Alice in the Wonderland (1976)
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An X-rated Musical Parody and the Commodification of Liberation
In contemporary capitalism, it is a banality to claim that everything that lies within the grasp of socio-consumerist fantasy has the potential to become a commodity. With the #BlackLivesMatter movement gaining traction in the West and increasing popularity of LGBTQ+ acceptance, ‘wokeness’ has become a currency for corporations, exemplifying the commodity fetishism related to brand identity. In this context, socio-economic emancipation becomes another commodity, which is to be manipulated to serve capital.
However, the movie in question today precedes this context. It is set in a very different time, with a very different tone, and discusses very quite different questions. Alice in the Wonderland (1976) is an x-rated musical parody that deals with the misadventures of Alice, a librarian, who goes on a journey of sexual discovery and intrigue, laden with the apparent general tone of liberation with a shade darker undertones of systemic manipulation entrenched in the narrative.
Of Two Alices: Innocence and Frustration
Most of us would have first read Alice’s Adventures in the Wonderland around 3rd grade, and probably revisited it as adults. Naturally, our readings of the masterpiece changed over time. As kids, we were confounded by the charm of wonderland: its chaos, its fantasy, and its phantasms. In teenage, we were attracted to its tragedy: the inevitable loss of childhood innocence and the trauma, discomfort and frustration of growing up. As adults, we appreciate the existential aspects of Alice’s journey. Initially, she is convinced that the world around her comprises of clear, logical and consistent features and if only she thinks through everything correctly, she will arrive at perfectly reasonable and logically consistent solutions to her life’s problems. I am sure at some point in our lives we all must have identified with Alice. But disillusionment from this style of thinking is also a part of our growing up: both as individuals and as a civilisation. As she moves on through her journey, she realises that her experiences defy logic, subvert reason, frustrate expectations and resist interpretation. Whether it be the Caucus race, Mad Hatter’s riddle or the Queen’s croquet game, Alice finds that there is no semblance of sense in any of it.
The 1976 movie was directed by Bud Townsend, starring Kristine De Bell as Alice with music by Jack Stern. The Alice in this adaptation is very different from our prepubescent Alice of the book. She is an adult but is somehow yet to lose her innocence, which stems not from her childishness but from her Judeo-Chrisitan values which prohibit her from exercising her agency. In the movie, Alice is depicted as a librarian, presumably as an indulgence in the stereotype of stiffness that comes with it, or as a tool for an easy transition to the world of children’s storybooks, albeit in its perverse form. She rejects the advances of her lover on the pretext of her wish to stay ‘pure’ before her marriage, which the said lover does not seem to respect heartedly and concedes to with apparent unwillingness. All this sets the tone for the journey that Alice will undertake, and also some sad truths that lie below the simplifications of the surface-level narrative.
The Parody as the Ultimate Perversion of Carroll
It should be no surprise to even the most unrefined eye that perversion is a theme that is ubiquitous in the movie. Alice goes around a Wonderland laden with bizarre sexual encounters, double entendres, and adult humour. Mad Hatter’s tea party is turned into a private orgy while the post-courtroom jubilations are a massive fuck-fest; Tweeddledum and Tweeddledee are an incestuous couple while the Knave of Hearts is a ‘fuckboi’.
However, the motif of perversion runs deeper in the movie than one might expect. The journey of Alice is in a way, deconstructive, but at the same time, an exercise in simplism, which runs contrary to what Carroll was trying to do in the book. In the first part of her Wonderland journey (Alice makes new friends… And gets a good lickin’) when Alice discovers that being licked by a bunch of furries somehow makes her feel funny, she says, “It feels good, therefore it must be bad.” to which Mr. Sprug replies, “if it feels good, then it IS good.” Throughout her journey, Alice is confounded not by the complexity of the world she sees but by its overwhelming simplicity. All notions of propriety, penance and appearance that Alice had are ridiculed. Even down to simple details like names; when Alice says that she finds the name of the lake-dwellers Ugloo, Bugloo, Amagi, and Sprug funny, they ask her name in return and break into maniacal laughter upon hearing ‘Alice’.
Just before the courtroom scene, when the Queen of Hearts condemns Alice to give her her head (pun totally intended as in the movie) the Mad Hatter intervenes saying “Alice must get a fair trial” to which Queen asks, “Where is it written that there is to be a fair trial?” And Mad Hatter replies “It says so right here in this book.” The book is then passed around to everyone present and everyone exclaims yes it is so written in the book, therefore, Alice must get a fair trial; even the queen herself without any protest admits that there is to be a fair trial because, of course, that’s what’s written in the book. Compare this to the obfuscations, pretence and shenanigans associated with the trial in Carroll’s version of the story. The movie presents a world that is as devoid of complexity as it gets. Everything is straightforward. That is the real perversion that this fantasy world gives us: a narrative of simplicity. However, if we have learned anything from the world that we live in, we could guess wherever reductions and oversimplifications exist, so do complacency and exploitation, an aspect which is reflected quite well in the movie itself.
Alice’s Conundrum and the Ownership of Liberation
One interpretation of the movie is, of course, the linear progression of a humorous coming of age tale which recounts the experiences that Alice goes through as an emancipatory journey the sum and substance of which materialises when she goes back to her own world and is reborn as a new person: someone who doesn’t let judgment get in the way of what she wants. But the pertinent question here is, does she know what she wants? If yes, then how? Is the movie really an emancipation of her repressed instincts, or is it just a replacement of her old instincts in favour of her new ones that are agreeable to the people around her?
Going back to the courtroom scene, when the book is being passed around and everyone is consonance with the fact that Alice must get a fair trial, the Knave says “Alice must get a fair trial and if she is found guilty, she must go down on the Queen.” “And if I am found innocent?” Alice asks, to which the King of Hearts replies “Alice, then you must go down on the judge.” Alice looks around and asks, “But where is the judge?” And in the very next frame, we see the King adorned in a wig bringing order in the court. As droll as this scene might appear it is also a metaphorical confirmation of a sad fact. That whether she is acquitted or condemned, she is only going to choose her masters instead of having any real agency. This version of emancipation which the acquittal represents is no real emancipation at all, rather it is her emancipation being commodified and passed around as a currency for the real power struggle which is the trial.
This is a motif that presents itself throughout the movie. The inhabitants of Wonderland who pose very much like vendors of liberation in the marketplace of ideas do not actually help Alice find acceptance in a world where she is made uncomfortable for wanting to live the way she wants. Her chastity is first ridiculed and then criminalised (as seen in the trial). This can also be seen as a metaphor for the way large swathes of the contemporary left, despite all their rhetoric of acceptance, project their own biases upon the way people who disagree with them lead their lives. Manifestations of cancel culture and exclusionary radicalism with little efforts to understand others’ perspectives might be another, as exemplified by the Clerk who, at the end of the trial, exclaims, “Wonderland! Love it or leave it!”
Nevertheless, the commodification of Alice’s liberation remains the primary motif of the movie. Alice is time and again made to step out of her comfort zone into situations that don’t agree with her, all for a tokenised relief from societal judgment which helps her come on good terms with her lover in the real world, quite unsurprisingly, on his terms.
Conclusion
Contemporary politics is surfeit with instances of reactionary forces co-opting narratives of emancipation and reducing it to their benefit. From Pepsi’s ‘tone-deaf’ ad which sought to capitalise on a serious movement on police brutality to sell soda, to images of Ronald McDonald and Burger King making out. Of course, these corporations never supported these movements during the initial struggles for recognition. There were no ads to support the Civil Rights movement or the Stonewall riots, however, the capital decides to jump ships now that being ‘woke’ is acceptable, cool and ‘hip’, that is to say, profitable. Either way, the emancipatory politics now becomes a bargaining tool for the corporations who try to outwoke themselves constantly, like the Queen and Judge fighting to decide who Alice would go down on (read: consume the product).
So what is the solution? I don’t know. This is a porn movie review for fuck’s sake. Have a good day!
