Herman 1

Alyssa Herman

Dr. Roth

English 481

16 May 2017

The Semiotics of Howl: Reinventing Ginsberg’s Criticisms through Animation

Abstract

By focusing on the animated narrative of Howl and analyzing its mise-en-scène, shot

types, and editing, I will argue that Eric Drooker’s animations present a visual, critical

interpretation of Ginsberg’s Part II of “Howl.” By looking at Drooker’s animations, James

Franco’s voiceover, and Ginsberg’s written text together through a semiotic lens, viewers/readers

are able to see how the visual imagery, the wordplay, and the prophetic perspective of

Ginsberg’s poem work together. Specifically, by analyzing the three main scenes in Drooker’s

animated Part II, I will argue that Drooker presents and reinvents Ginsberg’s critiques of

capitalism, war, and consumerism through animation.

 Herman 2

Alyssa Herman

Dr. Roth

English 481

16 May 2017

The Semiotics of Howl: Reinventing Ginsberg’s Criticisms through Animation

Many critics have dubbed the 2010 feature film Howl about Allen Ginsberg’s life

(directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman) a biopic film—“a film that dramatizes the life

events of a person, usually someone whose faith sees them through unfavorable external

circumstances” (Wong 11). However, Allen Ginsberg’s character appears in only one of the

three featured narratives in film, which include (1) the story of his life, (2) a reenactment of the

1957 obscenity trial against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and (3) Eric Drooker’s animated commentary

on “Howl.” Therefore, as Nicholas Wong argues, Howl should not be considered a biopic of

Ginsberg because the three narratives are more concerned with the poem itself rather than the

poet. Wong suggests that “if the film has to be biopic, it should be seen as a ‘biography’ of the

poem—how it comes to life, how it is read and misread, and how it is reinterpreted through

animation” (12). In other words, Howl is not a biography of Allen Ginsberg; it is a film about

Ginsberg’s poem and the different interpretations of it. By focusing on the animated narrative of

Howl and analyzing its mise-en-scène, shot types, and editing, I will argue that Eric Drooker’s

animations present a visual, critical interpretation of Ginsberg’s Part II of “Howl.” By looking at

Drooker’s animations, James Franco’s voiceover, and Ginsberg’s written text together through a

semiotic lens, viewers/readers are able to see how the visual imagery, the wordplay, and the

prophetic perspective of Ginsberg’s poem work together. Specifically, by analyzing the three
 Herman 3

main scenes in Drooker’s animated Part II, I will argue that Drooker presents and reinvents

Ginsberg’s critiques of capitalism, war, and consumerism through animation.

The Semiotics of Howl

The animated narrative of Moloch not only presents a visual to go along with Part II of

the poem, but it also provides Drooker’s interpretation of Ginsberg’s poem. Stanley Fish argues

Howl “is not only about literary criticism but is the performance of literary criticism, an extended

‘explication de texte’” (Fish). In other words, the film itself is literary criticism because it

presents multiple interpretations of Ginsberg’s “Howl,” Drooker’s animations being one of the

interpretations. By applying Saussurean semiology, or Saussure’s notion of the linguistic sign,

one can draw meaning from Drooker’s animated interpretation. Saussure argues that “the

linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image” (Saussure 492).

Essentially, in every sign, there is a concept (the signified) and a sound-image (the signifier).

While the concept is more abstract, the sound-image is more physical and appeals to the senses.

These two “terms involved in the linguistic sign are psychological and are united in the brain by

an associative bond” (492). Therefore, the concept and the sound-image have separate meanings,

but when they are brought together, the brain creates a third meaning through association, which

is called the sign. Saussure’s linguistic sign can be applied to Howl in order to understand how

the combination of Ginsberg’s text with Drooker’s animations creates an additional

interpretation. As Varadi notes, “James Franco’s (as Ginsberg) voiceover throughout the

animated sequence of the movie [is] juxtaposed with Drooker’s graphics” (Varadi 20). In this

case, the voiceover of Ginsberg’s poem is the concept and Drooker’s animations are the sound-

image. Throughout the animated narrative of Howl, there are strong associations between certain

words and images. These associations that arise from the combination of Ginsberg’s poem with
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Drooker’s animations are the linguistic sign, which ultimately provide the viewer with Drooker’s

interpretation of “Howl.”

The Two Faces of Moloch

Looking specifically at the animations that align with Part II of “Howl,” one can see that

a separate narrative emerges from Drooker’s animations that is not seen in Ginsberg’s poem.

Drooker’s animated narrative of Part II, or his narrative of Moloch, is very different from

Ginsberg’s. The animated version of Part II begins with a small man standing on a hill looking

up at a tall, dark skyscraper. As the camera pans upward, the “head” of the skyscraper comes into

view. Resting on top of the building is a bull’s head with a set of horns, two orange eyes and

nostrils, and jagged teeth. This figure that resembles a large bull is presumably Moloch.

Suddenly, the building transforms into a more realistic-looking bull as adults are raising up and

sacrificing their babies to it. In this way, Drooker gives a concrete image of what his Moloch

looks like: a skyscraper that closely resembles a large bull. Consequently, Drooker’s animations

offer a narrative that is not present in Ginsberg’s “Howl.” Ginsberg’s Moloch is an abstract

figure who is mostly described by his actions and qualities rather than his appearance. Ginsberg

avoids giving a definite, physical description of Moloch. For example, Ginsberg calls Moloch a

“sphinx of cement” and later says that Moloch’s eyes are “blind windows,” which could

figuratively be a skyscraper (Ginsberg 21). However, this description of Moloch is slightly

ambiguous and does not give a clear picture of what Moloch is or what he looks like. Ginsberg

further complicates this image of Moloch when he writes:

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch

whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose

ear is a smoking tomb! (21)

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We are told that Ginsberg’s Moloch has a mind, blood, fingers, a breast, and at least one ear, but

again, Ginsberg’s descriptions do not paint a clear picture of what his Moloch looks like. Most

importantly, Ginsberg does not describe his Moloch as a bull, and he does not plant the image of

a bull anywhere in Part II of “Howl.” Thus, a second narrative of Moloch arises from Drooker’s

animations. The animations of Moloch as a bull are purely Drooker’s visual interpretation of

Ginsberg’s text because the bull does not actually appear in Ginsberg’s “Howl.”

Capitalism

By analyzing the first scene of Drooker’s animations of Part II, one can make visual

connections between the poem and the animations. Again, the scene begins with the small man

standing on a hill and looking up at an enormous skyscraper. The hill begins to rise and grow

closer to the building until the man is face-to-face with the head of the skyscraper, which

resembles a bull. When the man is as close as he can get, the mouth of the building opens to

reveal a black bull inside with more sculpted and realistic features. The small man and the

gigantic bull stand facing each other; the man’s back is to the camera while the bull glares down

at him and flames surround the frame. The mouth of the building suddenly closes, and the

camera pans to the man’s terrified face. Finally, the camera slowly pans back up to the face of

the black, muscular bull. While this animated scene occurs, James Franco’s voiceover reads:

Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in

the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the

fog! . . . Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity

and banks! (21-22)

Drooker takes this section from “Howl” and brings Ginsberg’s images to life through animation.

The scene contains multiple skyscrapers crammed together with thousands of windows dotting
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the buildings. Surrounding the skyscrapers are factories that are pouring out smoke. The thick,

black smoke envelops Moloch’s skyscraper. The smoke seems to be the fog from the factories,

but because it is pure black, the smoke also resembles the “endless oil” Ginsberg mentions (22).

The camera then takes thirteen seconds to pan all the way up to the top of Moloch’s skyscraper

where the head is resting. This long shot mimics Ginsberg’s “long streets like endless Jehovahs”

because the viewer has to wait and anxiously anticipate when the camera will finally stop and

reach the top of the building.

However, the more interesting part of the first

scene comes toward the end when the man is

standing face-to-face with the bull. The bull towers

over the man and looks directly at him with squinted,

angry eyes. The camera then zooms in on the bull’s

face at the same time Franco reads “Moloch whose

soul is electricity and banks!” (22). Franco

specifically stresses the word “banks” and pauses

slightly, so the word stands out to the viewer (22).

This is where Saussurean semiology can be applied.

If the concept is the word “banks” from Ginsberg’s

text and the sound-image is a dark, angry bull from

Drooker’s animations, then the sign is the association

one would naturally draw between the two (22).

When thinking about banks and bulls, the average
person would likely be drawn to the Wall Street Bull.
Top: A picture of the Charging Bull
and the Fearless Girl on Wall Street.
Photo Credit: Brendan McDermid
Bottom: A picture of Drooker’s
animated Moloch from Howl.
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The Wall Street Bull, or the Charging Bull as it was originally called, was created by Arturo Di

Modica after the Wall Street crash of 1987 “as a way to celebrate the can-do spirit of America

and especially New York, where people from all [over] the world could come regardless of their

origin or circumstances, and through determination and hard work overcome every obstacle to

become successful” (Di Modica). Although Di Modica created the bull with good intentions to

encourage the American people and offer optimism during a time of financial downfall, the bull

has come to represent something negative. When the Wall Street Bull Girl, or the Fearless Girl,

was placed in front of the Charging Bull on March 7, 2017, the idea of the bull as a villain was

solidified. The Fearless Girl “has fueled powerful conversations about women in leadership” and

has left the bull to represent the corruption and misogyny of capitalistic Wall Street through her

symbolic opposition (Miller). This image of the Charging Bull as a negative representation of

capitalist America feeds into Ginsberg’s motif of Moloch representing the negative aspects of

American society, capitalism being one of these aspects. Drooker introduces Ginsberg’s

discussion of capitalism into the film by portraying Moloch as a bull because the bull has

become such a strong symbol of Wall Street. Although Drooker did not intend to reference the

Fearless Girl because the art installation was created long after the film, the Fearless Girl is still

important because it has officially changed the meaning of the Charging Bull to represent the

negative facets of Wall Street and capitalism. In this way, Ginsberg’s text and Drooker’s

animations combine and create associations to the Wall Street Bull, which emphasize and expand

Ginsberg’s original critique of capitalism.

War

The second scene in Drooker’s animations begins with the bull staring at a crowd of

babies in their parent’s arms. The parents lift their babies up in the sky toward the bull and then
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throw the babies in a fiery pit. The babies fall through the sky in slow motion as flames surround

them. The shot abruptly stops with the babies in midair and cuts to the next shot of a crowd of

slightly older children with terrified expressions who gasp and look up at the sky. The camera

zooms in on one of the children as a combat helmet falls from the sky onto his head. The adult-

sized helmet is too large for the child’s head, so the helmet covers his face. He attempts to adjust

the helmet with a confused look as combat gear is thrown around his shoulders. The child sinks

down from the weight of the combat gear, and his face disappears from the frame. When the

child stands back up and his face reemerges, he is now an adult with dark, severe features and a

machine gun hanging on his right shoulder. The camera zooms out and the man is no longer

distinguishable because he is in a crowd of perfectly identical military men marching into a cave

of fire. The men lift up their machine guns to the bull, and the bull spreads his arms as he looks

out over his army. The camera zooms in to the marching combat boots and then suddenly cuts to

a shot of a mass cemetery. Rows of basic, wooden coffins lie open with dark, unidentifiable

bodies lying in them. The camera slowly zooms out for eight seconds and reveals more and more

coffins with dead bodies. Finally, the camera cuts to a white, rectangular building with the top

half of a human skull as the dome. Smaller human skulls fall from the sky into the building and

create a pile of bones. During this scene, James Franco’s voiceover reads:

Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch!

Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch! Moloch who entered my soul

early! . . . Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I

abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky! Moloch! Moloch! Robot

apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! (Ginsberg 22)

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The second scene of the film is especially interesting because Drooker takes this passage from

Ginsberg’s “Howl” and creates a narrative from specific words. For example, Franco says

“Angels” at the same time the babies are being lifted up into the sky (22). Therefore, the babies

become angelic, holy figures who are the heroes of the scene because they have not been

corrupted by Moloch yet. The babies are the only ones who have not been affected by Moloch.

Then, when Franco says “Crazy in Moloch!,” the parents throw the babies into the fiery pit (22).

This implies that the adults, who are supposed to be reliable, sentient beings, are actually crazy

and controlled by Moloch. Franco reads “Moloch who entered my soul early!,” and the babies

are suddenly children who are staring into the face of Moloch; he then reads “Moloch who

frightened me out of my natural ecstasy!,” and the children are turned into adults in the military

(22). The quick progression of time and the acceleration of age is extremely important because it

shows that the state of being a baby and being untouched by Moloch is short-lived. Drooker also

uses this acceleration of time to introduce Ginsberg’s critique of war. Earlier in Part II, Ginsberg

writes that “Boys [are] sobbing in armies!” (21). Drooker recreates this same idea of boys in

armies when he displays a child being dressed in combat gear and quickly transforming into an

adult marching in an army. Drooker takes this section of “Howl” that is not explicitly about war

and transforms it through an animated narrative to fit into Ginsberg’s overall critique of war.

Drooker furthers this critique of war toward the end of the second scene when he portrays

Ginsberg’s “skeleton treasuries” as a building that looks similar to the United States Treasury

(22). As soon as Franco reads the line “skeleton treasuries,” the camera cuts to a building with

the top half of a human skull on it (22). Without Drooker’s visual, this line could be read as a

building where skeletons are stored, like a metaphorical mass grave. However, with Ginsberg’s

“skeleton treasuries” as the concept and Drooker’s skeletal building as the sound-image, one
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naturally thinks of the U.S. Treasury and how it relates to war (22). Through the U.S. Congress,

or what Ginsberg calls the “Congress of sorrows,” the U.S. Treasury supports and funds wars

(21). During World War II, for example, the Secretary of the Treasury “establish[ed] a national

defense bond program,” and “the government funded a big advertising campaign that encouraged

Americans to purchase the defense bonds” (Boundless). Nearly “85 million Americans

purchased bonds over the course of the war, raising approximately $185.7 billion, which covered

between 50-60% of war costs” (Boundless). While most people saw these war bonds as a

positive, Ginsberg would have seen them as negative; the government used cheap marketing

tactics to persuade people to buy war bonds to fund the war, and as the American people and the

government poured more money into the war and sent more men overseas, they became

responsible for more deaths. Accordingly,

Drooker shows thousands of human skulls

raining down into the skeletal treasury and

collecting on the floor of the building.

Ginsberg writes, “skeleton treasuries!

blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral

nations! . . . monstrous bombs! They broke

their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!”

(Ginsberg 22). If Moloch represents war

like Drooker’s animations suggest and this

reading is applied to Ginsberg’s text, then

Top: A picture of the United States Treasury
Ginsberg is saying the government, private building located in Washington, D.C.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia
industries, and the American people are Bottom: A picture of Drooker’s animated
“skeleton treasur[y]” from Howl.
 Herman 11

responsible for the effects of war because they supported and fed it. To this extent, Drooker

draws from Ginsberg’s anti-war sentiments in “Howl” and develops Ginsberg’s critique of war

through his animations.

Consumerism

In the final scene of Drooker’s animations of Part II, bulldozers plow through fields of

flowers on the outskirts of the city and tear up the earth. The camera zooms out and shows the

few pink flowers that remain. The shot then cuts to a highway with cars backed up on it.

Billboards plastered on the side of the highway reveal typical 1940s ads with perfect, smiling

women making items look more fun and useful than they really are. Finally, as the cars on the

highway pass the billboards, they reach the end of the road and fall off the cliff into a deep pit.

As this scene occurs, Franco’s voiceover reads:

They broke their backs lifting Moloch to

Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons!

lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is

everywhere about us! . . . Dreams!

adorations! illuminations! religions! the

whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!

Breakthroughs! over the river! (Ginsberg

22-23)

These animated billboards reflect back to an earlier

part of the film where James Franco as Ginsberg is
trying to make an ad for Pepsodent that has a picture
of a typical 1940s, white, middle-class family and
Top: A picture of Franco as Ginsberg
creating a Pepsodent ad for a
marketing company from Howl.
Bottom: A picture of Drooker’s
animated 1940s billboards from Howl.
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reads, “gets your teeth BRIGHTER BY FAR!” He then tries to make the ad more appealing by

gluing words like “Bright!,” “White!,” “Wholesome!,” and “Alluring!” onto the paper.

Eventually, he gives up in frustration, covers his face with his hands, and slowly rubs his eyes.

Franco as Ginsberg then talks about how he left New York and spent a year in San Francisco

where he had a nice apartment and a white-collar marketing job with several secretaries of his

own. However, he later realized that he was only trying to “act normal” and “it was all a futile

trap… illusory” (Howl). This scene is especially important because it brings up the idea of the

American Dream: wanting the perfect job, house, and clothes; wanting to fit in based on societal

conventions; and wanting a large salary to buy even more things. The American Dream comes

up in Drooker’s final animated scene when the 1940s billboards appear and Franco’s voice reads

“Dreams! adorations! illuminations!” (22). With this section of Ginsberg’s text as the concept

and Drooker’s animated billboards as the sound-image, one cannot help but think of the

stereotypical 1940s American Dream in which happiness was measured by “the acquisition of

material things” and the “pursuit of material benefits” (Amadeo). In 1944, Franklin Delano

Roosevelt perpetuated the idea of the American Dream when “he defined the pursuit of

happiness as decent housing, a good job, education, and healthcare” (Amadeo). Presidents

following Roosevelt also maintained the idea of the American Dream, which caused Americans

to measure their happiness materialistically and bolstered consumerism in America. Ginsberg

responds to the American Dream and says “the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit” goes “over

the river” (Ginsberg 22-23). Drooker represents this idea in his animations and shows that

consumerism leads nowhere when the cars heading down the commercialized highway

eventually fall off into a pit. Again, Ginsberg does not explicitly mention the American Dream or
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consumerism in this portion of the text, but when Ginsberg’s text is combined with Drooker’s

animations, these associations arise and are difficult to ignore.

In conclusion, Drooker’s animations of Ginsberg’s “Howl” offer a visual and critical

interpretation of the poem. By applying Saussurean semiotics to Drooker’s animations as the

sound-image and Franco’s voiceover of Ginsberg’s text as the concept, one can see the main

themes of Ginsberg’s work—his critiques of capitalism, war, and consumerism—reemerge in a

new light. This combination of visual animation with written text accentuates Ginsberg’s original

work but also advances it to include added meaning through new connections.
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Works Cited

Amadeo, Kimberly. “What Is the American Dream Today?” The Balance, 17 Feb. 2017,

https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-american-dream-today-3306027.

Accessed 15 May 2017.

Boundless. "Financing the War." Boundless U.S. History, 6 Jan. 2017,

https://www.boundless.com/u-s-history/textbooks/boundless-u-s-history-textbook/from-

isolation-to-world-war-ii-1930-1945-26/preparing-the-economy-for-war-205/financing-

the-war-1122-9240/. Accessed 15 May 2017.

Di Modica, Arturo. “History.” Charging Bull, 1989, chargingbull.com/chargingbull.html.

Accessed 15 May 2017.

Fish, Stanley. “Literary Criticism Comes to the Movies.” The New York Times, 4 Oct.

2010, https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-american-dream-today-3306027.

Accessed 15 May 2017.

Ginsberg, Allen. “Howl.” Howl and Other Poems, City Lights Books, 1956, pp. 9-28.

Howl. Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, performances by James Franco,

Oscilloscope Laboratories, 2010.

Miller, Ryan W. “’Fearless Girl’ statue will keep staring down Wall Street’s bull.” USA

Today, 27 March 2017, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/03/27/

fearless-girl-statue-wall-street-charging-bull/99687078/. Accessed 15 May 2017.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. “Nature of the Linguistic Sign.” The Critical Tradition: Classic

Texts and Contemporary Trends, edited by David H. Richter, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016,

pp. 492-495.
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Varadi, Anna. “Howl’s ‘Kaleidoscopic Facets’: Accessing the ‘Multitrack’ Elements of

Allen Ginsberg’s Poetry through Animation.” Film Matters, vol. 6, no. 2, 2015,

pp. 19-24.

Wong, Nicholas Y.B. “Howl’s Hypnotic Beat: Poetry on the Screen.” Screen Education,

vol. 62, 2011, pp. 8-16.