By Santana Cordova
We all fall. Across time, across languages, that much can be said. But must our art fall with us? In his 1969 essay Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin seems to think so. His primary argument throughout the piece is that all art in the modern era, regardless of what it may have previously represented, is political. The Fall of the House of Usher is a story by Edgar Allen Poe about the demise of an affluent family. In a modern adaptation of this tale on Netflix, that affluent family is portrayed as being pharmaceutical tycoons. The portrayal of the family as a parallel to the Sackler family (and their pharmaceutical monopoly) in modern America represents a politicization of a piece of artistic prose, supporting Walter Benjamin’s belief that in the modern era, all art is political. By transforming the Usher family into the Sackler family, adapting the series for a streaming audience, and adding Verna, a karmic avenging angel, the new adaptation of the Fall of the House of Usher updates an already timeless parable to serve as a perfect supporting case study of Benjamin’s thesis that all art in the age of technical reproduction is political.
The transformation of the Usher family into a doppelganger of the Sackler family adds a modern political discourse to the story that wasn’t present in the original tale. In the original version of the story, the Usher family is simply a rich and noble family that is constantly plagued with ruin. Benjamin argues that “The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public” (pg.14). It’s easy to distance ourselves from the fate of the Usher family in the original work, because almost nothing about their circumstance (status, upbringing) is relatable. The further a story strays from relatability, the less the audience has invested in opening the story and staying engaged with its narrative. However, the recent public media coverage over the Sackler family and their hand in the oxycontin epidemic is a tale that almost everyone in the western hemisphere is at least a tad bit familiar with. The story is now one that hinges on the modern audience and their understanding (even on the small scale) of the disdain held toward the Sacker family in the real world for their hand in the opioid crisis. Benjamin is right, all art is political now. The Fall of the House of Usher is no longer just a horrific tale, but one justified in its ending. The actions that brought the family to prominence are now exactly what justify their ruin.
The adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher for Netflix, a global streaming platform, highlights Benjamin’s point that focusing on the exhibition value of a work changes how it is received. Poe’s original 1839 story was not created with the intent to be consumed by such a massive global audience. Therefore, adapting it to Netflix created a large number of changes. These changes can be found in the addition of bastard children of Roderick Usher (with one of them even being a lesbian!), and making Roderick and his sister Madeleine come from a poor background rather than a rich one. Making Roderick and Madeleine come from a low class background allows for more relatability, and less black and white villainization of them from the exposition. We’re shown that they have something to lose, the reason why they cling so fiercely to their success and wealth. These changes humanize them, making us as viewers more invested in what happens to them, and in turn earning Netflix a larger viewing turnout. For any show adapted to streaming, we have to assume that all changes made are at least somewhat intentional, and that almost all of them are made with the hopes of upping viewership. Without the additions of characters like Napoleon, Prospero, Victorine, and Camille, Roderick Usher’s bastard children, three of whom are people of color, the story would lack a sense of universal relatability that would likely hurt its views and audience engagement. In order to secure this global relatability (and consequently more potential viewers) “the absolute emphasis on its exhibition value [of] the work of art becomes a creation with entirely new functions, among which the one we are conscious of, the artistic function, later may be recognized as incidental” (pg. 7). Changes to the story for the sake of its exhibition value inherently politicize the new version– it’s inevitable.
In the Netflix adaptation, the “fall” of the house of Usher is carried out by the mysterious, malevolent figure Verna. The use of Verna as a vessel for justice against those who have already been established as the unfairly rich tells a story that nature keeps the score. In adding Verna, the new version takes a political stance that the Ushers deserve what they get, because their fate is simply the work of nature balancing the scales. Viewers are told how to feel before they can even make their own decisions, because, as Benjamin observed, “ individual reactions are predetermined by the mass audience response they are about to produce” (pg.14) The downfall of the family is tied to morality in a way that it wasn’t before, changing the moral of the story. We are now told to relish in watching the implosion of a clan that has done such harm to the world around them, to the world that us as viewers live in. What was once simply a story of horror now holds a mirror to the viewer consuming it, highlighting the modern horror of just how much the general public wishes to relish in the demise of those who oppress them. Verna gives the Ushers what they deserve, and the mass consuming the show has no choice but to cheer her on, no matter how graphic, gory, or sadistic her methods may be.
At the end of the day, Benjamin’s writings on the modernization of art from over 70 years ago still hold relevance today. With the assumption that all art is political, especially in this modern age of technology and AI, artistic intention is more important now than ever. Art, both old and new, is an important vessel for communicating morals, opinions, and stories. By updating old stories such as The Fall of the House of Usher with modern social and political stakes, we make the tale digestible, but still not palatable, for modern audiences, and manage to communicate the timelessly important lessons. Still, we must ask ourselves, must all art be political to be relatable? Or, since all art inherently is, how do we as artists consider political impact and audience when creating art?
Bibliography
Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”
Illuminations. Translated by Harry Zohn, edited by Hannah Arendt, Schocken
Books, 1969, pp. 1-26.
Flanagan, Mike and Micheal Fimognari, directors. The Fall of The House of Usher, Season The Fall of the House of Usher, Netflix, 12 Oct. 2023.