For Those About to Theorize ...
... We Salute You.
Who has the most devoted groupies? Academics or rock stars?
The answer may surprise you. When Slavoj Zizek and his Party Posse rolled into San Francisco to promote "Zizek!," a documentary about his work, the crowd at the Roxie Theater looked more like the audience for an emo show than for a Lacanian-Marxist critic who bears a strong resemblance to a constipated bear.
A smokin' hot drummer he ain't, but he made some excellent points regarding America's belief in the "real self."
By "real me," Zizek refers to America's attachment to seeing people "as they really are," as they are with their masks off. Or, in Zizek's case, with their clothes off. At one point in the film, Zizek lollygags in a hotel bed without his shirt on and talks straight into the camera about one of his many concepts.
After the documentary, Zizek dismissed his "openness" as a trick - he reminded us that just because we saw him lying in bed, seemingly relaxed, doesn't mean we know him any better. Then again, he could have been regretting how he looked on the screen because he watched the film along with the rest of us, and that scene earned more than a few giggles.
But the idea is worth remembering. Zizek said, "What I don't like about America is the cult of self-experience." Zizek blazes past his concepts into the next big thing, which is why he's an academic rock star and why we at the Pepper are not, but we've been mulling over this idea for a few days.
Americans as a whole love it when stars, semi-stars, or poli-stars reveal their "real selves." The "Barbara Walters Interview" always receives huge ratings because we can see someone who is somehow better or bigger than we are act more like ... us. Of course it's an act. Of course we don't know them any better. What these stars are offering is what they think we as viewers want to see.
Politicians in particular love to unleash their "real selves" on the world. The populace tends to like George II's "real self" better than John Kerry's. John Kerry revealed the wrong "real self"; that, or, he wasn't comfortable at playing this "real self."
What's to be remembered is that there's no such thing as a "real self." We present masks of ourselves to those around us and change the masks as necessary. Otherwise, we would get into fisticuffs all the time. For example, we at the Pepper almost bopped one smug Zizek fanboy for asking, "How does it feel to be frontman of your own rock band?" but we had our polite mask on, and we chose against it.
For more about Zizek's stop in San Francisco, check out what Palace Family Steak House had to say because he/she/them/it seems to have been paying more attention than we were - or at least they weren't distracted by the shirtless scene.