/ Cory Doctorow / 8:23 am Wed May 5, 2010

Scholarly essay nails Gilligan's Island's hidden subtext

Thanks to this week's Tank Riot podcast on Gilligan's Island, I discovered this delightful essay: "Here On The Island, A Scholarly Critique of the Style, Symbolism and Sociopolitical Relevance of Gilligan's Island," by Lewis Napper. Here's an especially lovely bit:
Without benefit of any huge bureaucracy or powerful tribunal, the castaways principally live in peace. More important than any traditional codification of laws is simply their collective treatment of one another. The series suggests that the key to successful life lies mainly in their own ingenuity to exist at ease with themselves, the elements and those around them. The peculiarities and blunders of each inhabitant are admitted and tolerated. Their differences are simply noticed and granted -- not violently opposed.

Even this lofty theme is not the primary thesis. The story is actually about something much more fundamental. The most remarkable message of the tale lies in the paradox of the concentrated lust of the castaways -- their burning desire to go back. Back to a time and a place that is more familiar and romantically remembered as "better."

The tragedy of the tale is not that they can never go back. The real affliction is the wish itself. They are all so preoccupied with the notion of going back that they never realize they are already in paradise.

Here On The Island - by Lewis Napper/ A Scholarly Critique of the Style, Symbolism and Sociopolitical Relevance of Gilligan's Island

47

  1. My concentrated lust was always directed at Mary Ann, but I guess that’s a different scholarly essay.

  2. Everyone on Gilligan’s Island always looked so clean but the people on Survivor always look like they smell pretty bad after a couple weeks.

  3. Just once I would have loved to see the Skipper clock Gilligan. I mean really ring his bell.

  4. I just *knew* Lost was a shameless ripoff of Gilligan’s Island. Now the crime is laid bare for all to see…

  5. whats interesting about this assessment and what actually happened ultimately is that the folks on the island did make it off – but when they returned to society things were a bit different and they realized they were better off on the island. They get their wish when they set sail in the SS Minnow II and end up shipwrecked on the same island.

  6. They are all so preoccupied with the notion of going back that they never realize they are already in paradise.

    Didn’t C.S.Lewis say something similar in The Great Divorce?

    “If they leave the grey town behind it will not have been Hell. To any that leaves it, it is only Purgatory.”

  8. Didn’t listen to the podcast, so don’t know if this came up (and don’t see a copyright date on the essay), but this anaylisis seems to lean heavily on Gilligan Unbound. Cantor makes essentially the same arguments, but explicitly makes the “paradise” one that embodies American (as opposed to Soviet) ideals. Seems like that would be in sync with the politics of the rest of that site.

  9. How about the significance of a laugh track on the perceptions of the inhabitants? If they knew that their antics were hilarious by hearing disembodied laughing every time they did something humorous or stupid, would they then continue to act in such a manner knowing that they receive approbation for such behavior? Nothing serious would ever get done as everyone would be cracking jokes and tripping all the time, which goes a long way toward explaining the scripts. Astronaut training for people stranded on a tropical island? That makes sense only if they knew they were being observed.

  10. Uh yeah they totally live in peace and accept one another except for the indigenous savages. Their smoldering hatred of those brown face-painted stereotypes is a freaking doctoral thesis waiting to happen.

  11. Gwen: They’re not ALL “historical documents.” Surely, you don’t think Gilligan’s Island is a…

    [All the Thermians moan in despair]

    Mathesar: Those poor people.

  12. Reminds me of the college paper I wrote about the Richie Rich comic books and their deeper meaning… or maybe I was just high.

  13. I’ve always loved how the Professor is a “Scientist”. Not a physicist, chemist, or biologist, or even more realistic, somebody who only knows a small subfield of one of the three, but just a general scientist capable of anything science or engineering related. What a handy skill to have.

  14. I have the impression, after many years of assiduous study, that the professor does not have a burning desire to get home. A paradigm of Maker culture, he alone is at peace with their cloistered existence. His crush for Mary Ann plays a big part in this, of course.

    1. I think he wanted to stay on the island because he had status there as the sole source of scientific knowledge. He could have seen himself as intellectually superior to everyone else, which ties in to Elf Sternberg’s post about the Professor being a symbol for Pride. (It’s interesting that a tropical paradise stands in for hell.)

      Back home, he was a high school science teacher with a Ph.D. What was holding him back from teaching at a university or doing research for the government or a corporation? Maybe he felt inferior to his scholarly peers. So, out of pride, he stays on the island, holding the others there against their will under the pretense of not being able to repair the Minnow.

  15. Gilligan’s Island is about a small group of well-off frightened white people who escape to form their perfect isolated all-white suburban community. You know, like Arizona.

  17. Back in the 90s a friend sent me an analysis of Gilligan’s Island which I really liked. The thesis was that it was actually a drug ring, except for Mary Ann, who was an undercover cop. The millionaire and his wife were there to finance the deal, the “Professor” was there to make sure the drugs were good, the movie star was broke and trying to keep her lifestyle up, etc.

  18. It wasn’t until about a year ago that I figured out a line in the theme song that I had misheard for years. I just couldn’t parse the words.

    “They have to make the best of things
    It’s an uphill climb.“

    1. Funny, I had trouble with the same lyric. My ear kept interpreting it as “It’s enough to cry”.

      I recall being shocked upon learning the show only ran for three seasons. It felt like there were far more than 99 episodes when I was a kid.

  19. I’ve always preferred the notion that Gilligan’s Island was a parable about the seven deadly sins: Anger (the Skipper), sloth (Gilligan), pride (The Professor), lust (Ginger), envy (Mary Ann), greed (Mr. Howell) and gluttony (Mrs. Howell). The notion goes that in every episode each character must face the consequences of his/her deadly sin, often coming to a human understanding of redemption through the help of the others.

    The fact that they never escaped from the island was illustrative of their inability to entirely escape sin without divine help.

    The episode about the monkey and the jet pack was meant to show how outside help that is not divine seems deceptively simple, but inevitably leads back to a fallen state.

      1. Gilligan is Satan? Hmm… Nah, I prefer to think of him as sloth (remember the hammock, which he’s shown using even in the opening song), and Honey as Gluttony sSee, even her nickname fits.)

  20. Let me recommend an EXCELLENT and very readable book: Gilligan Unbound, Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization. http://amzn.to/bCXJA1 Discusses GIlligan, Star Trek, The Simpsons and The X-Files. By Paul Cantor.

  21. In the 80’s they did a reunion tv movie where they actually were rescued, and by the end of the story they all decided to return to the island, since during the 20 years they were on it things had changed so much and they didn’t feel like they belonged anymore. Been a long time since I saw it but I think I remember part of the alienation was also from them becoming famous as a result of their story and how that made them generally uncomfortable with the attention.

  22. Without benefit of any huge bureaucracy or powerful tribunal, the castaways principally live in peace.

    Not to wax seriously on something that probably wasn’t really intended to be that way, some of the strongest arguments I’ve seen about the need to realign society along more autonomous, localized units is precisely related to this. When you’re living in a local, small environment and interacting with people you know (or are known by people you know), those interactions tend to be self-correcting without the need for centralized control. If someone who provides a service is dishonest, incompetent, or otherwise a prig, people know, and over time they stop doing business with said prig.

    In a way, regulations are a substitute for familiarity, and given the explosion of non-local economies, it’s not surprising that we labor under increasingly onerous legal structures.

    I, for one, would prefer to be on the island. At least, you know, if Mary Ann was the least bit, er, free-spirited.

    1. I, for one, would prefer to be on the island. At least, you know, if Mary Ann was the least bit, er, free-spirited.

      Sorry, dude, I called dibs. I’ve heard Mrs. Howell is looking for a little on the side since the Professor’s coconut milk-based Viagra facsimile was a dud.

  23. Was I the only one who was bothered that a group of shipwreck survivors would waste what little extra clothing they had to make a big stage curtain just to put on impromptu performances for each other?

  24. Odd he ascribes major elements of society to everyone except Ginger, who he says is just a sex symbol/temptress. If the skipper is Politics, Gilligan the Bureaucracy, Professor Academia, the Howells Capital, and Mary-Ann Labor, then it seems logical Ginger would be Media. She is Hollywood, after all, and friendly with the masses and the powerful alike. It seems to fit.

  25. Having had similar ideas about the symbolism of the characters, I found this fascinating. The writer said it much better than I could have I think, yet many of his interpretations are similar. I knew this show so well that there was a time I could tell you the plot of the episode upon viewing the first few seconds…usually of the beach and Gilligan screwing something up. And yes, I was bothered by that big show curtain using up so much fabric! And why did Ginger have all those dresses if it was just a ‘3 hour tour’?

  26. Stuff like this is awesome hermeneutics. I’m currently reading Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ ‘The Old Way’ and I was at some points purposefully conjuring up images of farce to balance the author’s over-emphasis on legitimacy of the very things this article seems to bring up. Umm, ‘n stuff.
    (not to say the book doesn’t ring salient, which it does, highly recommended imho)
    I think it’s link point sparring for your forebrain.

  27. No discussion of this show’s cultural resonances is complet without a mention of Tom Carson’s terrific novel Gilligan’s Wake, which gives us the metafictional backstories of all the characters: Mrs. Howell turns out to be a former lover of Gatsby‘sDaisy Buchanan, and a heroin addict to boot; the Skipper was a PT Boat captain who loathed both that Kennedy kid AND Quinton McHale; Ginger is a Norma Jean figure who hangs out with the Rat Pack; and the Professor is a behind-the-scenes manipulator of history who puts the Cigarette Smoking Man to shame. Kurt Vonnegut and Nixon also make cameo appearances.

    1. With the fad of classic novel mashups, when is someone going to write GILLIGAN SHRUGGED?

  28. From the Gilligan’s Island theme song:

    The mate was a mighty sailing man,
    The skipper brave and sure,
    Five passengers set sail that day
    For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

    The weather started getting rough,
    The tiny ship was tossed,
    If not for the courage of the fearless crew
    The Minnow would be lost, the Minnow would be lost.

    Consider: “If not for the courage of the fearless crew/ the Minnow would be lost” …

    Who constitutes the fearless crew, upon whose courage hangs the fate of the Minnow?

    Gilligan, and Gilligan alone — the Skipper being an Officer, and the others being passengers.

    By Gilligan’s fearlessness courage alone is the Minnow saved.

    Consider also the minnows are fish, the very symbol of Christianity.

    I put it to you that Gilligan is Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

  29. Bah. Everyone knows Gilligan’s Island was a thinly veiled commentary on the Kennedy Assassination: Gilligan was Oswald, the dupe and Mary Ann was Marina, his innocent wife. The Skipper was Jack Ruby, ginger was Marilyn Monroe, the Professor was the CIA with his “gadgets” and the Howells were the Military/Industrial Complex.

    Makes perfect sense.

  30. I once met Sherwood Schwartz at a booksigning and I asked him if the theory in the Couch Potato handbook was true (GI as a model for psychological makeup- Professor=intelligence, Gilligan=id, Skipper=ego, Howells=desire, Mary Ann=innocence, Ginger=sexuality).

    Schwartz was taken aback for a second, then he said that I wasn’t too far off. His original idea was that the island was the symbol of the world. He explained that the castaways were the various countries and cultures of the world. We’re all stuck here on the earth together, so we have to find a way to use our own particular talents to cooperate a and survive.

  31. A brief quote from Sherwood Schwartz’s autobiography…

    What disappointed me most about the reviews on “Gilligan’s Island” is that none of them noticed the theme of ‘social microcosm’. Admittedly, the philosophic aspects were subliminal, buried in the broad comedy, but they were there. I had hoped somebody somewhere would notice. Nobody did. At least, no reviewer that I recall.

  32. The theme of the show was written in the form of a ballad, which, incidentally, is the form of poetry used by Emily Dickinson. Consequently, I read all of her poems to that tune, whether I want to or not.

    1. you have devastated my enjoyment of a charm invests a face. what shameful behavior.

  33. These are awesome comments and we had a ton of fun talking about that show… You should see Lewis’ essay on the Far Out Space Nuts!!

    =V=

  34. From 1997 or earlier?

    L’isle de Gilligan

    The hegemonic discourse of postmodernity valorizes modes of expressive and “aesthetic praxis which preclude any dialogic articulation (in, of course, the Bakhtinian sense) of the antinomies of consumer capitalism. But some emergent forms of discourse inscribed in popular fictions contain, as a constitutive element, metanarratives wherein the characteristic tropes of consumer capitalism are subverted even as they are apparently affirmed. A paradigmatic text in this regard is the television series Gilligan’s Island, whose seventy-two episodes constitute a master-narrative of imprisonment, escape, and reimprisonment which eerily encodes a Lacanian construct of compulsive reenactment within a Foucaultian scenario of a panoptic social order in which resistance to power is merely one of the forms assumed by power itself. *1

    The “island” of the title is a pastoral dystopia, but a dystopia with a difference — or, rather, a dystopia with a differance (in, of course, the Derridean sense), for this is a dystopia characterized by the free play of signifier and signified. The key figure of “Gilligan” enacts a dialect of absence and presence. In his relations with the Skipper, the Millionaire, and the Professor, Gilligan is the repressed, the excluded. The Other: He is the id to the Skipper’s Ego, the proletariat to the Millionaire’s bourgeoisie, Caliban to the Professor’s Prospero. *2 But the binarism of this duality is deconstructed by Gilligan’s relations with Ginger the movie star. Here Gilligan himself is the oppressor: Under the male gaze of Gilligan, Ginger becomes the Feminine-as-Other, the interiorization of a “self” that is wholly constituted by the linguistic conventions of logocratic desire (keeping in mind, of course, Saussure’s langue/parole distinction). That Ginger is identified as a “movie star” even in the technologically barren confines of the desert island foreshadows Debord’s concept of the “society of the spectacle,” wherein events and “individuals” are reduced to simulacra. *3 Indeed, we find a stunningly prescient example of what Baudrillard as called the “depthlessness” of American in the apparent “stupidity” of Gilligan and, indeed, of the entire series. *4

    The eclipse of linearity effectuated by postmodernity, then, necessitates a new approach to the creation of modes of liberatory/expressive praxis. The monologic and repressive dominance of traditional “texts” (i.e., books) has been decentered by a dialogic discourse in which the “texts” of popular culture have assumed their rightful place. This has enormous implications for cultural and social theory. A journal like Dissent, instead of exploring the question of whether socialism is really dead, would make a greater contribution to postmodern discourse by exploring the question of whether Elvis is really dead. This I hope to demonstrate in a future study.
    —
    *1 Gilligan himself represents the transgressive potentialities of the decentered ego. See Georges Thibault, Jouissance et Jalousie dans L’Isle de Gilligan, unpublished dissertation on file at the Ecole Normale Superieure (St. Cloud).
    *2 Gilligan’s Island may be periodized into an early, Barthean phase, in which most episodes ended with an exhibition of Gilliganian jouissance, and a second phase whose main inspiration is apparently that of Nietzsche, via Lyotard. The absence of any influence of Habermas is itself a testimony to the all-pervasiveness of Habermas’s thought.
    *3 The 1981 television movie Escape from Gilligan’s Island represents a reactionary attempt to totalize what had been theorized in the series as an untotalizable herteroglossia, a bricolage. The late 1970s influence of the Kristevan semiotic needs no further comment here.
    *4 Why do the early episodes privilege a discourse of metonymy? And what of the title — Gilligan’s Island? In what sense is the island “his”? I do not have the space to pursue these questions here, but I hope to do so in a forthcoming book

  36. From all your brilliant posts I am glad to know that watching Gilligan’s Island for years wasn’t a waste of time.

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