User:Themsen/RWRM3-1
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Abstract
In this essay I will use three documentaries “The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology” by Slavoj Zizek and Sophie Fiennes, “The Men Who Made Us Spend” by David Alter, Claire Burnett, Mike Radford, and “Enjoy Poverty” by Renzo Martens - with "Enjoy Poverty': Interview with Renzo Martens" by Sean Jacobs as a supporting article - to critisize how their criticism on ideology benefits and counters western ideology.
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Ideology: Commodified
Not only objects and services are commodities today. Ideologies are advertised and sold in a similar manner, as the three documenteries discussed in this text argue, as solutions for the debt to the subjects and servants of western ideology. (guilt for what?) The content of these documentaries educate us in the flaws of western society; the form of the documentaries (of the documentaries?) is made and distributed as a privileged object within the international business structures (which structures? could make it stronger to describe them) that support these flaws, by exploiting the servants of the west and manipulating their consumer-base; this allows the message of the documentary to be skewed, to be packaged into an already saturated media landscape. (is the media landscape that bad?) As Renzo Martens puts it:
- Empathy as a reaction from the viewer towards the suffering of others as portrayed in film is possibly an inappropriate reaction to that suffering because the empathy allows you to disregard the structural violence that is at the basis of suffering. [Martens cites Susan Sontags “On Photography”] (Jacobs 2010)
The documentaries make us fearful as we see the great faults in our society. They give us hope when we see the proposals (maybe example of a promise?) to right (to improve?) the wrongs. As Slavoj Žižek puts it in “The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology”: liberty hurts, security comforts. That which isn’t painful to accept is allied with the current ideology; what Martens would call ‘cutting into the flesh’ (Jacobs 2010) of western society would be very hard to do for many when security is such a comfortable cushion and your mind is in a convenient mindset. The documentaries let us feel guilt and pain out of empathy without forcing us to leave our comfortable lives (nice formulation), not unlike a horror movie; they make us comfortable in our fear, as we feel secure in the conviction that the time will come when things will get better. (do we?) In an interview, Renzo Martens touched on this dynamic using his own position in western society:
- […]I’m also defined by the education I have, by the racism and the feeling of agency that I’ve grown up with, I’m defined by the idea that I think it’s normal that I have a cup of coffee every day and it’s normal that other people don’t drink coffee but work for me anyway. [reply made by Martens] (Jacob 2010)
This normalcy is what it comes down to, this feeling of familiarity of growing up in the West. Our outside-view is mediated or guided, as a consumer or a tourist. Our view is, at times, narrowed by the photo/video lens, and screen media once we're back home again.
in sum? : ideology is a (western) commodity, and the documentaries are made within the same ideology, which creates a kind of feedback loop
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A Society of The Image
Similar to how riots may end in looting when consumerist impulses are kept from being realized by those with less means in capitalist societies, so does a saturation of worries in the western populace increase attention towards counter-west ideological messages when revolutions are kept back from those with less impact on western society. “We know about the problems, though we’d rather want comfort right now”. Our comfort leads us to delay this “right thing” which a revolution would entail, unless there is a crisis at our doorstep we are happy worrying about crises and not to partake in them. Perhaps we have even grown too used to crises. As Slavoj Zizek puts it, “capitalism is always in crisis”. With commercial enterprise tied to the well-being of a liberal democratic capitalist society media coverage mirrors this constant crisis and(bit loose — how is capitalism reaches us through the media?) continues to wash over us we are told we are as well. When we are always in crisis, we wait for a better time where we could calmly consider solutions, but for now we prefer the security of being a jour through established media to paint our world-view. (maybe good to conclude this paragraph: when we are always in crisis, we wait for a better time in which we could consider solutions, but for now we prefer to create some comfort?) Media is today seen more as a tool for conveying messages than to document, or picture a real place in a real time. As Martens mentions:
- In the old days a painting of a swimming pool would represent a swimming pool [...] Now, since a long time, a painting of a swimming pool deals with the fact that it is a painting of a swimming pool. It is more a painting of a swimming pool than just a swimming pool.
Effectively, most documentaries no longer depict reality. What the documentary tries to picture is what a movie about suffering conveys to us and so the documentary becomes a vessel for what we see in it, what we wish to take from it. The image no longer is the message, it is the form of the message which takes precedence, what you see behind the image. Our grasp on reality through media has changed into a more conceptual interpretation, and as media continues to take precedence this mentality will continue to influence western ideology.
In a way, Martens tried to get past this problem. By making his movie explore the process of uncovering the systematic poverty of Congo the viewer was allowed to take the same journey as Martens, (maybe good to explain the autoreferentialness shortly?) it forced its viewer to stand on a pedestal of morality and then take a look at themselves and the position they hold as a subject of the West. But still, the majority might either accept the message and work with it, (did you read that somewhere, or is it an assumption?) or perceive (do you mean percieve?) the documentary as a movie-piece of simply art, without any ideological, moral or ethical meaning; simply something you can put behind you once the footage has stopped.
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An Ideological Movement to Counter the Politics of the Old?
On a lighter note, these documentaries were clearly made by people who want to right the wrongs and allow us think how we could change ourselves in order for western conduct to be less disruptive. Renzo Martens speaks of a working wage, similar to a minimum pay in western countries, for those working on the plantations in Congo; Jacques Peretti mentions stronger regulations on the world market to better fight consumerist society, and Slavoj Žižek makes it clear that in order for us to understand our present politics we need a different notion of ideology. ‘The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology’ relies heavily on video as a tool for ideological analysis, and deems it an important branch for cultural analysis. Meanwhile ‘Enjoy Poverty’ and Jacques Peretti focus on the physical and psychological traps of living in a consumer society. The documentaries are purposefully renditioned to show the stark reality, but they also share that sense of humanity and betterment. Which is a positive turn I'd say as there has been an existential crisis between being a pre- to post-industrial human culturally speaking.
(this needs examples and more explination, but not in the conclusion? it could fit very well to your last paragraph?)
(how would you describe the role/position of these documentaries? are they a reflection-tool on our current political system? something that politics or main media organisations wouldn't be able to do? what's the importance of these documentaries? this paragraph is maybe too describing-only, compared to the other two)
Conclusion
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References
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Žižek, Slavoj, dir. Sophie Fiennes, “The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology”
Alter, Burnett & Radford, “The Men Who Made Us Spend”
Martens, Renzo, “Enjoy Poverty”
Jacobs, Sean, ‘'Enjoy Poverty': Interview with Renzo Martens’, http://africasacountry.com/poverty-for-sale/
‘Slavoj Zizek - Biography’, http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/biography/