Subject: Re: Jouissance in the Dark
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 09:16:49 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)



On Sun, 22 Oct 2000 22:01:06 -0400 christopher brittain 
<chris.brittain-AT-utoronto.ca> wrote:

> Thanks, Ken, for mentioning an article you think is profoundly erroneous.
> The essay in question can be found at:

> http://www.gradnet.de/pomo2.files/pomo2.frames/ep2Frame.htm

I don't think it's erroneous, I'm just jealous that my rejoinder didn't get 
published.  ; )

> Unfortunately, Ken's protests to the contrary, I continue to be disturbed by 
von Trier's manipulative use of the suffering of women with questionable mental 
states, in order to turn them into emblems of saintliness.

I haven't seen The Idiots or Dancer in the Dark... are they both Dogma95 films? 
Incidentally, what I find to be revealing in BtW is the *miracle* at the end, 
which contrasts with the 'real world' style of the film. Without the miracle, 
which from a modernist perspective appears absurd, then the film loses all of 
its critical fitness.


> Von Trier's fascination with the "Gold Heart" children's story, in which a 
little girl enters the woods, and gradually gives everything she carries with 
her away, until she is left naked and alone, lies behind the inspiration for 
BtW, and vT can't seem to leave this theme behind.

Isn't this the plot line of a children's story, by Sheldon Silverstein (name?) 
- something about a boy and a tree - where the tree is cast a female... 
eventually the boy cuts down the tree to make a house and the tree is happy 
that they could be of service... awful stuff.

> The "irony" of the films is a manipulative one, developed at the expense of 
the characters - playing with them to purposely manipulate the audience's 
response. Von T is more interested in his theme of "Goodness" than the content 
of his stories, with leaves me with the impression of a director testing the 
martyr-potentiality of his female characters, like God tested Job (don't get me 
started on the notion of "feminine jouissance"!).

My rejoinder being, for BtW - this "Goodness" leaps directly into psychosis, 
which is made so obvious that a reflective audience can't help but notice.

> So, I share the same concern as Ottie RE von Trier's work (although "the
> Kingdom" is much fun).

Agreed.

> Hmmmmm. So, we should avoid suggesting that consumers are duped?

Not completely, but we might consider that the error is not completely on the 
side of the consumer, but also on the side of reality. "Reality" is lacking 
(this is the double split that Lacan introduces - the split in the subject and 
the split in the object). This is one of the points that Zizek talks about in 
his introduction to the volume Mapping Ideology.

> > In effect: "there is no consumer relationship" - no particular good can 
'fix' the subject.

> By this, do you mean to suggest that the consumer is not duped by the 
advertizer, but rather by the impression that the shopping spree will finally 
satisfy the desire?

Tis a difficult question. I don't think the consumer is duped by the advertiser,
we all know that Coke isn't actually going to satisfy us much more than a Pepsi 
or another name-brand cola (in blind taste tests only two percent of the 
population can distinguish between brand names) [insert age old statistic from 
philosophy undergrad class]. But at the same time, we still buy Coke over the 
name brand... It seems to mere that there is a paradox at work here: we know 
damn well what we are doing, yet we are still doing it! (in contrast to "they 
known not what they do").

> > The only "real thing" which can satisfy the consumer is "No-thing." In 
short: if we take consumerism at its word, that products satisfy our desires, 
then we should buy nothing.

> Interesting, but it is, of course, rather meaningless, unless one chooses to 
become "Golden Heart" and give everything away......

Charity isn't the same as actively going out there and buying NoThing.

> It seems that "desire" here is a rather large concept that blurs some key
> distinctions. My desire for a DVD player or a Pentium III is not the same as
> my desire for a roof over my head or three meals a day.

Tis true. You probably need the Pentium III more than you need a roof over your 
head (ie. you wouldn't desire [symbolically seek out] a DVD player unless you 
already had a place to stay)... I mean, I have an apartment, and yeah, I want 
to stay in it - but my concern is more about rent... so I make sure that I can 
foot the bill for that... and then I don't much think about it.

> Yet, the advertizing industry attempts to influence the consumer's decision 
making (and to encourage certain fantasy structures - eg lottery jack-pots) in 
ways that blurs this distinction. Is that not manipulation, and, in a sense, an 
attempt to "dupe" the consumer?

Absolutely. We shouldn't be fooled, the marketing industry is probably the most 
successful industry that ever has been. But I think we're less fooled that 
believe and more fooled than we know...

> Yes, I realize that I'm not employing my terms in a strict Lacanian fashion,
> but am simply trying to make a point quickly. I had trouble following Ken's
> examples of items 'enjoying' for me (the VCR, the library, etc), although
> perhaps merely because I'm a bit light-headed today - I skipped eating today
> because I'm saving up for a new Diskman  ;)

Better be careful, you might just end up saving enough for that new Diskman! - 
then what would you do? You'd have to eat lunch (which, apparently, you don't 
much desire at all!). Ok, to be fair, I haven't, in my own mind, figured out 
the relation between interpassivity and consumerism, so my connections might 
not have been all that well conceived.

ken