Sounds like you are pretty convinced that the Berg video is a hoax. I'm super sceptical about that...seems like wish-fulfilment (I don't mean on your part, but the existence of the hoax theory reads to me as an easy way out of the seeming impossibility/horror of the scenario). However, I am following you in the comparison of the imagery to that of Sue De Beer. One thing they both have in common is a kind of hermetic circularity. Violence that is meaningful as violence (and the Abu Ghraib photos fit this context as well). It's not "I killl you because you killed my brother", it's " I kill you to demonstrate that I can kill you." De Beer is post-Buffy in that the violence is its own end. It's not about saving the world or saving your friends (or your girl-back-home, Hi MOm!). It's about the thrill of exercising power, and the blank-yet-endorphinated buzz of touching death. I like the artnet interview with De Beer a lot.
"If you die when you are 60, then you have might have done something, like have had a rich and fulfilling life, or have written a good book, or had a family that loved you, or someone that loved you but you have to work for it more. You have to toil for meaning. Death is less scary when you are a kid because you don't analyze it so much. Your death would never be meaningless because someone will always care."
This quote is really interesting to me, cause it presents some clues about our cultural fascination with teenagers: people who are old enough to articulate desire and experience sadism, yet not old enough to have 'distracting' investment in building something meaningful out of life. Who better to look death square in the eye? Buffy makes a big romantic narrative to deliver and buff-er this delectable mortality treat. But De Beer just lets you mainline the good stuff (another reason why art is better than TV). The nice thing about art, as opposed to military invasions and the penal system, is that we can agree to carve out a societal convention for puttering with these emotions that doesn't actually involve killing anybody.
NB: I also like that De Beer (in the interview) references my favourite piece of pre-teen girl fiction, Island of the Blue Dolphins, in which every single person except our plucky girl hero dies off and leaves her fending for herself. Damn fine survivalist fantasy.
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This quote is really interesting to me, cause it presents some clues about our cultural fascination with teenagers: people who are old enough to articulate desire and experience sadism, yet not old enough to have 'distracting' investment in building something meaningful out of life. Who better to look death square in the eye? Buffy makes a big romantic narrative to deliver and buff-er this delectable mortality treat. But De Beer just lets you mainline the good stuff (another reason why art is better than TV). The nice thing about art, as opposed to military invasions and the penal system, is that we can agree to carve out a societal convention for puttering with these emotions that doesn't actually involve killing anybody.
NB: I also like that De Beer (in the interview) references my favourite piece of pre-teen girl fiction, Island of the Blue Dolphins, in which every single person except our plucky girl hero dies off and leaves her fending for herself. Damn fine survivalist fantasy.
- sally mckay 6-17-2004 8:31 am