Toxic Masculinity, Performative Feminism & MeToo

In his words 1

“If there was a toxically masculine agent it's Antigone. And so at the end we will learn that Antigone is a man or whatever.”
1:01:45 Disorder Under Heaven · toxic masculinity medicalization / dogmatism

The stories that teach it

the jokes and anecdotes he reaches for when he works in this idea, ranked by how many of its talks they turn up in; each card is one story, with every retelling on its page

example · in 4 of its talks

Aquinas on Paradise and Hell

Thomas Aquinas asks if those in Paradise can see those in Hell. He argues they enjoy seeing the 'majesty of divine justice' in their suffering, not the suffering itself. Žižek calls this a 'cheap scholastic trick' and argues Paradise would be boring without the 'pleasure' of w…

anecdote · in 5 of its talks

Native Americans prefer 'Indians'

A Native American man in Missoula, Montana told Žižek he prefers 'Indian' over 'Native American' because 'at least that is a monument to white man's stupidity', and proceeded to demolish the left-liberal image of indigenous people as ecologically holistic, saying they burned m…

anecdote · in 3 of its talks

Facebook censors Napalm Girl

Facebook censored the iconic 'Napalm Girl' photo justifying it as preventing child pornography, ignoring the political dimension, illustrating political correctness's sanitizing impulse.

example · in 3 of its talks

Picasso's Woman Throwing a Stone

Žižek uses this Picasso painting, which violently dismembers a woman's figure into abstract fragments, as a model of 'thinking in art': disfiguration brings out the essence, fury, fragility, more directly than realist reproduction.

anecdote · in 3 of its talks

Australian New South Wales legal consent registration

Žižek mentions that New South Wales enacted a law requiring partners to somehow register consent before sex. He uses this as an example of PC legislation that ignores the constitutive ambiguity and fantasy-structure of sexuality.

example · in 5 of its talks

Starbucks ethical consumerism

Buying a Starbucks cappuccino is sold as supporting Guatemalan organic farmers and saving the planet; the owner appeared like Anthony Giddens calling Starbucks an ersatz place of collective experience. The sin of consumerism and its redemption are packaged together in the same…

Fukushima and Tokyo evacuation4 Radio Yerevan / Rabinovich and the car3 Tom and Jerry3 Goldwyn's New Clichés memo3 Bernie Sanders at Biden's inauguration3 Niels Bohr's horseshoe5 Mexican indigenous community, rape punished by two crates of beer2 Roman Viaduct Statues2 De Sade's Juliette undeadness2 Steve Bannon the Left Trumpian2

Where it comes up 34

43 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there

Slavoj Žižek receives the Gold Medal (English, May 2018)2018-05-07 · 1:44:03

~56:47 false subjectivization

is looking for a proof of woman's enjoyment. And I think this is a much worse humiliation for the woman. Much worse than being just an object of instrument is to be how should I call this, forcefully oppressively subjectivized. Everybody knows this is for …

~31:12 active objectivization

a partner for making love. The result of the modern Western culture is that both sexes are expected to play an active role in this game. When women dress provocatively to attract male gaze, when they if you want objectivize themselves to seduce them, they …

Lubitsch: Cynicism, Humour and Commitment2018-05-07 · 1:30:23

~43:54 false subjectivization

being just an object of instrument is to be, how should I call this, forcefully oppressively subjectivized. Everybody knows this is for me male chauvinism at its worst. We when we are at our worst, we don't just exploit women. We want them to praise …

~19:15 active objectivization

prohibited, from our own ordinary male chauvinists who explode in violence against a woman who first provokes them and then reject their advances. But what I want to say here is that this term—I reject it often—this term often used by feminists: 'male gaze objectifies …

Slavoj Zizek – Transcendental Subjectivity, Sexual Difference, Brain Sciences2017-10-06 · 2:02:10

~44:56 false subjectivization

crucial—in the background you see her face. Looking into the camera, breaking all the rules of, you know, in a proper fiction movie you should never look into the camera. And this tells us a lot. I don't justify pornography. I'm against pornography, prostitution and …

The REAL Point of Trump’s Tariffs | Aaron Bastani Meets Slavoj Žižek2025-04-13 · 2:07:22

5:51 false subjectivization

… You get the most horrible thing, a fake enforced subjectivization.

Slavoj Žižek. Ontological Incompleteness in Film. 20122012 · 1:36:49

57:53 false subjectivization

… I think that one should distinguish here between subject and subjectivization.