I’m currently reading Sayak Valencia’s “Gore Capitalism,” an insightful cultural critique that makes some rather fascinating strides toward broadening our traditional definition(s) of consumer culture, identity, and neoliberalism. Published in 2010, it’s a piece of academic writing that’s very much of its time; surefooted and predictive but also bearing the weight of the unforeseen (a global pandemic, first and foremost). But it remains an illuminating work that, despite the flurry of Valencia’s ideas clouding some of their more salient points, makes for an especially useful lens in analyzing the media of the last century, particularly post-9/11 cinema.
The Gene Siskel Film Center’s new lecture series, in collaboration with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, utilizes Valencia’s essay as a framework to deconstruct some of the more compelling films of the last thirty years. Led by SAIC Professor Daniel R. Quiles, the programming avoids obvious selections that embody Valencia’s writings; Valencia’s work relies extensively on Tijuana drug cartels as a means of addressing the bloodshed associated with Third World capitalism striving to find its place within First World demands. So while films like Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario or Johnnie To’s Drug War seem earmarked for this kind of series, Quiles’ programming is more inventive and all-encompassing in deconstructing Valencia’s text. The anomie, dissociation,and endriago politics that Valencia vividly illustrates is captured with greater ingenuity through films like Lee Chang-dong’s seminal 2018 film Burning, Julia Ducournau’s Cannes-fetted Titane, and Todd Haynes’ masterpiece Safe.
And so in the coming months I’ll look at each film in Quiles’ programming through the lens of Valencia’s text. It won’t be a pleasant exercise per se, but certainly it will be a valuable one. As I see the world around me fall apart, the divide between haves and have-nots widening, I must ask myself what converging types of strategies can I adopt to combat this, both in myself and others. The axiom goes “If you look too long into the abyss, the abyss looks back at you.” I’ve been in the murk too long and it’s time to get out.
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