Scholarlink

<p>In the vein of film philosophy, where the line between theory and film blurs, this essay theorizes through and with Michael Sarnoski’s 2021 debut feature film <i>Pig</i> to discern the role of fetishism within the capitalist totality and beyond. <i>Pig</i> is the rare film that integrates psychoanalysis into the ideological analysis of capitalism, synthesizing critiques of the libidinal and political economy in a way reminiscent of the work of Lacanian leftists like Slavoj Žižek and Samo Tomšič. In addition to being a psychoanalytic film about a fetishistic response to traumatic loss, <i>Pig</i> provides a Marxist critique of the perverse fetish of value and the cynical fetishistic disavowal of the damage capitalism inflicts on the social link. By severing value from meaning, capitalism threatens to dissolve the social link in onanistic <i>jouissance</i>. The socialist fetish would, by contrast, overlap value and meaning and thereby reinforce the social link. <i>Pig</i> raises a key question for utopian thinking: might the social link itself be the fetish that structures the political economy of socialism?</p>

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Fetishism within and without the capitalist unconscious: Pig and the socialist social link

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  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年6月4日

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  • Kirk Boyle

摘要

In the vein of film philosophy, where the line between theory and film blurs, this essay theorizes through and with Michael Sarnoski’s 2021 debut feature film Pig to discern the role of fetishism within the capitalist totality and beyond. Pig is the rare film that integrates psychoanalysis into the ideological analysis of capitalism, synthesizing critiques of the libidinal and political economy in a way reminiscent of the work of Lacanian leftists like Slavoj Žižek and Samo Tomšič. In addition to being a psychoanalytic film about a fetishistic response to traumatic loss, Pig provides a Marxist critique of the perverse fetish of value and the cynical fetishistic disavowal of the damage capitalism inflicts on the social link. By severing value from meaning, capitalism threatens to dissolve the social link in onanistic jouissance. The socialist fetish would, by contrast, overlap value and meaning and thereby reinforce the social link. Pig raises a key question for utopian thinking: might the social link itself be the fetish that structures the political economy of socialism?