FloRida, 9/27

This week’s classes were all about connecting the dots for me once again. Dr. Rog’s description of Zizek’s personality is very intriguing and I am extremely interested and excited to get to see him in person. One concept that was brought up in class what about how WE as Americans believe that nothing bad will ever happen to us. I really loved Zizek’s thoughts and ideas of the realities behind this. Zizek states that, “America got what it fantasized about, and that was the biggest surprise.” We constantly fantasize about what happens in other places and how terrible it is but lucky enough we live in America, so we are exempt from these horrors. “It is surprising how little of the actual carnage we see… in clear contrast to reporting on Third World catastrophes… The real horror happens there, not here.” Reality is rarely portrayed within the images we view. This view somewhat changed when September 11th occurred. “The ‘terrorists’ themselves did not do it primarily to provoke real material damage, but for the spectacular effect of it,” explains Zizek. The idea behind the word spectacular is very different in this scenario than in most. Spectacular, in my mind, usually relates to something that is an amazing, great, or huge image, idea, film etc. In this case, spectacular relates to us making our meanings based on an image we see. It will be really interested to see how what we have been studying about Zizek applies to what he is going to be talking about throughout the lectures.