The Birth of Phil Studies

Today’s episode of Dr. Phil was rather uninteresting, unless, of course, you enjoy listening to former child star Danny Bonaduce recount his failed marriage and the myriad of other problems he so clearly continues to have despite being “sober.” Still, there was some theory that we could talk about. Phil made his usual reproductive futurist rant about how the important thing is the children and their lives. We get it, you’re a heterosexual—yawn. We also had the astute point by our esteemed Dr. that “there are two Danny Bonaduces—Danny Bonaduce the personality and Danny Bonaduce the real person that I know, who cares about his family and his kids.” It would be interesting to take this to the next step: people on t.v., or in any theatrical situation, are not real people. We could think of Žižek’s idea of acting “as if,” Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality, Lacan’s Borromean knot, Brecht’s alienation effect, and so much more! It will be fun, and Dr. Phil is one thing, but I’m not going to do it with Danny Bonaduce, at least not until he starts calling himself a poet or a philosopher, or something like that.

Instead, tonight we have a bit of meta-analysis to do as it has recently come to my attention that I did not, in fact, create the field of Phil studies. I had hoped that, like Freud or Marx, I was working as a “founder of discursivity” (Foucault, What is an Author?) Therefore, it was quite a surprise to find that, over two years ago, a pair of professors from St. Lawrence University had written a good-sized scholarly article on Dr. Phil in The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, a web-based periodical from the Department of Religious Studies and Anthropology at The University of Saskatchewan. Professor Egan and Papson’s full article, “You Either Get It or You Don't”: Conversion Experiences and The Dr. Phil Show,” is available here: http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art10-drphil.html.
I encourage you to at least read the abstract. Egan and Papson are observant enough to realize that there is no religious content in the Dr. Phil show, but do assert that the episodes follow the structural pattern and the narrative of a religious conversion (particularly of the televangelist ilk) with a confession and testimonial followed by conversion and transformation. The authors conclude that “the televised presentation of reoccurring conversions functions to produce a sense of moral authority, self-empowerment, and an imagined community [and] that the boundary between the sacred and the secular blur in this highly commodified television spectacle.” Now, I have a friend who says he likes theory, but thinks a lot of theorists argue too much with each other. I find these two positions difficult to reconcile, as it should be the duty of any decent theorist to envisage critiques and theories that can hold up against the entire world to reinvent and reinvigorate its intellectual understandings and possibilities. The idea, the theory itself, might stand out in (or against) reality, but it does not reach the level of discourse until it is acknowledged, reproved, and re-proved. Egan and Papson are already, of course, part of the discourse within Religious studies. They’ve cited authorities within the field and it’s periphery (at least, not being an expert on theology, I assume that’s what they’ve done). They’ve been reviewed to reach publication, and have likely been cited or read as a result. But this is all as religion experts, or, perhaps in the amorphous field of cultural criticism. When it comes to Phil studies, however, it is safe to assume that this is—as Dr. Phil would say—their first rodeo. We can remedy that. Firstly, I think Egan and Papson are wise to bring in things like Neilson ratings and advertising. Economics and politics are central organs in Phil studies. Egan and Papson also sagaciously pick up on the fact that the Dr. Phil we see on television is actually a staged personification. The analysis has only one glaring deficit in that Egan and Papson do not seem to pick up on the fact that there is a Phil canon. Instead, they simply observe two shows, “Addiction” and “The Weight Loss Challenge.” This ignores the fact that Dr. Phil often brings back guests, revisits segments, issues, or mini-series like the Dr. Phil house and obviously expects his viewers to watch regularly, visit his website, and read his books. More importantly, it seems to skew their findings slightly. While both the episodes they chronicled might have taken on the mode and style of a conversion, there have also been many that might more aptly be described as promoting reversion (to better times, etc.), aversion (when something just needs to stop), or diversion (for preventing that which hasn’t actually even begun to occur). From outside the actual mechanism of the Dr. Phil Show, the possibilities are even more numerous. As we’ve tried to demonstrate, the show can also be seen as the location of perversion and subversion. Even limiting oneself to the domain of theology, it might be just as fitting to describe the arc of most shows as an exorcism or, in some cases, an excommunication. The fact is, the Dr. Phil canon is large and often contradictory. This is also a part of Egan and Papson’s largest mistake. While they seem to see an insidious side to Dr. Phil because he attempts to become the high priest, carving out his own commodified religion, mixing the secular and the sacred, there is an equally dark side. Failing to promote the scriptures, the pillars of psychology—the great psalmists like Freud, Jung, etc. and their seminal works—is tantamount to heresy. If Nietzsche and Marx are correct in their assertions that “God is dead” and “religion is the opium of the people,” then we must conclude that—if Dr. Phil is attempting to rule over a conversion to a half secularized, half sacred televangical reality—he is continuing to feed his guests’ various addictions, refusing help, and instead embracing philosophical death for all parties involved (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, “Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right").