Captive State
anecdote · film: Captive State ·
retold in 3 talks
A movie starring John Goodman set in Chicago where aliens invade but remain invisible, with human collaborators running things; Žižek likes it because it depicts control as an alien power we are unaware of, mirroring digital surveillance.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“there was a recent movie which i mention it because you are in chicago takes place in chicago did you see the new movie with john goodman playing a dark role captive state”
“We were at the dissident gathering where some dissident who was imprisoned reported in a very tragic voice of his fate. And then a guy of whom we discovered later that he was a state provocateur... through this pure obscenities he tried to ruin the performance.”
“no state, no actual empirical state succeeds to be at its own level as the state.”Slavoj Zizek lecture: globalism and ways of life2016 · 1:57:48
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
the miracle of this new control
×1
unfreedom experienced as freedom
×1
constructive role of political jokes
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Peter van Inwagen1John Goodman1Cyril Ramaphosa1Russell Brand1Peter Sellers1Norman Vincent Peale1Trevor Noah1Donna Brazile1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
A movie starring John Goodman set in Chicago where aliens invade but remain invisible, with human collaborators running things; Žižek likes it because it depicts control as an alien power we are unaware of, mirroring digital surveillance., illustrating the miracle of this new control,unfreedom which is not even felt as constraint
An anecdote about a state provocateur at a dissident gathering who used obscenities to disrupt a prisoner's tragic testimony, illustrating how humor can be weaponized to undermine political performance., illustrating socially constructive role of jokes
Slavoj Zizek lecture: globalism and ways of life2016 · 1:57:48
Hegel's view that no empirical state (Asiatic, slave, medieval, capitalist) succeeds in being 'at its own level' as the state; they all fail to resolve the dilemma of keeping together an antagonistic society., illustrating state which fits its notion,normativity in reality