Bubble Gum and American Expression: A Multi-Generational Romance

Bubble Gum and American Expression: A Multi-Generational Romance

(It is a "romance" because everyone is involved--like snakes in the Arizona desert.)

30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90, 00s—there would be no surer thing than to find a villain who chewed, obviously, gum. This is a peculiarly American phenomenon—one doesn't find it in other cultural or filmic expressions, anywhere in the world. The obnoxious chewer—chomping meaning—is unique to America.

Why?

Well, duh, obviously it's incredibly childish, and Americans go in for that, the incredibly childish. Still, the aghast eyes and astonished makeup of the silent era long ago passed on, but the big chewer (normally a villain, sometimes briefly sexy), kept on. At root, perhaps, it speaks to a kind of puritan fear of bad manners—people who open their mouths when chewing—some guy who lets that gum show—he is one bad dude.

Chewing gum was once a kind of middle-American indulgence—it was almost chic. But, then, the masses got hold of it, so it was only uncouth villains who chomped it all around. Class issues.

To chew gum, in America, is to bespeak a kind of raw and stupid villainy. Are you unable to act? Chew gum. Need to be a villain? Chew gum. Director/producer ain't got no smarts? Chew gum. Studio/network need a stereotype? Chew gum. Screenplay got no screen, or play? Chew gum. The sum the imaginationless Hollywoodians owe to those who honestly chew coulda made the Cubs a dynasty. Ernie Banks coulda said “let's play three!”

Well, I think it does go back to childishness. Americans just do not expect that their viewers are capable of nuanced thinking, so they make their actors externalize infantilism through chewing gum. Chewing gum is something that everyone gets, in America. The bunga-bunga orange Boehner-glo is tv, not reality. Simple signs, simple symbols. If America lives that long, chewing gum may one day equate to virtue. Wherever there's a need for a crass, gross, stultifyingly obvious symbol, though, you can bet Americans will be right in there with gum.

Hey, who says Americans didn't contribute to culture? God gave 'em slaves who gave 'em jazz who gave 'em gum. Gum'm gotta come from somewhere.

Gum daddy, go!

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