Museum as Medium: Temporality, Memory, and Intricacy of Evil in Museo

16 Pages·2021·0.5 MB·English

by  Hüseyin Ekrem Ulus, Aslı Favaro

International Perspectives
on Rethinking Evil in Film
and Television
Dilan Tüysüz
Adnan Menderes University, Turkey
A volume in the Advances in Media,
Entertainment, and the Arts (AMEA) Book Series
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Names: Tüysüz, Dilan, 1979- editor.
Title: International perspectives on rethinking evil in film and television
/ Dilan Tüysüz, editor.
Description: Hershey, PA : Information Science Reference, 2021. | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This publication
explores evil as a philosophical concept and popular phenomenon in
narratives of cinema and television and contributes to the literature
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Identifiers: LCCN 2020033531 (print) | LCCN 2020033532 (ebook) | ISBN
9781799847786 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781799868835 (paperback) | ISBN
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Subjects: LCSH: Good and evil in motion pictures. | Good and evil on
television.
Classification: LCC PN1995.9.E93 I58 2021 (print) | LCC PN1995.9.E93
(ebook) | DDC 791.43/653--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033531
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150
Chapter 11
Museum as Medium:
Temporality, Memory, and
Intricacy of Evil in Museo
Hüseyin Ekrem Ulus
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0310-6455
Ege University, Turkey
Aslı Favaro
Ege University, Turkey
ABSTRACT
This chapter first discusses how and why it is extremely difficult to define the concept of evil in theory
and next analyzes why Goldberg’s diachronic theory is useful in the study of evil. The authors explain
how evil is fundamentally connected to the concepts of temporality and memory in the narrative universe
of Museo. The intricacy of evil in the film is narrated through the metaphor of a museum. In this con-
text, Museo’s narrative gradually shows that each identity (or story) is limited by its scope of memory;
and hence, each identity and their definitions of evil are different but somehow interrelated. As modern
individuals, the protagonists have limited perception of history, loose connection with other cultures,
and this leads them to commit an evil act. However, as in Goldberg’s theory of diachronicity, when the
museum brings several stories and temporalities together from different time spans, it becomes possible
for the protagonist to question the motives of his evil act. Thus, Museo calls for a diachronic approach
towards evil to challenge any form of ethnocentricity.
INTRODUCTION
Modern archeological excavations show that burial of horses with their owners used to be a common
application not only in Anglo-Saxon culture but also in many other parts of the world such as China
(Johns, 2006, p. 23) or Iceland (CBC, 2019). Considered in temporal and modern context, such a wide-
spread tradition across cultures is both unacceptable and abhorrent by 21st century standards in public
opinion, in addition to being punishable by law. Horse burial, now seen as a means of torture to animals,
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-4778-6.ch011
Copyright © 2021, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Museum as Medium
could very well be categorized as an evil act in the eyes of many people. Then, one question appears:
to what extent is it possible to reach a definition of the concept of evil, which could be pertinent to all
cultures and times?
In spite of relatively recent scholarly attempts to find intercultural definitions for the concept of evil,
it is extremely hard to define the term for two reasons. First, people of different cultures interpret evil in
various culture-specific contexts. As the horse burial example above may illustrate, the understanding
of evil differs among various cultures and religions, as well as between religious and secular contexts,
for that matter. Second, just like culture-specific approaches to evil may not prevail across all societies,
the perception of evil at a given time may not apply to other eras or times. In this context, the aim is to
explicate the following positions regarding evil: first, this study will explain how simple wrongdoing is
different in comparison to the category of evil. Then, the authors will discuss how evil is a multilayered
concept that should be studied and tested across cultures and times. In connection with the first proposi-
tion, this chapter will finally elucidate why the notion of evil must be studied not in a synchronic, but with
a diachronic approach, as Goldberg argues. Overall, this theoretical background will help comprehend
how Ruizpalacios’ 2018 film Museo approaches the complex notion of evil through cross-cultural and
diachronic perspective.
BACKGROUND: EVIL IN THEORY: DIACHRONY VS. SYNCHRONICITY
To start with, evil is a term that is quite hard to pin down, particularly in its difference from the catego-
ries of bad, or wrongdoing. American Heritage Dictionary defines evil as something “morally repre-
hensible”, “causing discomfort or repulsion” or “causing harm” (n.d). This definition is still too broad
and does not provide a satisfactory distinction from the category of bad, which is defined as “morally
objectionable”, “injurious” and “harmful” by the very same dictionary (n.d). What is more, the word
evil is even presented as a synonym of bad. Yet, evil is definitely more complex and multilayered than
its basic definitions, and there is no consensus over a definition. For instance, according to Steiner evil
is “wrong acts that are pleasurable for their doers” (2002, p. 189). This secular interpretation of evil is
psychologically more complex and fundamentally different from wrongdoing (Calder, 2019, p. 221).
Neidleman writes that Hillel’s interpretation of evil is limiting, on the basis that it reduces the term only
to “the most diabolical actions” (2019, p. 106). There are other noteworthy attempts to distinguish evil
from bad or wrongdoing. In this line, Goldberg writes that evil and wrongdoing are close to and/or far
from each other as much as genocide and theft are related to each other (2019, p. 328), because there is
a considerable moral threshold to pass in order to commit an evil act (Formosa, 2019, p. 264). Similarly,
Eve Garrard separates wrong and evil through the example of massacres or genocide (2019, p. 189)
but also states that secular perspectives and definitions of evil are still “quite limited” in terms of their
explanatory power (2019, p. 200). Stephen de Wijze asks the same question on the difference between
evil and wrongdoing, and states that evil and wrongdoing can be separated on the basis that the if the
former is “left unchecked it could destroy or seriously undermine accepted and established moral/social/
political boundaries,” which could “make viable social and political coexistence impossible” (2019,
p. 204). Also, Todd Calder separates evil actions from non-evil acts by pointing to the form, when he
writes that “evil actions have a quality of evilness that non-evil actions lack” (2019, p. 230). Based on
the several definitions above, our first proposal is that the concept of evil is hard to define as it does
not have an immediate essence or content. In other words, in a culture-specific context, evil may have
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different definitions, and this is why many scholars attempt to define it through its form, not its content,
which is the exact reason for which finding an overall definition for evil is a grueling task.
Most religions (Islam, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism) have various ap-
proaches to and interpretations of evil limited to their religious and cultural contexts as Leezenberg
explains (2019, pp. 360-379). On the other hand, considering that secular interpretations (mostly after
WWII) have limited explanatory power as Garrard writes, one may conclude that a satisfactory defini-
tion of evil requires careful consideration of multilayered socio-cultural structure of the concept of evil.
More specifically, to be able to have a comprehensive grasp of the concept, one must not only study evil
in cross-cultural context, but also in cross-temporal one. For this reason, Golderg’s approach to evil is
quite practical. In “Evil’s Diachronic Characteristics,” he argues that making a clear distinction between
evil and wrongdoing –and thus, focusing on the explanatory power of evil harm– is not sufficient to
analyze evil (2019, p. 328). The reason for the insufficiency, as Goldberg explains, is that most defini-
tions of evil concentrate upon the “synchronic, or current time-slice” characteristics of evil (Ibid). Then,
continues Goldberg, the asymmetrical power relationship between the evil agent and the victim appears
over time. In this case, past and/or history become essential parts of the exploitation between perpetrator
and victim (2019, p. 328). Goldberg’s perspective is significant, because it shows that simple separation
between wrongdoing and evil does not work; Todd Calder’s (2019, p. 230) or Formosa’s (2019, p. 264)
formulations that evil can be defined through the extreme amount of harm (beyond wrongdoing) are not
wrong, but according to Goldberg these harm-based explanations of evil do not consider the elements
of time, history and temporality sufficiently (2019, p. 329).
What is missing in the harm-based theories of evil, for Goldberg, is the notion of time. He writes
the following in this regard: harm-focused definitions of evil “. . . focus only on a single time-slice of
evil action, namely the moment after the act has already occurred. Examining evil harm synchronically
ignores conditions that facilitate this kind of harm, and are likewise critical to an act being evil” (2019,
p. 329). Then, Goldberg proposes that one should consider “the facilitating conditions” of evil and study
it in its historical context, because the exploitative relationship between perpetrator and the victim may
not be fully understood otherwise (2019, p. 333). Goldberg’s definition of evil requires one to think
diachronically (over a time period), not synchronically (in the same time-span or time-slice); in this way,
it becomes possible to observe the underlying conditions of evil, understand “temporal structure” and
view its “relational elements” (2019, p. 338).
All in all, Goldberg’s view of evil is different from those of Formosa and Calder, because it asks us
to study evil in a larger context, over a relatively longer time-span. In this respect, Goldberg’s diachronic
theory of evil also becomes a theory of scope and memory: people’s and law’s view of a violent murder
could very well be different depending on the history of the perpetrator and that of the victim. He con-
tinues that in diachronic theory of evil, the evil action “reveals evil’s temporal structure and relational
synchronic approach that identifies only a current time-slice of harm as constitutive of it (2019, p. 338).
What Goldberg underlines is that the theory of evil based on the amount of harm fails to explicate the
complexity of an evil act: one must definitely analyze what caused asymmetrical power relations in the
first place, as well as how and why exploitation occurred between the perpetrator and the victim. This
perspective of evil that demands us to consider the history among the perpetrators and victims is signifi-
cant, because Ruizpalacios’ Museo (2018) juxtaposes several immoral and evil acts in its narrative, and
thus calls for going beyond the scope of identities that are situated in synchronic or current time-slice,
in the terminology of Goldberg.
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FUNCTION OF MUSEUM AS MEDIUM: TEMPORALITY OF IDENTITIES
Based on the discussion on the complexity of evil, this part explains the function of museum in the
narrative of Museo. Museums, crucial cultural agents and products in constituting national identities
(Anderson, 1991, p.163) also play quite important roles in the narrative of Ruizpalacios’ film. First,
museum in Museo becomes a narrative tool that brings several identities, temporalities and memories
together. In this context, past, present and future are brought together through and in the museum. Such
a juxtaposition, secondly, enables seeing certain norm(al)s of a given society or identity as evil, particu-
larly from another perspective. In other words, museums are never neutral in their design, presentation
or message; that is, museums are value-laden products that both juxtapose and re-interpret cultural
components. Even though museums appear to be neutral in the way that bring things of the past into the
present, they never are. In Museo, this problem is brought into the attention through the issue of agency:
whoever constructs the museum becomes the one that sets the norms (and hence, decides what the evil
is). In such a way, the narrative of Museo makes it almost impossible to choose sides among Mayans,
Aztecs, Spanish conquistadors, or modern cultural thieves from South America or Britain. Their stories
waver between being convincing and unconvincing, reliable and unreliable, particularly when these
stories are juxtaposed.
Ruizpalacios’ Museo (2018) opens with an epigraph, hinting that it is quite difficult to define evil,
as individuals and societies are limited by their memories. The opening statement, “Esta historia es una
réplica de la original” [meaning, “This (hi)story is a replica of the original”], draws the attention of the
audience to how reality is (re)constructed. The epigraph implies three things: First, historical narratives
are stories and are not objective; they rely on a storyteller or narrator. Second, histories (or stories) are
therefore always products of translation; that is, their unreliability stems up from the fact that historical
narratives are carried across to us from other times and geographies. Then, third, such an act of carrying
narratives across cultures and times implies a disconnection with the original event(s) to a certain extent.
In this context, the epigraph is a foreshadowing of the movie’s political stance regarding the nature of
evil: both individual and social memories are all limited in scope, thus the protagonist, audience or any
modern subject have to make do with the only alternative they have in hand: a replica of the original,
a translation. This metafictional epigraph reminds the audience that their perception of the reality (and
hence, of evil) will always be limited, similar to the characters in Museo, as well as the film itself.
This skeptical and sarcastic attitude towards history and narration can also be seen in the narrator’s
opening description of Juan:
Juan always said he didn’t believe anything from History class. Or books, for that matter. How could
they be so sure what Hernán Cortés thought...or Montezuma, or Alexander the Great? He said it was
all made up. He said no one could know why someone did what they did...except for the person who did
it. And more often than not, not even them.
This opening passage connects the epigraph to the philosophical attitude of the film towards evil:
Juan, the protagonist of Museo, will soon commit perhaps one of the most abhorrent acts in his nation’s
history: stealing the most precious Pre-Hispanic artifacts from the National Museum of Archeology and
thus undermining the memory of the land and people. The narrator juxtaposes Juan’s evil act of robbing
people of their history with those of other rulers or conquerors, such as the Aztec Emperor Montezuma
or Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés of the 16th Century. Such a juxtaposition, as this paper explains,
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enables the film to challenge any national or religious perspectives based on short-term social memory.
Hence, Museo shows, any interpretation of evil based on a nationalist or religious social perspective
falls short of grasping the complex historical reality. The agent of evil, in this perspective, is a creation
and consequence of all its predecessors; and Juan’s evil act is somehow connected to the conquerors/
rulers before him.
Museo’s filmic narrative develops its thesis that Juan’s evil act cannot be separated from many other
allegedly evil acts in the history of the land and people with its impressive opening scene: the monolith
of Tlaloc, the god of fertility in Aztec mythology, is removed from its original place and carried to the
city and the National Anthropology Museum by engineers. The carrying of the monolith of Tlaloc is
very significant, because the scene shows the audience that even the god of rain and fertility, which
“controlled all the elements,” can now be carried to the museum like a commodity, showing that the
spirit of times –the zeitgeist— had changed. The monolith is huge, reminding the modern audience how
the god was powerful, once upon a time. The existence of the monolith of god Tlaloc in the modern
city is paradoxical; it is so huge that it does not fit in the city: the electric and telephone poles have to
be removed so that the ancient god can be replaced in the city’s museum. The dichotomy of smallness-
bigness is repeated in the scene of theft, when Juan steps over the models of temples: now criminal Juan
is like a giant in comparison to the historical artifacts.
In addition, the narrator of Museo makes it clear that the removal of the monolith is another evil act:
when “engineers...took the god Tlaloc away from his home,” the narrator informs us that “[p]eople were
angry and sad, but they took him anyway” (Museo). The reason for people’s anger, we learn, is that the
god is removed from its place “without asking for permission or forgiveness” (Museo). For the curators
of the modern museum, the monolith is no more than a historical artifact, but for many others, the god
is a part of collective identity. In short, the juxtaposition of an ancient god (Tlaloc) in the modern set-
ting (city and museum) enables the film to illustrate that the times change and our identities are usually
based on a limited scope of memory.
This emphasis on the limited nature of memory is a central theme and a problematic in Museo. For
instance, at the surface level, the transfer of the Tlaloc seems to be only a matter of engineering: the
voice over explains how the huge platform is pulled by 860hp vehicles and they transport the god in
two stages. However, at a deeper level, the act of removing the monolith of a central Aztec god itself is
quite traumatic for the local people, including Juan, the protagonist of Museo: Juan’s father explains his
son that the act (of transferring the god) is indeed a “plunder” (Museo). Juan’s father looks despondent
in the scene, and the narrator closes the scene by providing the audience with another critical piece of
information: after Juan’s father takes five-year-old Juan to see the god Tlaloc in the museum, Juan never
forgets this traumatic event. Then, it is implied that Juan’s evil act as a grown-up cannot be compre-
hended in isolation; and therefore Juan’s evil deed becomes somehow strongly connected to not only to
his childhood trauma but also to the historically evil deeds committed in and before his lifetime. This is
how Goldberg’s theory of diachronicity is seen in Museo’s narration.
The filmic narrative makes sure that the audience connects the historical evils to the modern ones
through the sequence of Benjamin’s long speech at the beginning of the movie: right after the moment
we learn that Juan’s father defines the transportation of Tlaloc to the museum as “plunder” and that
five-year-old Juan is traumatized by the act, the next scene flashes forward to the resolution point of
the film and shows Juan with the stolen artifact in his hand. This is the moment that Juan turns himself
in to the authorities. This sequence, which connects Juan’s childhood trauma to his evil act in his adult
life is an example of how Museo approaches evil: as in Goldberg’s theory of evil, one cannot fully
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comprehend evil without evaluating it diachronically. In other words, Museo’s opening sequence helps
us better understand Juan’s detestable evil act by situating it in time and space, on a much larger scope.
What connects several subplots, namely, the stories of the god Tlaloc, Hernán Cortés, or Montezuma
to that of Juan is the museum. It is no surprise that Juan’s childhood trauma takes place at the National
Museum of Anthropology. Museum, usually a metonymy of time in fiction (Jones & Ormrod, 2015),
brings together narrative elements from the past to the present, and thus achieves the potential to shape
the future. In this regard, several stories of historical or mythic characters mentioned above merge in
the fictional space created by the museum. An interesting example of this sort is the moment of theft:
after committing one of the most evil acts in his society, Juan tries to escape the museum with the stolen
goods in his hands. While trying to escape the museum through the ventilation system, Juan momentarily
sees the 7th century Mayan ruler, Pakal the Great, idly sitting and carefully watching him. The scene
is ultimately distressing for Juan, because the museum functions diachronically; that is, it brings back
individual or social memories that are suppressed or muted. In this example, Juan’s sudden and unex-
pected encounter with the 7th century Mayan ruler Pakal urges Juan to reconsider the weight of his act
in a historical context, but more importantly, the scene enables the film to make a bridge between the
ancient and modern evil acts through the concept of memory. In other words, museum brings together
memories that are not always available to the modern subject; in this case, to the protagonist Juan.
Figure 1. Pakal the Great at the Museum, (Museo, A.Ruizpalacios, 2018). Detalle Films, Distant Hori-
zon, Panorama Global
Individual/social memory and museum are central themes in Museo: the two thieves (and thus the duo
that commit the evil act) cope with memory-related problems throughout the movie. Juan is not alone in
being traumatized by the removal of Tlaloc or shocking encounter with Pakal the Great. Just like Juan,
Benjamin suffers from both memory issues and the museum since his childhood: Benjamin remembers
visiting the museum in eighth grade, “to copy the captions next to the piece...and get [his] notebook
stamped to prove [he] had been there” (Museo). Yet, what is common to both Juan and Benjamin is the
difficulty of remembering, or being deprived of the ability to connect to the past or history. Benjamin
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narrates his childhood experience in the museum as follows: “I heard stories about the creation, and
wars...and about the things that used to be here. . . But I don’t remember any of it” (Museo). For Juan
and Benjamin, memory is always something to be recovered at a slow pace, which makes them round
(changing, evolving, learning) characters. The museum, then, is a key factor in their transformation.
In Museo, museum functions as the hub that brings memories together, but these memories are always
presented as vague stories and the characters are always out of touch with them. For instance, when the
narrator Benjamin looks back and recounts everything that happened, he remarks that “Juan used to say
it was impossible to know how things start......we can only know how they end......once they’ve ended”
(Museo). This extreme difficulty in remembering is emphasized both at the beginning and at the end of
the narrative. Here is a much more clear example: Benjamin asks the question that is related with both
the museum, and memories around it: “Where does an idea begin? Who can tell?” (Museo). This ques-
tion is central in understanding the main conflict of the protagonist and his evil act: Juan, as a modern
subject, has a very limited scope of memory. He is both connected to, but is equally out of touch with
the past or history. He robs his society of its past, but the very museum he robs displays Pakal the Great
to him, which is an incident Juan cannot easily cope with.
Such a problematic memory and a state of disconnectedness is a problem of modern individuals,
as exemplified in both Juan and Benjamin. Such a limited span of memory causes Juan to go through
personality conflicts. For example, Juan is forced by his family to dress as Santa at every Christmas,
just like his grandfather used to do for many years. However, upon the death of grandfather, the family
agrees that Juan must take over the task, which is protested by Juan on the basis that he would prefer
to dress as Quetzalcoatl, an ancient Mesoamerican deity. Torn between different social memories and
mythological frameworks, Juan is both a part of them, and not. He knows both traditions superficially,
but never feels ultimately connected to any of them: at night Juan deliberately fails in his task as Santa
by spoiling the surprise gifts to children, and he also robs the museum of anthropology. In other words,
the memories of the main characters are loosely connected to histories and cultures, and the modern evil
is connected to this state of negative disconnectedness.
The evil act of the protagonists is linked to the short scope of memory and thus the state of discon-
nectedness is one of their hidden motives. A striking example to support this thesis is in the scenes of a
painting of a cliff diver. The film shows us the image twice, once at the beginning of the movie, before
Juan commits the heinous theft: he sees the painting of a diver in his father’s office, and is mesmerized
by the figure of the diver that is suspended in the air. In the painting, the diver has already jumped down
and started the dive, but when the painter freezes the moment, he is neither in the rock from which he
jumped, nor he is in the water. The painting is neither in the past (the act of jumping), nor in the future
(touching the ocean’s surface). Instead, the image in the painting is stuck at the present: this is a pregnant
scene, loaded with something to come.
In the scene of Juan’s awe in the painting while he is in his father’s office, Museo uses the metaphor
of a suspended diver to portray how modern individual’s memory is stuck in the moment, or at present.
Just like the cliff diver in the painting, Juan is stuck at the present. He has a vague relationship with the
past, but this connection is not strong enough to keep him away from his evil choices or acts. Just as we
cannot see the rock from which the diver started his dive, Juan (or the audience, for that matter) does not
feel a strong connection with the past or history. What is more, just as the painting hints that the diver
will hit the water but still does not show the completion of the movement, Juan does not know enough
about his future and the consequences of his evil act of robbing the museum. As a modern individual,
he is stuck in the present time, which is a state of disconnectedness.
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Figure 2. The Painting of Cliff Divers (Museo, A.Ruizpalacios, 2018). Detalle Films, Distant Horizon,
Panorama Global
In the filmic narrative, this scene of a diver is used once more, but this time with a quite significant
formal trick, as the narration gets closer to the resolution. Towards the end, Juan and Benjamin understand
that they cannot sell the historical artifacts and conclude that they would probably get arrested. The film,
then, shows us the diving scene in its entirety: the divers are no longer frozen in the moment, as they
dive into the ocean in real time and moving image; and the dialogues even inform us why and how they
dive, as well as how much they earn. In other words, the narrative of the film juxtaposes the still image
of the suspended diver (in the painting) at the beginning of the movie, with the moving image of cliff
divers at the story’s resolution point. The still image and the moving scene underscore the difference
between the protagonists’ limited connection with the past and future, and that of the audience who
can see several stories in their entirety. In other words, Museo once more implies that the protagonists
suffer from a sort of fragmental memory and short-sightedness, and they cannot fully grasp their posi-
tion and have a control over their lives, because they can only see one brief moment in time. This is the
paradox in which the protagonists Juan and Benjamin have to live in, just like most modern individuals
or societies. This is also how Museo approaches critically to the problem of limited scope of memory
in modern life, through the distinctive language of film.
To what extent is Juan’s robbery of the anthropological museum evil? The narrative does not leave
so much doubt about the evil nature of the heist: as soon as the robbery is announced in the national
news channels, the theft is accursed by almost everyone, starting with Juan’s own family members.
The speaker in the TV announces that the robbers stole “some of the most valuable [items] of all time”
and that these criminals “threaten every museum in the world” as they are now “enemies of their past
and heritage” (Museo). Hence, it is now the duty of all Mexican citizens “to rally against this act of
shameful, unpatriotic theft,” because the cultural and artistic value of the artifact cannot be stated in
any economic terms (Museo). Perhaps most painfully, it is Juan’s own father who calls the anonymous
thieves “miserable bastards with no past or future” and he wishes them to “rot in their own curse, their
own stupidity” as the thieves are “the dark shit of the country” (Museo). The scene is clearly a great
example of dramatic irony, as Juan’s father does not know the identity of the evil agent, even though his
own son is standing next to him with the stolen artifacts in a bag. The father condemns the evil act by
saying that “it is our solemn duty to whip them in the main square” and later “drag their damned bodies
until they bleed out” (Museo). The scene closes after Juan’s father calls the anonymous thieves “sons
157