Abstract

VAN DEN BERG, Cilliers. Slavoj Žižek and film (theory)? Part 2: An interpretation of It Follows. Tydskr. geesteswet. [online]. 2017, vol.57, n.2-2, pp.596-613. ISSN 2224-7912.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2224-7912/2017/v57n2-2a7.

Whereas part 1 of this study gave a short introduction to and overview of Žižekian or neo-Lacanian film theory, part 2 uses the horror film It Follows in order to demonstrate the most important theoretical motifs of this theory, thereby illustrating what a Žižekian analysis would look like. The use of the horror genre as explicating tool is motivated by the traditional psychoanalytical reception of this genre by film theorists. A number of Freudian theoretical motifs, often used in the interpretation of these films, are discussed - with specific reference to the unique context of horror movies. These include the Oedipus complex (including all of its effects); the allegorisation of the Oedipus-family nexus (by transposing it to the socio-political context); the suppression of everything that transgresses the heteronormativity of the social order; Unheimlichkeit or the uncanny (which acknowledges the familiar made strange); the porousness of borders between the familiar and unfamiliar (or the "I" and the "Other", or the protagonist and antagonist); trauma as that which surpasses any attempt to be given meaning through representation; and the abject as that which is to be discarded and held at a safe distance. The argument then shifts to a very specific horror genre, namely the slasher-film, as a genre that in the past has often been used to comment on societal changes. The slasher is again defined in terms of a number of theoretical motifs and conventions - these include: the notion of the Final Girl (as the sometimes androgenous protagonist who conquers the monster at the end of the film); the explicability of the monster (more often than not as victim of a traumatic incident in the past); the stalking of the protagonist by the antagonistic monster figure; death as punishment for transgressive behaviour; the absence of parents and parental control; and the use of focalisation of the camera (often representing a shift from the perspective of the antagonist at the beginning of the film to the perspective of the protagonist at the end). These motifs and conventions are then used with reference to the psychoanalytical motifs mentioned earlier, to describe the historical trajectory of the horror film, specifically the slasher, in terms of its theoretical reception. This theoretical narrative sees the 1970s as a time where patriarchal normativity was in crisis, the 1980s as a reactionary move towards a neo-conservatism, the 1990s as representative of postmodernism and modern examples of horror as representing a mixture of both, although its conservatism might have the upper hand. The interpretation of It Follows concludes the argument. The film is interpreted again with reference to the theoretical motifs and conventions (both of horror film as genre and the slasher as sub-genre) - with a specific focus on the meaning of sex in the film (thereby reading it in terms of the Žižekian drive, desire and jouissance); the meaning of the monster, of "it" (interpreted with reference to a Symbolic absence, an Imaginary visualisation as attempt at creating meaning and the abject Real); and the film's use of the gaze as core motif. The gaze (interpreted as manifestation of the objet petit a) has a defamiliarising function both on a diegetic level and the level of the viewer watching the film. This allows the interpretation of the film as an illustration of the dynamics of ideology. Both the characters on the diegetic level and the viewer are confronted by the gaze, which immediately induces attempts to create a fantasy in order to make sense. In conclusion fantasy and ideology are presented as conjoined activities which are only visible through being made unfamiliar - this being the very thrust of Žižekian film theory.

Keywords : Žižek; film theory; horror films; slasher; psychoanalysis; ideology; fantasy; gaze; unheimlich; postmodern.

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