Attention, moviegoers: The sticky stuff that adheres as you exit “Hanging Up,” a film now showing at local theaters, isn’t the typical combo of spilled butter, sloshed Pepsi, crushed Junior Mints and discarded gum.
It’s all that oozing sentiment, all that excruciating goo emanating from a schmaltzy mess of a film.
There is, however, a moment in “Hanging Up”–which stars Diane Keaton, Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow as loopy sisters–that deals with the cultural transmission of ideas and that explained to me, swifter than anything else could, why Malcolm Gladwell is all wet.
Gladwell is the author of “The Tipping Point,” a new book about pivotal moments in human behavior. As my colleague Patrick T. Reardon explained in a story last week, Gladwell claims that science can tell us how and when certain behaviors become fads, while other behaviors fizzle and are forgotten.
The problem with Gladwell’s thesis is that he tries to snip the “in” off the word “inexplicable,” making ordinary that which is mysterious and unfathomable.
He suggests that there is a moment–a tipping point–when a cultural notion takes hold.
But if that were true, then why do corporations spend billions of dollars a year on advertising that may or may not work? If it’s such an easy thing to figure out, then why didn’t other networks come up with “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and its unlikely catchphrase — “Final answer?” — long before ABC did?
What people such as Gladwell seem unable to admit is that, when it comes to predicting which jingles, hobbies or behaviors are going to snag the fancy of the American public, we all turn into blindfolded dart-throwers: If we hit the target (and not the bartender), it’s more dumb luck than skill.
The moment in “Hanging Up” that reminded me of all this involves the young son of Meg Ryan’s character in an encounter with Walter Matthau, who plays the sisters’ angry, ailing, selfish father. Matthau has just uttered a string of curses into the phone.
Shortly thereafter, we see Ryan’s son clutching the phone and pretending to carry on a conversation. He, too, is cursing and railing, mimicking the behavior he has just witnessed.
The scene turns on what is supposed to be an automatic assumption from the audience: “Aha! So that’s how kids turn bad–they watch and hear bad stuff.”
What I thought, however, was this: If only it were that easy. If only behavior were something we could control simply by modeling the kind of action we felt was desirable. Yes, a child might see an action and do it, but then again she or he might not. The kid might indeed be warped and twisted by watching an adult misbehave, but then again some kids who see terrible things end up as wonderful people. And vice versa. We never know. Hence the infuriating, exhilarating murkiness of parenting–and, frankly, of life.
As moms, dads, bosses and law-enforcement officials know all too well, people are notoriously resistant to what you think they ought to do. They’re wacky and unpredictable. Sure, people move in a herd–but the herd’s direction is unfathomable. Tipping points? Here’s a tip: They may exist, but we only recognize them after the fact, not before, which is about as useful as picking the winning horse shortly after it crosses the finish line.
Deciding that it’s OK to curse into a phone is the same as repeating a phrase such as “Final answer” to your friends; both spread from brain to brain in an utterly mysterious way.
Richard Dawkins, author of “The Selfish Gene,” coined the word “meme” (sounds like “gene”) to describe these entities–“ideas, catchphrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or building arches,” he writes–that skedaddle across the culture, moving whichever way they please. Influencing behavior is a coin-flip, a shot (or dart throw) in the dark.
The person who can figure out how to plant memes can become president of the United States or pope or CEO of the world. Unfortunately, however–or is it fortunately?–no one is likely to be a successful meme-sower. Culture is made richer by surprises, by ideas that come out of nowhere and knock you down.
There are no tipping points, in other words, just periodic spasms of crazy human behavior.
In “How the Irish Saved Civilization,” his lovely tale of how literacy was rescued from the medieval muck, Thomas Cahill writes, “What will be lost, and what saved, of our civilization probably lies beyond our powers to decide. No human group has ever figured out how to design its future.” Pleasant memes.
And speaking of “Hanging Up,” something happened during my trip to the theater that night that I feel I must mention because it, too, is an index of a momentous cultural shift. I could practically hear the tectonic plates grinding away (although it might have been just the guy beside me, noisily masticating his popcorn).
About midway through the film, a cell phone rang in the audience, whereupon an amazing thing happened: The woman answered it. Instead of hastily shutting off the cell phone and ending its electronic bleating, the way people used to do, she answered and proceeded to have a conversation.
“I’m at the movies,” she said. There was a pause, while the caller apparently spoke. “Uh, the Diane Keaton one. Yeah. That one.” Another pause. “Not too bad.”
Had the woman been speaking out loud to someone sitting beside her, I’m sure the rest of us in the theater would have turned around and glared; if the glares proved ineffective, our response would have escalated to a pointed “Shhhhh!” and then to threats and perhaps hurled popcorn.
But we were so stunned, so disbelieving, as to be rendered defenselessly immobile. The woman chattered away.
Many articles have been, and will be, written about cell phone etiquette, which marks a challenging new frontier of human interaction. I feel it is my duty to report to you each time a fresh boundary is crossed in our funky little two-step with technology. Here’s the question: Who leads?
