User:Zigbe/writingTriester3

Enjoy Poverty III x
Pervert Guide to Ideology x
Act of Killing

Cynic reasoning. In Enjoy Poverty P.III you see Renzo Martens in a journey to Africa where he implies to come to help Africans to understand that poverty is a resource which the Africans should know how to exploit by themselves. In order to illustrate that idea he shows how journalists and NGOs benefits from African poverty as much as more obvious entrepreneurs such as farmers, diamond and gold hunters. Renzo is sharp on his comments, his vanity is clearly stated towards the end of the film and his arrogance confuses the feelings of the viewer. Eventually he is quite straight forward when saying to a worker that he should loose his hopes because nothing will ever get better. At this point my own hypocrisy manifests like punch on my stomach and I want to hate Renzo, even knowing he is partially right.

Renzo is sharp portraying his position as the western man who wants to help the poor people of Africa. He is aware of his patronizing position using arrogance as a medium to develop his idea. There is no clear border between right or wrong, leaving it to the viewer to find one's own path. Renzo straight forwardness when telling Africans in a small village to loose their hopes for a better life is painful, it makes my stomach move inside out. I believe Renzo manages to add many layers to the whole film presenting it with many possible interpretations making it a rich and confusing experience to watch. One thing that becomes more obvious as I watch the film again is that it isn't a film about Africa. Besides using Africa as a the subject, the film unfold a self portrait of a western arrogance, and despite many exceptions, westerns can be very often colonized by its own structures creating an idea superiority towards the "other", and blinding them to a deeper understanding of the effects of international political interests on other cultures. Another important point evident in the film is the importance of the charity / NGO industry on western economy. The film mentions that about 90% of the money raised by a country stays on the country itself instead of being used to actually “help”. The NGO industry has an ideological role inside Africa, as it maintains an image of altruism to the helping countries it also build a hierarchical image for the Africans, who learn to look up to the NGO's with respect and hope, which keep the Africans believing in their inferiority. As Žižek puts well, they keep the Africans alive and just content enough to not protest against this whole system build on top of them.

Žižek film Pervert Guide to ideology, where he reads trough the images of Hollywood films the iconic representations of ideology used as capitalistic propaganda disguised as entertainment. His interpretation are sharp and quite interesting. But here I see the cynic reasoning in a different lens. Not trough how he reads the films, but how I read him. On my view his soft-radical discourse puts him in the same position as he reads Starbucks in one of his discourses. He represents the amazing paradoxical and complex layers of capitalism. A system that not only aloud itself to be criticized, in contrast to communism, but also, a system which transforms radicalism and self criticism back to itself and gain from it. I feel that Žižek soft discourses very often becomes just entertainment for the intellectual politicized elite, which enjoys listening to him to believe they are consuming something of radical importance, and that they care about the world and politics. Žižek represents here his own version of bio-fairtrade-radical-socialist-Frapuccino. I don't mean here to diminish the intellectual value of his writings and ideas. But the audio-visual image re creates of himself, as it is consumed it is absorbed by the system he criticizes. In order to illustrate my words on “soft radical” I would like to quote Slavoj Žižek's letter to Pussy Riot's imprisoned activist Nadezhda Tolokonnikova published late 2014 by The Guardian: “I felt deeply ashamed after reading your reply. You wrote:
"You should not worry about the fact that you are exposing theoretical fabrications while I am supposed to suffer the 'real hardship'.” … This simple sentence made me aware that the final sentiment in my last letter was false: my expression of sympathy with your plight basically meant, "I have the privilege of doing real theory and teaching you about it while you are good for reporting on your experience of hardship …"

In 1971, Glauber Rocha, a Brazilian film director, talks in an interview (later published in a book entitled Rocha que voa) about the avaunt-guardist intellectual, the thinker who has a practice aligned with his own though. As an example he mentions french thinkers involved in the manifestations of may '68, both as intellectuals and revolutionaries (forbidden word nowadays). As already mentioned, I don't intend here to diminish the importance of Slavoj Žižek's ideas and how it still can influence positive minds. But his audio-visual character Is like an old punk on MTV. It's pleasurable to consume Frapuccino politics on a Sunday afternoon as it doesn't threaten my comfort zone but enriches me with the feeling of being politicized, and so on... And so on... Using Žižek comments on Full Metal Jacket: both Slavoj Žižek and Renzo Martens play the position of the Joker. The character who can be inside a system and keep his distance, having a critical view on it, but at the same time being the perfect soldier. As they criticize they perpetuate an ideology.

Sorry Steve, I'm still uncomfortable with sharing a formal opinion on Act of Killing.

Check this link instead:
Atrocities Explode Myth of Dutch Tolerance

Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot's prison letters to Slavoj Žižek

old Enjoy Poverty III x
Pervert Guide to Ideology x
Act of Killing old

Cynic reasoning.
In "Enjoy Poverty p.III" you see Renzo Martens in a journey to Africa where he implies to come to help Africans to understand that poverty is a resource which the Africans should know how to exploit by themselves. In order to illustrate that idea he shows how journalists and NGOs benefits from African poverty as much as more obvious entrepreneurs such as farmers, diamond and gold hunters. Renzo is sharp on his comments, his vanity is clearly stated towards the end of the film and his arrogance confuses the feelings of the viewer. Eventually he is quite straight forward when saying to a worker that he should loose his hopes because nothing will ever get better. At this point my own hypocrisy manifests like punch on my stomach and I want to hate Renzo.
Renzo is sharp portraying his position as the western trying to help the poor people of Africa. He is aware of his patronizing position using arrogance as a medium to develop his idea. There is no clear border between right or wrong, leaving it to the viewer to find one's own path. Renzon straight forwardness to the Africans when telling them to loose their hopes for better is painful, it makes my stomach move inside out. Despite Africa being the main subject in the screen, I believe Renzo manages to add so many layers to the whole film presenting it with so many possible interpretations making it a quite rich and confusing experience to watch the film. One thing that becomes more obvious every time I watch it again is that it I not a film about Africa. Besides using Africa as a the subject, the film is a quite evident self portrait of the remains of western colonialist arrogance (if I may call remains), a superiority complex towards the "other". It also shows that this arrogance is so engraved and indoctrinated in western culture, that his attitude becomes confusing even to the most well intended minds. The film also breaks open that the charity / NGO industry benefits as much as African exploitation as the "evil" exploitation already known, and the "good will" industry is not only profiting financially from African poverty, but also ideologically. All the good will propaganda surrounding it works to help clear the mind of the richer minds around the globe who believes in The altruistic intentions of the countries ad NGO's, but also keeping a hierarchical position inside Africa, which keep the Africans believing in their inferiority. As Zizac puts well, they keep the Africans alive and just content enough to not protest against this whole system build on top of them.
Zizac film Pervert Guide to ideology, where he reads trough the images of Hollywood films the iconic representations of ideology used as capitalistic propaganda disguised as entertainment. His interpretation are sharp and quite interesting. But here I see the cynic reasoning in a different lens. Not trough how he reads the films, but he is read. On my view his soft-radical discourse puts him in the same position as he reads Starbucks in one of his discourses. He represents the amazing paradoxical and complex layers of capitalism. A system that not only aloud itself to be criticized, in contrast to communism, but also, a system which transforms radicalism and self criticism back to itself and gain from it. I feel that Zizak soft discourses very often becomes just entertainment for the intellectual "politicized" elite, which enjoys listening to him to believe they are consuming something important, and that they care about the world and politics. Zizac represents here his own version of bio-fairtrade-radical-socialist-frapuccino.
Using Zizak comments on full metal Jacket, both himself and Renzo Martens work as the Joker. The character who can be inside a system keeping his distance enough to have a critical view on it, but at the same time becomes the perfect soldier.
In Act of killing the director portraits a character of the Indonesian dictatorship. This character was responsible for the death of several communists and through out the film he describes with pride how he killed people with no entropy what so ever. Coming from a country which suffered from dictatorship myself, the film raises several questions in my mind.
At first It is impressive to observe the level of alienation of the gangsters, completely educated by American cinema. They seem to fit as perfect empty vessels for an ideology they don't even understand but are happy to fit in without questioning it in order to manifest their violent behaviors. Still in contemporary times the country celebrates the atrocities committed during the time, while the people seems to silently disagree with this violent celebration. The protagonists seems to barely understand communism convinced that all his killings and violence against his own people is right since he was grated to power to do so. He makes uses of a situation he doesn't fully understand as an excuse to abuse of power and murder people. Reenacting his killings seems to have an effect on his character. While he seems to deal with the ghosts of the past he raises his head with pride and show off in front of the director. Coming from a country which suffered from dictatorship, I see a contrast in their actions. We learned thought out the decades to question the situation, not only condemning the killers and people in the front line but as well questioning the invisible powers behind which manipulated and supported the dictatorship by imposing an ideology which didn't fit South America by the time.
Not Fin Yet.