Just Beneath the Surface: Hidden Suffering in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet
In David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, an idyllic dreamlike town is marred by malevolent activity lurking beneath the surface. In the opening scene, we are presented with a wholesome suburb called Lumberton—featuring red roses, picket fences, a smiling fireman, and children crossing the street—all set to the crooning song, “Blue Velvet.” Audiences are welcomed into this seemingly picturesque life, where so-called “family values” flourish.
Considering this film’s release in 1986, following Ronald Reagan’s reelection in 1984, this story’s introduction would have been familiar to audiences. A Reagan campaign ad, championing the slogan “It’s Morning Again in America,” showed similar pictures of smiling veterans, children crossing the street, and happy newly-weds. Lynch calls on this imagery in his opening, adding the song “Blue Velvet” (written in 1950) to evoke emotions of nostalgia for precisely the romanticized past to which Reagan wished to return.
But all is not as it seems: as Irena Makarushka argues, “by incarnating the American Dream in icons that are as one-dimensional as Hollywood movie sets, Lynch begins to weave a thread of ambiguity through the tightly woven web of America's self-understanding” (35). After Jeffrey’s father has a stroke while watering his lawn, we see that beneath the freshly-mowed grass sit hundreds of bugs, smothering each other. The song fades out, and all we hear is the chattering of beetles. As author Sander Lee posits, “what if there exists a horrific, violent, and evil reality hiding just below the surface of even the most seemingly secure lives?” (47). Underneath what seems to be a perfect town is something sinister—and the rest of the film is a quest to unearth it.
Lynch shows that even in a seemingly utopian society, evil still lurks in secret. During Reagan’s presidency, Americans were suffering as a result of his ignorance of the AIDS crisis. His “Morning Again” portrayal is thus the idyllic Lumberton, covering up the true suffering of Americans underneath. For example, the Reagan campaign ad declares that “this afternoon 6,500 young men and women will be married,” which paints a traditional picture of American family life. Twisted and manipulative, however, Frank and Dorothy’s private relationship certainly does not fit into this picture. Thus Lynch directly challenges Reagan’s portrayals of “good” romance.
However, sometimes the evil is not even hidden. Even in the first scene—recall the picket-fences—there is suffering, giving the song “Blue Velvet” a more haunting tone. Jeffrey’s parents, who at first seem to embody traditional family structures, have marital problems. His mother sits watching a gun on a TV screen. His father holds a hose notably close to his waist, but a kink causes it not to work. These two symbols together suggest that the parents have sexual difficulties, as the wife turns to pornography (the gun) as her husband fails to satisfy her (the kink). This darker portrayal of family life is right there throughout the opening scene, but it seems to blend in to the romantic vision of suburbs and relationships. Unlike the bugs underground or Frank’s secret dealings, this evil is presented in the open, but disguised by colorful surroundings and joyful music.
After Frank is killed, all appears to be well: Dorothy reunites with her child, Jeffrey and Sandy live happily ever after, and the family relationships have improved. Jeffrey and Sandy notice a robin on their windowsill, holding a bug in its mouth. The bug, however, is not dead. Thus, the evil skittering beneath the surface has not been killed, just exposed to the world. Frank was evil, but his death does not mean evil is eradicated forever.
The secrecy of suffering under Reagan’s government is paralleled in the hidden evils of Lumberton. But, like all else in this film, even the ending is not what it seems—the bird is noticeably fake. This fabricated bird—literally fabric-ated, like the title Blue Velvet—is dreamlike Lumberton and Reagan’s quasi-perfect suburbs. Lynch may be hinting that the artificiality of suburban dream-towns’ problems can also create their solutions. The end itself feels like a dream, like Sandy’s dream that love has returned is not entirely a reality, and we fade off into the sky as the thematic “Blue Velvet” ends. Perhaps the message then is not to destroy the utopian fantasies that camouflage evil entirely but to construct a more transparent reality, and to acknowledge the man-made false realities that mask human suffering.
Works Cited
Lee, Sander H. “The Horrors of Life’s Hidden Mysteries: Blue Velvet.” The Philosophy of David Lynch, University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, 2011, pp. 45–60. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jcmpz.7.
Lynch, David, director. Blue Velvet. De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, 1986.
Makarushka, Irena. “Subverting Eden: Ambiguity of Evil and the American Dream in Blue Velvet.” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, vol. 1, no. 1, 1991, pp. 31–46. www.jstor.org/stable/1123905.
“Morning in America.” Reagan-Bush ‘84 Campaign, 1984. Accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUMqic2IcWA. Television Campaign Advertisement.
This essay was my final paper for an American Film History college course at Queensborough Community College. Thought I would share it here!
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