Shows About Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist to Seinfeld

by Thomas S. Hibbs

The portrayal of evil in film and television, frequently denounced as an attack on "family values" and an incitement to real-life violence, is more complicated and more disturbing than we realize. In a pointed challenge to both Hollywood and its critics, Professor Thomas Hibbs argues that the demonic anti-heroes and seductive comic evil of popular culture are not weapons in a conscious cultural assault but reactions to the apathy and conformity of American life. While the movies of Frank Capra once celebrated the triumph of good over evil, George Bailey has given way to Hannibal Lecter, who through raw power and bold creativity lives "beyond good and evil." Professor Hibbs follows the trajectory of evil in American film and television, linking it to the spread of nihilism-a state of spiritual impoverishment and shrunken aspirations to which, both Tocqueville and Nietzsche warned, democracies are especially susceptible. The most recent product of Hollywood's fascination with evil is the comic nihilism of Seinfeld, in which the distinctively American pursuit of happiness is endlessly frustrated by dark forces beyond our understanding or control. Professor Hibbs probes the themes and artistry of the landmark works of the cinematic quest for evil. A series of grisly films from The Exorcist to Cape Fear and Silence of the Lambs reveals a preoccupation with the power of evil. When evil ceases to terrify, it becomes banal, producing a comic view of the meaninglessness of life (Forrest Gump, Natural Born Killers, Titanic, The Simpsons). Seinfeld and Trainspotting represent nihilism's last stage, but not the last word, and Professor Hibbs considers how classical ideals-partially recovered in recent comedy (Pulp Fiction) and film noir (L.A. Confidential, Seven)-might point the way out of nihilism.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Film, Tv, Cultural, Sociology, Pop Culture

196 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1999

About the author

Thomas Hibbs is currently Distinguished Professor of Ethics & Culture and Dean of the Honors College at Baylor University.

With degrees from the University of Dallas and the University of Notre Dame, Hibbs taught at Boston College (BC) for 13 years, where he was full professor and department chair in philosophy. At BC, he also served on the Steering Committee for BC's Initiative for the Future of the Church and on the Sub-Committee on Catholic Sexual Teaching. At Baylor, he has been involved in ecumenical discussions of the work of John Courtney Murray and John Paul II.

In addition to teaching a variety of interdisciplinary courses, Hibbs teaches in the fields of medieval philosophy, contemporary virtue ethics, and philosophy and popular culture. Hibbs' popular BC course on Nihilism in American Culture was featured in a Boston Globe article.

Hibbs has written scholarly books on Aquinas, including Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas: An Interpretation of the Summa Contra Gentiles, and a book on popular culture entitled Shows About Nothing. Hibbs has recently published scholarly articles on MacIntyre and Aquinas (Review of Politics), on Anselm (Anselm Studies), and on Pascal (International Philosophical Quarterly). He also has written on film, culture, books and higher education in Books and Culture, Christianity Today, First Things, New Atlantis, The Dallas Morning News, The National Review, The Weekly Standard, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, for which his latest piece is a study of the ethical implications of the films of the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski.

Called upon regularly to comment on film and popular culture, Hibbs has made more than 100 appearances on radio, including nationally syndicated NPR shows such as "The Connection," "On the Media" and "All Things Considered," as well as local NPR stations in Boston, Massachusetts; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Dallas, Texas; and Rochester, New York.

Reviews

[Rod Zinkel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Hibbs’s book, Shows About Nothing, is a philosophical argument against nihilism commonly displayed in film and television, and, to a lesser extent, against one alternative – romanticism. Hibbs draws on Nietzsche in defining nihilism, and looks at films and television that illustrate it, such as Woodie Allen’s drama, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, and the comical treatment in the TV show, Seinfeld, (from which this book takes its title). Hibbs writes of the quest for evil in such films as Cape Fear and The Silence of the Lambs, and suburban familial malaise in American Beauty and Mad Men. Chapter six and seven, the strongest chapters in my view, are about films that counter this nihilism, films that affirm belief and humanity. Hibbs writes in praise of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, the Harry Potter series, The Pursuit of Happyness, The Book of Eli, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
I find philosophical works about pop culture sometimes silly, such as a serious philosophical treatment of The Brady Bunch. The treatment seems greatly overblown, greatly out of proportion with it subject matter. The phrase “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar” comes to mind. Hibbs’s treatment is in right proportion. It is worth looking at the philosophy espoused by pop art, in individual works and as a whole, to see what message we take in, and espouse ourselves, even from works that seem to be about nothing.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good.

[Brandon Daniels · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stumbled across this at the library and the title intrigued me enough to check it out.

It turns out this is a strange work of Christian Cultural Criticism. It talks about The Exorcist, Silence of the Lambs, X-Files, Seinfeld, and more media about “evil” and “nihilism.”

I found it surprisingly interesting at times, but then it would remind you that it’s all coming from a conservative and religious world view.

These insights aren’t that unique. You can find a dozen YouTube video essays that espouse the same ideas, but it was neat to see that they aren’t that new either.

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hobbs made some valid points, but in most of the later sections of the book I found it hard to relate what he was saying to nihilism. He seemed to be just explaining the plot lines of various movies and television shows with no real draw towards their apparent meaninglessness. Maybe I wasn’t reading deep enough. Would’ve been cool to hear his take on popular children’s shows, such as Spongebob or Courage the Cowardly Dog.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written by a Thomist philosopher, the best way to describe this book might be as a work of conservative Catholic film criticism focused on the output of the 1990's. Its underlying premise seems to be that the "liberal Enlightenment" philosophy of 90's America, one according to which one has scope to choose how best to live, collapses into some kind of "nihilism", with what the author calls "child murderers" as the result. Hibbs seems to regard an absolutist ethics imposed on us by an external authority (tacitly, the Catholic church) as the only escape from nihilism, but, by his own admission, all of this is little argued for in the book. Rather, it spends most of its time analyzing 90's film and television through this lens, which views their productions as mostly symptomatic of a culture that has lost its capacity for moral judgement. For the reader not antecedently convinced of the religious and philosophical background, the critiques of individual movies and shows will probably not be entirely convincing, either, and it may be tempting to dismiss the book as an example of the kind of alarmism about popular culture that quickly becomes dated. But the reader whose face is set against such a background may find the hostility to autonomy and centering of authority that run through the text at least a little disturbing, connecting back as they do to the banal fascism of Adolf Eichmann, the one instance of historical, as opposed to fictional, evil of which the book treats. If so, Hibbs' views on The Silence of the Lambs, Forrest Gump, Seinfeld and others may take on a new light and interest, leading back to the main philosophical issues that the book passed through so quickly at its start.

[Anna Kling · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's so easy to be a careful book critic, but a passive film consumer. Hibbs tries to stir us out of our apathetic cultural appetites and focuses our attentions on what we are being fed philosophically through stories. There are philosophies (however crumbling or appalling) fed to us by the stories we consume, but we need to stop being passive consumers. He clearly has a moral foundation from which he tests the ideas of nihilism, romanticism, hedonism, etc. The difficulty in reading a book like this is that there are so many movies I am not familiar with, but he does a good job of bringing the reader through the narrative so we can be up to speed with each film. He also touches on some music and literature.

[Curby Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very engaging read on nihilism in popular culture as it comes through the big and small screen. This is an updated version of his 1999 work. The new one includes commentary and reflection on more recent shows like Mad Men as well as movies such as Avatar, Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings series.

[Bennett Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this enjoyable and thought-provoking work, Thomas Hibbs shows that a number of Nietzchian and nihilistic themes have come to dominate pop culture (tv and film), and illustrates from the same medium how those themes can be transcended.

[Wilson Hawk · Rating 2 out of 5]

What is this guy, a fuckin' Christian or something?

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book. Not exactly what I was hoping for. It provided a great explanation of nihilism and how it's displayed in many types of shows. I would have enjoyed a more movie centric analysis, but it's good to understand some of the major philosophical influences on our society (Nietzsche, Descartes, etc.) I've probably only ever seen a handful of Seinfeld episodes and never had imagined how nihilistic it was. The other complaint I have is that the movies it did discuss, I've never seen (Exorcist, Se7en, L.A. Confidential, Silence of the Lambs, The Killers, and Cape Fear). I hope Hibbs's Arts of Darkness is a little more of what I'm looking for, I'll have to brush up on my film noir for that one.

[Don Incognito · Rating 3 out of 5]

A study of nihilism in television and movies--including The Exorcist, Trainspotting, Natural Born Killers, The Silence of the Lambs, Seinfeld, and The Simpsons (ouch). Mentions some of popular nihilism's antecedents in philosophy and literature.

[Kevin Heldt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a great book--and one of the more "different" books I've read. I thought it worked better as a series of insightful movie and TV show reviews, though I do think he made a compelling argument for the trending of our culture towards nihilism.

[Robert Hubbard · Rating 3 out of 5]

It interesting and I enjoyed it but it was a little hard to read. It felt more like I was reading an essay then a book and in some parts I had to have a dictionary near by to look up words.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Veeeeddy eentaresting.

[Frank R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent critique of our modern popular culture

[Katerina]

Shows about Nothing does an excellent job of pointing out how an American form of nihilism is present in many popular movies and t.v. shows. I found the first chapter ("Nihilism, American Style") especially interesting. The subsequent chapters look at how that American form of nihilism plays out in a wide variety of movies.