In class on Thursday we discussed Zizek and I was intrigued by the quote, “On today’s market, we find a whole series of products deprived of their malignant properties” (231). As I was thinking of it more, I realized that so many things in our society our deprived of their core ingredient. For example, faux wood floors, they look like real wood, but some are not even made out of wood. I tried to relate Zizek’s article to the architecture and art article by Jencks. Jencks’ article talked about different types of architecture styles. I think that some architectural devices can be related to Zizek’s idea of depriving products of their malignant properties. For example, the architectural device, tradition reinterpreted, is to take a classical architectural design and use it for something else. This type of device is to take something that already has a purpose and use it as something else. The picture we were shown in class was of cranes reinterpreted and used as light fixtures. The purpose of cranes is not to be stationary and produce light, but their purpose is to construct buildings. To me this is depriving the cranes of their malignant properties. Cranes are not light fixtures, nor are they supposed to function as them, but they can be reinterpreted into being “real”.
Another idea that Zizek discussed in his reading and we expanded on in class is how the media portrays the Third World countries as culturally “other” to us. This puts the idea “that can’t happen to us “ into our heads and makes them appear very different to us. We have become immune to seeing pictures of starving children in Africa, but when we see a starving child from America we are appalled. I think Katrina and 9/11 really changed a lot of people’s perceptions about the world. It made us think, “this can happen to us!” They were two problems we could not ignore. It also showed us how the government handled the situations. It seemed that the government blamed 9/11 solely on the terrorists and took any blame off of the government, which we know is not true. The media has so much power to reinterpret what is real; it makes educating society about their power extremely important.
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2 comments:
I think you do a great job in connecting Jencks with Zizek's ideas - it just goes to show that these connections are out there you just have to find them! Another characteristic of connecting Jencks and Zizek to the same concept of malignant properties is through the 'absent center'! Otherwise, you go on to make a very interesting point about the governments role with 9/11 in not preparing its society for any disasters happening on this side of the world.
:)
Oh i just thought of something! Your comments about the governments role makes me think of Lyotard and his idea "to wage a way on totality" - perhaps our culture must wage a war on the cushioning media gives us from experiencing real disaster.
:)
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