I found Zizek to be an extremely interesting and brilliant man. After attending his lecture Monday night and his lecture in class on Tuesday I realized he is just full of information and would lecture for hours if there were time. I did find him hard to understand and felt that I only comprehended about 50% of what he was saying. But just being able to pull out a few quotes was insightful.
Zizek talked a lot about seeking the truth in the media. He said in order to seek the truth; we must put on glasses to see the reality in the media. He gave an example of viewing a commercial on television that is raising money for starving children in Africa. In the commercial, a picture of a malnutrition child is shown, this then provokes you to want to give money. But Zizek says if you put the ideological glasses on you see that the money will make you feel better, but it is not going to change the problem. The glasses are a way to see the truth in the media. The commercial isn’t trying to combat world hunger; it is just trying to make it a little less severe. Zizek advocated being more critical of the media. Being more critical of the media requires us to look beyond the images shown, but the meaning behind them, understanding the reality vs. the fiction.
On Thursday we went back and talked about Baudrillard and the question if reality is more fictional than fiction. For example, we have seen the image of the starving children in Africa over and over, almost being desensitized to it. This makes me question how real is the image. How framed or set-up are the images? I would say that these images are an example of masking and denaturing reality, one of the successive phases of images talked about by Baudrillard. As Zizek said, the purpose behind the images is money, not change. The images of the sad children are almost fictional. To portray the reality of the starvation in Africa, I think Zizek and Baudrillard would agree for the media to show actual deaths and children dying, rather than the sugarcoated black and white image of malnutrition children holding their hands out for food. While there are aspects of truth in the images the media shows, they are still being framed in a way appropriate for television. But will we ever see the reality unless we experience it for ourselves?
1 comment:
You bring up some really great points and I like how you inter-relate Zizek's talk with Baudrillard's ideas and consistently compare with the example of 'the children in Africa' idea. You bring up the great question of how much we really can experience the real - is it only through our actions of can it be through media also? How does the desensitization of the image relate to Benjamin's notion of mechanical reproduction? How do we experience a good feeling when we give money to African children through some commercial when we are not physically giving the money to them? Think about these ideas and it will help you broaden your thinking just that step further. Good job!
:)
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