Pornography, Queer Eye, Superheroes and Latent Socialist Desire
This essay argues that "pornography" describes less a specific content than a mode of representation to satiate historically specific desires. I then use this definition to interpret a range of mass cultural media from "react videos" and "food porn" to Queer Eye and Superhero films. I argue that, in contrast to the original defenders of capitalism in the 18th century who thought that capitalism would serve as a corrective to our passions, capitalism has instead stoked them in increasingly spectacular and lascivious ways, particularly as its capacity to satiate our needs dwindles Reading this terrain of pornographies as a map of our collective longings , I argue, can offer some guidance to leftists trying to appeal downtrodden, yearning masses.
Part I addresses pornography as a contingent category and uses this to examine the reality show Queer Eye
Part II extends this analysis to the superhero genre and argues that despite the genre's obviously reactionary tropes, it contains glimmers of socialist longing
Part III (which appears next week) will discuss workplace sitcoms, fantasies of unalienated labor and how these efforts to stoke desire relate to Albert Hirschman's book which lends its title to this essay
Part IV (appearing in two weeks) shifts to Marx and Hegel to discuss alienation/asceticism and bourgeois entertainment as responses to the question of passions/interests raised by Hirschman.