Understanding Zizek: Jaws & Capitalist Ideology
What makes Jaws so good? In this video, I undertake a Zizekian interpretation of Jaws. I argue that Jaws is capitalist propaganda in its simplest sense.
Zizek argues, through the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan, that ideology has the same structure as the mind - ideology maps itself onto the mind to make sense of the world. Jaws - a groundbreaking film in 1975 - might just be one of the best pop culture examples of this working in a subtle way - the ideological mirrors the personal, and the personal mirrors the ideological.
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Reading List:
Sean Homer's Introduction to Lacan is very accessible:
goo.gl/Bcy4w3
Jodi Dean - Zizek's Politics - is a good introduction to Zizek:
goo.gl/idATZV
Slavoj Zizek - The Sublime Object
goo.gl/xffKfj
Credits:
Image of Zizek by Andy Miah
(Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) - creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
www.flickr.com/photos/2527299...
Edited by Lewis Waller
Music:
Chris Zabriskie - Divider
(Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0))
I can’t believe I’ve never run across this channel. I just sunk almost an hour into watching these videos. Some of the best editing and writing I’ve seen in KZhead’s philosophy channels, in my opinion.
Thank you!
You bet, man.
I totally agree! He's great.
The film is called "Jewels?"
British accent for ya.☺
Haha.. I kept thinking the same thing.
my roommate thought he said “Jews”
02.5 speed,,, "W" exponential The film & this onto- phenomenological take on it fails to see that in such north location no one swims or that no shark that size will ever wander. Fact: The film helped demonized The animal to a point of extinction,,,
@@edthoreum7625 That's called suspension of disbelief. You can't really fault a movie if you can't believe it's set-up. I don't know wether Jaws was the tipping point that made shark hunts worse (it's believeable, I just don't know if it's true) as sharks had been hunted for food for hundreds of years before that and humans tend to overdo that hunting once they're capable of that.
Turns out Jaws is exactly how America has reacted to Covid,
It's strained, but the correct mapping of the current nightmare onto the film would be the idiotic immoral capitalist Mayor as Trump (they both even have the crazed, cotton candy hair and baggy jacket) who does not want to do a thing about the shark/virus, because money making for him, the staid, tried and true Chief Brody as the current Democratic House wanting to help people ("gonna need a bigger boat"), the scientist-realist Hooper as Dr. Fauci ("you are either going to kill this animal, or you are going to have to cut off its food supply"--vaccine or government enforced lock down), and then Bernie Sanders as the angry rebel who will fight and try to save us all with his passion, Quint. The real movie hasn't played out but Quint/Bernie may be killed off but his ideas might eventually win over Brody/the State, to fight with passion for all. It's my movie here, and I can imagine a happy ending if I want to.
@@Ofinfinitejest I see here Trump a bit like Quint aswell, however the ''Heroism'' is only fascistic posturing. He was seen as this radical outside Hero, who's come to suddenly fix everything.
@@Ofinfinitejest :))) nice
So i guess turning america into an involuntarily bankrupt totalitarian state is a good thing then....jesus...
My thoughts exactly...(as well as the UK)
I've read a lot of Žižek (for a thesis) and I thought your analysis was brilliant. You condensed his ideas with clarity and in a really engaging way. I really enjoyed this even though I was familiar with the material - Thank You. The seven 'thumbs down' voters must have either misunderstood the title or are caught up in some intra-Lacanian handbaggery.
Thank you! Appreciated :)
What is intra-lacanian handbaggery and how can I get some
Hi M H
@@Onehundredpounds lol. Ty for this.
i read that first has hand-buggery. which is more fun. to read at least.
Excellent analysis! I think even in philosophy (especially continental) there is a tendency to articulate as much as possible in a work, only to highlight in the end the excess and impossibility of the conspiracy of the outside -> the temporal future, the endless differal of differance, the noumenal, the 'earth', whatever it may be. Somehow, if we could actually articulate it, the whole project would collapse. In the meantime, we notice the seemingly inevitable progress of the background forces: Capitalism, State-control, Patriarchy, Euro-centrism, and Technology/science/industry. These forces seems to persist across all dimensions and attempts at their resistance, almost as if they gobble up the negative of resistance in a Hegelian synthesis. As much as Jaws or even Zizek's critique of Jaws might form a kind of better understanding of these forces, they inevitable get caught up and understood in those very same systems. Enviromentalism becomes $10 plastic-wrapped organic vegan sandwiches, Gay Pride becomes hetero-normative corporate sponsorship, high art becomes a billion dollar industrial complex, science becomes scientism, political radicalism becomes politial correctness.
Well said.
Jozef Lewitzky background forces? The patriarchy and euro centrism. What the fuck sort of take is that.
I have a serious problem with this video.... It only has 300 likes, it really deserves more. What it needs is a summer advertising campaign.
I loved it. Having the four leading characters as societal symbols made perfect sense to me. I particularly like your analysis of the micro-society going within Amity and the setting of Amity itself as that of a utopia. It actually made me realise my own yearning desires to live in elements of a bygone age. My personal favourite episode so far! Thank you :)
That's because you don't have a brain in your head.
An amazing video. I am currently reading Ernesto Laclau's 'On Populist Reason' and this video drew together some threads between some of the points of the more general discussion in which it is placed. Keep up the good work!
Another great video! You are actually one of the few youtubers to pronounce Žižek correctly. More Lacan explanations would be much appreciated, but anything you do is really well put together.
Thank you :) I may get to some more Lacan soon. Potentially something on the imaginary, symbolic and real registers, or the four discourses
That's very good. I actually started watching your videos with the Mirror Phase video.
Awesome video, thank you. Who was the shark's favorite 20th century art figure? Marcel DuChomp.
Did you get into the name of the island? I may have missed it. It's Amity. It means "friendship" and probably isn't an accident. For me it creates an additional element of something. Maybe it's irony. But, it also focuses me on the idea that the shark being not just a threat to safety and physical well being but to relationships. Maybe there's something inherent on the film about how you can't just say you're friends with someone. Friendship takes commitment and sometimes doesn't survive crises. Or, it could be that you can't just go to a place called friendship and live out your days. You may not be safe, You can't insulate yourself with symbols and magical thinking. Reality breaks through.
Incredible. I really enjoyed your breakdown of Spielberg's emphasis of the pre-Jaws idyllic utopia. That is the same camerawork my brain projects when I reflect on my childhood pre-Divorce, my high school years pre-Sept 11th, my economic outlook pre-recession. Intellectually I know my interpretation of those "pre-Jaws" epochs were anything but idyllic, but the fantasy framework sets the stage for nostalgia of a time that never existed until the present distortion of it.
I clicked on this vid cause i was high...I left it enlightened. Subscribed!!!
Thank you for turning me on to Zizek. I will now inquire into his philosophy. Then I will listen to him in debate. This channel is one of my favorites for exploring ideas. I love your amazing application to film. Keep up the great work.
You make very good quality content for a currently small youtube channel, so good on you. The music is sometimes a bit too loud and it can be hard to hear you.
You have such a great channel!! Keep this amazing work
So, Jaws was a prophetic rendition of the current Coronavirus pandemic?
Exactly! Watching this video thinking wtf we're living this right now
And Bolsonaro is Quint, I barely can wait for his violent, bloody and unfforgetable death
Not "prophetic" but it can explain the recalcitrance of the people and their irrational behavior in our hyper-capitalist system.
Marcelo Pacheco but Quint was one of the good guys trying to kill the shark/virus. Wouldn’t Bolsnaro be more like the Mayor?
One word: Bravo! Subscribed, of course.
Yeah, this was good. At first I thought it was a bit derivative, but the explanations of Zizek's ideas and the film analysis really came together well in the end. Top stuff!
Wha...? Did we watch the same movie? I mean, it's fun to pull unexpected meanings out of stuff that maybe never intended it, but I totally don't get your arguments. I mean, people died because the mayor didn't want to shut down. Yeah, the shark might kill people, and he was right that closing could do even more lasting damage to the town; but the town took him to task for putting money over lives generally. I always thought the movie was about hubris in part, but also the messiness of business versus public good. How does that make it capitalist propaganda? What am I missing?
"The accusations made against him are false and everyone knows it" is the silliest claim i've heard in a while. Not only did Bukharin know he was guilty, no one doubted his guilt for decades. He was indeed involved like everyone else, and never once claimed to have to admit some guilt for "the good of the communist ideal". He knew he was guilty
Beautiful work comrade, loved it! You explained Zizek's complex ideas so simply!
Don't say comrade, it's cringe and makes you seem like a marxist wannabe that isn't even revolutionary.
Tommy Rosati Comrade is a word, and a lot of people still use it today in everyday language. What's your problem, comrade?
@@LeonWagg Zizek: Culture is horible and so on
@@tommyrosati9326 that's such a dumb complaint, have solidarity with your brothers, even when they're cringe.
@@tommyrosati9326 Capitalists are always offended by words. 😂
Thanks youtube algorithm for introducing me to this channel. A precious gem
Morgoth's Review brought me here. I never would have interpreted Jaws this way but this is one of the things I like about the internet. There are so many ideas and so many interpretations of them. This video was fascinating to listen to. Thank you.
Hey! Great video but could you lower the music when you’re speaking please :)
Rewatching in 2020, your analysis seems prophetic.
Watching this just put me in the mood to watch Jaws again after not seeing it for nearly 20 years now 😅.
You forgot one authority that people turn to in a crisis, who is the religious authority in Jaws?
There's a tune right in the last 5 seconds, what song is it from? (It goes tan ta nan tan nan about twice, but it's from another song than the listed one)
Žižek seems to have elided the Weimar period and other key historical events which gave rise to national socialism in Germany.
Love this channel! Great work
Remember- that rifle that ends the movie is an M1 Garand, the weapon of the idealized US WWII soldier.
As time moves forward this only becomes more relevant
At 4:27 there is a video of a man blindfolded copying someone without a blindfold. What is it?
Re: his views on ideology, would it be appropriate to say that he puts ideology on a continuum regarding the amount of scapegoating and this seeps through culture that operates on those bases (like a cultural/ideological version of Gramsci's hegemony reproducing itself)??
In times of Coronavirus, this all sounds so actual
Yes I am an ardent cynic... As world population grows sure the proportion of people who suffer is lessoned over time but the absolute numbers keep on increasing. So for example circa 1900 there were 1.6 billion people with perhaps 200k doing really well, 500k doing ok and the remaining 900k struggling or worst. Today we are nearly 8 billion with the official poverty rate as of 2022 at 11.5 % or 37.9 million people in poverty. Conflict deaths doubled between 2021 and 2022. Also remember they changed the definition of poverty from living on 1.90 dollar a day to 2.15 dollar in sept 2022 'lifting millions out of poverty' at one swipe. Then and Now doing great work :) I'm trawling your vods and subscription definitely incoming once finances allow - keep up the good fight
Jaws tshirts and ice creams were everywhere...ice creams?!?!
i didnt understand half of whats said in this video
damnnnnn this video is amazing brooo
I don’t think it is completely accurate, but makes you think
good stuff
Honestly, the philosophy went completely over my head, and I still feel like the points you made that I could somewhat get were pretty stretched and tortured. I always thought the point of the film was that business interests were what ultimately caused the problem because they put profit over human lives. Combine that with a lack of supports for hard times, and you had a tragedy. Pretty simple. They even had an extended death scene of that sea captain who was a colossal douchebag. I also don't get why painted signs are important. Such things used to be the norm, especially in small towns. I don't think it means anything. And what connection did the shark and the bombing of Hiroshima possibly have? I know this all flew over my head, but damn it was so high up I could barely see anything!
Some videos we need to watch a couple times… I know I did!
i find him so handsome, and radiating with intelligence
Of course he is handsome!
@@marcostorrestaboada5502 And radiating with intelligence too 💕
So, to survive, consume as Jaws would, and either way, you're consumed or the consumer.
That was pure ideology.
"If only the rich, wall street were removed" - So this is also [an] ideology.
It's a rational response to observations on the cause and effect of fuckery.
Are you sure? 😂
Do you know if there is any connection between Žižek and Lacan’s notion of our consciousness being incomplete and Sartre’s work Anti-Semite and Jew (1946)? Sartre argues that, “if the Jew did not exist, the antisemite would invent him”.
Haha I love your channel so much oml.
Thank you!
8:20 can anyone explain why utilitarianism and capitalism always get linked together?
7:00 USA-2020 in a few minutes
Hooper is also the priest as are all modern scientists, ala Nietzsche. They consult him, he offers nothing substantial, reading the stars with instruments instead of imagination.
Despite this piece having some very good points (along with some of the other theory templates that have being applied to this seminal film elsewhere), the best analysis is the one provided in a book by British film critic, Amanda Quirke, while one of the better parts of this video from 'Then & Now' concerns Quint, given that an understanding him allows us to realise why so many Americans voted for Trump!
Bruh this is legend!
12:40 But that's not true. It did not have a monopoly on everything, and the party experienced conflict after conflict from within. It underwent contradictions that Lenin and Stalin had to solve. It experienced espionage, coups, and factionalism that split it. It was specifically NOT in control of everything, and such let it decay under the leadership of a tyrant (Khrushchev - Gorbechev).
this could be a solid thesis paper
The Capitalist, the State and the Scientist....Oh my!!
Zizek must flesh out the ideas presented here a lot more because from watching the video it doesn't really seem convincing, or even very worthwhile. It feels more like a disjointed exercise in ideological shoehorning.
thanks for great content
Quint - death gives life its meaning.
What it is not clearly mentioned in here is the fact that not only Jaws (by itself) could be construed as capitalist propaganda. The entire film American industry is dedicated to it. For many years Hollywood has been producing thousands, if not millions, of films dedicated to advertise a system and a way of life that has even permeated into high quality art forms in places like Europe and Asia. The main idea is to uniform everything into ways of life based on one model : the capitalist system itself. Jaws, The Godfather, Pulp Fiction and all the garbage we watch these days on the main movies channels are just that. The producers (most of them anyway) are very intelligent and aware people of all of this. The problem is that they just lack directness in their messages making their films only to be deeply understood by the likes of Zizek. The common folk only see these disturbing films as entertainment and despite the hidden message most people believe that these situations won't happen to them. It is as old as civilization : most very intelligent and educated people don't know how to educate the masses, with some, fortunately, amazing exceptions. The language used in this messages is the same as in the law books, you are lucky if your lawyer can interpret them properly, besides that they truly want you to be informed and protected. Interesting video, nevertheless. Greetings from Toronto.
I think that the shark in ''jaws'' is like ''the joker'' in ''the dark knight''
I think zizek is a bit of a clown but @7:17 i think that's the same actress who snorted cleaner in Cheech and Chong's Up In Smoke movie.
A M A Z I N G !
I am not familiar with Lacan, but I came to a similar reading of Jaws based on Girard's reading of myth in his mimetic theory.
Considering our present circumstances of the Coronavirus pandemic in America, would Donald J. Trump be the mayor of Amity?
A who does the shark represent?
I'm so confused
I've liked all your videos so far but this one seemed a bit off-piste. Maybe I couldn't appreciate it as much because I have not seen Jaws, read Lacan or followed Zizek. I do think you are on to something though - it's just that I couldn't connect to it. Anyway, on to the Habermas video! Keep on producing more content! I like it. :)
This is a masterpiece of a video essay.
This is a convenient explanation for my instinctive dislike of all Spielberg products.
The carrot on a string is made of plastic and I am livestock 🐐
I notice strong parallels between this film’s story & today’s vaccine debate btw
the shark represents the threat that both sides perceive, with their preferred ‘solution’ being parrallell with the beach shutdown that costs the town tourist revenue, and since it’s fiction the proverbial ‘Sophie’s choice’ is resolved by the film’s conclusion
Ideology *zizek voice*
So the answer is to put the sharks in charge.... problem solved.
i have... no idea what you are saying...
jaws is fucking corona pandemic in a nutshell, shiiit
covid anyone?
12:58 There's absolutely no evidence that the accusations were false, and there is evidence that they were indeed true. He even admitted such. Please stop making silly accusations about history that was settled decades ago if you won't do the research.
hopeless over-interpretation of a simple block buster including tons of nostalgia for a time (i guess) you didn't even live through. why don't you do this with "Outlook: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" ? it fits almost as well.
America in the 21st century: surrounded by failure - failure to win wars against small countries (Iraq & Afghanistan...w/ Vietnam as the precursor), failure to provide decent jobs (like our rosey view of the 1950's when 40% of the country was a member of a labor union, and we accounted for an unnatural 50% of the entire globab GDP), failure to maintain order (riots, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 2020's, etc.), etc.. and now we have Drumpf.
This channel does not have the following it deserves.
yeah, in the 80s old biddies just figured they had the right to slap you, even if you were someone elses kid
You call zizek Marxist but it seems to me he is highly critical of Marxist, and prefers a young hegelian identity
He seems like a smart man even if there is no viable replacement to the market.
*claps*
see. Zizek gets a lot of things right but I see where he fails to bridge the gap into the really deep symbolic and archtetypal interpretations. His disposal of wisdom because of contradictions is rather shallow as contradictions are a part of life and wisdom is a balancing act of the different contradicting wisdoms depending on the situation. I see that, despite very interesting approaches he fails to address questions of moral or religious depth. The debate with Peterson will be very interesting, but I am quite certain Jordan will come out superior.
His point is that wisdom has no radical character beyond the reproduction of the status quo. You seriously think a Marxist has an issue with contradictions? Jesus fucking Christ! Wisdom is simply the justification of what has occurred, it offers no critique or transformatory potential. I'm sick of you Peterson fans infecting discourse with your pathetic little cogitations. Read The Fragile Absolute if you think he doesn't treat religious subjects with 'depth', you fucking cretin.
LoL... Poor Peterson...
jaws ıs a bad horror movıe whıch can only frıghten 7 years old
Holy fuck I read Jews
PS Zizek is not a marxist. Watch his discussion with Peterson. Now, he may say he is to be a pot stirrer, but he isn't. Zizek is quite a better person than a marxist.
What is Marxism to you? What does Zizek not believe that makes him not a Marxist?
@@Disentropic1 His own words. He was supposed to debate Marxism vs Capitalism with Jordan Peterson. Zizek never defended it. You can listen to what Zizek says and tell he is not a Marxist. Maybe you go figure out what a Marxist is and read Zizek.
@@gorequillnachovidal Why didn't you just answer my questions?
@@Disentropic1 Because it is the YT comments and I could give fuckall what your dumbass believes. You can believe what you want.
@@gorequillnachovidal I'm not dumb, and I don't mind if you don't care what I believe. None of those things are the issue here. You said something, and with my questions I'm trying to understand your point of view. If that makes you angry and you refuse to answer, I think it suggests that you haven't considered your ideas very carefully.
I don't understand
hes zizek
Nina Krajnik, the president of the Slovenian Association for Lacanian Psychoanalysis doesn't really like Žižek very much, even though he seems to be the most well-known Lacanian on the international stage: "for almost four decades, Slovenia has been caught in the jaws of Žižek. Modified, privatized and misleadingly institutionalized, Žižek's theories created the Slovenian Lacanian delirium that blocked the presence of the analytical discourse, while at the same time it became a well-known Slovenian export product. Yes, Slovenia is the country that exports delirium and blocks analysis. ... what defined the logic of the Slovenian Lacanian philosopher was the orally-sadistic moment of swallowing and the incorporation of public property, based on a prohibition from socialist time: psychoanalysis is allowed, but psychoanalysts are banned. ... Žižek had done more damage to Lacanian psychoanalysis than anything else ever could, since it established the strongest defense against it and thus deadened its progress. " source: www.sdzlp.si/in-the-jaws-of-zizek/?lang=en
This.
Is there one on socialism and starvation? Communism and the gulags? How about the great anarchist and mad max? I personally prefer feudalism and refer to it as the greatest point in civilization. 🤡🌎
13:15 Stalin was not even present during much of the trial. He was not the judge, the jury, or the executioner. Stop with this revisionist nonsense. READ A BOOK on the subject.
Ah, I get it now! 4chan is Quint! How Quint
Ideologies of any kind are a mental crutch for people who can't or won't think for themselves.
there's no greater fantasy than atomic weapons ending world war two.. "..this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan.." -Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II..": whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/truman.html
The nuclear bomb brings peace... it's not a "contradiction" anyway.
Then why don't we want anyone else to have these peace bombs?