A performance in the name of truth: Relive the first season of "Ice and Blood Storm"

Fargo

The main stage where the story takes place, Bemidji is a small border town in Minnesota, USA. It is cold all year round, far away from the political center of the country and even the state, and the degree of economic and cultural development is also behind the state. The heavy snow in autumn and winter does not change all the year round, blurring the outline and appearance of the entire city, and also hiding the secrets of urban residents. Even in such a small city, the values ​​of the "American Dream" still permeate the residents' hearts: I believe that hard work will do. Make contributions and gain fame in your own industry, and become a rich class, while maintaining friendly relations with your neighbors as much as possible, and promoting community order and stability-even if it is just a performance.

The protagonist of the TV series Lester ( Lester Nygaard ) is an insurance salesman with a shameless appearance and poor performance. His arrogant wife Pearl Nygaard ( Pearl Nygaard ) is so angry that ridicules and complaints have become commonplace. This resentment has been there for a long time, but I dare not attack. One day when he was bullied by a former high school classmate and now a wealthy businessman, Sam Hess , he broke his nose and dared not find someone to preside over justice. He uniformly lied to the outside world that "I slipped on an icy road." Since then, the town’s harmonious and warm mask has become increasingly mottled.

Lester went to the hospital to dress up his wounds, and came across Lorne Malvo , a visitor from a foreign land . The latter was a professional killer who came to Bemidji to perform a mission. His words and deeds were mysterious, opening and closing his mouth were all riddles, as if he was not bound by the order of the world. Have a sense of alienation. Under Malvo’s instigation, Leicester’s perspective on the world changed, and he killed his wife in a rage, but was bumped into by a local police officer who came to visit. Leicester could only call Malvo Call for help. Marvo, who arrived shortly after killing the police officer, disappeared bizarrely. Facing the approaching police car, Lester succumbed to "Zhi", knocked himself into a stun and successfully concealed his criminal behavior. Although he woke up, Leicester was repeatedly questioned by the police, but with his superb "performance", he provided another explanation for the incident. In addition to the inaction of the new police chief Bill ( Bill Oswalt ), he was temporarily free from criminal suspicion. Only the policewoman, Molly Solverson , did not buy the bill, and single-handedly searched for the case, but Bill and others regarded it as "just asking for trouble."

In the play, the self-proclaimed rascal " foreigner " Malvo is one of the core characters of the play. After breaking into Bemidji, bloody killings began to be frequently performed on the small town stage. The society was once relatively closed and functioning as usual. The system seems to have a loophole suddenly, which is used to hide and spy on the most subtle and hidden places of human nature. The extended interpersonal networks and interests centered on Leicester and Malvo have forced their relatives, friends, colleagues, clients, as well as bystanders and outsiders such as private investigators and law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation of the case, to leave the audience and join the event. A farce performance. Bemidji, who is as inconspicuous as the protagonist Leicester, has finally become a popular theater-unless the character goes to Bemidji, the plot will not progress. In other words, this is a well-arranged "farce". The deep intention of the storyteller is not the scope of this article. The author is more concerned about: How are the characters performed in the "farce"? How does performance build or enrich personality, produce reality, and establish social order? Is there friction between the performances of different groups? How did they save and solve it? In response to these questions, this article attempts to use the "drama theory" proposed by American sociologist Goffman in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life ( The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life ).

01 Learning the performance of a stranger: from nothing to success in career

The first act of crime in this crime drama is starring professional killer Malvo.

His stay in Bemidji from Duluth was purely an accident caused by a car accident. In the waiting seat of the hospital, he accidentally met Leicester and learned of the behavior of the local bully Sam. Leicester threatened to give Hess " "Some lessons", Malvo disagreed, thinking that "Sam deserved to die", and Lester was shocked by Malvo's thoughts, thinking he was just "mouth hi".

Lai: I should teach Sam some lessons.

Ma: Damn Sam.

Lai: No, that's not the case.

Ma: That's how it is.

.... ....

Lai: Since you are so sure, you should help me kill him.

Ma: You ask me to help you kill him.

Lai: No, I'm kidding... We're just chatting and venting our breath together, right?

Ma: In a word, do it or not? (Original: Just one word. Yes or no.)

Lester didn't expect that Sam would be killed by Marvo that night. He found Marvo to ask for evidence, but Marvo followed the persuasive way to redefine the meaning of the murder of Sam and sell his own explanation of the murder of Sam:

Ma: Is Sam dead? how are you feeling?

Lai: This is a tragedy.

Ma: Then why did you kill him?

Lai: Wait, I didn't--

Ma: Actually you did it. remember? 'Do it or not? '

Lai: I didn't say to kill him.

Ma: But you didn't say not to kill him.

Lai: ...He also has a wife and children.

Seeing that Leicester was about to feel guilty for Sam's death, Malvo quickly turned away from the conversation and directly "convicted" Sam - "Lester, he put you in a bucket and rolled on the road", Prove that his death was more than guilty. At the same time, he peddles his own set of explanations to Leicester for the legal system for upholding social justice: "Your problem is that you have spent a whole life thinking about following the rules, but in fact the rules do not exist. We used to be gorillas. Everything you have comes from seizing and defending. The truth is that you look more like a man than you were yesterday."

Having said that, Malvo only stayed at the level of defining the meaning of the event. Next, he told him to start teaching the skills of performing "desperadoes"-"brave resistance", so as to "let them (wife, boss) know your There is still an orangutan deep inside."

Leicester quickly got the opportunity to perform for the first time.

Couples in a harmonious relationship should be members of the same crew. “They work together to present their activities in a specific style” (87), but his wife Zhuzhu always likes to destroy the image of Leicester’s painstaking work in the foreground, such as in front of Lai. The face of the successful younger brother of the Chess family, denigrated his unprofessional acting skills, and further intensified the contradictions within the crew. The mistakes in the performance at the front desk were naturally left to be corrected by the backstage. Back home, Zhuzhu broke the washing machine because of Leicester, and once again pointed out that the corner of his " a real man " ( a real man ) was in fact riddled with holes. Les Specially asked Zhuzhu to take back the original words, and became angry. He raised the hammer and smashed the head of this "from time to time" co-worker nine times. Lester, who was scared lying on the ground, was inspired by the poster "W hat if you're right, and they are wrong?" on the wall . He stood up shivering, looking for a place to hide the murder weapon. Marvo killed Sam and defined the crime. In fact, he provided a teaching demonstration for Leicester. Leicester imitated very quickly, but the first performance was inevitably nervous, so he walked into the backstage and dialed his drama teacher. Malvo asked for help, and it was from here that Malvo harvested his first believer, or in other words, recruited a second performer for the "Desperado" crew.

In order to get rid of the suspicion, Lester knocked himself out and lay down beside his wife's body. After waking up, he quietly changed roles again, pretending to be a victim who lost his beloved wife and suffered misfortune, and threw all suspicions to Malvo. In order to allow his company colleagues and the policemen who came to question him to accept his image, he pretended to cry in the interrogation room, sold miserably to the high school alumni who served as the chief of the police, and used his identity as a "widower" to win the sympathy of customers. When the suspicion is unclear, it will be blamed on the younger brother. Judging from the progress of the plot, Lester’s performance can be considered smooth: he got rid of the stuttering problem, and the former " boy loses all the time " has been transformed into the big boss of the insurance company, the national salesman of the year, and married a woman. Colleagues are new wives, and the wealth they have accumulated is enough to support them in their travels. The "appearance" symbols that make up the front desk also quietly changed: gray high-end suits replaced the orange down jackets that stayed there all the year round, and the hairs casually attached to the scalp were carefully scalded to reveal a confident forehead. Facing Officer Molly, who was chasing him, Lester talked confidently, stood upright with his cowering neck, and sent her away in a few words.

Lester could have lived peacefully with a mask if he hadn't met Malvo again in Las Vegas.

02 "Desperado" drama class collapsed

Leicester and his new wife went to Las Vegas to attend the National Salesperson Award Ceremony of the Year. After the ceremony, Lester, who was so dazzled by honor, went to the bar to look for an affair, but he ran into Marvo, who had not seen him for many years. The latter has a brand new look from appearance to conversation. He is already a well-known dentist, pretending to not know Lester. Lester took the initiative to strike up a conversation and failed, so he followed them and took the elevator. In the elevator, he triumphantly said: "Lester used to be perfunctory, but I won't." Marvo hinted that he shouldn't reveal the secrets that the cast members should protect, and asked him back: "This is Do you want it? Is it or isn't it?" Lester, who intended to show off his personal success, was silent for a moment and replied "Yes." This is a brand-new role, performing daily performances to his fiancée and colleagues, and the above-mentioned narrative words will put Malvo’s two roles in the same situation. "When a time that is inconsistent with the resulting impression occurs... Participants will feel slightly embarrassed, or, in a few cases, will be ashamed." (207) If the characters are incompatible, one of them must be eliminated. , Marvo, the rookie who collapsed, decided like this: He got rid of three spectators except Leicester with a pistol, "I spent six months on him, six months, can you imagine mine? How many stinky mouths have you reached? How many gallons of saliva have you seen? Not to mention that the 100,000 bounty is gone now." He nodded his head to the male corpse lying on the ground, and ordered Lester to handle the corpse with him. .

But Lester was an incompetent crew member, a performer who would no longer be loyal after being betrayed by a crew colleague. He stunned Marvo with a trophy and fled back to Bemidji with his new wife overnight. On the way to escape, the new wife told him about the "Cinderella" dream she had since childhood: a three-year-old immigrated to the United States and helped with chores in a motel run by his parents every day. After cleaning, she fantasized about having a man. ( A man ) Take her away and live a happy life. Only then did Lester discover that the new wife had substituted herself into the prototype of this man. She only loved the role he worked hard to play. She knew nothing about who she was. Lester was miserable at this time. He betrayed one reality after another, living in multiple interpretations, between truth and lies.

Some people may ask, why doesn't Malvo have such troubles? Malvo is also constantly playing different roles. Doesn't he feel tired or even feel disconnected from his true self?

Of course Malvo will get tired, but he always has a stable role—professional killer. He carries guns and suitcases for missions. These are all props and devices when he plays the role of killer, but for execution. The temporary roles played by different tasks are just a branch of the killer role, and will not interfere with or replace his main role-he has a constant self. But Lester did not. Before he became a believer in Marvo, he had lived through decades of ordinary life that was not radiated by brilliance. He briefly joined Malvo’s crew, but in the face of legal sanctions, he left the crew again and joined the crew of "Successful People", and began to live like his equally successful brother, but as long as he was met by Molly Waiting for the police officer’s cross-examination, the timid and inferior Lester came out from the bottom of his heart. He struggled with Leicester every day of his life, because he could not agree with the script in his hand, and his words and deeds were inconsistent. Just a matter of time.

03 Infiltrating the backstage: the maintenance of Bemidji community order

Interestingly, in the eyes of the female police officer Molly of Bemidji Police Station, Marvo and Leicester belonged to the same crew from beginning to end, because she never had the opportunity to sneak into the backstage of the two criminals. Because they "disordered the small social system created and maintained by orderly social interaction" (206), she formed a drama class with the police officers in charge of investigating the case and followed the process to promote her performance, such as going to Lester’s home took samples for investigation, visited Lester or detained him to the police station for interrogation, sorted out and reconstructed the case in the office, and so on.

Molly is an actor who very much agrees with the role of a police officer. When the former chief who died on the job praised her for being "suitable to replace herself as the new chief," she listened to her heart and aligned with the role of "director" in the performance. She did not complain too much, and still devoted her energy to her role-playing. She had no thoughts about dating, outdoor fishing and other entertainment activities that her peers were interested in. If the new director Bills and his like are trying to act like a policeman most of the time, trying to convey the image of "I am a policeman" to community members, then Molly has put a lot of effort into action and performance: off work Later, he stopped Lester, who bought the medicine at the pharmacy, and repeatedly questioned his whereabouts at the time of the crime; he approached Gus Grimly , the policeman from Duluth, who came from Duluth to discuss the case in the cafeteria run by his father ( Lou ); even It was sorting out the case in the bedroom in the backstage, continuing the behavior of the front desk.

At first, Molly’s efforts were not recognized by his crew colleague Bill and others. The latter was deceived by the victim image (widower, high school classmate) created by Leicester and the defined situation definition (the suspect is Malvo). Willing to cooperate with Molly's performance. Molly first performed alone on his humble stage, and then collaborated with Gus, a young policeman in Duluth, and two FBI agents from Fargo, to prove their strength as law enforcement officers in front of Director Bill. At this time, Bill also opened his heart to Molly, frankly that he was not qualified for the role of police, and planned to nominate her as the new chief candidate:

Bi: I quit the case after the case was over.

Mo: What?

Bi: I said I want to resign. I don't have the guts, unlike some people. With a police badge, watching people do cruel and merciless things. Where are the good habits of saying good morning with neighbors in the early morning, helping with snow shovel and carrying heavy objects? ......My wife said that I am now cautious and uneasy. This job allows me to stare at the fireplace while drinking wine and thinking about some macro issues like the nature of things. I never thought of myself. It will be like this, I just want a stack of pancakes and a car with an eight-cylinder engine.

Marvo followed Leicester back to Bemidji. For a time, the town was killed repeatedly. The incompetent police station sent all the members out. Only the female police officer who guarded the front desk and the pregnant Molly were on standby. Molly was on standby. The previous dialogue with the police officer also questioned the legitimacy of the Bemidji Police Department as a performance law enforcement agency from the side:

Officer: Do you think it is safe here? ...I mean, I'm staying here, and the murderer is at large, and the other policemen are gone.

Mo: It's better to lock the door.

It’s hard to believe that this is a conversation that took place in the law enforcement agency responsible for punishing evil and eliminating rape. Compared with the inaction police station, the power of the people seems to be better. Molly’s father, who has been a state police for 18 years, has a premonition of the community. When the crisis came, standing guard at the door of the house holding a shotgun, the granddaughter was moved and took out the shotgun: "When he comes, I will blow his eyes out, and you are responsible for killing him."

At the end of the story, Malvo died in his own backstage, where "the hidden facts" were everywhere (97). Gus sneaked in and killed him, protecting the Bemidji community in time. The police who rushed here also found enough evidence to give Rice a specific crime: a tape recording a call for help after Leicester killed his wife, after the backstage of the "Desperado" crew was cleaned up, Leicester It was also found in the border area and eventually died on the way to hunt.

Goffman mentioned in the book that the main concern of performers is the impression of self-construction, that is, whether the role played is credible. Because it is the role that interacts with society, not ourselves, the discussion of acting roles allows us to avoid moral inquiries.

For those who have used performances to deceive and harm the interests of others, the above point of view is suitable for making excuses, "It is my position/work that made me do this". We are always used to saying this. On the one hand, it can prove We were loyal to our position and role. On the other hand, when we were responsible for the role, we relentlessly separated it from the suddenly awakened self, condemning the role as the “alien”, highlighting the insignificance of ourselves And helpless, in order to excuse yourself.

But in my opinion, these are not the most important. The most important thing is that performers will also deceive themselves. The more energy we spend on arranging the front desk, the less time we leave for intermissions and theater closures. It is impossible for our true self to see the sun again. Such back and forth, one day, the role will replace ourselves. When we descend into this complex world unclothed, it is the role that helps us to smoothly integrate into the social order and settle down, but the role creates the self, and it is also contending with the real self. It is the time when we play under the mask. The role is The savior is also the devil. Therefore, as a performer, in addition to whether the role is credible, the meaning of the role itself, and the impact on individuals and society should also be included in the category of our concern.

*The quotation in the article comes from "Self Presentation in Daily Life", written by Owen Goffman, published by Peking University Press in 2016.

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