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What Lies Beneath:
Pluto and the Landscape of
American Entertainment

by Bill Streett 11/08/01

Copyright 2003. All Rights Reserved

Entertainment is simply getting darker. This is a conjecture that many well-informed, aware persons have been espousing for quite some time: that the landscape of entertainment—from music, to television, to movies, to literature—has become increasingly more violent, more graphic, more brutally honest, and more willing to expose the darker aspects of human nature. Much of what of is driving popular entertainment no longer serves our need to escape the pressures and reality of existence, or to fashion our ideals. Rather, the contrary seems to be true. The main thrust of what is capturing our attention lately is an amplification of our inner demons, our wounds, our seemingly incurable pathologies.

We can liken our current relationship to entertainment to the phenomenon of “cutting” within the adolescent population. According to many popular theories, the adolescent “cuts” in order to express, intensify, or otherwise cathart pain and anguish that cannot be articulated in a more conscious or direct fashion. Likewise, much of what drives popular entertainment is an attempt to displace and magnify an inner ache and discomfort that exists deep within the collective psyche of America.

Curiously, the philosopher Nietzsche surmised that the peak of tragedy as an art form arose in Greece at the time the culture was under siege from its greatest enemy, Persia. The parallel here is obvious; nations tend to give greatest expression to the tragedy of the human condition when existential threats rear their ugly heads.

Whether the American fascination with the dark side stems from a homeopathic “like cures like” remedy or a need to safely release tensions due to psychological distress is not immaterial but simply impossible to accurately uncover. From an astrological perspective, however, what one can safely say is that the trends in current entertainment display a fascination and (appropriately to the archetype at hand) obsessional preoccupation with the motifs and themes surrounding the astrological Pluto.

Television, in particular, seems to be the one entertainment medium of late that is attuned to the various dimensions of Pluto. A quick survey of the top-rated primetime shows of the last years have been submerged into the underworld regions ruled by the planetary archetype.

Besides acting and writing that transcends network television, the stark and brutal realism of The Sopranos and Six Feet Under is what makes these programs so compelling to audiences. Challenging, confrontational, and painfully real, both shows have taken the depth of television dramas to new extremes. Upon superficial analysis, it is obvious to see the elements of Pluto throughout both dramas. Like the Roman God Pluto himself, Tony Soprano is king of the underworld, and like his mythic counterpart, Tony feels isolation and woe in his role of Northern New Jersey Mafia boss. Another aspect of Pluto revolves around death, specifically the fundamental transformation, or metamorphosis, of one fixed state into another fixed state.

Six Feet Under follows the Fisher family, owners of an independent funeral home in Los Angeles, modern day grief counselors and guardians of the land of the dead. However, the richer parallels between the shows’ content and the astrological Pluto concern grappling with the human shadow—our wounds, our dark secrets, our dysfunctions, and our disowned selves. The skeletons in the closets of the families depicted in these shows are dealt with a sensitivity and authenticity seldom seen on television. Like the action of Pluto transits themselves, these superlative dramas head to the core of issues that challenge our existence.

As the number one show as of this writing, CSI has taken the formulaic detective programs into regions of violence heretofore off-limits to network television. As the ruler of creation and destruction, Pluto undeniably rules violence, decay, corruptibility, and depravity. Moreover, Pluto is associated with probing the depth and exposing the unseen: solving mysteries, uncovering the origins of psychological distress, in-depth research of any kind, “getting to the bottom of things.” From the special effects shots of forensic investigation, to the rapid puzzle solving of crimes, to the exposure of the underbelly of the American economy, CSI is intensely indicative of the nature of Pluto.

Pluto also governs life-or-death matters, the primitive elements of being human, and issues around subsistence, primary themes found in the hugely popular Survivor series. Creators of the show asked themselves: “What would be the result of taking a group of strangers and placing them in remote locations to compete for one million dollars? Under extreme conditions and in harsh environments, what would become of these people and what behaviors would they resort to?” The results have created a highly successful series, and the show is largely responsible for creating the reality television craze.

Why the obsession with these shows and why now? It might be considered coincidental that the highest quality shows on television revolve around similar themes and motifs. This is a valid and justifiable point of view. However, equally defensible is the rationale that these shows are mirroring something occurring on a collective scale. A dark night of the American soul? Cathartic displacement of unconscious feelings? A simple maturing of the television medium?

From the standpoint of astrology, patterns and similarities like these are symbolic, or connotative, of something happening on a much larger scale. If indeed the panorama of the entertainment world is mirroring something relatively unconscious in the collective experience of 21st Century America, then signs point to the beginning of the deep transformations associated with Pluto. The beginning of Plutonic experiences can be at once all-encompassing and yet subtle and puzzling, painful and yet without any known source of distress, intense and relentless and yet without concrete knowledge of any known disturbance. However, at the end of the journey through the underworld, something has changed forever, and one cannot return to the state where one began.

Like most Pluto journeys, certain themes and messages repeat themselves with a near compulsive repetition that can induce a paralyzing claustrophobia and nausea. With Pluto, that which needs greatest transformation gets hit home and hit home hard. During a particularly intense Pluto transit, one becomes so immersed in one’s own garbage that one can only submit to the process of transformation and come out the other side irrevocably changed. The immersion in the shadow and the garbage seems to be necessary on two fronts: to find the riches and gold that have been neglected or forgotten and to completely metamorphose one’s inner demons so that they may more thoroughly integrated in one’s conscious experience. It appears that these shows hold the promise that American psyche is yearning to find the neglected wealth in the depths of their psyches and to purge themselves of the behavior, feelings, and thoughts that have stunted evolution and transformation.

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