Superego,
Ego, Id, and Al Bundy
By E.W. Wilder
Contemporary sitcoms reveal an American male stripped of both superego
and id, a male forever trapped in the effaced being of ego, never able
to fully interact socially nor to channel his primal urges. His very
being is fragmented and incomplete. This ego-only male on American sitcoms
is a manifestation of that which we know to be true of ourselves as
American males: we drive to reclaim the id through the purchase of such
items as the Hummer H1, and we strive toward the superego-chasing that
manifests itself in the overwork of the corporate world and the recent
creation of the “metrosexual” look.
Al Bundy of Married . . . with Children is a case in point.
His frustrated id is actually played out by his son Bud and his dog
Buck, the sexual conquests of both of whom are more frequent, successful,
and satisfying than his own. Even his wife, Peg, generally a symbol
of the superego in the American sitcom, takes over his id’s need
to eat and sleep; Peg is frequently depicted lazing about on the couch,
smoking and eating bonbons all day instead of performing her duties
as mother and homemaker. Al, stripped only to his ego, presents as an
effaced non-being, able scarcely to bowl, forced into the subjugated
position of kneeling all day before customers at a shoe store in a shopping
mall.
The mall setting seems to reinforce his subjugation and privation from
his id and superego: Al Bundy must toil against the backdrop of both
crass commercial consumption and the sort of social posing that public
spaces generally require. Al Bundy’s job is synecdoche for his
overall situation, that of a Freudian half-being, or rather, one third
of a being, trapped by circumstance and social position into playing
out only one aspect of the three to which a complete human being is
entitled.
His neighbor Marcy has taken over for Al Bundy's superego, her anal-retentive
preening and socioeconomic success only serving to reify in Al's mind
his complete lack of any order in his life and his lack of a place in
society. Al wishes nothing more than to humiliate Marcy, but this also
demonstrates the desperation of his fractured self: unable to "play
the game," he gives up. There is no place for an ego stripped bare
in a world that demands constant propriety. Al Bundy therefore rejects
society as a coping mechanism, having neither the superego to mask his
naked ego-ness nor the id to indulge his urges and needs.
Al Bundy's fractured personality is a reflection and continuation of
the classic cartoon dad, Fred Flintstone. Outwardly modeled on The
Honeymooners, The Flintstones actually more closely presages
the contemporary sitcom in its themes and concerns. In the case of Fred
Flintstone, the superego role is taken on by the socially conscious
wife, Wilma and, to a degree, by Barney and Betty Rubble. These characters
gather, converse, and even disagree in a civilized manner. Unlike their
ego-only counterparts, the superego sophistication of Betty and Wilma
enable them to completely master the use of their "modern"
conveniences, such as the baby-dragon toaster and the bird-beak phonograph.
Unsophisticated Fred, on the other hand, is inevitably set fire by the
toaster or angers the bird on the phonograph, causing it to walk off
the job in protest.
Fred Flintstone's id, though, has been relegated to Barney and Betty
Rubble's son, Bam-Bam. Bam-Bam is the epitome of id both in his unbridled
want and his brute strength. Lacking in all reason, he takes what he
wants when he wants it and kills what he wishes with neither guilt nor
admonition. How can anyone blame the innocent child, after all, for
following his instincts? Guarded closely by Wilma, however, Fred can
do nothing but admire the boy. Thus contained, Fred's desire to kill
Bam-Bam and thereby protect his own daughter, Pebbles, goes unfulfilled.
Bam-Bam is the proxy son, the Oedipal rival, but also clearly Fred's
physical superior, even though Fred is the adult. Fred's admiration
of Bam-Bam, therefore, is sublimation: he is both unable to destroy
him nor to protect his daughter. Stripped of both id force and superego
sophistication, Fred is in a classical Freudian double-bind, trapped
in the rock-quarry of his own cloven personality.
Even more trapped, though, is the character Ray Barone of Everybody
Loves Raymond. Like Fred Flintstone, Ray's superego has been subsumed
into the character of his wife, Debra, but unlike Fred, Ray's father
and mother comprise his collective id. Ray's brother, Robert, appears
as a wounded "second self," a doppelganger-cum-Dorian
Gray from whom all of Ray's elided feelings bubble up. Ray's children
are extensions of Debra's superegosity and are rarely presented; their
virtual characterlessness indicates an atrophied ego's myopic view of
society and one's place in it. Hidden behind the occluding and opaque
superego of Debra, all that society properly is becomes obscured. On
those few occasions Ray is allowed to interact with that society, such
as at school fundraising meetings, his actions are always awkward and
embarrassing.
Debra is, of course, ultra-sensitive to Ray's inability to function,
as is fitting a superego. Because of this, her ability to easily manipulate
Ray is quickly vanquished by the inevitable appearance of the uber-id
couple, Ray's parents, Frank and Marie. Frank shows all of the consumptive
aspects of the id, continually eating and drinking, completely unconcerned
with the social norms and mores surrounding these activities. He is
even unaware of the appropriateness of his own nakedness, threatening
to "drop trou" at every opportunity and under any circumstance
that presents itself. Frank cannot even be relied upon to edit his own
speech, his tagline "Holy crap!" cleaned up only by the threat
of network censorship for what is billed as a family comedy.
Marie represents the selfish aspects of the id. She acts always as
if the world revolves around her, and with good reason, as the world
of her husband and her sons does, in fact revolve around Marie. She
has actually created that world for herself and is unable to see past
it. Her selfishness supplies her own need, and, literally, she feeds
it to make it so: the only time there is peace or contentment in the
Barone household is when it is enjoying Marie's cooking. Of course,
that household was created with that cooking in mind.
Frank and Marie are cantankerous with each other in the same way that
any infant is at war with itself. When the need (Marie) is confronted
with, say, a lack of food (Frank), it cries. Ray, unable to counterbalance
these two aspects of the id because his superego has
