On Narcissism and the Art of Woody Allen

[JM]

Possibly the most fascinating character in the entire cinematic
pantheon of Woody Allen would be that of "Emmet Ray" in his, to my
mind, absolutely adorable motion picture, "Sweet and Lowdown." Sean
Penn plays the part of this supremely self-obsessed egotist of an
American hot jazz guitarist to a point of pure perfection.

Is Emmet Ray in any way a reflection of Woody's own personality, as so
many of his leading characters do turn out to be--or not? Is Emmet Ray
merely an egotist in the tradition of many a diva of the Opera, the
motion picture screen and music stage, or is he more akin to that
extreme narcissistic personality expression that would be seen in
e.g., Liberace, Prince or Lady Gaga?

-- Is he or isn't he, Woody Allen, the 'narcissist' that some would
charge him to be? Before anything can be known about that, the history
behind the idea of 'narcissism' must first be made clear. Beyond its
origins in the Greek myth of Narcissus, we have from the Cliff's Notes
of all handy desktop encyclopedias this . . .

History of narcissism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism#History
--

{Begin Quote} In 1898 Havelock Ellis, an English sexologist, used the
term "narcissus-like" in reference to excessive masturbation, whereby
the person becomes his or her own sex object.

In 1899, Paul Näche was the first person to use the term "narcissism"
in a study of sexual perversions.

Otto Rank in 1911 published the first psychoanalytical paper
specifically concerned with narcissism, linking it to vanity and self-
admiration.

Sigmund Freud published a paper exclusively devoted to narcissism in
1914 called On Narcissism: An Introduction.

In 1923, Martin Buber published his essay "Ich und Du" (I and Thou),
in which he pointed out that our narcissism often leads us to relate
to others as objects instead of as equals. {End Quote}

One immediately sees an evolution, a gradual sophistication of the
concept, where notions concerned with manifest acts of auto-eroticism
are gradually refined to a concept of personality disorder that, with
Freud, shows the manifest sexual aspect to be only the tip of what
lies submerged in the far greater, dark and surly, cold and brittle
iceberg of the Narcissistic Unconscious.

Much as Freud has his detractors of late, many of whom scarcely know
what it is they would be so fashionably rejecting, even so,
*narcissism* one of the many psychiatric concepts most fully developed
by the good Viennese Doctor remains for the most part intact and fully
in use to the practice of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists to
this day.

From the very beginning of his paper, *On Narcissism* . . .

http://tinyurl.com/2dqaohe

Freud points out that as there may well be [he is always ever so
tentative and careful to theorize in just this way, allowing that
indeed, in some points, his understanding is yet not complete or
perfect] a stage of narcissism in the development of every human
personality, such that there persists such a normal "self-
preservative" remnant of the syndrome into the adulthood of everyone.
There is, however, the neurotic form of the syndrome, when due to
certain traumatic infantile or childhood experience, the self-
preservative impulse is brought much the more strongly to bear, with
the result that the person never stops indulging this hyper-intensive
need to defend and assert his ego, and for all intents and purposes
remains regressed in that narcissistic stage.

But this is only the half of it, he goes on with pristine logic to
demonstrate, because an abnormally assertive ego is one thing, an
overly defensive one, quite another. The narcissist is far more in the
business of defending his ego than asserting it. The assertion of ego
for the narcissist is to the purpose of defense and not assertion for
its own sake, as with an ordinary egotist.

Narcissism, unlike ordinary, garden variety egotism must have its
sexual component--else the term cannot apply. This arises due to the
nature of the traumas that spawned it in the first place. The specific
traumas need have been sexual abuse, only to the extent that they come
as an attack from one sex or the other, such that the child identifies
the source of the abuse sexually, as from a man or a woman. However,
the manner of trauma can cover anything from verbal abuse and/or
physical striking to smothering affection under which one feels held
prisoner. It can be sexual invasiveness--or not. The point Freud makes
is that the child experiences it sexually, or in short, the abuse, the
trauma happens to the libido, and the ego comes to its defense. The
libido is not involved in ordinary egotism.

It is not just the child being traumatized, it is the little girl, or
little boy that it happens to. She feels her girlhood under attack,
whether that comes from a stick to her behind, the lashing of a cruel
tongue, or as an invasion of penis or molestation of hand. At such a
stage of sexual development, it is all the same, as the sexual
development of a human being is, certainly is, seen to be all that
delicate and fragile. This is the time when the child decides whether
it is pleasing to be a girl (or boy) -- or not. The human being oddly,
*at this time* has that choice, which he or she wants to be -- in his
or her own libido. If it seems too hard being a boy, under traumatic
circumstance, he'll decide to be a girl. This is why, according to
Freud, homosexuality is the least treatable of all syndromes, due to
its being based in narcissism, which is the hardest of all psychiatric
nuts to crack. The client's defenses are all that strong and
impregnable.

This is not to say that every case of homosexuality arises due to
neurotic narcissism, as indeed there may be many causes, some of which
may, as so many would like to see it, be genetic. Some may, some may
not. There are gay men who would not be caught dead cross-dressing in
the attire of women, and some very 'femme' lesbians who would derive
no pleasure from a 'butch' haircut. Others love nothing more than to
indulge those fantasies. But they are fantasies that may well have
their source of supply in a neurotic personality disorder of
narcissism--which does NOT make them bad, evil or immoral, but just
plainly explainable.

On this basis, Freud was of the view that psychoanalytic treatment for
homosexuality will be limited to helping the client to cope, since
hoping for a change of sexual orientation, in his clinical experience,
had so far proved futile. It was then better to view homosexuality as
a variant condition of 'normality' with whatever attendant neuroses,
due to the clash between the homosexual and a disapproving society.

So, that's Freud's *On Narcissism* in a nutshell with some extension
of his insights to their logical conclusion. The paper itself is
difficult, complex and closely reasoned, not an easy read. Hopefully,
this serves to extract the meat of the Narcissistic 'nut'.
--
JM