Todd Field's Tar had the extreme misfortune to be cast as a culture-war movie. In the opinion of both the smug, legacy conservative media (or what is left of it), and the equally smug, culturally liberal media (what is often described as “left” in a world in which leftist hope has been abandoned), Lydia Tar was a misunderstood brain-genius who gets cancel culture'd, a lesbian who metoo'd other lesbians, a waking meme who totally wrecked that SJW in her lecture (the number of quotation marks attached to these terms will vary depending on one's political tendencies). Richard Brody at the New Yorker, whose dumb, contrarian takes on film (and to be fair, whose occasional incisive and cutting contrarian takes on film) have become a staple, was one such commentator. Even Eileen Jones at Jacobin, whose opinions I make a point to listen to, seems to have missed the point entirely.
What defines Lydia Tar, more than almost anything else, is her absolute lack of connection, despite appearances to the contrary. Sure, she's got that CV rapturously listed off by Adam Gopnik at the beginning, basking in the spotlight, but what we see throughout the rest of the film is a person who treats her partner like garbage, treats her child as little more than an addendum, treats lovers as cast-offs, treats other members of the music community as little more than chess pieces to be moved, and has a shall we say tenuous relationship with truth.
But let's take a look at that most chatterable of scenes, Tar v. “BIPOC pangender” student. I don't want to dissect it in detail – plenty of ink on that already, plenty of mostly dumb videos on Youtube by armchair film critics on the same subject – but I do want to call attention to the way in which the argument is, at the end of the day, not so much an argument as a stemwinding piece of oratory by Lydia Tar, barely punctuated by the objections of the whimpering and stimming undergrad. I get it, dialogue in films is not supposed to actually sound like real life... but the tone here is so polished as to make it seem imaginary.
And so it put me in mind of the arguments one has in one's head in the shower, or moodily waiting in line, or waiting to fall asleep. The invisible enemies we fight.
It's a tendency I've mostly beaten, albeit a very natural tendency when one's mind is drifting – to conjure up these invisible enemies for invisible argument, which end, naturally, in one's own invisible victory. In other words, the cartoon trope of the black-eyed kid kicking a can and muttering to himself as he walks down the street, vowing to one day stand up to the schoolyard bully.
I used to think I was alone in this – that this was the product of my uniquely chaotic and drooling mind. But that, as with all forms of self-loathing, is an act of utter and complete narcissism. Which, given the very narcissistic nature of an imaginary fight one wins, makes this a case of reflections falling in love with reflections falling in love with reflections, an infinite regress of the self.
And like its kindred infinite regresses of the self, I can't help but suspect that this is a phenomenon greatly amplified by the internet age – in a world of forums and tweets, the invisible enemies suddenly render themselves visible while bowling alone. Especially in an era of unprecedented spatial isolation in the more developed world, one can pick one's own enemy. Or a whole suite of enemies, a Scorpion for every Subzero.
To continue the theme of narcissism, I must come to the conclusion that many people have projected their own invisible arguments onto me. I assume I've been the problematic straight white guy, the stoopid lib'rul, the postmodern neo-whatever, the punchable face, the general imbecile.
And therefore, we ourselves have the capacity to be an invisible enemy. Even if we accept the fact that most of these projections are entirely dependent on undeserved preconceptions, I must conclude that at least some are accurate. And, second therefore, I have to wonder how many people peg me for the bastard I really am.
Do I have any choice or agency as to how I am interpreted?
As my steps fall, I have to wonder what ghostly forms I leave in my wake.
