ok, Chris Egerton, here is the essay. Read it and weep. Literally. Will The Biscuit Ever Be Enough? Never has there been a more pointed, direct, or insightful satirical social commentary on the present state of the modern world as can be found in NUGGET in a BISCUIT the ten hour loop by Toby Turner. One can be forgiven for writing this averagely animated youtube music video off as a piece of meaningless humor, or an ode to chicken nuggets wrapped in biscuits, coated in mashed potato and dipped in barbeque sauce by someone with an obsession for such culinary combinations. One would be grievously wrong, however, and missing out on the deeper meaning. NUGGET in a BISCUIT is in fact commenting on three of modern first world society’s most insidious and pervasive ills – the obesity epidemic, rampant consumerism, and our self-defeating obsession with cluttering our lives in an attempt to attain happiness. It also implies the brainwashing we undergo merely by being part of this society and humorously points out our susceptibility to this. While we will touch on this latter aspect a full discussion of this issue is beyond the scope of this essay and will be left to conspiracy theorists to unpack and expound upon in what is sure to be the plethora of essays to follow on this video. Here the focus will be on our modern day pursuit of happiness through the accumulation of ‘that’ and why, ultimately, we are doomed to failure. A Biscuit (Or Five) Too Far Perhaps the easiest parallel to draw from this “modern day classic” (Shearer, 2014) is that of the modern day obesity epidemic. Food in our modern first world society is rarely viewed solely as a source of nourishment to fuel our bodies and more as a symbol of status or an attempt to console ourselves in times of emotional distress, or a way to celebrate in times of success. Food has become another ‘that’ we seek to attain and consume in order to attain the elusive state of happiness. This is implicit in the types of foods portrayed in the video. Chicken nuggets, American biscuits, mashed potato, and even barbeque sauce are all foods commonly grouped under the emotive heading “comfort foods”, foods commonly consumed in times of distress in order to make one feel better, or closer to happiness. The irony, for most people, is that the more they eat, the less happy they are. Thus begins a vicious cycle. One eats because one is unhappy. Eating makes one fat, therefore ones unhappiness increases, causing one to eat more. This is represented in the video by the song repeating itself on loop for ten hours. Ten whole hours. Nonstop. This point also brings us nicely along to consumerism (it’s a pun, get it?). Yum Yum Gimme! NUGGET in a BISCUIT makes its comments on consumerism through a witty use of implied puns, consumeristic imagery, and a hollow, soulless jingle that perfectly and satirically brings to mind the hollow, soullessness of modern day man’s tireless pursuit of materialistic things and the ‘that’. First, let us deal with the implied pun. The video and lyrics to the song quite explicitly deal with food and, by logical extension, its consumption – or the consuming of food, if you will. It is a short jump for the literate amongst us from ‘consume’ to ‘consumerism’, and it is by use of this implied pun that Turner invites us, perhaps subconsciously, to view his short film through the lens of materialism. Next, let us turn our attention to Turner’s inspired imagery. Through the use of short frames, almost entirely close up shots, and emotive facial expressions, Turner both mocks the short attention spans of modern man and also parodies the style of most advertisements – which are primarily aimed at exploiting man’s weakness and desire for shiny new things that might make him happy and fill the void. So complete is NUGGET in a BISCUIT’s commitment to the commentary on consumerism that Turner has even gone so far as to make both the shirt and the eyes of the man in the video green – a colour we all commonly associate with envy and jealousy, emotions known to produce both unhappiness and the desire for ‘that’. In this same shot we see in the main protagonist’s eyes desire, hope, expectation, and the promise of happiness soon to come. We easily see the desperate belief that once he eats this gastrocity he’ll finally attain the happiness he so fanatically covets. Turner invites us to see the evanescent nature of consumerist driven satisfaction in the looping of his video. Immediately after the protagonist eats his nugget in a biscuit – the very thing he is pinning his happiness upon – the video starts over and the whole process begins again. And again. And again. By watching as the protagonist returns time after time to the nugget in a biscuit, each time hoping to find lasting happiness and each time being ultimately denied (even after ten VERY long hours), we start to understand how happiness cannot be found externally or in things, or the ‘that’ if you will, but instead must come from elsewhere. Further evidence of the ephemeral nature of consumerist happiness can be found in the facial expression of the protagonist during the “Mmm!” shot, and also in the tone underlying the spoken “Mmm!”. This “Mmm!” is almost aggressive in nature, as is the accompanying facial expression, and this provides us the subtle implication that we don’t on a meaningful level actually enjoy having it all, or the ‘that’ that we so relentlessly covet at all. Because we (or society) have so thoroughly convinced ourselves that the everything, or the ‘that’, is what we want, what we need, what will ultimately make us happy, in getting ‘that’ and realising we are still in fact not happy – that we feel like a barbeque sauce and mashed potato covered biscuit without the chicken nugget in the centre (which is to say hollow, empty and without meaning), we put on a hideous façade and pretend we are happy and fulfilled anyway. This façade only serves to poorly cover up our unhappiness, allowing it to eat away at our core like an undiagnosed stomach ulcer. Finally, Turner uses the vapid, insipid styles of pop-esque music in order to underpin his point and really drive it home. The music is a jaunty, fun mish-mash of pop music, advertising jingles, and sitcom theme songs. The beats are simple, the tune conformist and uninspired, and the lyrics are brainwashingly repetitive. The whole song easily worms its way into your brain and sets up shop at the forefront of your conscious, making forgetting it impossible and guaranteeing you will be humming along to it long after it ceases to play. This is exactly the aim of advertisements, sitcoms, and pop music – all genres known to target and encourage consumerist behaviours amongst the susceptible. This is also where Turner touches on the idea of brainwashing on the part of society and our inherent susceptibility to it as by creating such an insidious song and drawing our attention to how easily such mediums plant songs, tunes or slogans in our heads, he invites us to make the connection and see the dangerous parallels. Mmm! My Own Personal Struggle On a personal note, watching Turner’s “modern classic” (Shearer 2014) alerted me to my own susceptibility. Not only did I have the insipid song stuck in my head following a viewing of the ten hour loop, but during the viewing I found myself hearing other words that weren’t in the song. The predominant stowaways were “bacon”, “pancakes” and “play it again”. From this we can see not only the inherent brainwashing ability of such forms, but also how well ingrained society’s consumerism is in my own head. Here I am being offered a chicken nugget in a biscuit, dunked generously in mashed potato and then dipped in delicious barbeque sauce, and still I want more! My subconscious wants to add bacon to the equation (which without doubt would make it better, as bacon makes everything better, but this is not the point of the debate), and to even have it all played over again so I might derive further enjoyment from it. The absurdity of this behaviour is highlighted and satirised when we look at Turner’s use of an over the top food item instead of something more reasonable. Chicken Nuggets, Biscuits, Mashed Potatoes and Barbeque Sauce, Oh My! Turner puts the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, and effortlessly illustrates the current state of society and the consumerist modern man in his satirical over the top combination of food stuffs. It’s not just a nugget, or even just a nugget in a biscuit he invites us to think about, but a chicken nugget in a biscuit with mashed potato and barbeque sauce. And, in fact, ten hours worth of these. This over the top combination of things is asking us to realise that this is how consumerism has become. It is no longer enough to simply have a ‘that’, we must have all of the things! All of them! And when we have all of the things, we are still not satisfied. There is immediately a new Iphone, a new car, a new modcon we then aspire to on the attainment of our previous dream. But, as Turner illustrates in his video, it doesn’t work. We are left disillusioned, perhaps more hollow than we were before, and confused. But worry not! Turner humorously foretells that we won’t stay lost for long. Just as his video loops for ten hours, so too are we confronted by advertising, pop music or sitcoms that quickly tell us what it is we are missing and give our journey toward happiness direction again. Our confusion and disillusionment is quickly forgotten in the face of a new ‘that’ to pursue, of another chance at happiness. Bringing the Loop Full Circle (Ha!) If we continue on this path of rampant consumerism, always trying to fill the void and find happiness through the acquirement of ‘that’, it will never be enough. We will be doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, caught on an endless loop of chasing after the ‘that’, of trying desperately and futilely to fill the void and catch a glimpse of happiness by glutting ourselves on chicken nuggets in biscuits, dipped in mashed potato and barbeque sauce. There are, granted, worse ways to spend your time, but I will put forward, as does Turner, that there are also more fulfilling pursuits for us in this life (though this particular pursuit is admittedly guaranteed to at least fill your stomach, and there is an argument from Daoism that would suggest that alone is sufficient…but I digress….). What Turner is asking us to realise is that happiness does not come from an external source. It is not a journey, or something to win or achieve. Happiness is merely a state of being, found within ourselves, maybe in that gap where we think a chicken nugget should be. Once we realise this we will be able to free ourselves from the chains of consumerism and truly be happy. So I ask you – when will we learn? When will we really come to understand that happiness is a state of being, something we choose to be rather than something we chase after blindly and try to build by accumulating clutter and the ‘that’. When will a biscuit be enough? Kelly Wells Written while watching the ten hour loop discussed above. Please forgive any fracturedness on part of her brain. It’s to be expected. She also didn’t wait til a saner frame of mind returned before posting this (because let’s face it, that’s pretty unlikely anyway). And honestly, she did much better than the stuffed Bear. He really didn’t handle it well at all….
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 06:53:16 +0000
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