“When we look at the western world through this lens, it is easy to interpret the whole Hollywood industry as providing the jouissance that keeps the public in its place, that keeps it feeling satisfied and privileged, gives it its inch of power, of feeling of power, that allows it a calm self-identity, an identity that does not require thoughts of revolution. It perfectly explains the dominant role of crime in cinema and all entertainment. The modern world slave is satisfied with a form of jouissance even less tangible than the man who let the Tartars balls drag through the mud. There are no physical testicles to hold. The modern slaves jouissance that makes him an accomplice to the universal crime of subjective agency is perfectly insubstantial, it does not come at a price for the master.”
As much as I hate to admit it, we could say as much about alcohol and drugs (even the ones prescribed by doctors) in that they are that little bit of Jouissance that “The Master” allows us in order to keep us complacent.
But you clearly see the hegemonic role that Hollywood and media in general, despite its leftist sentiments, plays in our complacency. Note, for instance, the way that most sitcoms (such as Seinfeld) present a world in which no one has to concern themselves with how much a product costs as if they lived in a world where the only concern was what product to buy. They always seem to just go about, carefree, purchasing what they need regardless of their means. It’s as if they live under an ideal coexistence of efficiencies where things are coordinated in such a way that everyone has the resources necessary to meet whatever it might be that they need, demand, or desire: the minimization of the differential between what is put into a thing and that gotten out that most people in the world don’t get to experience.
But a real telling point on this came from an episode of At the Movies in which Siskal and Ebert were going through these miscellaneous lists and had one called “How Do They Afford Those Apartments?”. In it, they were noting the discrepancy between the normal cost of the apartment the characters of movie were portrayed owning or renting and the salaries those characters would have given their occupations: what they in reality would be able to afford. This, of course, results from the imperative of directors to stock their environments with pretty things in order to make their creation pretty. Note, for instance, David Lynch’s inclusion of that little cone hat with the whirly blade on top in Blue Velvet. In the real world, something like it may have been well beyond the budget of Isabelle’s character for her son; but it had to be involved as a novel prop that added to the general effect of Lynch’s film.
And you might also note, as you’re watching various movies and TV shows, the various artworks you see hanging on the walls. As someone who has dabbled in art himself, much of what I see is pretty high end –in other words: expensive: maybe too expensive for the resources implied by the given character’s job and the resources it would give them in the real world. Most of us have to settle for prints of good art. Still, as expected by those who offer us this alternative reality, it works.
And how does this not come from the corporate/Capitalist values that must, by necessity, dominate Hollywood and media in general? That is despite the general right-wing consensus concerning some left-wing conspiracy coming out of Hollywood?
The thing though, returning to Zizek’s most profound point, is that we don’t just accept this reality blindly. We know better but play along. And that is the scary part. And in the same sense, we know that the reality presented in TV ads is not our reality. At the same time, we can’t help but feel that our political representatives (those who are closest to the corporate/Capitalist mentality behind the illusion) actually do believe it. But is that necessarily true? They couldn’t be idiots and get where they have. The majority of them are college educated. And they’re clearly not bots or corporate puppets that just come into it to facilitate the illusion perpetrated by Capitalist interests. They have to in order to obtain and hold their position of power. I believe that what they come up against are systematic imperatives that force them to carry out the corporate mission, even when they come into it with the best of intentions and knowing better.
And I would argue that within this complex of imperatives created by Capitalism lies the very foundation of that predicted by authentic Christianity and Yeat’s “The Second Coming”: the Beast: the eternal return of the Roman Empire in the form of Global Capitalism.
And in the spirit of Zizek, I would quote a line from Cronenberg’s version of The Fly:
“Be afraid. Be very afraid.”