Mulholland Drive – Diane’s weird Animus

[Arlen P.]

Regarding lesbian (or more likely bisexual?) character Diane Selwyn in Lynch’s film, almost the entire first two hours of the movie is here being interpreted to be a dream of Diane: Do her apparent gay tendencies affect her Animus figures in her dream? And, does she also have Anima figures, even if only week?

It has already been suggested that the cowboy is an important Animus figure in the dream. Perhaps the movie goer is to think that the cowboy himself has same-sex desires or experience.

Topic

[mindbent]

Let me tackle your question by first giving a brief overview of the Animus archetype as I understand it.

In the standard Jungian model, men have an Anima representing “feminine” qualities, whereas women have an Animus representing “masculine” qualities.

Specifically, the Animus borns from the relationship with a fatherly figure. As we grow, the Animus gets projected onto people of interest (e.g., father, brother, friends, boyfriends, husbands) and, thus, it influences women’s relationships with men in general. Note that the Animus operates at the unconscious level – women do not realise they are projecting something from within their own psyche.

If a woman completely identifies herself with her Animus, that is called Animus possession. If her Animus has a negative influence her, it will get projected onto her romantic partners, wreaking havoc in her personal relationships (for example, she might feel that her partners are very critical and mean to her, when, in reality, it is her Animus that is whispering such things to her).

How does the Anima/Animus relate to sexual orientation?

If we adopt the classical Jungian view, women possess an Animus, regardless of whether they are straight or lesbian. Moreover, the Animus will be represented as male characters in dreams, since it still embodies those “masculine” qualities. However, the Animus in lesbian women is being projected onto other women (as opposed to men, as happens with straight women). The sixty-four thousand dollar question is: what causes lesbians to project their Animus onto other women? Jung appears to tell us that lesbianism is related to either a distancing from the mother or a traumatic experience with a masculine figure.

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Now, how should we interpret Diane’s Animus, taking into account her sexual orientation?

If we go with the classical Jungian approach, the Organization represents the unconscious “masculine” attributes of Diane’s psyche. The Organization is bullying, aggressive, opinionated and authoritarian, humiliating and forcing Adam to select an actress he does not want to cast. Thus, it seems that the Animus in Diane’s psyche is manifesting itself negatively.

As you’ve pointed out, the Cowboy seems to play a prominent role. Take the ranch scene, for example, in which dream-Adam meets the Cowboy. The Cowboy tells Adam that a man’s attitude determines how his life will be. He goes on saying that Adam does not care about the good life (that he is a “smart alec”). However, if Adam fixes his attitude, the cowboy will be on his side (“you can ride along with me on my one-person-buggy”). To me, this all sounds like textbook Animus possession – i.e., the Animus is sending Diane unconscious messages as part of the plot to run the show.

Maybe the Cowboy represents a sort of gateway between conscious and unconscious (which again is consistent with him initiating and terminating Diane’s dream), feeding this negative rethoric into an already psychologically-crippled Diane.

But coming back to the original question: how do we interpret Diane’s sexual orientation in relation to the Jungian concept of Animus? As mentioned above, the Animus consists of the male characters that make up the Organization in Diane’s dream, because the Animus embodies “masculine” energy. Diane projected her Animus onto her love-interest Camilla. Because Diane’s Animus has a negative influence on Diane, she sees Camilla as evil.

So, I think the fact that Diane is lesbian doesn’t invalidate the interpretation that the Organization represents Diane’s Animus, since we should still expect the Animus being composed of male figures in dreams regardless of a woman’s sexual orientation. I put forth the idea that the reason for Diane’s fragmented personality is probably due to the dysfunctional relationship with the older couple, although the nature of this relationship is never revealed to us in the film.

Regarding whether Diane might have Anima figures, it all depends on whom you ask. Jung would categorically say no: women have Animus, men have Anima, and that’s it. However, contemporanean Jungian scholars think the dichotomy men-Anima/woman-Animus is outdated and lean more towards the idea that both men and woman contain both types of archetype, albeit manifested in different degrees.

In summary, the male-only Organization is a dream representation of the “masculine” attributes of Diane’s Animus. Given the Organization nefarious methods, Diane’s Animus is manifesting itself negatively. Diane falls victim of Animus possession in which she completely identifies with her Animus. Diane projects her negative Animus onto Camilla Rhodes, ending up despising Camilla to the point of ploting her assassination.

I hope this wasn’t too confusing, and I’d love to hear your thoughts!

[Arlen P.]

Hi mindbent

Thanks for that very informative post.

Regarding Jung’s claim that a traumatic experience with a masculine figure can lie at the source of lesbianism, it has occured to me before that Diane was sexually abused by a friend of her father when she was underage, and also possibly by a childhod Spanish tutor.

The first of these is what seems to be suggested during the audition for Bob Brooker ( the scene with the much older Chad Everett’s character); while I think Rita saying “silencio” in her sleep is actually a representation of Diane being kept quiet during sexual abuse by the tutor.

Anyhow, is this ( child sexual abuse) one of the kinds of trauma Jung mentions?

As far as Animus possession, I do vaguely recall Jung describing identification with the Animas (or for a man, the Anima) as a kind of short-circuiting of the individuation process – it has the effect of allowing the skipping over of some of the more difficult work required to attain selfhood. It seems this kind of thing is consistent, in Jungian terms, with becoming gay – or am I on the wrong track here?

 

[mindbent]

Hi Arlen

I have to admit that I couldn’t make heads or tails of the audition scenes, so I purposefully ignored them in my analysis. So it’s great to have read your interpretation, and I think you could be onto something here!

Regarding Jung’s claim that a traumatic experience with a masculine figure can lie at the source of lesbianism, it has occured to me before that Diane was sexually abused by a friend of her father when she was underage, and also possibly by a childhod Spanish tutor.

As I understand it (and I’m by no means an expert on Jung), Jung considered that, in some cases, lesbianism could result from a combination of both: traumatic experience with the father or father-like figure, and absent mother or mother-like figure.

The former can result in a negative Animus and all the burdens it can carry. If the Animus is not integrated, this can also affect mother-daughter bonds (or the mother is not emotionally available from the start). This might lead women to look for a (idealised) feminine figure in their relationships.

Anyhow, is this ( child sexual abuse) one of the kinds of trauma Jung mentions?

I believe Jung would say that, for some lesbians, this could be one of the causes (although by traumatic experience I meant anything that has the potential to be disruptive to the psyche, not only child abuse). I have to point out that most (lesbian) women that Jung analysed had very problematic relationships, so he might have grossly overgeneralised.

In fact, in some of his writings, Jung appears to consider sexual orientation as fluid, undulating between homosexuality and heterosexuality. He also stressed that a homosexual individual should be conscious of the meaning homosexuality has on him/her, and that that is the way towards individuation. Thus, he saw homosexuality to be a higher and desired form of love in some people.

In Diane’s case though, I think Jung would agree that her unhealthy dependency on Camilla and her other psychological problems clearly suggested very damaged past relationships, so your interpretation of the audition scenes seems plausible.

As far as Animus possession, I do vaguely recall Jung describing identification with the Animas (or for a man, the Anima) as a kind of short-circuiting of the individuation process – it has the effect of allowing the skipping over of some of the more difficult work required to attain selfhood. It seems this kind of thing is consistent, in Jungian terms, with becoming gay – or am I on the wrong track here?

Yes, according to Jungians, homosexuality seems to be the result of an overly identification with the Anima/Animus, and, as far as I understand, this is synonym with Anima/Animus possession.

I’m not sure about it being a shortcut to individuation though, as it’s generally accepted that Jung believed that the first step towards individuation should always be integrating your Shadow before working on the Anima/Animus.

I’ll find a way to link this thread somewhere within the main Mulholland Drive article. Maybe that will make it easier for Jungian experts to find this thread and possibly shed some light on this.

[Arlen P.]

Hopefully this font won’t be too small.

About Jung overgeneralizing, yeah…so much of our info on psychology comes from a point of view of pathology, it seems to me the outlook is hopelessly skewed. It seems Freud was working from a model of the human mind as being intrinsically unhealthy, everything devolved from there. The guy was pretty much a rank pessimist.

But getting back to the topic, are you saying that if Diane felt at ease with her Lesbian tendencies, and was accepting of these tendencies fully, then this might have helped her break free of Animus possession? (Of course, it would have to be assumed that she would seek therapy. My interpretation of the two guys in Winkies is that Dan, the guy who faints, is or was her therapist.)

Or, if Diane had felt repelled by these tendencies, then being fully and knowingly opposed to them would, again, help her free herself from Animus possession? Note that I’m keying on your suggestion that awareness is the important factor. Sorry if I’m reaching, considering neither of us would exactly qualify as the Carl Jung archivist or whatever:-)

In loking over my last comment I realize I really botced the wording of the part where I seemed to suggest identification with the Animus was a (valid) ‘shortcut’ to individuation. What I intended to say is that Jung (or von Franz, etc?) onsidered any such ‘decision’ to be pathological. (On the other hand, I’d guess that even someone who’s mostly worked through their Shadow can still fall prey to Animus possession.)

 

 

[mindbent]

But getting back to the topic, are you saying that if Diane felt at ease with her Lesbian tendencies, and was accepting of these tendencies fully, then this might have helped her break free of Animus possession? (Of course, it would have to be assumed that she would seek therapy. My interpretation of the two guys in Winkies is that Dan, the guy who faints, is or was her therapist.)

The Winkie’s scene is possibly one of the most underappreciated scenes of the film. Most analysis I’ve read either ignore this scene altogether or disregard it as a mere Lynchian idiosyncrasy.

I suggested in my article that the timing of this scene appears to coincide with Rita’s slumber, in which case it could mean that Rita is dreaming (hence, Dan saying that this is the second dream he’s had).

Since one of the themes of the Winkie’s scene is the patient-therapist relationship, I think your suggestion that Diane may have been seeing a therapist is excellent. And so much could be said about the meaning of the heart-attack and the figure that appears behind the diner, who, by the way, is the one who “holds” and then “releases” Diane’s “ghosts” that appear shortly before she commits suicide.

Or, if Diane had felt repelled by these tendencies, then being fully and knowingly opposed to them would, again, help her free herself from Animus possession? Note that I’m keying on your suggestion that awareness is the important factor. Sorry if I’m reaching, considering neither of us would exactly qualify as the Carl Jung archivist or whatever:-)

My favoured interpretation is that Diane’s past (whatever that was) was ultimately haunting her, which leads to her Animus possession, as I’ve written in the article. But it may well be that her Animus’ constant criticism (that’s what a negative Animus does after all) dragged her down to the point that she failed to accept even her own sexuality.

[Arlen P.]

mindbent,

I agree with you about scarcity of Winkie’s scene interpretations. Remember, when Diane’s done arranging things with the hit man, she looks up and sees Dan standing at the cash register. This scene is real life, and what’s going on is that Diane’s (probably former) therapist, Dan, has overheard her placing the hit on Camilla. Yes, absolutely, the therapist just happens to be in Winkies while Diane is there!! Either she didn’t see him come in. Or didn’t notice him already there. She must have had no idea that he was a patron or that he lived nearby.

The chronology is that she saw the therapist, then later had the dream about him with the other guy. The audience’s head spins when Diane sees the guy standing there, because they don’t realize that Lynch showed the two scenes in reverse chronological order. The outcome of Dan overhearing her is that he notifies the police, that’s why they start looking for Diane.

I should have said in my previous comment, that Diane would possibly seek therapy if she thought her Lesbian feelings were a problem, or perhaps if she had a quite non existent dating life with men, and realized that was abnormal for a young single woman. I don’t know if Dan was giving her Jungian therapy, but if he was, and she told him about the figure living out back of Winkie’s, he should have realized that was her shadow. I propose that the hit man agreed to leave the blue key for her behind Winkies once the hit was completed, thus her shadow established residence there.

If I’m right, then I guess it goes back to the idea that if Diane was having Shadow issues, then maybe she was a more likely candidate for Animus possession.

[mindbent]

Hi Arlen,

You make a very good case for explaining the Winkie’s scene – thanks for sharing!

If I’m right, then I guess it goes back to the idea that if Diane was having Shadow issues, then maybe she was a more likely candidate for Animus possession.

Yes, that’s exactly what I tried to convey in my article. Diane simply wasn’t able to work on her Shadow, and I think Rita epitomises this side of Diane very well, as Rita is portrayed as being dependent and insecure. And so, she became an easy target for Animus possession. The development towards Animus possession is very transparent in the film, in my opinion: the way the Organisation methodically sways Adam to hire the actress they want him to hire, or the way Betty suddenly vanishes and Rita is consumed by the darkness of the box.

[Arlen P.]

Hi mindbent,.

In light of your comment here, I went back and re-read over the majority of the original article. What it sounds like to me is that Diane has not integrated her shadow to very much of an extent, as you indicate. Thus, her Animus figures (Adam included) are ‘contamunated’ with her shadow contents.

Note that Adam wears mostly black in all his scenes, especially the corral scene with the Cowboy. This is a hint from Lynch that he’s the recepticle for Diane’s repressed primitive instincts, for example one toward violence (recall the golf clubs – Adam beating the cars). In this respect he’s a complement to Rita, who as you’ve said epitomizes Diane’s repressed weaknesses.

As far as the person behind Winkies, who by the way, is played by a woman, Lynch makes her out to be a kind of androgynous figure. This way, not only can she function as Dan’s shadow too (which is why Dan faints), but it suggests that maybe the worst aspect of Diane is being personified in her dream as some sort of hermaphroditic figure.

As far as lesbians targeting other women with their negative Animus aspects, the cross-contamination with the shadow I mentioned above  might have some part to play, since, after all, the shadow is generally same sex. Diane would particul arly have trouble with women she encounters who by chance have issues that remind Diane of her own weaknesses and baseness, with the latter perhaps being something she sensed in common with Louise Bonner.

[mindbent]

In light of your comment here, I went back and re-read over the majority of the original article. What it sounds like to me is that Diane has not integrated her shadow to very much of an extent, as you indicate. Thus, her Animus figures (Adam included) are ‘contamunated’ with her shadow contents.

That’s interesting. Are you suggesting that Adam could actually be thought of another Animus figure rather than another side of Diane’s Shadow?

The idea crossed my mind while I was writting up the article, but, in the end, I decided against it. For the most part, it just seemed to me that dream-Adam’s misfortunes, and the humilliation he endures, would be the exact things that a negative Animus would bring about.

So I saw dream-Adam as Diane’s unconscious wishing that it would be Adam the powerless and pliable one. Thus, my suggestion that he’s a different aspect of Diane’s Shadow, which Diane didn’t come to terms with. There are, of course, problems with this interpretation, since, as you pointed out, the Shadow figure is usually of the same gender as the individual.

However, one thing is certain: Adam represents another part of Diane’s psyche; whether the Shadow, Animus or any other archetype, that I cannot know for sure…

As far as the person behind Winkies, who by the way, is played by a woman, Lynch makes her out to be a kind of androgynous figure. This way, not only can she function as Dan’s shadow too (which is why Dan faints), but it suggests that maybe the worst aspect of Diane is being personified in her dream as some sort of hermaphroditic figure.

Indeed, that may well be the case. I completely missed the part that this character is portrayed by a woman. That lends support to the idea that she represents Diane’s darkest feelings (another side of her Shadow?). It’s strange though, that this character appears both in Diane’s dream (the Winkie’s scene) and in real life (after Diane meets with the hitman).

As far as lesbians targeting other women with their negative Animus aspects, the cross-contamination with the shadow I mentioned above might have some part to play, since, after all, the shadow is generally same sex. Diane would particul arly have trouble with women she encounters who by chance have issues that remind Diane of her own weaknesses and baseness

Yes, a typical case of Shadow projection, Jung would argue. Not accepting her lesbianism is something that Diane may have relegated to her Shadow, leading to problems interacting with other women, especially if they are also lesbian/bisexual.

I think Diane seeing Camila as being manipulative is another projection, although here it’s more through the influence of her negative Animus I suppose.

with the latter perhaps being something she sensed in common with Louise Bonner.

Why did you pick Louise Bonner specifically? Most of the dream characters seem to be based on someone Diane has met in real life, but Louise is mysteriously absent – but I suspect there must be a backstory.

[Arlen P.]

I failed to differentiate between dream-Adam and waking Adam. In the latter case, I interpret him to be a kind of man-of-action Animus figure, since he’s a director. It seems we must extrapolate most of the real Adam from his dream images,.

On one level, everything going bad for him is a kind of dream-revenge Diane is getting, for him not casting her in the part she desired.

You make a good point about the person behind the diner being present in both dream and reality scenes. If nothing else, he/she is simply a Shadow ‘go-to’ figure – it’s hard to think of this non-character as being the actual Shadow of Diane.

I was thinking of Louise Bonner as representing the ‘bitchy’ Diane (“that is not your name!” – LOL). What she really amounts to is a shadow-corrupted Wise Old Woman archetype. Note that standing there in the darkness, she looks not completely unlike the person behind Winkies).

[Author]

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