Kinder Surprise Egg
example · anecdote ·
retold in 9 talks
Wanting 'coffee without milk' is like wanting 'that chocolate without the stupid plastic thing.' The structure involves a void in the core that must be supplemented by a figure (object small a).
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 8
“to say 'I want coffee without milk' is just to say 'I want that chocolate without the stupid plastic thing.'”Slavoj Zizek On Jacques Lacan (Full Lecture)pub. 2017-01-05 · 4:34:05
“I used in some of my books this disgusting example of chocolate eggs Kinder Surprise... a gigantic chocolate Kinder egg where the jewel is inside.”
“the surprise of the kinder surprise egg... this excessive object. the cause of your desire is here materialized in the guise of an object. a plastic toy which fills in the inner void of the chocolate egg.”
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)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Lindsay Anderson2Nikos Kazantzakis2Miloš Forman2Alejandro Zaera-Polo2Bob Fosse2John Frankenheimer2Michelangelo Antonioni2Jack London2
alongside works
Every retelling 8
Slavoj Zizek On Jacques Lacan (Full Lecture)pub. 2017-01-05 · 4:34:05
Wanting 'coffee without milk' is like wanting 'that chocolate without the stupid plastic thing.' The structure involves a void in the core that must be supplemented by a figure (object small a)., illustrating object small a,one is never one
Žižek compares the 'minimal aestheticization' of buildings (like the Beijing National Grand Theatre) to Kinder Surprise eggs: a chocolate shell protecting a 'jewel' (toy) inside, which he finds disgusting., illustrating minimal aestheticization
The kinder surprise egg materializes the object of desire (the surplus toy inside) while the chocolate is only the frame. Žižek inverts the usual reading: we should aim at the higher goal (the toy) precisely in order to enjoy the surface (the chocolate)., illustrating objet petit a,agalma,surplus enjoyment
The Kinder Egg materializes the paradox of commodity desire: the plastic toy (surplus) fills the inner void of the chocolate egg. We need the cheap surplus to enjoy the commodity itself; we aim at the higher goal in order to enjoy the surface., illustrating objet petit a,surplus enjoyment,commodity structure
The chocolate egg with a plastic toy inside is the commodity form of 'less is more': you get less chocolate (void in the middle) but more via the surplus toy, mirroring Lacan's surplus enjoyment., illustrating surplus enjoyment,more for less,commodity logic
A child buys a Kinder egg for the chocolate but wants the plastic toy inside more than the chocolate, perfectly illustrating Lacan's formula that one loves 'something in you more than yourself'. The hollow egg encircles a void filled by the surplus object-cause of desire., illustrating objet petit a,surplus enjoyment,the void,commodity structure