Affective Narrative

"Everyone knows there's something not quite right about suburban sprawl: the deserts of plywood spreading over hayfields; the kids getting fat eating potato chips in front of the TV; the creeping lure of the affordable dream house that comes in the same four basic plans no matter where you are. But the houses are big, beautiful, white, more than you ever expected to have. More than you can resist”(49). If affects are public feelings I wonder why if everyone feels there is “something not quite right about suburban sprawl,” then why do so many people buy into it? Why is it still happening everywhere, under our noses, even when we may detest it? This weekend my girlfriend and I got lost between Longmont and Denver. We were attempting to return to my house in Denver after visiting my grandmother. There is road construction EVERYWHERE, so inevitably we end up taking a detour. The detour takes us through Erie, we look around and for miles and miles around us we see houses. Houses that are big, maybe to some people beautiful, but to us our own version of personal Hell. As they sing at the beginning of the television show Weeds, “Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky. Little boxes on the hillside. Little boxes all the same.” Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W6dOEdEAAQ&feature=related She and I do not fit in with the master plan of gated communities. They aren’t made for families who can’t procreate or at least don’t want to. We turn and stare, not only are the communities marked by huge stone signs, distinguishing the various ones, but some by elaborate landscaping and artistry. We laugh because one community is surrounded by metal buffalo sculptures (I hesitate to use that term and feel buffalo spectacle might be a better word for it. “The suburbs,” I say, “The place where they kill off the buffalo and make hideous visual representations of them.” We both laugh, frightened because we know how true this joke is. We don’t live in places like this—we refuse to. In the mountains we have the privilege of escaping the suburban sprawl. We don’t need a place with a 24-hour pharmacy, or chain restaurants, or, the same stores repeated over and over. But some people like those amenities. My brother for example would never consider living someplace without a Target. Where would he and his wife go if they needed something late at night? I tell them they would probably save money because they wouldn’t be able to run out and pick up a movie at ten o’clock. I explain that sometimes those luxuries are unnecessary but that we utilize them simply because we can. We use them uncritically. We forget to look at who cannot use them. We forget to look at who is not allowed to live in gated communities, who doesn't fit in at the local Chiles. If we all feel there is something not right about this then why is it happening everywhere? Why is there also a sense of comfort in this sort of repetition? How do our interactions become standardized? Just because a restaurant maybe displays a local high school’s memorabilia does not mean it has any ties to the community of which it is a part. Instead it is a way to “fake the customer out.” Fake them into thinking that a huge chain restaurant cares. Create a sense of feeling that this “cog in the wheel” really desires to be different—that they appear to be interested in the community. They don't. They just want to look like they do. But even the other restaurants are competing to convey that they do not abide by these standards. Thus, a customer comes to believe that at a non-chain restaurant they are getting a more authentic experience, which, may in fact be just as constructed, just in a totally different way. We provide real food from real people, or real animals? But this real-ness just creates a new affect. We can be connected through the authentic even if authenticity is created out of a feeling and not somethings actual authenticity. It is circuitous just as affect is. We still leave people out. Those who cannot afford this kind of food. How does race factor in-certainly whiteness is re-centered in these communities. People of color usually aren't invited with open arms into these communities. I wonder how affect and power work together? If affect is “public feeling”(Stewart 2) then who benefits from the affect created by gated communities and who does not? How do standardized communities promote consumerism and a certain level of class privilege? And how is consumption in and of itself both problematic and yet necessary? I laugh at the buffalo, yet know I cannot live in the mountains forever—I have to negotiate my way through the “master plan” of gated communities and suburban sprawl. I have no answers just feelings. Feelings of ickiness, of confusion. Is there any authenticity? Should there be?