The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology is a documentary starring philosopher Slavoj Zizek as he exposes popular societal beliefs in popular movies such as The Dark Knight, I Am Legend, Titanic, They Live, Jaws, The Sound of Music and West Side Story. If you love films and/or philosophy, The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology is a must see. Fans of Room 237 should watch it immediately.
The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology’s director, Sophie Fiennes (sister of Ralph and Joseph “Michael Jackson” Fiennes), and Zizek create an enthrallingly dynamic film when it could have been a dry, didactic discourse. Fiennes uses clips from the movies that Zizek analyzes and recreates certain scenes with Zizek literally inhabiting the film space. She also uses footage from sources other than movies such as news broadcasts.
Because The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology is so engaging, I had to give it my full attention, but it certainly warrants a second viewing. While I feel like I understand the main points of his analysis of each film, I have no idea whether there was an overarching connection that created a broader thesis other than films that Zizek wanted to analyze.
For people who are concerned by the title, The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, Zizek defines cinema as a perverted art because it tells you not only want you want, but encourages you to imitate the movie and derive pleasure by imitating the movie to get what you want. There is nothing sexually graphic in The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology.
Zizek is a thrilling thinker who challenges both sides of the political and cultural aisle. He criticizes communist’s god as “The People,” which can only be punctured by showing actual people. He says that we derive pleasure from apocalyptic movies because it has the effect of historicizing the present by showing what our lives would look like if they were frozen in time. For a leftie atheist, he has some provocative things to say about Christianity, “The only real way to be an atheist is to go through Christianity. Christianity is much more atheist than the usual atheism….The message of Christ is I’m dying, but my death itself is good news. It means you are alone, left to your freedom in the Holy Spirit.” I wonder if he knows that the ancient Romans considered Christians atheists because Christians did not believe in the gods.
The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology reminded me of my college days when I first discovered film theory except encapsulated into a little over two hours instead of months. It also does not hurt that Zizek loves John Carpenter and feels the same way that the audience does when Rose boots Jack off of the makeshift raft while saying, “I’ll never let you go.” When I placed The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology in my queue, I did not realize that the documentary was a sequel to The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, which I will need to find and watch as soon as possible. I may even rewatch The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology afterwards because that is how much fun I had.