This evening over dinner my friend Jon talked about the philosopher Jacques Rancière and his philosophy of the unspeakable. The essence is that in any particular society there are things that we do not and cannot talk about – they are literally unspeakable. These taboos limit our ability to discuss problems we might otherwise profitably discuss, such as the relations between rich and poor, parents and children, sexuality, domestic violence, and other topics that tear at the fabric of society.<\/p>\n
This reminded me of my experience watching the 1983 Tony Scott film “The Hunger”. An early example of the now ubiquitous “glamorous vampire” genre, the film centered around a human\/vampire romantic triangle, with the principals played by Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon.<\/p>\n
In movies there are things that happen not because they inherently make sense but because they need<\/i> to happen, for reasons that have to do with plot advancement and character development. In the case of “The Hunger”, one such development centers around the character of Alice, played by the fourteen year old child actress Beth Ehlers. In the story, Alice is being groomed by the powerful vampire played by Deneuve to replace her current companion, played by Bowie, who is nearing the end of his useful lifetime and is beginning to rapidly age and degenerate.<\/p>\n
As we learn about the ways of this film’s vampires, we discover that they indoctrinate their new minions through sexual seduction – the movie contains a number of erotic scenes centered around this concept. But this presents a problem – Alice is only fourteen. Rancière’s theory is quite applicable here. By definition, no American commercial film may contain an actual erotic encounter between an adult and a child. After all, the innocence of a young girl must be protected at all costs. Anything else would be, indeed, unspeakable.<\/p>\n
The writers solve the dilemma in a simple and ingenious way. Bowie’s character, as part of his vampiric degeneration, is consumed by a powerful and uncontrollable hunger (hence the film’s title). Finding himself alone with the unsuspecting young Alice, he eats her.<\/p>\n
Notice the simple brilliance of this plot twist. In order to protect this innocent child, to shield her from something as harmful as the pleasure of sexual awakening, the filmmakers opt to turn her into lunch. By being brutally murdered by a ravenous monster, horrifically butchered and summarily devoured, this young character is spared the unspeakable – enjoying a few moments of sexual pleasure on-screen.<\/p>\n
You might not think that this makes logical sense. But as Rancière points out, when faced with any topic defined as “unspeakable” (in this case the threat of a potential sexual encounter between an adult woman and a fifteen year old girl), logic goes out the window. Perhaps it isn’t so surprising that our society has found no way to address some other uncomfortable topics, such as the plight of children guilty only of the unspeakable crime of being born into a poor American family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This evening over dinner my friend Jon talked about the philosopher Jacques Rancière and his philosophy of the unspeakable. The essence is that in any particular society there are things that we do not and cannot talk about – they are literally unspeakable. These taboos limit our ability to discuss problems we might otherwise profitably … Continue reading “Unspeakable”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1985"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1990,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions\/1990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}