The Pervert's Guide To Ideology (2013)

[Blocker]

Cultural theorist superstar Slavoj iek re-teams with director Sophie Fiennes (The Pervert's Guide to Cinema) for another wildly entertaining romp through the crossroads of cinema and philosophy. With infectious zeal and a voracious appetite for popular culture, iek literally goes inside some truly epochal movies, all the better to explore and expose how they reinforce prevailing ideologies. As the ideology that undergirds our cinematic fantasies is revealed, striking associations emerge: What hidden Catholic teachings lurk at the heart of The Sound of Music? What are the fascist political dimensions of Jaws? Taxi Driver, Zabriskie Point, The Searchers, The Dark Knight, John Carpenter's They Live ("one of the forgotten masterpieces of the Hollywood Left"), Titanic, Kinder Eggs, verité news footage, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and propaganda epics from Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia all inform iek's stimulating, provocative and often hilarious psychoanalytic-cinematic ran

[Nobody]

If your a fan of Zizek, I'd highly recommend "A Perverts Guide to Cinema". Personally I like it a lot more. More of Zizek at his peak :)

[slikrapid]

Cultural theorist superstar Slavoj iek re-teams with director Sophie Fiennes (The Pervert's Guide to Cinema)

superstar? lol
more like an obsessive neurotic rambling about movies, society, people & politics, using cheap freudian psychology and constructing laughable philosophy leaning on communist/marxist principles with a pinch of humanism thrown in for the improved mainstream taste

for another wildly entertaining romp

the only somewhat entertaining things in his previous movie were the copycat sets (similar to those shown in the movie scenes he analyzed), his hyperactive behavior/speech/accent and some of the neverending nonsensical conclusions of his analyses - eventually this becomes tiresome as one notices that there is nothing particularly insightful to be seen or heard in his interpretations

will use an imdb post for some additional comments:

Ideology is so ingrained in society that it has affected our dreams.

everything you experience influences/affects your dreams, ideologies being no exception

If we want to change our reality we need to change our dreams first.

dreams already change every day/night
first you experience, then you dream, not the other way around
how does one change a dream anyway, most don't even remember what they dreamed the night before, let alone actively interact with their dreams

His argument is that Hollywood dictates our fantasies, dreams and desires through ideology.

hollywood dictates nothing, it is a large machinery that tries to influence, manipulate & steer, profiting in the process
besides, hollywood is not the only source of audio/visual/... information in the world

Zizek comments that the ultimate engineered fantasy is not 'to take what we want but to want to be desired'. Desire, is not just a desire for something, but also a 'desire for desire itself'. This is the main way that capitalism works. There is an urge to consume: 'people nowadays are made to feel guilty because they don't enjoy themselves enough', he claims.

getting a bit tangled up, no?
nothing mysterious about it: attract the (potential) consumer any which way you can, throw many hooks, some will eventually work, best case scenario: you get a loyal customer for many years to come - the same works with movies/hollywood: you come back every few days or so to consume some of their products (or discuss them like we are doing right now), which makes you a loyal consumer
what is your desire in this: primarily 'to be entertained', to be able to interact with others regarding entertainment subjects, etc.

For Zizek, there is no 'big other', no guaranteed, inherent meaning.

just because he cannot find it doesn't mean that there isn't any

We are alone and we have to live with that.

in our ramblings? well, we can always share them with the world, like zizek already did, no?
more seriously: its precisely this balance of loneliness & togetherness that allows for our current experience of life/living

All ideology is constructed for manipulation and control.

just because it can be used for manipulation and control doesn't mean it was originally constructed for that purpose
also, what about zizek and his own ideological manipulations, eh?