the types of spectacle in Enron. We then will turn to
redefining corporate dramaturgy.
Spectacles - I intend to link spectacle directly to the theatrics of capitalism. I am
not the first. Before Guy Debord’s (1967) Society of the Spectacle, Walter Benjamin's
(1999) Arcades Project tied an alternative term to spectacle directly to commodification
and fetish. His term for spectacle is “phantasmagoria” (Benjamin, 1999: 10-14).
Phantasmagoria is a theory of objects transformed into commodity via fetishism. "Hence
the circus-like and theatrical elements of commerce is quite extraordinarily highlighted"
(Benjamin, 1999: 43). Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) concept of ‘Faciality’ is speaks to
how the Theatrics of Capitalism is not theater-as-metaphor. Corporate theatre is not a
modernist Broadway theatre, with a stationary stage, and a proscenia arch separating
actors from spectators. Rather a more concentrated, diffuse, and sometimes integrated
theatrics constitutes corporate faciality. Enron is a mansion of theatres, spectacles
networked in a game of globalization, in a weave of Tamara-esque simultaneous stages,
where spect-actors chase storylines from country to country. Capitalism is quite
theatrical, as is its carnivalesque resistance. Successful corporate theatre is able to
advance its mythic themes without much opposition. Since the Regan-Thatcher years, the
Theatrics of Capitalism put a performance in stage: the myth that good products drive out
bad ones with no government regulation; the myth that unfettered competition
automatically leads to fair prices (Swaine, 2002).
What is spectacle? - Spectacle in Guy Debord’s (1967) Society of the Spectacle
amends Marx’s theory of accumulation of production into an accumulation of spectacles
in consumer society. Spectacle is a technical term, meant to connote often violent and
oppressive social control that masquerades as a celebration of betterment by recycling
pseudo-reforms, false-desires, and selective sightings of progressive evolution, never
devolution (Boje, 2001). Despite the seminal work by Guy Debord’s (1967) Society of
the Spectacle and the association of the Situationist movement to Marxist theory, the
radical implications of spectacles of production and consumption have yet to be
acknowledged in organization studies.
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Spectacle was once a way for State and Church power to keep the masses under
control; now it is how global corporate power keeps the masses in spectacle illusion or
what Benjamin (1999) calls phantasmagoria. Spectacle goes back to Roman gladiators,
the appropriation of entertainment, art, and festival for political and control purposes.
Spectacle is a technology of art put in the service of power. Spectacle can be total
manipulation of meaning-making processes through theatrical events to serve the
production of power and managerial needs to control and spin a good story in the face of
bad news.
Before the collapse the U.S. press only told good news stories about Enron. The
only exceptions were problems in California during the black out and in Florida where
Enron was stepping on environmentalist toes. U.S. media, for the most part, before the
collapse, covered Enron spectacles, accentuating their affirming theatrics, with themes of
benevolence and progress. Storylines of bring deregulated power sectors to the needy
world dove tailed with Enron PR reports. The extent of the complicity, from White
house to British Parliament, to the media itself is astounding. Even stock analysts feared
they would loose their job, if they gave Enron any critical review.
Spectacle is a charade. "In all its specific forms, as information or propaganda, as
advertisement or direct entertainment consumption, the spectacle is the present model of
socially dominant life" (Debord, 1967: #6).
Like Plato, Nietzsche (1974/1887) in The Gay Science took a critical view of
theater. Both thought spectators were overwhelmed by theatrics, and imitated the drama
on stage at home. Spectators, argued Nietzsche (1974: 13) were overwhelmed by
sentiments. He found spectacle to be nauseous (p. 142 #86); “theatre” is a “spectacle” to
“produce intoxification” (p. 142, #86). In his theory of “eternal return,” Nietzsche argued
that tragedy always gives way to a return to the eternal comedy of existence (p. 75, #1).
Finally, Nietzsche concluded that Aristotle’s dramatism “did not hit the nail, much less
on the head” (p. 135, #80). Aristotle tried to redeem Greek tragedy from Plato’s rebuke.
Nietzsche concluded like Plat that it was that we “stay away from the theatre” (P. 143,
#86). Now that we are immersed in the Society of the Spectacle, there is nowhere to hide.
Types of Spectacles
Concentrated Spectacles - The concentrated spectacle" says Debord, "belongs
essentially to bureaucratic capitalism" (#64). The concentrated spectacle is where both
production and consumption are constructed in a totalizing self-portrait of power that
masks its fragmentation. It is the “vast institutional and technical apparatus of
contemporary capitalism… all the means and methods power employs, outside of direct
force… while obscuring the nature and effects of capitalism’s power and deprivations”
(Best & Kellner, 1997: 84).
Diffuse Spectacles - The diffuse spectacle is one of fragmentation and
specialization in the global economy, global marketplace, and global division of labor. In
the diffuse spectacle it is difficult to know who made what product and under what labor
conditions. It is as if concentrated spectacle reverses to hidden background and all the
messiness of fragmentation is now foreground. The "diffuse spectacle" says Debord,
"accompanies the abundance of commodities, the undisturbed development of modern
capitalism" as it reaches into every nook and cranny (#64). Spectacle illusions overtake
and cover over the reality of material conditions, the world backstage.
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Integrated Spectacles - the “integrated spectacle” combines aspects of the
concentrated and diffuse forms in the fatalism of global capitalism, where resistance if
futile (Best & Kellner, 1997: 118). The concentrated mask of corporate theater diffuses
onto a global stage.
Megaspectacles - Megaspectacles sensationalize scandal in media extravaganzas
such as Watergate, the Rodney King video tapes, the O.J. Simpson chase and trial,
Clinton sex scandals, the Gulf War, the funeral of Princess Diana, the Elian Gonzalez
battle, the collapse of the World Trade Center, the War on Terror, and now Enron.
Beneath Megaspectacles is the rest of the iceberg, the other three types of spectacle. The
more recent Megaspectacles are interactive, with media competing to provide websites
where cyber-spectators can replay simulations on the new stage of the spectacle (Best &
Kellner, 2001: 226-233).
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