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Alphonse Allais joke, woman naked beneath her dress

example · French: Alphonse Allais · retold in 4 talks
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The French satirist Alphonse Allais shows a woman and says 'beneath her dress she is completely naked', this is the real. The real is not behind appearances; it is only real beneath the appearance.

2009: 2 talks 2011: 1 talk 2015: 1 talk
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026

As told 4

“Look that woman, what a shame, beneath her dress she is totally naked, no. This is the real. The real is the real only, you are only naked beneath your dress.”
~0:00 The Idea of Communism and its Actuality2011-03-23 · 2:06:59
“beneath her clothes she is totally naked”
33:33 The Failure of Performance-Arts Venues to construct a Communal Space2009-06-16 · 1:15:32
“Look what a shame, beneath her clothes she is totally naked.”
33:32 Slavoj Žižek: Architecture as a Critique of Ideology2009 · 1:46:39

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
discordance between inside and outside ×2 the neighbor ×1 jouissance ×1

Its cast and sources

populated by
Alphonse Allais4Norman Foster2Adolf Loos2Oscar Niemeyer2Edward Hopper2Alejandro Zaera-Polo2Josef Fritzl2Daniel Libeskind2
alongside works
Yokohama Port Terminal2Tate Modern2Sydney Opera House2Do Dual Organizations Exist?2Tristes Tropiques2The Political Unconscious2Performing Architecture: Opera Houses, Theaters and Concert Halls for the 21st Century1Oriental Arts Center, Shanghai1

Every retelling 4

~0:00 The Idea of Communism and its Actuality2011-03-23 · 2:06:59
The French satirist Alphonse Allais shows a woman and says 'beneath her dress she is completely naked', this is the real. The real is not behind appearances; it is only real beneath the appearance., illustrating the real and semblances,Lacan's real,cynicism and appearances
33:33 The Failure of Performance-Arts Venues to construct a Communal Space2009-06-16 · 1:15:32
Alphonse Allais, pointing at a woman in a café, says: 'What a shame, beneath her clothes she is totally naked.' Žižek uses this (citing Lacan's use of Allais) to illustrate how nakedness, like the 'view', only exists as seen-through-a-frame from within., illustrating inside-outside incommensurability,the view from within,nakedness as constructed
33:32 Slavoj Žižek: Architecture as a Critique of Ideology2009 · 1:46:39
A joke quoted by Lacan: A woman says, 'Look what a shame, beneath her clothes she is totally naked.' It illustrates that nakedness is defined by the frame of clothing., illustrating inside and outside
1:18:03 Impossibility as the Lacanian Real2015-07-08 · 1:41:03
French satirist Allais pointed at a woman in a restaurant and shouted 'beneath her dress she is totally naked', a formally correct observation that reveals how the surface is always already a mask covering another layer., illustrating face/mask,the neighbour,jouissance