User:Elleke Hageman/Trimester 3/Reading and Writing/Draft Essay
How can Zizek’s understanding of ideology, as presented in The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, be applied to Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing and Renzo Martens’ Episode 3: Enjoy Poverty ?
The killers in the act of killing seem to live in a postideological world but still trying to cling onto it. They are glorifying the killings and actions they commited in .... whenever they did that 60 – 70? Through a measure of cynical reasoning.
The ideas of these gangsters are based upon their ideology of being free. The word gangster for them is a title they can put that encapsulates their entire ideology. Gangster means being free, free men. A lot of the ideas about being free and about being a gangster are based upon their love for american cinema. They used to sell tickets for the cinema and because of that were able to see a lot of American cinema and Gangster movies.
In 1965 anwar and friends helped to kill an enormous amount of “communists” in a very gruesome matter.
The self-named gangsters had an education through american cinema, which means that their vision on the world was already a product of a fantastical world for their education on realism had been constructed in the narrative fantastical construct of American cinema and therefore is detached from the realistic world.
The PKI (Indonesion communist party) was the source for a bad economy at that period of time and therefore needed to be exterminated (the fact that the communists banned the beloved American cinema of Anwar and co. didn't help with this idea). The communists in the eyes of the gangsters thus were the great evil and they needed to be exterminated. In the killings of the communists that went on in that period of time also a lot of non- communist civilians were killed.
In my opinion the way Anwar and friends justify their behaviour is through what Zizek calls cynical reasoning and the fantastical realm. Zizek tells us that The fantasy construct fills in the gap of the ideology. Because they don't really look at the people they are killing or who their victims are they can fill in every information they don't have and can make up facts about the communist nature of the victim. This is where the fear of the Evil Other also comes into place. They us the Evil Communist to to fixate their ideology and the means that come with it.
Also the gangsters can justify their killings and brutality through claiming that they need to do this in order to attain their ultimate goal “freedom”. One of them litearally says that “You can do whatever you want as long as you find a good reasoning for it”.Also they can use the education they had from American cinema to supplement this fantastical knowledge about their victims and create new means of killing.
Having placed themselves out of the system and claiming that because they have won they have an absolute power. This way of looking at things gives them the power to do everything they want. They can steal and kill people and never have to feel guilty for it. They can decide what happens. The gangsters claim to want a better economy for Indonesia. While actually they are exploiting the people in the way that the communists exploited as well. They extort money from the people around them in order to pay for their campaign which they claim will bring a better economy.
Renzo
Enjoy poverty establishes that images of poverty are Congo’s most lucrative export as opposed to diamonds gold etc. Also, it is a post ideological view on good causes such as Unicef etc.
If we look at the statement zizek makes about capitalism, which is that capitalism is always in crisis and that the true capitalist will sacrifice anything for capitalism than we will see that Renzo, in a way, addresses this.
Renzo makes an attempt in trying to make the poverty profitable for the congolese themselves. He tries to educate them in a more capitalist way, educate the Congolese photographers in how can I make this business lucrative. This attempt is doomed to fail.
The most striking in this process is the scene where a man from a journalist company tells Renzo that the photographing of the Congolese poverty by the Congolese photographers is exploition of the poor. While that is actually a practice that is being executed by a lot of western photographers. Here is when we arrive at Zizeks statement about the fake sympathy with lower classes and how western society revitalizes itself by this mechanism. Western society needs the poor in Africa to make a contrast to make them feel good about themselves. This is being shown by the exhibition with pictures of poor Congolese and via western photographers taking pictures of poverty and other kinds of horrifications. The fact that western people can stand in an exhibition and be appalled by the poverty of the people that are depicted gives Western people a good feeling about themselves and creates even a goal for them in which they want and can help people through good causes.
Not only do western people feel good about themselves because the western life is better than being poor in Africa, but also western society can create a value for itself by helping these poor Africans through the creation of good causes.
We “care” for the poor Africans while actually we, the capitalists, are keeping the system of their poverty alive and exploiting them. This is where the statement of the true capitalist will sacrifice anything comes in. We as the Western society have the capability of fighting poverty in Africa but we choose not to. Or make halfway attempts to do something about the poverty, which often are attempts that are not thought through or counterproductive, so the we the Western can feel good about themselves while we actually do not manage to make a change. You might even say we don't want to because then we would loose the poverty that makes us so happy and creates a value for our lives.
SECOND DRAFT
How can Zizek’s understanding of ideology, as presented in The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, be applied to Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing and Renzo Martens’ Episode 3: Enjoy Poverty ?
The killers in the act of killing seem to live in a post-ideological world but are still trying to cling onto their ideology. They are justifying and glorifying the killings and gruesome actions they committed in 1965-1966 through a measure of constructing a fantasy for themselves.
The ideas of the gangsters are based upon their ideology of being free. The word gangster for them is a title they have put upon themselves that encapsulates their entire ideology. Gangster means being free, free men. A lot of the ideas about being free and about being a gangster are based upon their love for american cinema. They used to sell tickets for the cinema and because of that were able to see a lot of American cinema and Gangster movies. This accesibillity to American Cinema seems to have been the source for of an education for the gangsters. The vision these gangsters have on their world and the actions they committed in them is already a product of a fantastical world for their education on realism had been constructed in the narrative fantastical construct of American cinema and therefore is detached from the realistic world.
In 1965 Indonesia was in a bad state economically and the ruling party at the time the PKI (Indonesion communist party) was the cause for this and therefore needed to be exterminated (the fact that the communists banned the beloved American cinema of Anwar and co. didn't help with the gangsters like the communists much better). Anwar and friends helped to kill an enormous amount of “communists” in a very gruesome matter. In these killings that went on in that period of time also a lot of non- communist civilians were killed. Anwar and co in the Act of Killing are very proud and even seem to glorify the killings they comitted and their behaviour of that time.
In my opinion the way Anwar and friends justify their behaviour is through what Zizek calls the fantastical construct in Ideology. Zizek tells us that this construct fills in the gaps of an ideology. Because Anwar and friends don't have no knowledge of the people they are killing or who their victims are they can use every lack of information as gaps to project their own ideas upon the people they are actually killing. For example they can use it to make up facts about the communist nature of the victim.
This is where the fear of the Evil Other comes into place. Zizek states that we need a fear of an evil other to fixate our own ideology. The ideology of the gangsters is “freedom” that is also why they have named themselves gangsters because the word gangster literally means “free man” as Anwar explains us. In order to attain their ultimate goal of freedom they need to exterminate everything which might be a threat for this. The gangsters thus use the Big Evil Communist Other to fixate their ideology and the means that come with keeping this ideology alive.
Also one of them litearally says that “You can do whatever you want as long as you find a good reasoning for it”. This again has to do with the creation of the fantastical construct because he admits to creating or making up reasons for them to jusify his behaviour. And again this is where the education they had from American cinema comes into place. They can supplement the fantastical knowledge they created about their victims with knowledge on new means of killing. A lot of the killing they comitted was inspired by American Cinema. Having placed themselves in this fantastical construct gives them way of looking at things gives them the power to do everything they want. They can steal and kill people and never have to feel guilty for it. They can decide what happens they have placed themselves out of the real world.
When, in the act of killing, Joshua makes the gangsters relive their actions through re-enacting them in a film the actions of the gangsters are actually being placed outside of their fantastical realm and into the realm of the real world. This gives them even more room to construct this realm in a very over-exagerating way. Joshua succeeds in revealing the true fantastical realm of the gangsters in this manner. Where they create an heavenly like place in which girls dance for them in adoration and Anwar is standing as a black Godlike Priest amidst them. In another scene we see how a beautiful luxurious buffet with a chopped of head (of Anwar, minor detail), and some monkeys feasting from it, is almost as if the gangsters see these killings as exhuberant celebrations.
It seems that Anwar through this process is getting more insight into the actions and killings he comitted. He shows remorse and sometimes even has a deep physiological reaction towards the actions that he has comitted. But when we look further in the film we might even wonder if this reaction is actually true and if it is not just again something that Anwar has seen in a film and learned is the appropriate behaviour.
The gangsters claim to want a better economy for Indonesia. While actually they are exploiting the people in the way that the communists exploited as well. They extort money from the people around them in order to pay for their campaign which they claim will bring a better economy.
Renzo
Enjoy poverty establishes that images of poverty are Congo’s most lucrative export as opposed to diamonds gold etc. Also, it is a post ideological view on good causes such as Unicef etc. Western society is looking at releasing poverty in Africa through the sunglasses of ideology.
If we look at the statement Zizek makes about capitalism, which is that capitalism is always in crisis and that the true capitalist will sacrifice anything for capitalism than we will see that Renzo reveals this. Also there is a mechanism of the fake sympathy for the lower classes that is going on.
Renzo makes an attempt in trying to make the poverty profitable for the congolese themselves. He tries to educate them in a more capitalist way, educate the Congolese photographers in how can I make this business lucrative. This attempt is doomed to fail.
The most striking in this process is the scene where a man from a journalist company tells Renzo that the photographing of the Congolese poverty by the Congolese photographers is exploition of the poor. While that is actually a practice that is being executed by a lot of western photographers. Here is when we arrive at Zizeks statement about the fake sympathy with lower classes and how western society revitalizes itself by this mechanism. Western society needs the poor in Africa to make a contrast to make them feel good about themselves. This is being shown by the exhibition with pictures of poor Congolese and via western photographers taking pictures of poverty and other kinds of horrifications. The fact that western people can stand in an exhibition and be appalled by the poverty of the people that are depicted gives Western people a good feeling about themselves and creates even a goal for them in which they want and can help people through good causes.
Not only do western people feel good about themselves because the western life is better than being poor in Africa, but also western society can create a value for itself by helping these poor Africans through the creation of good causes.
We “care” for the poor Africans while actually we, the capitalists, are keeping the system of their poverty alive and exploiting them. This is where the statement of the true capitalist will sacrifice anything comes in. We as the Western society have the capability of fighting poverty in Africa but we choose not to. Or make halfway attempts to do something about the poverty, which often are attempts that are not thought through or counterproductive, so the we the Western can feel good about ourselves while we actually do not manage to make a change. You might even say we don't want to because then we would loose the poverty that makes us so happy and creates a value for our lives.
Fantastical were creating a fantasy for ourselves the sunglasses of ideologuy