At first glance, “The Asylum” seems to be about curing the owner-induced neurosis of stuffed animals. But the more I thought about the introduction—the dark, shadow play about a human-like creature “spoiled by consumerist culture,” lonely, and frustrated to the point of abusing their stuffed friends—the more I considered the final “insanity” applied as easily to the player as the animals. Toys, after all, don’t really have feelings; people do. In that case, the therapies applied to the stuffed animals are really ways of working out the player’s own aggression, paranoia, and insecurity. If the game-player is the patient (playing doctor as part of their own therapy), then the “real” therapists are the members of the marketing team that developed or authorized the game. When an animal is sold (returned) to the player, it signals a successful cure (they will no longer mistreat toys) and the success of the therapy/marketing campaign.

I like this interpretation because it removes some of the transparency from the process by which marketing pressures shape cultural products. The trope of the asylum foregrounds the psychological manipulation inherent in marketing: the therapies are shaping the products (the snake knotting and unknotting, the hippos mouth zipping and unzipping) as well as the consumer (as they learn to play the game, or, metaphorically, are cured of their “frustrations”).

Is the impact of marketing departments on the materiality of products relevant to the consideration of media specific analysis? If, as Hayles implied and “The Asylum” seems to stage, our cognitive processes are being retrained, the questions of “by whom” and “to what end” are at least as important as “how.” On the other hand, the introductory voice for “The Asylum” is that of a torturer, not a healer. As Adorno warned, it seems to want us to believe there is no exit: we are spineless, like the stuffed animals, and unable to defend ourselves.

Isn’t this enough to lead us to the whiskey store? I’m reminded of the Kurt Weill song (covered by The Doors): Well, show me the way/To the next whiskey bar/Oh, don't ask why. Fitting for this discussion is the verse omitted from the 1929 original: Oh show me the way/To the next little dollar.

--Ann