On the Possibilities of Political Art: How Žižek Misreads Deleuze and Lacan

Abstract

Reading Savoj Žižek’s Organs without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences, we gain insight on why and how so many scholars have misread Deleuze’s film theory. I will argue that there is an inherent logic and system to Deleuze’s theory, and this logic is Lacanian. Moreover, contemporary readers, like Žižek, continue to ignore Deleuze’s system, and instead, they simply sample and remix fragments of his work in order to locate predetermined ideologies. Furthermore, I read Žižek’s misreading of Deleuze as paradigmatic of the post-postmodern backlash against progressive social movements, social construction, and minority discourses. In turn, by illustrating Žižek’s repression of the political aspects of Deleuze’s film theory, I will elaborate a theory of political cinema. Thus, I will use Žižek’s misreading of Deleuze and Lacan to show how contemporary film theory is dominated by the desire to turn to the socio-symbolic order only to repress the significance of social mediation.