My recent re-obsession with Weeds is understandable. It’s got this impeccable grasp on people per se, the communio peccatorum, the communion of sinners, turned inwards on themselves for themselves, contorted. It ends up making us all the same in a startling way, and in a strangely comforting way, too. The introit to each episode begins with the same, eerily major-chorded song “Little Boxes,” which depicts this suburban uniformity–an unnoticed and sort of sunny-dayed sameness. And yet as the episode unveils, despite this sameness, within this communio peccatorum, there is an utterly desolate (and usually sadistically comical) individuality and isolation under each roof or “little box”. Each episode starts with the same song, and yet in the second season, as though to express the irony of its message, each episode is sung by a different artist to breathe personhood into the serial nature of it all–the one below is Engelbert Humperdinck. There is utter sameness in this communion of sinners, and yet a particular personhood calling for some form of particular mediation.
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4 responses to “Personhood in the Communio Peccatorum: "Little Boxes Made Of Ticky-Tacky"”
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Thanks for this E. Though I was never a huge fan of the show to begin with, it took a serious nosedive after season 3… Mary-Kate Olsen being the harbinger of doom in this case.
Loved the article… thanks for sharing such great insight. I think that is why I secretly love Californication, however it being so graphic sexually I do not watch it any more. The writing on that show is so truthful… I just wish they would stick to the character development and hint at the sexual character.
I own season 1, but will re-watch it from with this lense Ethan. Thanks.
Apropos of music, could somebody please tell PZ that the French organ composer he was so earnestly searching after in a recent podcast was indeed Saint-Saens, the composer of the so-called "Organ Symphony". And for a peek at what orchestral musicians with a twisted sense of humor think of when playing the last movement, take a look at the last scenes of "Babe"!