User:Manetta/error-in-the-system

abstract: (is coming)

In the film Enjoy Poverty, Renzo Martens depicts African plantation workers next to working journalists and NGO's (non governmental organisations) from the west. Martens frames poverty as the main resource of Africa, where all characters in the film are living in or with. Local workers suffer, journalists take pictures, land-owners make art, unicef-workers help, charity-workers help, children die, and Congolian photographers make pictures of weddings and birthdays. Renzo Martens makes art out of it by telling the local people to accept and enjoy the poverty they are living in. It's the recursive and ironic part of the film.

Slavoj Zizek introduces the term 'ideology' by using examples from Hollywood films to show how we all live with and within ideologies, in the film The Pervert's Guide to Ideology. One of examples is the (Hollywood) film They Live, directed by John Carpenter in 1988, in which the main character John Nada finds sunglasses that reveal a hidden world.

How do Zizek's analysis relate to the ideologies of the characters in Renzo Martens' film?

John Nada's sunglasses function as what Zizek calls "critical ideology glasses"[1] which allow you to see the hidden intentions of the propaganda in the city. The content of the posters, ads, books and newspapers are replaced with a blank background and words like 'obey', 'consume', 'watch tv', 'sleep', 'submit', and 'buy'. Words that speak to its reader in the imperative mood.

The title of Martens' film 'Enjoy Poverty' is written in the same imperative mood. He also uses these two words for the artwork he presents in Congo: the words 'Enjoy Poverty' made out of neon-light-tubes.

Martens' film could be divided into three parts: starting with a look into the life of poverty of African plantation workers, followed by showing how that poverty is mediated by the western world. In the third part of the film, Martens' role is changed from a film-maker who asks questions to the western blank guy (that he is), visiting Congo, and wanting to help the African people (that we assume he want). Acting from the common western ideology. In this last section, Martens organizes an opening party for the unveiling of his art piece Enjoy Poverty. Both local plantation workers and western press attent the evening.

While presenting his artwork, Martens explains the plantation workers that he made this piece "to tell you that you should be happy about poverty, and not suffer from it" because "that will make you unhappy for your whole life". [2] The men don't seem to get his point, and Martens continues in his optimistic tone: "you're also people that aid the rest of the world" and "we need to show that africa is able to work from their own resources", which is poverty.

By saying 'Enjoy Poverty' to his African public, Martens is speaking from the same position as the words appear in 'They Live'; revealing the ideology of the inhabitans of that country. It isn't an ideology created by themselves, but by a blank western guy.

The confrontation with the artwork is painful for the workers in the same way that the sunglasses bring John Nada in shock. "When you put the glasses on, you see dictatorship (…). The glasses will make [the viewer] see the truth, but the truth could be painful and show you your illusions, this is a paradox we must except" [3].

And for the workers, 'Enjoy Poverty' is full of the current truth.

At the same time, 'Enjoy Poverty' does also speak to the place where Martens' film will be screened: the western world. The 'Serious Request' event that is happening every year in the Netherlands is a perfect example for this. Three radio DJ's lock themselves up in the name of charity, the crowd donates money, and everybody enjoys this spectacle by either dancing at the spot, or by following it through the radio, tv or the internet. And around christmas time. So heart-warming, and a lot of joy!

But also the different western persons in Martens' film are in Africa with different ideologic aims: to provide medical help (Doctors without Borders), to fight for peace (UN), or to report on the situation (journalists). These are all aims with Africa as its subject. These people are all connected with Africa either because of their jobs or their passion to do something good.

And as we are living in a world where we do interact with eachother, there is no option to stay at your own site, and do not bother with the other. Because we need the other, either for resources we can't provide in the west like coffee, thee or sugar. And without the journalists, nobody would know anything about suppressed communities or corrupt political situations, which might be alleviate with military help.

But non of them does provide better living conditions for the plantation workers on the long term. The poor stay poor. Poorness is part of the bigger (global) system. But should we accept that, or, could we accept that?

Zizek warns us here. From the example of a film in which a man buys himself a new life at a professional company, Zizek makes a remark on the kind of dreams we have: "We should draw a line (…) between those who are the right dreams, pointing towards a dimension effectively beyond our existing society, and the wrong dreams, the dreams which are just an idealized consumerist reflection, mirror image of our society."

Wouldn't 'Enjoy Poverty' be a wrong dream?

Although the west is providing their help to Africa, it doesn't really help the plantation workers in Africa itself. And so Martens confrontates the workers, the western journalist and the viewers of his film with a dilemma: how to position yourself towards this error in the global system.