Zizek tells a story about Stalin that illustrates something key to the function of spectacle, symbol, and power. During a session in the Soviet parliament, a member of the assembly openly chastised Stalin in a disagreement. Following this, a lone assembly member stands up and shouts him down, saying something like ‘don’t you know you can’t speak that!” Stalin didn’t respond and afterward the assembly member who openly confronted Stalin was given no reprimand, while the assembly member who attempted to enforce the norms of honoring the leader was punished. The point is not only that real power doesn’t need proclamation, but that it is degraded when it is transposed from the real to the symbolic. Indeed, there is a structural sense in which one only displays what one fails to possess.
While the world continues to gawk at the grandiosity and splendor of the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, considering whether it was the greatest show ever staged, a better question presents itself: what massive lack or national insecurity drives such enormous gesture?
One highlight included an adorable young Chinese girl singing, or as it turned out, lip-synching. The song was actually sung by a Chinese girl of the same age, but the real singer was not deemed “cute enough” by authorities. Oh and those extravagant fireworks over the cityscape: digitally animated by scores of techies over nearly a year of constant work and slipped to oblivious international television networks via the Chinese broadcast feed. All this to say essentially ‘please be impressed by us, please like us.’
We’re well served to remember that the Roman authorities didn’t roll out the feasts and circuses to celebrate, but to ingratiate themselves with citizens who had reason to despise them.
1 Comment
August 13, 2008 at 11:52 pm
~racist~