"Matrix" movie

[Tavia]

I just saw it with a friend last night: it was his second time. I find it
amusing that we leftists always find ourselves arguing over whether
cultural products like this are 'more' subversive or 'more' hegemonic, when
the answer, as Eve Sedgwick points out, is almost always: "kinda
subversive, kinda hegemonic."

Could you say that the only reason we feel motivated to have these sub/heg
debates is because we really enjoyed and/or were moved by the movie, but we
worry that if we enjoy a mass entertainment unreflexively, we become
complicit with some industrial-technological-entertainment complex? If so,
arguing the political merits and demerits of a film becomes prophylaxis: a
way to participate in the enjoyment of the film while protecting ourselves
against the legitimating effects of that enjoyment.

Tavia



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Tavia Nyongo Turkish                   Doctoral Student
American Studies                       Yale University

"I don't mind: Being called a Marxist-Leninist makes me feel young
again. It's like being asked for ID in a bar." -- Mark Kingwell
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