(I Long To Be) Close to Me: Karen Carpenter’s “Me Decade” Dilemma

If the “Me Decade” was about an (American) populace turning near completely inwards in fear of further disillusionment and anguish (therefore deepening just as much of both still and not realizing it), then Karen Carpenter’s richly introspective, intimate, desperately searching voice was *the* voice to signify and define the variegated schizophrenic realities of the 1970s.

While the contrasting duality of her voice and the turmoil of her persona in and of themselves are symbolic of her era, what more than anything underscores her significance is that her singular brand of introspection was completely without affectation or ego. The innate lack of self-aggrandizement she possessed and expressed through her inimitable technique stands in seemingly sharp contrast to a forever-changed landscape which, on the surface, wasn’t interested in such modest modes of communication anymore. In other words, Karen’s crooning, measured, interior voice was not of the self-pitying, self-obsessed variety, but rather an empathetic one with hopes to open up something in others, while simultaneously striving to make small artistic statements that she could resolutely call her own. The emotional appeal of her voice is eternal, yet she particularly unearthed the underlying emotional vulnerabilities and questioning sensibilities that even those locked within themselves, in fear of the world and people around them, had issues coming to terms with in the 70s. Her own personal torment, a vehicle that - quietly, unsuspectingly -uncovered the reality under the superficiality of the era.

What Karen alone inadvertently exposes is that the kind of supposed “self-healing” of Americans in the 1970s was largely not of a forward-thinking nexus of social, emotional, and cultural discourse, but rather just an unhealthy means of rippling self-indulgence, narcissism, and excess to escape any responsibility on a grand scale after the national scars formed in the late 1960s. The direct praise she received from president Richard Nixon (a man who was in large part responsible for America’s early 70s upheaval) for being “young America at its very best” almost today seems like a silent apology; she’s tending to and soothing the wounds that he opened up for millions. Ironically, by the late 70s both Carpenters and Nixon were chucked aside by the American public, despite one clearly deserving of the treatment and the other utterly flummoxed as to why they could be treated in such a way after all they did to help — further conveying the frustrating, complicated aura of the decade. The finding of the “true self” was often just as much of a self-deceiving lie as those of the ones American’s heard on a daily basis blaring from their televisions and radios.

Though the music and Karen’s voice have boundless, universally human identification, it’s a voice that is quintessentially American on the surface - dreamy, nostalgic, polished, wistful - qualities that America prides itself on for the sake of its own image of greatness and a history of nobility. But through her phrasing, tone and technical abilities that fuel those pearlescent surfaces, Karen reveals dimensions of crippling, paradoxical melancholy that she, and millions of others, could sadly claim as a (now) intrinsic element of their selves. 

In contrast to the old fashioned, classical sound of Richard’s lush arrangements, Karen’s voice sounds like it’s endlessly contemplating the modernity that has shaped her private world and why it keeps her trapped there. The arrangements give off an air of baroque styled, airy Los Angeles originated strains while still balancing classical elements, with Karen’s supple contralto exploring both the epochal depression of 1970s Southern California malaise and the broader sweep of a country that believed it to be metaphorical Utopia. 

Perhaps the biggest, most devastatingly tragic irony of Karen’s story and thriving popularity in this era is that her near total lack of ego - self-confidence, self-care, self-importance, self-worth, self-love - is exactly what led to her early death, when for so many it was the only way that they were able to survive and thrive. Her voice manifested such thoughts, feelings and ideas to others, but she was unable to collect them within herself as a way of personal empowerment and defiant independence against the forces that kept her self locked away. When you take away the surface of facile wholesomeness you’ll find a buried concept of truth braided with artistry, the potentially painful combination that she sought to be celebrated for and personally recognized by.

Nothing demonstrates and encapsulates the darkest corners of human nature more than a throughly selfless individual, on a personal and professional scale, stripped of agency, love, worth, fulfillment and wholeness, while those around her demanded and were granted such rights of humanity. But the 1970s didn’t last forever.

Like the enigmatic abyss forever echoing in Karen’s lonely tones, the yearning quest for a blissful inner life is timeless. And it always feels like it’s only just begun 

Some Kind Of Lonely Clown: Love Hurts on Halloween

Zombie’s movies regularly get trashed in fan pages and all over the Halloween fan base, but there’s something to them, as an alternative to the universe Carpenter established, that sticks with me. They’re far from perfect but I see elements of something more complicated dramatically than just grungy, ugly placards. The issue is that the script doesn’t allow for much exploration of how Zombie wanted to differentiate from the original. Whereas the original was a lot of implication and subtext, Zombie’s goal was never intended to be subtle, and he had an idea of taking a no-holds-barred approach to the original concept. He was trapped between his own unfocused ideas, studio demands and his own obligation to respect the original. 

This small sequence of Michael sitting on the curb, intercut with his mother’s sleazy dancing, captures the essence of what Zombie was trying to dig deeper into with his remake but couldn’t, overall, fulfill. The loneliness of this (no longer innocent) kid, bereft of love, stability and identity comes through not just in the tragic image(s) of him isolated and miserable, but that it’s overlaid with Nazareth’s Love 

Hurts and spliced in with Deborah’s job. 

(And if there’s one thing you can’t call Zombie it’s an uninspired stylist - both scenes show visually, aurally and spatially he understands how cinema can be utilized. People despise Zombie’s Halloween for taking away Michael’s supernatural mystique and giving him a detailed background/motivation but rarely seem interested in how it reworks the original framework under all the white trash surface and why it makes sense, even if unappealing.)

What we get in this sequence is a 70s bluesy rock classic braiding these disparate scenes together to give us a glimpse of a psychological profile that, while ultimately unsatisfying in its progression, has some interesting ideas in its arsenal. Love Hurts at once seems a perfect song choice for the hardy, gritty Zombie-verse, if seemingly too on the nose (we clearly get Michael’s missing a lot of familial love and care in his life). Deborah’s gig as a go-go dancer has her doing her job against the backdrop of pop/rock hits (Zombie makes the first half of the film feel like a mix of eras, it never feels rooted in one particular time) and the music she grooves to on stage is diegetic in its use (it comes from within their world as something they hear through a speaker at the bar). 

When we cut back and forth between her dance and Michael’s abandonment on the sidewalk we get a contrast of competing objectives; what is just another rhythm to dance to for Deborah provides further disturbing illumination for Michael’s motivation towards destruction. When the song is played over the glimpses of Michael it’s non-diegetic, it’s played outside his reality to provide character commentary that duplicates visual information; Deb literally hears the song and it’s just background noise, Michael doesn’t hear it but he deeply feels the pain *we* tangibly hear in its vocals, lyrics and instruments, and thus he becomes personalized to us by the music. This highlights the disconnect between the mother and son and how the love they have for each other is genuine but more twisted, complex and ultimately doomed than both yet realize.

The use of Love Hurts also works on another sociological angle. Released in late 1974, quickly inching towards the middle of a decade darkened/enlightened by the realization (and grudging acceptance) of decaying once-standard family/individual values, the song roots the images back into a time that Zombie otherwise keeps up in the air. Michael, in both iterations of Halloween, is the figure which physically manifests the turmoil and dysfunction normally hidden or ignored by most outside the family unit. Zombie’s first half may not even take place within the 70s at all, but it’s simultaneously drawing us back into an era wherein this social/familial dynamic first flourished, as well as giving a reflection on the world Carpenter shaped and illuminated back in 1978. Though H’07 doesn’t show this as an exact replication of what happened in the 70s per se it does play out as a heightened variation of its undercurrent like Carpenter had his film do - conveying the isolation, sadness, anxiety and ultimately destructive consequences of the latchkey generation; kids and teens left on their own to fend for themselves by negligent, absent and/or preoccupied parental figures. Its safe to say that Michael, raised by a supposedly loving but ignorant mother who allows a monstrous, abusive asshole to live with her children, stands in for an extremely volatile latchkey kid.