A Prison Named Paradise: Proof of Concept

My last blog post was my first attempt at an epic poem (in that a long poem like that is called an epic; actual epic-ness is subject to opinion).

If you haven't read it, I ask you to do so now. It's not super long (835 words). And who knows, you just might like it.

I'll see you when you get back. Here's the link again if you need. I'll wait.

***

Okay. You read it? Good! Hope you liked it.

So, near the end of the epic, there is a turning point where the wise are no longer concerned with bringing the fool back into submission and then go on damage control, trying to stop the fool's message from convincing others that things aren't what they seem.

This is not fiction. And that's what this post is about.

***

Arthur Miller is a well known American playwright. He penned classics such as A View from the Bridge and The Crucible. You've almost certainly heard of one of his seminal works: Death of a Salesman.

Pictured: A still from a 1966 TV production of Death of a Salesman. The full production is available to watch for free on YouTube.

If this sounds like a good play, it's a classic for a reason. Check it out!

Mild spoilers ahead for the play. However, they are spoilers in the same way you know the ending of the movie Titanic. It's in the name.

The show is a bleak depiction of ordinary man Willy Loman. Someone who has worked his entire life and doesn't have much to show for it. For much of the show, Willy tries to delude himself that he is a far grander person than he really is. And that is shown to be a lie through the play, ending with the titular death of said salesman.

Okay. Spoilers over. Back to other stuff.

The play was released on Broadway in 1949 to wide acclaim, winning almost every award that existed at the time. It was quickly optioned to become a movie with Columbia Pictures (the same one that is still around and is now a part of Sony). The movie was set to release in 1951.

For a bit of context, this all happened squarely within a period in the US called the "Red Scare." In case you missed that day in history class, communism was doing "well" in the East/Soviet Union, scaring the capitalist USA that communism could spread and destabilize the country as we know it.

Pictured: Communism was in fact, not going well. Stalin was in the process of killing more people than Hitler.

This is a map showing all of the gulags that were located there.

Some tried to paint the play as anti-American and/or pro-communism. Columbia concluded that, upon "approximat[ing] the impact of the material", it was too subversive to be left on its own. In cooperation with the City College of New York (a.k.a. "CCNY" and also the same one that still exists today), Columbia produced a short, 10 minute film: Career of a Salesman. It was supposed to play right before screenings of Death of a Salesman.

Pictured: The full film is available to watch on YouTube in case you are interested. It's a weird one.

In contrast to the play, Career of a Salesman paints a bright picture of a future in sales. The film opens with a representative of Columbia saying that, though Death of a Salesman is indeed a fine play, when Columbia "went into the research . . . [they] found out after many weeks that the Willy Lomans of this world are fast becoming extinct . . . ." Indeed, in the course of Columbia's research (I use that term extremely lightly) "the national sales executives tell us that there are over three and one half million people making their living at the business of selling in this country today" who will "make more than just a job of salesmanship"; that they were the "youngsters who will carve out a career of service" and will "have a lot more than a smile and a shoe shine." While Willy was fired from a job, "no one can fire you from a profession."

To drive in this point, they brought in Dr. J. S. Schiff, a CCNY professor that taught salesmanship courses. Addressing students, Schiff states that Willy Loman represented "a man with an outmoded and unrealistic philosophy" and that he wanted to "better impress upon [his students] the new concept of the career that [they had] chosen for a life's work." The idea of the unfulfilled salesman was ridiculous, saying that "No young person today has a bigger opportunity than that offered by the profession of salesmanship." Willy was simply someone who lived "without hard work" and that was a "pathetic excuse."

Pictured: Dr. J.S. Schiff. I wonder if J.S. stands for "Jingoistic Salesman."

Also, take a look at some of the background and what he's selling such as a "greater future" and "more earnings."

The film makes it clear what it values: Preserving the profession of salespeople and stopping people from becoming disillusioned. And it's easy to see why. Capitalism needs salespeople. They are a lifeblood to it. If people aren't selling things, the whole capitalism thing kind of falls apart. The film blatantly admits this, calling salesmanship "a profession that keeps the wheels of commerce and industry turning in our great American economic machine."

An integral part of sales (according to Schiff) is that those in sales have "a belief that he's doing a service in bringing his product to his buyer." In other words, that belief is one of the most important things. And Death of a Salesman posed a threat to that.

Arthur Miller ended up vetoing everything and Career of a Salesman was never actually shown (I mean, they were basically asking him to say that the play wasn't actually relevant). But that didn't stop people from trying to discredit the idea that things may not be as rosy as you have been led to believe. And it got pretty far: Career of a Salesman was written, "researched", shot and finished. The only thing that stopped Career of a Salesman was that the artist themselves stuck up for their message. No one else. The studio executives, the professor from CCNY, and everyone else involved in the project were on board.

I leave you with a stanza.

Heaven forbid the sight spreads

and a critical mass flee.

Society needs its labor

and that labor must not see.