Freedom is Getting Spanked By Your Boss: Dostoevsky on Secretary (2002)
By Hero Magnus
“Most people think that the best way to live is to run from pain. But a much more joyful life embraces the entire spectrum of human feeling. If we can fully experience pain as well as pleasure, we can live a much deeper and more meaningful life.”
—‘How to Come Out As A Dominant/Submissive’ self-tape, Secretary
One of Dostoevsky’s many misfortunes is that he did not live long enough to watch Secretary (2002), a kinky cult classic and heartwarming coming-of-age film. It covers many topics— familial discontent, typewriters, BDSM— but lingers on the pleasure of suffering, which is also the theme of Dostoevsky’s dreadful novella Notes from the Underground.
The star of Secretary is Lee Holloway, played to perfection by a meek and somewhat bedraggled Maggie Gyllenhaal. She is sent to the mental institution for self-mutilation, and returns home to a conventional but unhealthy family unit— her father hits her mother when he gets drunk. Lee’s primary interest at the beginning of the film is self-harm, and it really is an interest. She has a favorite glittery box of knives, cuticle scissors, and iodine.
Kant and Rousseau would conclude that what Lee needs is enlightenment. She should figure out, with math and statistics, what her true interests are, and move towards them. Perhaps this might involve her boyfriend, Peter, and a stable marriage with him: “Did you know Peter has a very stable job at J. C. Penney?” inquires her mother. But Dostoevsky knows that Lee is in a difficult spot. She has all of her basic needs met, but no control over either her own life or her family situation. While her actions would stump the Enlightened philosophers— self-mutilation is not a reasonable action, so as soon as she realizes that, she should cease— Dostoevsky is at no loss. Lee is fulfilling what is “dearer to almost every man than his very best interests” (Dostoevsky). She seeks out suffering via self harm as a way to express her free will in the middle of a violent and frustrating family situation. Easy. But Lee is our protagonist for a reason. She is too fond of suffering for that to be enough.
Lee starts work as a secretary, and quickly begins a sadomasochistic relationship with her hot boss, E. Edward Grey (James Spader). Mr Grey spanks her when she makes typos, which she makes frequently (in order to receive the spankings). He dresses her as a horse. He sends her to dig in a trash can. Dostoevsky approves: it makes total sense for man to wish for stupid and harmful things, “just so that he will have the right to wish the stupidest thing.” Lee takes great pleasure in the stupidest thing. Eventually, she sabotages her relationship with boring boyfriend Peter. Ironically, it is in Lee’s surrender of will that she achieves more independent choice. She enjoys giving up her free will to the institution (“inside, life was simple. For that reason I was reluctant to go”) and to her boss. But this is different from a rational surrender to the forces of determinism: hers is either because she is insane (institution) or perverted (masochism). She wants someone to tell her what to do, but only when that is a contrarian thing to want.
With Mr Grey, Lee’s highest form of suffering begins to take shape. She finds ecstatic pleasure masturbating to the sounds of Mr Grey’s red Sharpie marking up her bad typing. He orders her to refuse taking car rides from her mother, and to throw away the glittery box. She puts a worm in one of his letters so that he will be compelled to punish her. “Desires,” says Dostoevsky, “are a manifestation of the whole of life. And although life… will turn out to a pretty sorry mess, it is still life and not a mere extraction of square roots.” In these new desires, Lee is truly living. The sadomasochism is good for her. When Lee sits at Mr Grey’s desk for three days, wetting herself and not eating (he said ‘don’t move until I come back’), the priest comes to inform her on religious history. “The monks used to wear thorns on their temples,” he says. “And the nuns wore them sewn inside their clothing.” There are many ways to escape a perfectly rational and boring life, and Dostoevsky argues that everyone will find some way to manifest their free will eventually. But the conventional people are all disturbed by Lee, who so proudly eschews reason, suffers so publically.
And tucked away behind picket fences is the specter of reason. “Have you noticed that the most refined bloodletters have almost all been most civilized gentlemen?” asks Dostoevsky. Lee’s father is that kind of man. He is righteous, rational, and like every lover of mankind, “sooner or later ended up betraying their own fine principles.” He rationalized his drinking, his abuse, his refusal to change either. He is more dangerous because he does not think he is dangerous. Lee’s mother, too, with her beautiful yellow bouffant, attempts to tally up life’s advantages and act according to them. She is miserable. Only Lee is honest with herself; only Lee understands that the true desire is to conduct her life by her own hand. So, Secretary proves Dostoevsky right: reason is not only unrealistic but undesirable; suffering is salvation; man desires free action above all else.
But Dostoevsky would not have watched Secretary with pure academic interest. Freud describes Dostoevsky as sadistic, neurotic, unreasonable, intolerant, and fond of tormenting people he cared for. This sounds like our Mr Grey, who is, by all accounts, a rather irritable boss. He also cares deeply for Lee, which he demonstrates repeatedly, as he prioritizes her best interests (to suffer and to be independent). And so too, does Dostoevsky show “his great need of love and his boundless capacity for love” (Freud). Mr Grey and Dostoevsky also share a great deal of shame about their perversions. Mr Grey dramatically throws away his red pens, and does push-ups to try to rid himself of his desire for secretarial obedience. He even fires Lee to quell his temptations. (“But I want to know you,” she cries. “I realize what a terrible mistake I made with you,” he says. “And I can only hope that you understand.”) And Dostoevsky frequently apologized to his wife, Anna, for his indiscretions and depravity: he would “invite her to despise him and to feel sorry that she had married such an old sinner” (Freud). (It is my wish that Anna, like Lee, took this as a chance to fuel Dostoevsky’s suffering in a fun and sexy way.)
After Lee is fired, she goes to many lengths to win back Mr Grey’s affections (and lack thereof). They are soon married. On the honeymoon, they copulate as she is tied to a tree. This happy ending may be the only troubling part of Secretary to Dostoevsky. He would think of Lee’s pursuit of Mr Grey as a triumphant expression of her stupid, human free will. But now, her desires are fulfilled. Their deviations will be happily conducted in relative secrecy. When things are well, will Lee still need to “invent destruction and chaos”? After all, Dostoevsky warns that man is most afraid of achieving his goal, and then being bored. Will she be bored? After a decade of marriage, will Lee need to find a new way to stick the gold pins in her, as Cleopatra did to the slave girls?
For now, at least, Lee arrives at the same conclusions as the Underground Man might, had he ever found a lover and lost some cynicism. “In one way or another, I've always suffered,” she says. “I didn't know why, exactly. But I do know that I'm not so scared of suffering now.” Lee’s kind of suffering, a 24/7 perverted invocation of free will, is a good choice. When people try to overcome desire in favor of reason, only the nastiest bloodshed can result: boiling teapot against thigh, father screaming in the living room, the detritus of a conventional life.
Works Cited
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from the Underground. Epoch, 1864.
Freud, Sigmund. “Dostoevsky and Parricide.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol. 26, 1945, pp. 1-8.
Secretary. Story by Mary Gaitskill, Starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader, Lions Gate Films, 2002.