Cinefile

Ben Wright’s documentary Slavoj Zizek: The Reality of the Virtual plays more like a talking head lecture than a visually engaging experience (like the supposed viewing experience that the title teases at). Fortunately, at the sole center of Virtual is Mr. Zizek himself—sweaty, focused, sometimes hard to understand, passionate—and the case he makes is one worth doting over. In a nutshell, Zizek says to forget about creating a virtual reality; it is more penetrating and rewarding to consider how much “virtual” we already incorporate into our everyday doings. Consider an early example he offers: When you meet somebody, you automatically ignore the reality of that person—which is that they’re defecating, sweating, etc.—and focus on the virtual projection of that person, which can be their social status, their reputation or whatever image you may already have about that person. It’s quite fascinating.

In the doc, Zizek constantly alludes to Lacan’s triad of the “Imaginary-Symbolic-Real”—which is more clearly mapped out in an analysis by Knol:

• imaginary virtual: filtered virtual image of e.g. other people 
• symbolic virtual: beliefs which have to be virtual to be operative, like paternal authority, Santa Claus, democracy. 
• real virtual: to be defined

and, recalling the Lacanian definition of real  = that which resists symbolization,

• imaginary real: images too strong to be directly confronted
• symbolic real: scientific formulas like quantum physics, which work but which appear to be meaningless with regard to our ordinary notion of reality
• real real: core of real, obscene shadow of symbolic real

Now I bring up these examples because in the very last bullet point—the “real real”—Zizek insists that the film The Sound Of Music actually serves to the “secret Fascist dreams” of us Westerners. It’s quite the bold statement and a provocative one to be sure. But there is tremendous potency in his dissection of the movie’s semiotics. In the case of Music, Zizek says that the Nazis in the film are portrayed as “decadent corrupted Jews” and not as typical Nazi soldiers. Therefore the “visual texture” of the film becomes double layered. On the one hand, it’s the story of a band of “folkloric” Austrians resisting “Nazis,” but on a deeper (and in Zizek’s eyes, more “real”) level, Music is playing to the Western, Fascist view of the “caricature” Jew figure—as portrayed by the film’s bureaucratic Nazis.

It’s important to consider Zizek’s case. As moviegoers, we each bring our own baggage to the multiplex. So whether we’re bringing political angst to a Michael Moore documentary or just some boyish fandom to a Transformers film, it helps to consider the Zizek-themed crisis of “the simple narrative reality of a film vs. the film’s virtual texture & micro-signs.” In plain lingo: are we liking a particular film because it transports us to new ideas and experiences or because it validates our original prejudices, hopes and fears?

Consider the much-debated Christopher Nolan film from this summer, Inception. I gave the film a generally favorable review but received a lot of flack for not seeing it as “a visionary masterpiece,” as so many other people have. Now, for me, the “simple narrative reality” of the film made sense (idea thieves running amok) but all of the “micro-signs” (any palpable sense of dreamlike urgency) of the film never hit home. But it obviously did with lots of people, so we must consider: how much of Inception is really giving off a formidable, apt narrative concerning dreams within the human subconscious and how much virtual reality is the viewer bringing on his or her part? And by “virtual” I mean all of the surrounding factors: hype, the fact that Nolan directed the highest-grossing film of the decade right before, and an otherwise bone-dry blockbuster summer.

But it’s not just Inception. I use that film only because it’s a popular title. Another popular title, like Twilight: Eclipse, can also be examined closely. It’s universal knowledge that these Twilight films are frowned upon by everyone at some point (even fans who later revisit them on disc). But the films endure, largely because of the “real” virtual reality that movie fans bring with them. The reality varies. For the twelve-year-old girl, the film’s hero could very well be Prince Charming. For the twenty-five-year-old female grad student, the film could just be some hokey escapism from the pressures of young adulthood. Either way, Zizek would probably ask: “Yes, but what is it that you really like about that film?”

I don’t think I could begin to tell you how to answer that.