Serial Killers—be they real or fictions—are a staple of American pop culture. Still, there is a notion of a certain type of an "American made" criminal that prevails in pop culture, although, as ...Haggerty states: "serial killers were understood to be…a phenomenon frequently attributed to the excesses of a pathological American culture. Today this sentiment has been reversed. It is recognized that all societies have instances where people kill sequentially" (168). Although in the twentieth century, serial murderers from other countries became infamous, like Andrei Chikatilo in Soviet Russia, active from 1978 until 1990, or Jack Unterweger in Austria in the 1980s and 1990s, and films were also made about them, in this article, I focus on American fiction serial killers "made in Hollywood."
Just an Illusion? Miletić, Saša
M/C journal,
10/2023, Letnik:
26, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Introduction
In this article I suggest a reading of the magic trick from a politico-ideological perspective, using Slavoj Žižek’s critique of ideology, and in particular, the aspect of cynicism as a ...part of the functioning of a certain ideology by keeping a distance towards it at the same time. The structure of the magic trick – from the classic sleight of hand up to levitation in front of a live television (TV) audience – can be useful in understanding how politics and ideology function today, and perhaps more importantly, how the critique of ideology can paradoxically help rehabilitate the notion of ‘illusion’. The crucial question to be posed here, based on this theory, is one of the status of the illusion and the search for truth ‘behind the curtain’, in the ideological sense and the age of social media.
The magic trick has two sides to it: what the audiences are supposed to see from one certain point of view, and the mechanics of the trick behind it, which are known only to the magician. The job of the magician is then to perform the trick in such a way that audiences, even if they know it is only a trick, still remain in awe of the mastery, and perhaps for a moment start to believe in ‘pure’ magic.
Magicians or illusionists have traditionally guarded their secrets – not only for the trick to work but also to preserve the belief in something more than the banal reality. The once-famous illusionist and TV star David Copperfield considers this essential for magicians and what they represent:
and all of them … share a common trait – they keep their secrets, hoarding them with the fervour of a miser, not because they represent wealth or personal prestige, but because divulging them to the uninitiated breaks the spell, ruins the fun, and tells the child inside us all not to dream.
As some cognitive scientists have pointed out (see Pailhès and Kuhn), magicians also tend to influence the spectators/participants on an unconscious level, in card tricks, for example, by evoking (verbally or visually) certain images, shapes or colours in order for the participants to pick the right card. My argument is that even when we know how the trick works and that we are being manipulated, we can still believe in magic.
The magic trick falls apart only if the performance itself fails and the spectators witness a fatal mistake that suddenly reveals the hidden wires (as it were): “no magician is allowed to miss a trick and escape that moment when applause turns to derision” (Copperfield). This might also be true for politicians: the mistake caught as it happens might spell doom for the not-so-skilled (ideological) illusionist. At the same time, what if any revelation after the fact still cannot break the illusion?
Illusion and the Functioning of Ideology
Revelation is the basic premise of Žižek’s definition of ideology today: it works even when we very well know that it is ideology. Based on his reading of Marx and Freud through Lacan, Žižek attempts to show the workings and pitfalls of ideology today and relies partly on Marx’s analysis of “commodity fetishism” in his Capital. Our attitude towards ideology is therefore “fetishistic” and is best displayed in the example of commodities. As soon as some product of labour becomes a commodity, it seems endowed with special powers, with “mystery, magic and necromancy” (Marx 47), it abounds in “metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties” (Marx 42). There is a certain something ‘more’, which has nothing to do with an object like a chair or table when they are outside of the marketplace.
Based on this reading, Žižek paraphrases Marx’s formula of ideology: “they do not know it, but they are doing it”, and proposes a new approach: “they know very well how things really are, but still they are doing it as if they did not know” (Žižek, Sublime 30). Just like, for example, the foot fetishist who at the same time knows that the foot is ‘just’ a foot and something more at the same time – an object of their desire – we deal with money and commodities. Money is either paper or a number on a screen which can be worth something or suddenly lose its value, and become worthless, depending on social circumstances.
The truth of commodity fetishism, and analogous to that also ideology, is therefore in the “doing”: we know very well that perhaps an idea of “freedom is masking a particular form of exploitation” (Žižek, Sublime 30), but we still believe in this idea of freedom, in our practical life we ‘stick to it’ – we are therefore ‘fetishists’ or cynics in practice. We also know very well that the late capitalist, ‘neoliberal’ system is in itself problematic, that it has “inherent contradictions” which produce its countless crises, but we still behave as if there is no alternative: “cynical distance is just one way – one of many ways – to blind ourselves to the structuring power of ideological fantasy, even if we do not take things seriously, even if we keep an ironical distance, we are still doing them” (Žižek, Sublime 30, emphasis in original).
The ideological trick, the deceiving character of the image is something that is connected to our perception of reality and is pertinent to understanding ideology. But it is simply not enough to disconnect the illusion from reality as a separate entity. The everyday notion of ‘illusion’ stands in the way of grasping the way ideology works and the way the critique of ideology could be truly effective. In Žižek’s view thus, ideology
is not a dreamlike illusion that we build to escape insupportable reality; in its basic dimension, it is a fantasy-construction which serves as a support for our ‛reality’ itself: an ‛illusion’ which structures our effective, real social relations and thereby masks some insupportable, real, impossible kernel. (Sublime 45)
This approach to ideology goes beyond ‘meta-narratives’, it stresses the subject's position within the network of social relations – to change one’s point of view might therefore lead to the disintegrating of an ideological edifice. Yet at the same time, this shift is not the move from the ideological illusion to reality itself; it is important to note here that ideologies, from organised religions to Nazism and antisemitism, from totalitarian socialist regimes to neoliberalism, all build substantially on certain facts, however distorted. To then simply confront an ideology with such facts is not ‘automatically’ a way out of its grasp.
The Truth behind the Veil
To sum up, there is magic and transcendence in our secular and ‘enlightened’ world even though we pretend to be pragmatics, all the while actually being fetishists in our actions who believe in otherworldly properties of money and commodities. It is therefore useless to simply look at the reality ‘as it is’, to turn to statistics, for instance, and to expect that the “veil of ideology” will then be lifted. Whether it is far-right extremism or the belief in neoliberal individualism, ideologies are rooted in reality and cannot be confronted or debunked by merely stating facts, however true and convincing they might be. The veil itself is the ruse.
Žižek often quotes the classic Greek tale of Zeuxis and Parrhasios (as told by Jacques Lacan), two painters who competed in painting the more realistic painting. Zeuxis painted grapes that attracted birds who wanted to pick at them. Parrhasios simply painted a (very realistic) veil on a wall. Zeuxis, upon seeing the veil, asked Parrhasios to lift the veil and show him what he painted. Lacan draws from this the conclusion that: “the … example of Parrhasios makes it clear that if one wishes to deceive a man, what one presents to him is the painting of a veil, that is to say, something that incites him to ask what is behind it” (Lacan 112, emphasis added).
The veil, therefore, captures our imagination and desire, the idea that there must be something behind it, the desire to know what goes on behind the scenes, and exactly here, we as spectators/political subjects fall into the ideological trap. Whether in wildest conspiracy theories or in fact-based investigative journalism, the same underlying mechanism is at play. The point therefore is not only that we are deceived by the surface, but we are also deceived by our own desire for the knowledge of what might be behind it.
As previously mentioned, politicians as magicians have power as long as their ‘trick’ works in real-time. Afterwards, the revelations of crimes or corruption end up being futile and the ideological spell remains intact. This can be witnessed in many cases ranging from Nazism and Adolf Hitler to the “reactionary neoliberalism” (Fraser) of Donald Trump, as well as with other similarly nefarious figures and pernicious ideologies that persist even long after the facts about their crimes have been revealed. It is, therefore, being repeatedly contended across the media that we live in a so-called “post-truth” era (Harari), and it appears that in liberal democratic societies, the exposing of truth in the media has become, in a way, neutralised: no matter how often the ‘dirty tricks’ of corrupt politicians are publicised, they, as illusionists of our time par excellence, somehow manage to perform their tricks time and again and get away with it.
Does then the shift that has been taking place for some time within the media, from television and film to social media and streaming, with its tendency for ‘revealing truths’, from reality shows to Hollywood making-of promotional videos, enable us, simply put, to see more or less?
Magic in the Social Media Age
YouTube and other social media platforms abound with the ‘making-of videos’ of Hollywood films as well as endless content that supposedly debunks diverse mysteries and illusions. Instead of keeping their craft (whatever it may be) a secret to protect the trade, it has become a part of the social media business to show ‘how things are done’, to intrigue us with a look behind the scenes.
Fig. 1: Sean perfor
Serbian thermal power plants (TPPs) produce siliceous fly ash from lignite in
the quantity of approximately 6 million tons per year. The potential market
for the use of fly ash is operational, but ...for the time being, only used by
cement producers. Fly ash radioactivity could be one of the major points of
concern when larger use of fly ash is planned, particularly in the Serbian
construction industry. Radioactivity measurements have been conducted
regularly for decades. This paper presents the results of a ten-year fly ash
radioactivity measurements at the Nikola Tesla B TPP located in Obrenovac. In
addition, the paper compares the natural radionuclides coal content data
combusted by the Nikola Tesla B TPP boilers coming from the Kolubara Basin
and ash created during coal combustion. Fly ash created in the Nikola Tesla
TPPs boilers is characterised by the increased concentration of the natural
radionuclides content compared to coal. This is the so-called technologically
enhanced natural radioactivity (Technologically Enhanced Occurring
Radioactive Material - TENORM) of industrial waste, whereas the average
specific activities: 232Th in coal amount to 25.2 Bq/kg, and in fly ash and
coal 84.2 Bq/kg and 238U 38.3 Bq/kg, respectively. Following the obtained
natural radionuclides content results it may be concluded that the Nikola
Tesla B TPP ash may be disposed into the environment. Ash may be used also in
the construction industry (civil engineering). In building construction
applications, ash share as the additive to other building materials depends
from its physical and chemical characteristics, as well as from the
radionuclides activity: 266Ra, 232Th and 40K. Unlike the thermal power plants
regularly (once a year) testing the specific natural radionuclides activity
in the combusted coal and boiler fly ash, Electric Power Industry of Serbia
has not performed large-scale investigations of the natural radionuclides
content in coal within the Kolubara Mining Basin. Natural radionuclides
content in fly ash is compared to the combusted coal some 3 - 4 times higher
and may present a limitation for applying ash in the construction industry.
In view of the above, and considering the construction industry interests in
using the Nikola Tesla B TPP ash, regular investigations of the natural
radionuclides content in ash created in the thermal power plants should be
carried out, together with the Kolubara Mining Basin coal combusted by the
Nikola Tesla B TPP and other PE EPS thermal power plants. The current
Kolubara Mining Basin coal characteristics investigation programme should be
supplemented by the natural radionuclides content of the uranium (238U,
226Ra) and thorium series (232Th) and potassium 40 (40K).
nema
This paper gives a critical analysis of the equation that predicts and estimates the progress of degradation for various building materials, recently proposed by Matsufuji et al.1 After the analysis, ...the paper suggests an improved mathematical model, particularly for the modeling of sulfate corrosion. Experiments were performed with two samples of Portland cement and two samples of Portland cement with 30 % coal ash. The samples were immersed into a 10 % (NH4)2SO4 solution and the concentration of SO 2-4 in the solution and the material was measured. As a parameter that quantifies cement degradation, the quantity of bonded SO 2-4 was suggested. According to the obtained data, mathematical models for the description of sulfate corrosion were defined for all the examined samples. The models were applied for the analysis of the behavior of ash and non-ash containing samples. They allowed a better explanation of degradation which occurred during the investigated time period and even further they showed that ash systems were significantly more resistant to sulfate corrosion.
U radu je prikazana kriticka analiza jednacine koja predvidja napredovanje degradacije raznih gradjevinskih materijala, a koju su u skorije vreme predlozili Matsufuji i drugi. Posle analize, u radu je predlozen poboljsan matematicki model, posebno orijentisan ka modelovanju sulfatne korozije. Izvedeni su eksperimenti na dva uzorka Portland cementa i na dva uzorka Portland cementa sa 30 % leteceg pepela. Uzorci su potopljeni u 10 % rastvor (NH4)2SO4 i merena je koncentracija SO2-4 u oba sistema - rastvoru i materijalu. Kao parametar koji kvantifikuje degradaciju cementa uzet je sadrzaj vezanih SO 2-4. Koriscenjem dobijenih podataka definisan je matematicki model za opisivanje sulfatne korozije cetiri ispitivana uzorka. Modeli su primenjeni za analizu ponasanja uzoraka sa letecem pepelom i bez njega. Oni omogucavaju ne samo bolju interpretaciju degradacije tokom ispitivanog perioda, vec i pokazuju znacajnu otpornost sistema sa letecim pepelom prema sulfatnoj koroziji.
The widely used herbicide, dimethylamine salt of 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2,4-D-DMA), is usually prepared by mixing a dimethylamine (DMA) aqueous solution with a solid 2,4-dichlorophenoxy ...acetic acid (2,4-D). The vapors of the both, reactants and products, are potentially hazardous for the environment. The contribution of DMA vapors in overall pollution from this process is most significant, concerning vapor pressures data of these pollutants. Therefore, the control of the air pollution in the manufacture and handling of methylamines is very important. Within this paper, the optimal air pollution control system in preparation of 2,4-D-DMA was developed for the pesticides manufacturing industry. This study employed the simple pollution prevention concept to reduce the emission of DMA vapors at the source. The investigations were performed on the pilot plant scale. To reduce the emission of DMA vapors, the effluent gases from the herbicide preparation zone were passed through the packed bed scrubber (water scrubbing medium), and the catalytic reactor in sequence. The end result is a substantially improved air quality in the working area, as well as in the urbanized areas located near the chemical plant.
nema
The utilization of fly ash, a byproduct from thermal power plants, in construction materials such as concrete, mortar, bricks, asphalt mixes, and binders for stabilization offers significant ...environmental and economic benefits. This comprehensive technical review delineates the historical background, current applications, and future potential of fly ash in reducing the construction industry's carbon footprint, particularly in Serbia. It outlines the successful integration of fly ash in various construction scenarios, emphasizing its role in enhancing material properties while contributing to sustainability by repurposing industrial waste. The document further explores the environmental advantages of fly ash use, highlighting its impact on lowering the carbon emissions associated with traditional cement and aggregate production. Through a detailed comparison of carbon footprints, the text argues for the adoption of fly ash in construction practices as a pathway towards achieving a carbon-neutral future. The discussion on the variable CO2 footprint of fly ash, influenced by production methods, underlines the importance of optimizing these processes to fully leverage its environmental benefits. This review underscores the need for the construction industry to embrace fly ash as a key component in materials, aiming for both performance improvement and sustainability, aligning with global efforts towards a CO2-neutral environment.
This paper gives a critical analysis of the equation that predicts and estimates the progress of degradation for various building materials, recently proposed by Matsufuji et al. After the analysis, ...the paper suggests an improveed mathematical model, particularly for the modeling of sulfate corrosion. Experiments were performed with two samples of Portland cement and two samples of Portland cement with 30 % coal ash. The samples were immersed into a 10 % (NH4)2SO4 solution and the concentration of SO42- in the solution and the material was measured. As a parameter that quantifies cement degradation, the quantity of bonded SO42- was suggested. According to the obtained data, mathematical models for the description of sulfate corrosion were defined for all the examined samples. The models were applied for the analysis of the behavior of ash and non-ash containing samples. They allowed a better explanation of degradation which occurred during the investigated time period and even further they showed that ash systems were significantly more resistant to sulfate corrosion.
In one of the earliest films about a whistleblower, On the Waterfront (1954), the dock worker Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), who also works for the union boss and mobster Johnny Friendly (Lee J. ...Cobb), decides to testify in court against him and uncover corruption and murder. By doing so he will not only suffer retribution from Friendly but also be seen as a “stool pigeon” by his co-workers, friends, and neighbours who will shun him, and he will be “marked” forever by his deed. Nonetheless, he decides to do the right thing. Already it is clear that in most cases the whistleblowers are not simply the ones who reveal things, but they themselves are also revealed.My aim in this article is to explore the depiction of Edward Snowden and Julian Assange in fiction film and its connection to what I would like to call, with Slavoj Žižek, “Hollywood ideology”; the heroisation of the “ordinary guy” against a big institution or a corrupt individual, as it is the case in Snowden (2016) on the one hand, and at the same time the impossibility of true systemic critique when the one who is criticising is “outside of the system”, as Assange in The Fifth Estate (2013). Both films also rely on the notion of individualism and convey conflicting messages in regard to understanding the perception of whistleblowers today. Snowden and AssangeAlthough there are many so called “whistleblower films” since On the Waterfront, like Serpico (1973), All the President’s Men (1976), or Silkwood (1983), to name but a few (for a comprehensive list see https://ew.com/movies/20-whistleblower-movies-to-watch/?), in this article I will focus on the most recent films that deal with Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. These are the most prominent cases of whistleblowing in the last decade put to film. They are relevant today also regarding their subject matter—privacy. Revealing secrets that concern privacy in this day and age is of importance and is pertinent even to the current Coronavirus crisis, where the question of privacy again arises in form of possible tracking apps, in the age of ever expanding “surveillance capitalism” (Zuboff).Even if Assange is not strictly speaking a whistleblower, an engagement with his work in this context is indispensable since his outsider status, up to a point, resembles those of Snowden or Manning. They are not only important because they can be considered as “authentic heroes of our time” (Žižek, Pandemic, 7), but also because of their depiction which differs in a very crucial way: while Snowden is depicted as a “classic” whistleblower (an American patriot who did his duty, someone from the “inside”), Assange’s action are coming from the outside of the established system and are interpreted as a selfish act, as it is stated in the film: “It was always about him.”Whistleblowers In his Whistleblower’s Handbook, Kohn writes: “who are these whistleblowers? Sometimes they are people you read about with admiration in the newspaper. Other times they are your co-workers or neighbours. However, most whistleblowers are regular workers performing their jobs” (Kohn, xi). A whistleblower, as the employee or a “regular worker”, can be regarded as someone who is a “nobody” at first, an invisible “cog in the wheel” of a certain institution, a supposedly devoted and loyal worker, who, through an act of “betrayal”, becomes a “somebody”. They do something truly significant, and by doing so becomes a hero to some and a traitor to others. Their persona suddenly becomes important.The wrongdoings that are uncovered by the whistleblower are for the most part not simply isolated missteps, but of a systemic nature, like the mass surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) uncovered by Snowden. The problem with narratives that deal with whistleblowing is that the focus inevitably shifts from the systemic problem (surveillance, war crimes, etc.) to the whistleblower as an individual. Moretti states that the interest of the media regarding whistleblowing, if one compares the reactions to the leaking of the “Pentagon Papers” regarding the Vietnam War in the 1970s by Daniel Ellsberg and to Snowden’s discoveries, shifted from the deed itself to the individual. In the case of Ellsberg, Moretti writes:the legitimate questions were not about him and what motivated him, but rather inquiry on (among other items) the relationship between government and media; whether the U.S. would be damaged militarily or diplomatically because of the release of the papers; the extent to which the media were acting as watchdogs; and why Americans needed to know about these items. (8)This shift of public interest goes along, according to Moretti, with the corporate ownership of media (7), where profit is the primary goal and therefore sensationalism is the order of the day, which is inextricably linked to the focus on the “scandalous” individual. The selfless and almost self-effacing act of whistleblowing becomes a narrative that constructs the opposite: yet another determined individual that through their sheer willpower achieves their goal, a notion that conforms to neoliberal ideology.Hollywood IdeologyThe endings of All the President’s Men and The Harder They Fall (1956), another early whistleblower film, twenty years apart, are very similar: they show the journalist eagerly typing away on his typewriter a story that will, in the case of the former, bring down the president of the United States and in the latter, bring an end to arranged fights in the boxing sport. This depiction of the free press vanquishing the evil doers, as Žižek states it, is exactly the point where “Hollywood ideology” becomes visible, which is:the ideology of such Hollywood blockbusters as All the President’s Men and The Pelican Brief, in which a couple of ordinary guys discover a scandal which reaches up to the president, forcing him to step down. Corruption is shown to reach the very top, yet the ideology of such works resides in their upbeat final message: what a great country ours must be, when a couple of ordinary guys like you and me can bring down the president, the mightiest man on Earth! (“Good Manners”)This message is of course part of Hollywood’s happy-ending convention that can be found even in films that deal with “serious” subject matters. The point of the happy end in this case is that before it is finally reached, the film can show corruption (Serpico), wrongdoings of big companies (The Insider, 1999), or sexual harassment (North Country, 2005). It is important that in the end all is—more or less—good. The happy ending need not necessarily be even truly “happy”—this depends on the general notion the film wants to convey (see for instance the ending of Silkwood, where the whistleblower is presumed to have been killed in the end). What is important in the whistleblower film is that the truth is out, justice has been served in one way or the other, the status quo has been re-established, and most importantly, there is someone out there who cares.These films, even when they appear to be critical of “the system”, are there to actually reassure their audiences in the workings of said system, which is (liberal) democracy supported by neoliberal capitalism (Frazer). Capitalism, on the other hand, is supported by the ideology of individualism which functions as a connecting tissue between the notions of democracy, capitalism, and film industry, since we are admiring exceptional individuals in performing acts of great importance. This, in turn, is encapsulated by the neoliberal mantra—“anyone can make it, only if they try heard enough”. As Bauman puts it more concretely, the risks and contradictions in a society are produced socially but are supposed to be solved individually (46).Individualism, as a part of the neoliberal capitalist ideology, is described already by Milton Friedman, who sees the individual as the “ultimate entity in the society” and the freedom of the individual as the “ultimate goal” within this society (12). What makes this an ideology is the fact that, in reality, the individual, or in the context of the market, the entrepreneur, is always-already tethered to and supported by the state, as Varoufakis has successfully proven (“Varoufakis/Chomsky discussion”). Therefore individualism is touted as an ideal to strive for, while for neoliberalism in order to function, the state is indispensable, which is often summed up in the formula “socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor” (Polychroniou). The heroic Hollywood individual, as shown in the whistleblower film, regardless of real-life events, is the perfect embodiment of individualist ideology of neoliberal capitalism—we are not seeing a stylised version of it, a cowboy or a masked vigilante, but a “real” person. It is paradoxically precisely the realism that we see in such films that makes them ideological: the “based on a true story” preamble and all the historical details that are there in order to create a fulfilling cinematic experience. All of this supports its ideology because, as Žižek writes, “the function of ideology is not to offer us a point of escape from our reality but to offer us the social reality itself as an escape from some traumatic, real kernel” (Sublime Object 45). All the while Snowden mostly adheres to Hollywood ideology, The Fifth Estate also focuses on individualism, but goes in a different direction, and is more problematic – in the former we see the “ordinary guy” as the American hero, in the latter a disgruntled individual who reveals secrets of others for strictly personal reasons.SnowdenThere is an aspect of the whistleblower film that rings true and that is connected to Michel Foucault’s notion of power (“Truth and Power”). Snowden, through his employment at the NSA, is within a power relations network of an immensely powerful organisation. He uses “his” power, to expose the mass surveillance by the NSA. It is only through his involvement with this power network that he
Introduction“Cage rage” is one of the most famous Internet memes (Figure 1) which made Nicolas Cage's stylised and sometimes excessive acting style very popular. His outbursts became a subject of ...many Youtube videos, supercuts (see for instance Hanrahan) and analyses, which turned his rage into a pop-cultural phenomenon. Cage’s outbursts of rage and (over)acting are, according to him (Freeman), inspired by German expressionism as in films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). How should this style of acting and its position within the context of the Hollywood industry today be read in societal and political sense? Is “Cage rage” a symptom of our times? Rage might be a correct reaction to events such the financial crisis or the election of Donald Trump, but the question should also be posed, what comes after the rage, or as Slavoj Žižek often puts it, what comes the “morning after” (the revolution, the protests)?Fig. 1: One of the “Cage Rage” MemesDo we need “Cage rage” as a pop cultural reminder that, to paraphrase Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (1987), rage, for a lack of a better word, is good, or is it here to remind us, that it is a sort of an empty signifier that can only serve for catharsis on an individual level? Žižek, in a talk he gave in Vienna, speaks about rage in the context of revolutions:Rage, rebellion, new power, is a kind of a basic triad of every revolutionary process. First there is chaotic rage, people are not satisfied, they show it in a more or less violent way, without any clear goal and organisation. Then, when this rage gets articulated, organised, we get rebellion, with a minimal organisation and more or less clear awareness of who the enemy is. Finally, if rebellion succeeds, the new power confronts the immense task of organising the new society. The problem is that we almost never get this triad in its logical progression. Chaotic rage gets diluted or turns into rightist populism, rebellion succeeds but loses steam. (“Rage, Rebellion, New Power”)This means that, on the one hand, that rage could be effective. If we look at current events, we can witness the French president Emanuel Macron (if only partially) giving in to some of the demands of the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protesters. In the recent past, the events of “Arab spring” are reminders of a watershed moment in the history of the participating nations; going back to the year 2000, Slobodan Milošević's regime in Serbia was toppled by the rage of the people who could not put up with his oligarchic rule — alongside international military intervention.On the other hand, all the outrage on the streets and in the media cannot simply “un-elect” or impeach Donald Trump from his position as the American President. It appears that President Trump seems to thrive on the liberal outrage against him, at the same time perpetuating outrage among his supporters against liberals and progressives in general. If we look back at the financial crisis of 2008 and the Occupy Wall Street movement, despite the outrage on the streets, the banks were bailed out and almost no one went to prison (Shephard). Finally, in post-Milošević Serbia, instead of true progressive changes taking place, the society continues to follow similar nationalistic patterns.It seems that many movements fail after expressing rage/aggression, a reaction against something or someone. Another recent example is Greece, where after the 2015 referendum, the left-wing coalition SYRIZA complied to the austerity measures of the Eurozone, thereby ignoring the will of the people, prompting its leaders Varoufakis and Tsipras falling out and the latter even being called a ‘traitor.’ Once more it turned out that, as Žižek states, “rage is not the beginning but also the outcome of failed emancipatory projects” ("Rage, Rebellion, New Power").Rage and IndividualismHollywood, as a part of the "cultural industry" (Adorno and Horkheimer), focuses almost exclusively on the individual’s rage, and even when it nears a critique of capitalism, the culprit always seems to be, like Gordon Gekko, an individual, a greedy or somehow depraved villain, and not the system. To illustrate this point, Žižek uses an example of The Fugitive (1993), where a doctor falsifies medical data for a big pharmaceutical company. Instead of making his character,a sincere and privately honest doctor who, because of the financial difficulties of the hospital in which he works, was lured into swallowing the bait of the pharmaceutical company, the doctor is transformed into a vicious, sneering, pathological character, as if psychological depravity … somehow replaces and displaces the anonymous, utterly non-psychological drive of capital. (Violence 175)The violence that ensues–the hero confronting and beating up the bad guy–is according to Žižek mere passage a l’acte, an acting out, which at the same time, “serves as a lure, the very vehicle of ideological displacement” (Violence 175). The film, instead of pointing to the real culprit, in this case the capitalist pharmaceutical company diverts our gaze to the individual, psychotic villain.Other ‘progressive’ films that Hollywood has to offer chose individual rage, like in Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume I and II (2003/2004), with the story centred around a very personal revenge of a woman against her former husband. It is noted here that most of Nicholas Cage’s films, including his big budget movies and his many B-movies, remain outside the so-called ethos of “liberal Hollywood” (Powers, Rothman and Rothman). Conservative in nature, they support radical individualism, somewhat paradoxically combined with family values. This composite functions well values that go hand-in-hand with neoliberal capitalism. Surprisingly, this was pointed out by the guru of (neo)liberalism in global economy, by Milton Friedman: “as liberals, we take freedom of the individual, or perhaps the family, as our ultimate goal in judging social arrangements” (12). The explicit connections between capitalism, family and commercial film was noted earlier by Rudolf Arnheim (168). Family and traditional male/female roles therefore play an important role in Cage's films, by his daughter's murder in Tokarev (2014, alternative title: Rage); the rape of a young woman and Cage’s love interest in Vengeance: A Love Story (2017); the murder of his wife in Mandy (2018).The audience is supposed to identify with the plight of the father/husband plight, but in the case of Tokarev, it is precisely Cage's exaggerated acting that opens up a new possibility, inviting a different viewpoint on rage/revenge within the context of that film.Tokarev/RageAmong Cage's revenge films, Tokarev/Rage has a special storyline since it has a twist ending – it is not the Russian mafia, as he first suspected, but Cage’s own past that leads to the death of his daughter, as she and her friends find a gun (a Russian-made gun called ‘Tokarev’) in his house. He kept the gun as a trophy from his days as a criminal, and the girls start fooling around with it. The gun eventually goes off and his daughter gets shot in the head by her prospective boyfriend. After tracking down Russian mobsters and killing some of them, Cage’s character realises that his daughter’s death is in fact his own fault and it is his troubled past that came back to haunt him. Revenge therefore does not make any sense, rage turns into despair and his violence acts were literally meaningless – just acting out.Fig. 2: Acting Out – Cage in Tokarev/RageBut within the conservative framework of the film: the very excess of Cage’s acting, especially in the case of Tokarev/Rage, can be read as a critique of the way Hollywood treats these kinds of stories. Cage’s character development points out the absurdity of the exploitative way B-grade movies deal with such subjects, especially the way family is used in order to emotionally manipulate the audience. His explicit and deliberate overacting in certain scenes spits in the face of nuanced performances that are considered as “good acting.” Here, a more subdued performance that delivered a ‘genuine’ character portrayal in conflict, would bring an ideological view into play. “Cage Rage” seems to (perhaps without knowing it) unmask the film’s exploitation of violence. This author finds that Cage’s performance suffices to tear through the wall of the screen and he takes giant steps, crossing over boundaries by his embarrassing and awkward moments. Thus, his overacting and the way rage/revenge-storyline evolves, becomes as a sort of a “parapraxis”, the Freudian slip of the tongue, a term borrowed by Elsaesser and Wedel (131). In other words, parapraxis, as employed in film analysis means that a film can be ambiguous – or can be read ambiguously. Here, contradictory meanings can be localised within one particular film, but also open up a space for alternate interpretations of meanings and events in other movies of a similar genre.Hollywood’s celebration of rugged individualism is at its core ideology and usually overly obvious; but the impact this could on society and our understanding of rage and outrage is not to be underestimated. If Cage's “excess of acting” does function here as parapraxis this indicates firstly, the excessive individualism that these movies promote, but also the futility of rage.Rage and the Death DriveWhat are the origins of Nicholas Cage’s acting style? He has made claims to his connection to the silent film era, as expressive overstating, and melodrama was the norm without spoken dialogue to carry the story (see Gledhill). Cage also states that he wanted to be the “California Klaus Kinski” (“Nicolas Cage Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters”). This author could imagine him in a role similar to Klaus Kinski’s in Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampire (1979), a homage remake of the silent film masterpiece Nosferatu (1922). There remain outstanding differences between Cage and Kinski. It seems that Kinski was truly “cr
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