Eraserhead (1977)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome back to the final girl on 6th Avenue podcast. My name is Carolyn Smith Hilmer and I am 6th Avenue's very own Final Girl. And today I'm really excited because I. [00:00:33] Speaker B: Am going to be talking to you. [00:00:35] Speaker A: About one of my all time favorites. We're going to be talking about the. [00:00:43] Speaker B: Rather polarizing but highly influential 1977 David lynch film, Eraserhead. [00:00:52] Speaker A: Eraserhead is one of the films that allowed my husband and I to kind of come together and really enjoy watching films together. I've always been somebody who could sit down and watch things for hours and days. For him, he'd rather watch a show rather than a film. So this is something that he and I saw together at the IFC movie theater here in New York in the West Village. We went to a midnight premiere. I did not tell him what it was about, and he left pleasantly surprised. And now David lynch is, I believe, his favorite director and of course is one of mine. And so, yeah, this film is important to me for a number of reasons. [00:01:45] Speaker B: So. [00:01:46] Speaker A: And I love that I don't usually hear a lot of discussion about it anymore because that gives an opportunity for me to talk about it without all of you feeling like maybe, you know, we're a little oversaturated with the amount of content regarding the film. So let's talk about 1977's Eraserhead. IMDb has a synopsis as pretty much as. As blatant as you can get. Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newborn mutant child. Well, that's. That is a great start. I would argue there's a lot more to it than that, but that is, in a nutshell, exactly what this film is. So rather than continuing to bore you with all of the reasons why I love it and all of the reasons why I think it's influential, let's start talking about it first and I'll do that later. So the film opens with the head of Henry. Henry is played by Jack Nance. You may remember Jack Nance from Twin Peaks if you were a fan. And Henry is floating over this, like, rocky planet that we can actually see, like through his head. It's almost like transparent or translucent. And the man in the planet, that's. [00:03:27] Speaker B: A character, by the way, is in. [00:03:29] Speaker A: The ether, kind of pulling and pushing levers that we come to understand represent. [00:03:37] Speaker B: The control of Henry's brain and actions. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Henry's head births a spermatozoon, which is a. If you're not familiar, I did not know the Exact definition, so I'm going to give it to you. Is a motile sperm cell produced by male animals relying on internal fertilization. It is a moving form of the haploid cell that is the male gamete that joins with an ovum to form a zygote. So you learn something new every day, even on this podcast. And this whole scene represents to me the act of sexual intercourse, you know. [00:04:15] Speaker B: A form of like a phallic object. [00:04:17] Speaker A: And is launching into an opening kind of like a vagina. [00:04:21] Speaker B: And the spermatozoon literally falls out of. [00:04:25] Speaker A: The sky into a puddle. And then we just see Henry walking home. He's walking home from the grocery store to get back to his apartment. Walking through an industrial yard and like factory complex. And the sound of this film is really interesting. If you've not seen it in a theater and you have the opportunity, I would recommend it. If not my second best, my second best opinion would be to use like the Bose or Apple over the ear noise canceling headphones. You really don't get like a full sense of all of what is happening in the background if you use it with just. If you watch this with just like a regular sound bar, you kind of need something that's like, more encapsulating. But the background noise that we hear in this scene, which will continue through the rest of the film, is this like loud droning sound. Kind of like the sounds of a factory and trains passing by. It's like a hum. And we also hear some sounds that, you know, would lead us to believe that there's maybe like a carnival nearby, because we can hear carnival music in the background, but we never actually see anybody on the streets or anything nice or happy, like a carnival. [00:05:45] Speaker B: So after his walk home, he goes. [00:05:47] Speaker A: Into his apartment building and up to his floor, which is where we first see the character, the beautiful woman across the hall. And she tells him that someone named Mary called the pay phone in the building on their floor and invited Henry. [00:06:01] Speaker B: Over for dinner with her parents that night. [00:06:04] Speaker A: And Henry is literally terrified of the beautiful woman across the hall. She's like, overly sexy to the point that it is exaggerated. And it's like Henry is frightened by her. Lustfulness, I guess, is the best way to describe it. Henry lives in a super tiny apartment. Apart from the fact that there are literal mounds of earth material scattered throughout the apartment, it's actually relatively clean. [00:06:33] Speaker B: It's a one bedroom with a bathroom. [00:06:35] Speaker A: No living space or anything like that. You literally open the door to a bedroom and there's a bathroom. And that's it. He sort of interacts with the radiator. He went on his walk home, unfortunately, stepped in a puddle. And so in order to dry his sock, he actually puts it on top of the radiator from, you know, I guess, in an effort to dry it. It would. It would not be my first option, I feel, because it seems like a fire hazard to me, but I'm not really sure who I am to judge. So he sits on his bed, literally. [00:07:13] Speaker B: So nervous, like, almost. [00:07:15] Speaker A: Almost paralyzed in fear at the idea of going to dinner with Mary and her parents. And he looks out the window, you know, and for me, it was kind. [00:07:28] Speaker B: Of the first time I saw it. [00:07:31] Speaker A: Not super surprising because, like, I live in New York. There are a lot of windows that are like this. So I guess I just never thought anything of it. But on a rewatch, I do now think a lot of it, actually. And so he goes to look out the window. Window, only to find that the view from his window is literally just a brick wall of a neighboring building. And it just. It feels like a prison. And I wanted to also point out that you're very funny, Mr. Lynch, because there is a photo hanging above the bedside table, you know, in the bedroom of the mushroom cloud, which is more important in Twin Peaks the Return, if you've seen it, Episode eight. Great, great watch. It's a mushroom cloud from Oppenheimer's bomb testing. And it's also. It appears in other works. So I would just. I just thought that was a nice touch and very funny and actually something that I hadn't noticed before. So anyway, Henry's still in his room. So he takes a photo of Mary that he had ripped in half previously and kind of, like, stares at it and kind of pieces it together and then throws a stone in a pot of water inside the dresser as some sort of, like, superstitious action. I don't know if it's because he wants, like, this is something that will make the dinner go better for him or make him more comfortable. But regardless, this is what he does. So Henry makes his way over to the X family home for dinner. Mary is Mary X. And he walks through an even more. [00:09:10] Speaker B: Rough part of this, like, inner city environment. [00:09:13] Speaker A: And like a train yard, there's more. [00:09:15] Speaker B: Industry, there's more factory, there's more smoke, there's more, you know, warehouse. Like, it's not really a neighborhood. The house is just kind of there. So I don't know what the zoning laws were like. [00:09:28] Speaker A: But inside the house, Henry finally has the opportunity to meet Mary's parents and tells them that he's actually working in a printing factory. But he's also currently on vacation. So does he have a job? Does he not have a job? Unclear. The whole interaction is super awkward. And Mary's parents, by the way, is that the house is not nice, to say the least. It's old, it's run down, it's dirty, it's untidy. They are kind of portrayed as being like the northeast industrial belt. I don't even want to use this term. But like the white trash family, they're very poor. And it's further evident by the way of the thing that I, I literally, I could never seem to get past this. But there is a dog that had given birth and like all of the puppies are just like, you know, feeding from the dog and it's just like there and it's just, it's so bizarre. And so Mary's dad, they're having dinner, right? So he makes some sort of like artificial chicken or like a game hen for dinner. And they're like really small. And so each person has like their own small bird for dinner. And the family grandmother makes a salad. I use the term makes loosely because grandma can't actually move her arms or really any of her body at all. [00:11:09] Speaker B: And it almost appears as if she's dead. [00:11:11] Speaker A: It reminds me of the scene in Texas Chainsaw Massacre where they want the grandpa to kill the girl. And they're like, oh, grandpa does the best killing. But like, grandpa can't actually like move hardly at all. [00:11:25] Speaker B: So that's what it reminded me of. [00:11:29] Speaker A: But they move her arms for her. [00:11:31] Speaker B: So that she can like toss the salad. It's a very strange scene. [00:11:36] Speaker A: Everything is strange. And over dinner, the chicken, like meat that has been prepared begins to like pulse and bleed whenever it's cut into. And it's fucking disgusting. As somebody who struggles with chicken a lot of the time to even eat chicken, like, it's so fucking gross. And Mary's dad, Mr. X actually admits to Henry that he lost his arm in an accident at work. So this family is like really low on both the social and economic levels. And the Mary's dad is like a plumber. He like installed piping all over town. So he has a blue collar job as well as Henry after a nourishing and bountiful meal. And I mean that with all, all insincerity. Mrs. X practically interrogates Henry about premarital sex with, with Mary, her daughter. And. But this is not before she corners him and tries to kiss him with Mary, like, so close by, like, they're not rich. So the house is small, and it's so bizarre. And when the encounter doesn't go her way, she gets angry, which is like, okay, why? And then she tells Henry that the real reason that he was invited over to dinner is that, you know, he and Mary had premarital sex. And she knows that this happened. So he's frightened, he's confused. He's like, okay, yeah, me and Mary did have sex. Okay, cool. [00:13:27] Speaker B: Well, then now it's brought to his. [00:13:29] Speaker A: Attention that there is a child of Mary's birthing. The baby is deformed and was born prematurely. And Mrs. X demands that Henry and Mary get married immediately to save the whole family from the embarrassment of a child being born out of wedlock and to then immediately go to pick up the baby from the hospital. At some point later, presumably, they're married. Okay. And they bring home their baby to Henry's apartment. Henry goes to check his mail in the apartment lobby to find a small, like, box. And inside of it is a worm. And it doesn't appear that he gets very much mail because that's a very odd thing to receive. And so he brings the box with the worm back to his apartment, but he hides it, actually from Mary by putting it in his pocket first and then placing it into his bedside, like, storage table. And at this point, he looks like he is seriously considering his own death. And I would honestly not blame him. He had no idea he had a child and then is forced to basically marry a girl that he doesn't. Isn't with and doesn't really want to be with because otherwise they would have been together. And then not only that, but they have a kid. And this kid is, like, not human. It's disgusting. This kid is a mutant. It's alien. It is like. Well, the movie's in black and white, so from what I can understand, the baby is, like, grayish tan in color. It looks very alien, and it's entire. Like, it shows, like, you know, the head and, like, what I'm assuming is, like, most or all of the neck because it's small. And then the rest of it from there down is completely wrapped in bandage. So, like, we don't even know what that looks like. So that's what Henry's dealing with right now. And if he honestly wanted to just be done with everything, I don't even. I can't even say that I would blame him at this point. And he also lives In a apartment that is one room and it's not like a nice studio. We're talking like if it's a full size bed and that's it. So that night a thunderstorm rolls on while this mutant baby cries and screams incessantly. And when I say that I'm saying like it actually never stops. Almost like it doesn't even need to breathe air. It even refuses to eat all food. And this noise from the kid is coupled with the non stop like humming and industrial machinery sounds coming from the outside environment. And this is enough for Mary X to be done. It's driving her crazy. She can't do it anymore. She leaves and she just tells Henry that she's going home and she leaves him with the baby and that's it. She never comes back. So how's that for fucking embarrassing, okay? They did all this shit and now it was all for. Not because she left, because well, this kid's, this kid is disgusting. So honestly I. I'm not even gonna sit here and judge and judge Mary at this point. I was, I thought about it at first and now I'm not. So sometime there later, the beautiful woman across the hall who Henry is afraid of is seen running back to her apartment in distress after like whatever encounter she's recently had. And so at this point though, like I'm kind of getting the vibe and maybe Henry is too, that she may be a prostitute. Just the way it's portrayed, like she's super over overly sexual and over sexualized to the point that it seems so extreme and like she has men in her apartment and like it's, you know, that's the vibe. So Henry tries his best to take care of this baby thing after Mary has dismissed herself from their lives. And one night magically the baby stops crying. And now Henry's like, oh fuck. Like normally you would be panicked if your kid was crying like that. But now the baby has stopped crying, he's afraid, so he's freaking the fuck out. He gets up and he checks the temperature of the baby and the temperature actually reads fine. But in this closer examination he has and this more intimate exposure to this kid, he actually realizes that it struggles to breathe like at all. So it's kind of like a miracle that this type of crying and screaming could even happen. And like it has these like sores all over its skin, like surface. And so it kind of has like a coughing sound. I don't even know. It's not, it's not, it's not a human baby. So it's like, I don't even know what the sounds these are. But he's like, okay, well, I don't know what to do about this at all. But I have a humidifier, so I'll set that up. So that's the vibe. Then the beautiful girl across the hall comes over to Henry's apartment, and they begin to have sex. So it turns out Henry, you know, things are not all bad for Henry since he can get laid by his neighbor. The thing that troubles me is that the baby is still in the room, because, like I said, it's really small and it gross. [00:20:01] Speaker B: So they have sex, and then we. [00:20:05] Speaker A: See that they're kind of, like, melting into the bed. And there's like this imagery of, like, a white liquid and, like, some milk, you know, type liquid. And she sees the baby, and the baby cries. So the silence didn't last very long. And then we get introduced to the woman in the radiator, who is by far, by far my favorite character. She sings a beautiful song called In Heaven, Everything is Fine. And her face is, like, wildly deformed. And as she's, like, on this, like, checkered floor stage, she's, like, kind of singing and, like, pretending to dance, but it's not really dancing because there are these umbilical cord, like, objects that are falling from above her, like, onto the stage. And so she stomps on them while she's singing. And it's like she makes it part of her routine. Top 10 movie scene of all time for me. Hilarious. So uncomfortable. Incredible. Incredible. I could never have thought to do something like this on my own ever. So then Henry is somehow, like, in the radiator, okay, with this woman. And he goes on the side of the stage, and he's kind of acting like he's, like, really irritated and anxious, which is, everybody knows, the best combination, of course, not aggravating at all. And he's kind of fucking around with this, like, railing while staring off at nothing on the side of the stage. And then his head turns into a pool of blood that eventually the head falls off of his body into. And then it reappears out of the sky and lands back where we started in this industrial, you know, yard. So there's a little boy passing by, and he sees this head, and it's Henry's head. And he decides that this looks like the perfect trophy for himself. So he picks up Henry's head, takes it with him to an eraser factory nearby where Henry's head is turned into pencil erasers. So he brings in the head to a mechanic like the front counter, who. [00:22:50] Speaker B: Proceeds to call his boss. [00:22:51] Speaker A: And the boss leads the little boy to a back room where the pencil machine operator will turn the head into erasers. I always thought I wanted to be cryogenically frozen, but if someone out there knows how to turn my head into an eraser after I die, please give me a shout. That sounds like a lot more fun. [00:23:13] Speaker B: And cost effective option. [00:23:18] Speaker A: Turns out the whole thing was just a nightmare. Or was it? Henry is still in his apartment. [00:23:25] Speaker B: So we cut back and Henry's just. [00:23:27] Speaker A: Like, hanging out, and he wakes up. [00:23:29] Speaker B: And he hears some noise coming from. [00:23:31] Speaker A: Outside of his apartment unit to find that the beautiful woman across the hall is getting busy with a man. After Henry stops being a fucking weirdo. [00:23:43] Speaker B: About it and, like, looking at them, he goes back inside of his apartment. [00:23:48] Speaker A: To find his freak fucking baby who. [00:23:51] Speaker B: Starts to laugh at him. [00:23:53] Speaker A: Like, the baby is mocking Henry for getting cucked, I guess. And this baby is obviously way ahead of its time and super smart, honestly. So Henry is offended that this thing is making fun of him and laughing. So he goes over to the baby and starts to cut the bandages that are wrapped around its body with scissors. And the unfortunate fact of the matter here is that the bandages were the only thing holding that baby together. So once Henry takes all the bandages off, its entire body starts to split wide open. And as I'm sure you can already imagine, it was not cinematic at all. So Henry decides that the best course of action is to cut into the baby more by stabbing the scissors right into the baby's chest and is, like, aiming for the heart. But it's not really baby, so not a lot of heart action, but it sort of starts to have its insides, like, balloon outward and explode while Henry collapses on the other side of the room. And the inner workings of this baby start to cover more ground in the bedroom. Like, it's literally like, exploding into the room. And it reaches the electrical wires that were hanging around the radiator. And obviously that's a fire hazard. So sparks are flying, the lights short out, and Henry can see that the head of his child is, like, hovering now with a super long neck, kind of like the umbilical cord referenced previously and the spermatozoon imagery. And so eventually it's becoming just this giant alien baby head, and it completely, like, engulfs the camera. And all the while, the man in the planet is still pulling levers and shit and gets electrocuted, because I guess the elect the electrical wires that were above the radiator were somehow connected to him. And so then he gets electrocuted and he's not in control of Henry's mind anymore. And so then Henry, at the very end, is seen with the woman in the radiator, embracing her in a sort of way in, like, the afterlife. [00:26:25] Speaker B: It's. [00:26:26] Speaker A: That's how it appears, is that he's dead and so is she. And that kind of provides the audience with some comfort as the screen fades into black. So that would be Eraserhead. That would be Eraserhead. And I want to add quickly that there's so many off the wall and strange things that happen during David lynch films that this, to me, didn't even like. If I were to tell you every single small detail like I normally would for any other film that I review, we would be here for, I don't know, six hours probably. So I want you all to know that this is a radically condensed synopsis that I've put together just so I can get to you the main points. If you'd like to experience all of the weirdness yourself without me, you know, telling you about it, I would implore you to watch the film. You will not be upset if you watch it. Okay? You. You just won't. It's incredible. It's hilarious. It is just. It's everything. It's everything. So you may ask yourself at this point the question that we all must ask, which is, what does it all mean? And, you know, I. I talked briefly about how my husband and I saw this in. At the IFC in New York. And, you know, after that midnight screening, I. I distinctly remember that night, it was freezing outside and he and I hit the bathroom after the film and we looked at each other like, hey, I know it's a mile walk home and it's 3am and it's 5 degrees outside, but can we please do that walk so we can decompress? And from then on out, he cites David lynch as one, if not his favorite filmmaker, you know, that he's ever had the pleasure of viewing. And I would also like to acknowledge that I love David lynch with my entire heart. So his work will touch you in ways that you never knew were possible, especially in the way that he presents certain thematic elements. His films require the viewer to be completely entranced and open to the experience that you're about to have. So for that reason, this may not be the film for you, and that's perfectly fine. I personally own all of his Criterion DVDs, and I will never stop obsessing so, yeah, I think it's worth it. If you don't, I completely understand. But I would recommend giving it a try because I guarantee there's nothing you've ever seen quite like it. And in my research for this episode, I found the most remarkable thesis written by Lydia Roberts that I'll link obviously for you in the show notes and I would implore you to read it if you're interested. It's called Straight Class, Exploitation and Americana in the Films of David Lynch. And so I would say for me, class was probably the second most prominent theme I got from watching this on my third viewing. Because, yes, it really does take more than one viewing sometimes for, you know, to understand what the. Is going on in, in David Lynch's movies. And it's because he creates this environment by presenting you, you know, he presents you with the environment of the film so that you know basically under what context you're viewing this. And I find that helpful, but sometimes like that gets overlooked. So in this case, we're obviously in an industrial, mechanical, machine based environment. And for most this is uncomfortable and it is intentionally so. It's loud, it's in your face, you can't escape it. You live where you work, you interact with those that are in your environment. And to some, this type of environment seems so foreign and alien that you're already thinking about how someone could possibly be there and be as comfortable as Henry is. But he's a working class man in a working class environment. And so he's comfortable. This is his routine. And we are fully entrenched in the fact that this is, for many people, including Henry, his everyday life. It's not pretty, it's not glitzy or glamorous or Hollywood. It is just exactly what people actually experience. And so for that reason we have to kind of view all of this through his lens. We're fully entrenched in the fact that, you know, it. This is a situation that nobody wants to find themselves in. Nobody wants to find out that they have a child that they didn't know about or that, you know, it's like inhuman to begin with. Right? And, and Mary. Right. Like that's a nightmare. And it is for Mary too. And Mary and her parents don't live any better than Henry does. The ex family lives in an old rundown, moldy, unkept house across a train yard with no decorations and three generations of family and a dog that just had a litter of puppies. So I mean, it's not like Mary's coming from, you know, A wealthy family that, like, can help take care of her and sustain her. Like, they even make it a point to say that, like, it would be an embarrassment for her to not be married and to have this kid because, like, that's not what, you know, typically would happen if you were in a higher social class. So, you know, everyone in the house. [00:32:46] Speaker B: Is upset except for Mr. X during. [00:32:50] Speaker A: That whole dinner, who's actually not afraid. [00:32:52] Speaker B: Or ashamed of his environment at all. [00:32:55] Speaker A: And he even tells Henry during their dinner that, you know, like I said, he's a man that installed the piping all over town and his labor resulted in, you know, losing the use of his arm. And he's not afraid by this at all. He's like, this is who I am. This is what is going on. But Mrs. X doesn't really feel that way. She wants them to get married. She wants them to take care of the kids. She wants them, you know, to not live in their house. She wants them to live together. She is not. She doesn't want Mary to live the life that is often associated with, you know, the cycle of poverty. Right. A single parent, you know, with a child and an absent, you know, absent second parent and all, you know, all these generations of family living in one house and it's a. Not necessarily a nice house and dad works blue collar, but, like, his job is basically always on the line because he doesn't have use of one of his arms. Like, he doesn't have that. And so Mary will live a life at this point, right, that is not going to be better than the one that she grew up in if she chooses not to marry and raise this child with Henry. And that's certainly frustrating for her parents who want her to have a better life than they have. So because she chose not to be involved. Right. It's unclear, but we can kind of, you know, seem to understand that the. What's being implied is that this cycle will continue to repeat itself and potentially Mary will end up in, in poverty and continue to be in poverty as her parents live. And, you know, I don't know what happened after she went home, but, like, it was even clearer when Mrs. X was asking Henry about, like, what he did for work. She wasn't super thrilled that he worked in a factory. She was kind of hoping that he made a little bit more money and had a different job. So class is very prominent to me. It's not the main point, but it is definitely there. You cannot ignore how important it is. And in terms of exploitation, the Marxist theory of Alienation is very present. And this theory actually poses that people that work at the bottom level or do manual labor are in an isolated class in which they complete work which is mindless and it doesn't expose them to many interactions with others and aims to oppress and marginalize one class. So we definitely, like, see that. Particularly true with the boss character at the Eraser factory, who's absolutely what we imagine like being a boss as in a capitalistic world. Like, he's very, very clean and dapper and he's like, mean. And he doesn't understand why, like, you know, he doesn't look at the people that work for him as also human because he doesn't see them as his equal. And additionally, like with alienation, I mean. [00:36:39] Speaker B: Yeah, if you work in a task. [00:36:42] Speaker A: That is pretty much isolated, where you're not collaborating with those around you, and, you know, you follow the same pattern of what you do every single day, like, yeah, that would be incredibly isolating. And it's no wonder that, like, Henry doesn't really have any friends, right? Like, we don't see him having friends to the film or like friends calling him or anything like that. He probably doesn't really even talk to the people that he works with. So, you know, exploitation is one thing that is, is a thought that I had on this re watch, but not something that I really thought of the first time. So this thesis was really, really impactful. And while I certainly appreciate and, and understand this perspective, for me this film is much deeper than that and that will lead me to my next point. I also, in my research found a thesis submission titled Between Self and Other, Abjection and Unheimliched in the Films of David lynch by Adam Daniel Jones. And this is everything that I have always wanted to say about this film but could never find the right words for. So just stick with me on this. [00:38:07] Speaker B: I found, you know, that the uncanny is something that is actually, when you think about it, pretty prevalent in the films of David Lynch. And I know that we've talked about the concept of the uncanny on this podcast before, but in the sense of David lynch, we're talking about something like slightly different Jones in their thesis submission, actually notes and references a 1906 article by Ernst Gentsch which presents the concept of the un Heimlich as being a unique sensation that is also elusive and disorienting and unfamiliar and disquieting and is far easier to experience than it is to actually define or explain to someone else. And of course, Freud built upon this because, you know, his hands are literally on everything, all the time. And his conclusions of the uncanny were later summarized by Creed into three categories of things which are frequently called uncanny. So the first category is things that relate to the notion of a double, such as a cyborg, a twin, a doppelganger, multiple multiplied objects, ghosts, involuntary repetition of actions, like anything that can be related to or resembles a double. The second category, castration, anxieties expressed as fear of the female genitals or of dismembered limbs, a severed head or hand, loss of the eyes and fear of going blind. The third is a feeling associated with a familiar or unfamiliar place. Losing your way, womb fantasies or a haunted house. Okay, we can't talk about the concept of uncanny without talking about abjection. So in the book Powers or the essay, rather I should say Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva argues that the abject is not simply limited to the appearance or what is actually shown, but rather that is a contest to law. So being immoral, sinister, scheming and shady, a terror that disassembles, a hatred that smiles, a passion that uses the body for barter instead of inflaming it. A debtor who sells you up, a friend who stabs you. Incest, adultery, treachery, cannibalism, poisoning. The cause of the abject is that which disturbs identity, system and order. It does not respect borders, positions, rules. It is the in between, the ambiguous and the composite. So Kristeva goes on to argue that a corpse, which is often used as an example for uncanniness and abjection, and sometimes abjection, rather, is actually solely abject in nature, because a corpse is, she describes it as death infecting life. So rather than the simply confrontational paradox, right, of living humans seeing a dead human and remembering that that corpse was previously a living human. So this brings up the crucial point of contamination and abomination of the abject, which I'm sure, like, at this point, you're already thinking, like, what the fuck is going on? Hold on. So I'm sure what I'm about to say is probably, like, the last thing you were expecting to hear about abomination, but milk is actually the vip liquid when it comes to abjection. Why is milk so important? Well, milk is important because it's. It is a source of food from mother to child, and it bonds and binds the child and the mother together. So when Henry and the beautiful woman across the hall have sex and sink into the pool of milk, it is the utmost horror. Incest. You can even see this in the Bible, right? Leviticus and Deuteronomy when it's discussing the prohibition of cooking a young goat in the milk of its own mother. To Jones, milk represents to Henry an absolute contamination and uncleanliness and a fear of Mary's body as a new mother, such that she is a producer of milk with the ability to nourish and bind with the child. So that is also to point out that this baby, right, in Eraserhead, didn't eat. It refused all food. So if it refuses all food, then what is exactly binding it to its own mother? And the answer to that would be nothing. Nothing is binding it to its mother. Which is maybe another reason why Mary had such an easy time just standing up and walking out. There's no. You know, there's nothing that she shares with this child. I mean, for fuck's sake, she wasn't even with it for, like, a day or two. I mean, I don't know how long the timeline in the movie is supposed to be technically, but she wasn't with it for very long. And, of course, they didn't really hold it because it's, like, slimy and, like, wrapped in bandages, and it has, like, blisters all over it, and it wouldn't eat. So, like, it's kind of like, what was the point? But milk as a liquid subject for abjection is crucially important, right? And when we talk about contamination, the baby itself is a source of abjection. Okay? Jones makes it a point to say that the child has no certain borders around the body and lacks proper cleaning. Appears slimy and sores all over of just pure contagion. And Henry views this child as a source of his loss of autonomy in a way. Like, when he finds the beautiful woman across the hall with another man, the baby laughs at him. So Henry literally sees this baby as a deterrent for what he wants, which, in the instance of the beautiful woman across the hall, would be to have sex, or rather, have the freedom to do whatever he wants without the baby, including having sex, if he wants to. But what I find also interesting about it is he. It's unclear at the beginning of the film if he goes over to the ex's house because he knew that there was a baby or he knew that Mary was pregnant, right? So when he receives the news from Mrs. X, it appears as though he's hearing it for the first time. So. But we don't know how much he actually knew. Right? So in a way, to me, it almost felt like he was thinking at first, like, well, if I pretend I didn't know about it, like, maybe I can get out of it and not have to result to being a parent. But obviously that's not the case here. He unfortunately does have to result in being a father. And for him that means that there are extra responsibilities. There are things that, for lack of a better term, contaminate his life in such a way that it infiltrates his life and the way that he lives to the point that he actually can't function the way that he was previously or doesn't have the ability to do so. And that's why I think these, you know, these concepts of the uncanny and of abjection are critically important when watching David Lynch's films. To wrap all of this up, though, my. My aim in discussing this is to illustrate that the uncanny aspect of the film is probably something that you're more able to put your finger on, right? Because we've talked about the fact that it's easier to experience it than actually define it or explain it to someone because it's like, we know what, you know, a family home would feel like to sit down at for dinner. But why does this one feel weird? Why does the ex family home feel weird? Well, it's because the chickens or the bird that they're consuming on the table is pulsing and blood is pouring out of it, right? It's because it's not warm like a home would typically be shown on television. When it comes to the abjection, though, when you think about the whole film, right, revolves around very few key things. And one of those, other than what I will get into at the very end, is the fear of sex, right. When it comes to abjection and sex, I mean, abjection can be a horror surrounding any number of things and it can, right. Be directed at bodily functions, right? So a lot of female bodily functions in the context of feminism would be abject, right? Having a period, birth, breastfeeding. Right. All of these things. And so. Objection. Can also be explored to, you know, any type of and define even the female experience. And Henry is so afraid of sex because he's so afraid of the female experience. He was so afraid that, you know, there would be this, this, I guess, sequence. I don't know what he thought, like, after Mary birthed him or after Mary birthed their child. I'm not sure if Henry, like his character thought, well, that's so disgusting. Like, her body literally created another body. Like, how do bodies do that? Bodies aren't supposed to do that because his body doesn't do that. Or he might have been thinking, well, you know, the fact that she could potentially breastfeed, right? It's like his body doesn't produce food. So for him, he would be thinking, wow, my body doesn't produce any food. How can it possibly be that her body produces food? And that's also why he's terrified of, like, encounters with other women. Like, he was terrified to have sex with a woman across the hall. He won't even talk to her or, like, look at her hardly in the first, you know, act of the film. And when it comes to Mary going to her house, like, he acted like he'd was the most nervous human being in the entire world. He didn't know her at all. He was, like, genuinely afraid of her, right? And the fact that he is so fearful of women is why this baby is laughing at him, right? It's kind of strange when you think about it, but it really makes sense. And additionally, when it comes to the uncanny in the context of the double, right, it could potentially be that this alien baby, right, harbors some abjection toward its own mother, which is why it chose not to. Not to eat. Right? And it was almost like it was born on purpose in a way, such as to punish Mary, right, for having this baby out of wedlock and to show Henry that what does come out of female bodies is terrifying. And I think that after, you know, all of this analysis, perhaps that's the real reason why that baby is laughing at Henry. It's probably not so much mocking, but it's maybe such that the baby is somehow right, because it's not human. Consciously aware that it literally had the power to make him so afraid of women. Because women can have babies, and babies, like, are bound right to their mom, and, you know, they require attention from the woman, and they're grown inside the woman. And when you think about it, it's kind of an. It's kind of a foreign experience, right? And to him, all of this is incredibly frightening. So I think it's maybe less that the baby was mocking him and maybe more that the baby was like, I'm so thankful that I ruined your life. I'm taking joy in the fact that you can't even look at another woman across the hall without being afraid. So with all of that in mind, okay, I promise I'm getting close to the end. The reason why I want to present these pieces of information to you is part of a broader picture, which is the fear of becoming a Parent. And the objection that flow follows for some. And lynch and others have described Eraserhead as his most deeply personal film. And he's actually publicly stated that he would never explain why that is. And in my opinion, the film is about the birth of his daughter Jennifer, Jennifer lynch, and his fears associated with becoming a parent. The abject horror of parenthood and birth. And I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, but. Or to, like, say this and then for people to think that he meant this with any sort of cruelty. I don't think that was it. I don't even think he was capable of that. But, like, his daughter Jennifer was born with clubbed feet. She was born with a deformity. So I found it really interesting that, you know, the parallel of this baby looking the way that it does and perhaps him associating, maybe he feels. He felt in general that all infants are alien and are scary. I don't think that he specifically made it deformed baby alien because his daughter was born with club feet. But it is something interesting to point out, and that would obviously lead us to believe that he would not speak about that publicly. Right. To explain that this was his most personal film. Because how the. Would you explain that to your daughter? [00:56:02] Speaker A: Right. [00:56:02] Speaker B: You. There would be no. No good would come out of something like that in terms of, you know, being a parent and the horror that comes with that. Like, I get it. I don't even. I don't want to be one. It scares me. It's terrifying. It's not like, oh, like, I want to do that and I'm afraid, but, like, I'm gonna work through it. No, it's like a. I don't want anything to do with it. Right. And so I think for him, this whole thing also explores the, you know, the dynamic, perhaps is a good way to explain it between him and his, you know, his partner that he had Jennifer with. I think it's cool and interesting and beautiful when women are able to grow and birth children. Perhaps he thought that that was the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen. I'm not sure. I don't think that it's not scary, but I also don't think it's terrifying. You know, I think throughout David Lynch's life, you can see and in interviews, even there are, like, aspects of his life that would definitely lead you to think, wow, this guy is, like, not admitting it outwardly, you know, all the time, but he's. He's depressed. And so to watch, you know, Jack Nance's character of Henry in Eraserhead be this sort of panicked and, like, always on edge and terrified person all the time. Maybe that is how he really felt inside, especially when it came to the, you know, the point where he was gonna be a father and he'd been working on this movie and it was delayed, y'all. When he was making this movie, he literally, like, ran out of money basically and like had to fucking live in the. The room, like the bedroom of the movie. He lived in that room. And not for like a week, like for a while, because he believed in it so much and he had so much put into this and so many people, you know, advocating for this and supporting him and like, this was his dream. And I also kind of see that in Henry a little bit too. Right. Like, Henry had. There were other things that he wanted to be doing other than be a parent. And I'm not saying that David lynch didn't want to be a parent, but, like, if this is supposed to be a personal film, then I think we can gather that from that. That and his behaviors surrounding the film, like living on the set in the bedroom, that maybe he cared a little bit more about the movie than he did about being a dad. And Henry certainly cared more about doing whatever else it was that he wanted to do rather than be a dad. His head, you know, getting taken to the Eraser Factory to me is like literally David lynch telling us that if only I could just erase everything that's in my brain, wouldn't that be awesome? And sometimes I think we all feel that way. So with all of this, I say thank you for listening. I implore you to watch the film if you have not. And before I let you go, I want to remind you that this podcast and many others are part of the Morbidly Beautiful network. Morbidly Beautiful is your home for horror. If you love horror in any way shape fashion form, then you are welcome with us@morbidly beautiful.com There is so much content for you to check out. We would all really appreciate it if you came to show us some love. So head on over to morbidly beautiful.com to check it out. You can find this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music and Pocket Casts. If you enjoyed the show, it would mean the world to me if you left me a five star review and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. For any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions or requests, you can email me at finalgirlon6mail.com or send me a message on Instagram at finalgirl on six. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be posting everything in the show notes as per usual. If you have, you know, the urge to read any of the research papers that I will be putting on there, the theses, I would implore you to do so. And this episode was a little weird. So thanks for hanging out with it. Talk to you guys soon. Never forget, I'm 6th Avenue's very own final.