Disorganized Capitalism

For the last day of class I planned on talking about one of my favorite literature to film adaptations, Chuck Palahniuk and David Fincher’s “Fight Club”. I feel very passionate about this film because of its deep meaning and translation to cultural studies, especially in regards to social order, politics and identity. Since I was not able to show the most “anti-capitalist” five minutes of film, I will expand it into a longer recognition and analysis of the film/literature in light of our texts. Not only do I feel this film is abundant with iconic scenes and monologues, I also feel this outside literary source best sums up most of the themes we dealt with over the course of the semester in a fascinating cinematic point of view. From Barker’s chapters on “A New World Disorder?” “Cultural Space and Urban Place”, to Jacques Derrida, and even the most recent passage from Bordo’s “Material Girl”, “Fight Club” is a postmodern comment on the industrialized world, which is controversial, yet an insightful viewing and reading experience. The story is an anti-capitalist, anti-consumer, anti-material perspective on a different way to live your life in the modern world, which creates an image of a reindustrialized western world, and if deconstructed through using our text, is referred to by theorists as “disorganized capitalism”.
Fight Club’s story is told from the voice of two characters, originating from the same body. We will call Edward Norton’s character, “Jack”, our first protagonist, who is a hardworking, 9 to 5, blue-collar worker in the auto insurance industry. It is ironic in fact, that Jack works in the industry of auto recalls, representing the opposite effect of the Ford and post-Fordist workplace. Jack is in charge of hiding the mistakes of mass production and the flaws of mass consumerism. We are introduced to Jack’s narration immediately with frustration and complacency for the modern world. In an iconic montage of imagery, we see Jack sitting on his toilet, ordering countless items from an IKEA catalog. Barker’s chapter on “Space and Place” describes places, apartments and homes as social constructs that “target emotional identification and/or investment”. The montage is actually contradicting, yet beneficial from the get go as Norton’s character confesses his obsession with consumption with every paycheck made. The camera spans the entire apartment, putting a price tag on every item as if it were a picture from the spring catalog. Norton’s character describes his apartment as an extension of his own identity, slowly building to become closer to the social norm. The norm, in this case is his reference to the IKEA catalog. As Barker states, “space is implicated in questions of power and symbolism”, and I believe this scene is key in identifying the frustration of the main protagonist. Furthermore, Baudrillard states “commodities confer prestige and signify social value, status and power in the context of cultural meanings that derive from the ‘wider’ social order.” His voice implies that material consumption and obsession with improvement is not a hobby, but a curse. He has no food in his refrigerator, but owns hundreds of kitchenware. His wardrobe resembles that of a popular public figure, but he only needs his suit and tie for work. His voice at this time in the film seems depressed, and it’s almost ironic that his condo, full of stuff, is used to compensate for his apathy. I believe this scene is key in introducing the main character’s confusion because he is questioning his own addiction. He manifests himself within his apartment and his things, until he self implodes and destroys his entire complex with the help of his alter ego, Tyler Durden.
Tyler Durden is first introduced to the story of “Fight Club” as Jack’s mentor and a prophet. In the first scene at Lou’s Tavern after the explosion of Jack’s hotel, Brad Pitt’s character questions the ideals, structure and obsession of the post-modern, consumerism, Capitalistic world. He preaches the idea that reliance on “…owning things will end up owning you”. I feel this scene is iconic because it introduces one of the subversive themes of the film, as well as exploring the depths of Tyler/Jack’s psychological malfunction. At this point in the film, it is implied that Jack and Tyler are in fact different people and different personalities, but as fans of the book and film watch the scene a second time around, it becomes more of a deconstruction of the confused identity. In fact, later in the film, it is confessed that Tyler Durden is a figment of Jack's "identity paradigm" as Bordo states. Tyler Durden is Jack’s confident self, who represents what Jack wishes to be from his confident, optimistic outlook to his chiseled, attractive appearance. This is a unique spin on what Bordo refers to as “cultural plastic,” except the plastic is actually a figment of desire and perceptual malfunction. It’s contradicting and ironic that Durden preaches the idea that the plastic self is meaningless and socially constructed, but at the same time is a social construct himself. He states that our generation is lost as "men raised by woman," as if the post-industialized male is today's society is constructed only of images and social constructs defined by women. Once again, this resembles our text and is particularly important for author, Chuck Palahniuk, because he proposes the question of what defines masculinity in correlation/causation with today's society.
The film incorporates many techniques to accentuate the differences between Jack and Tyler such as body language, confidence, objectivity, camera angles and dialogue. In the diner scene, Jack is edgy, nervous, worried, and stressed about losing his “junk”, whereas Tyler is relaxed, optimistic, sensible and confident in the future. The two are complete opposites in concrete identity, but in actuality and psycholically are the same person. I believe this may be a metaphor even for the sane and normal individual within the modern city and the polarizing effect it has. Palahniuk has always been known for his powerful and controversial opinions on western society, and I feel this scene is the no exception. In Barker’s chapter on “A New World Disorder,” theorist make the conclusion that western society, dependant more on consumption and “quantity over quality” have seen a rise in multiple forms of “obsession, mania, depression, self-esteem” and many other forms of apathy, indifference, and meaninglessness. They also state that a rise in consumption and material goods has created a border and/or gap between mankind and nature. I feel this theory is very evident in Lou’s Tavern as Brad Pitt’s prophetic and preachy conversation to Jack implies. Tyler Durden states that Jack’s “stuff” were just modern solutions for insecurities and points out that the “hunters and gatherers” as with our ancestors, would be turning in their graves because of how our primitive instincts have been deprived since the rise of technology and abundance of goods since the Great Depression. After the scene in the tavern concludes, Jack and Tyler come up with the idea of fighting in the parking lot. This introduces the central theme and title of the film, and I feel this is the best example of rebellion versus the normal industrial man. By stripping away a reliance on material possessions, fear of the workplace, taxes, social relations and a self-image, mankind is left with only basic instincts of survival and violence. They create an underground fight club to become closer to nature, and at same time awaken themselves from the slumber that the “system” has created for them. A Derridian analyst could state that the members of this club, who lead much different lives in the day, are signified by the workplace that the system has chosen for them. Norton’s narration doesn’t dismiss the importance of the American job, but also implies that sub servant, hiarchy, cubicle foundations are images that we project, that dehumanize us and the same time is inevitable. By stripping away the tools that signify us, man is left with more options to lead free lives. The jobs we work define and signify us as Americans, but what we do outside what is required is what makes us human, and that is choice. Salvation through self-destruction and existentialism are themes I think David Fincher was trying to convey throughout this film. Tyler Durden is Jack's psychotheraputic analysis of himself and the world around us. By using this analysis and knowing of Jack's extension through Tyler Durden and violence, the key scene where Jack fights himself in his own bosses office implies through metaphor that Jack is being beat down by the highest of corporate monsters, both pysically and psychologically. Although it starts off subversively that the workaholics of the American machine depend of violence to open up their reality, it soon becomes blatant that the typical American-corporate consumers are too desensitized to the comfortable lifestyle, which is why the fascination with violence turns into terrorism to project the same experiences onto the mass public.
I consider this film one of the most important American films because it poses a ton of questions about the foundations of Western culture, order and economy, and is in essence an anti-American film. The underground fight club under Lou’s Tavern soon turns into a cult. Dozens upon dozens of American consumers show up to hear Tyler Durden’s speeches, and get thrills from the bloody matches of violence as form of euphoria from their “normal work” lives. The speeches of dissatisfaction soon turn into manifestos of terrorism, and then the club turns into an organization of chaos, bent on destroying conglomerates, banks and corporations with nitro glycerin made from soap and fermentation. The narration of Durden seems like a direct comment from Palahniuk, and slowly escalates over the progress of the film and novel. Barker’s chapter on “Cultural Politics and Policy” describes the terms of “Deconstruction, De-mythologization, and De-mystification,” all terms I could use to describe Palahniuk’s message, as they are analytical approaches for social perspective, understanding, movements and change. By questioning government, economical practices, masculinity, social order, and participating in movements of anti-institutional, anti-authoritarian practices, Durden becomes an agent of social change against the foundations of America. The climax reveals that Tyler Durden is in fact Jack’s multiple personality and has been using Jack’s insomnia as means to progress his terrorist plots across the major metropolis cities in America. The end becomes a struggle between Jack’s two consciences until ultimately he kills off Tyler and regains new enlightenment on how to live his life. The banks and corporations still explode in a dramatic finish, but once again, I feel this is a personal choice on Fincher and Palahniuk to create world disorder in light of our protagonist’s revelation.
Overall, I think “Fight Club” is a highly stylized film that incorporates brilliant storytelling techniques resembling that of Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” and at the same time, uses a powerful underlying message to convey a controversial topic in Western society. With numerous flashbacks, first-person narration, clever editing montages and camera skills to accentuate the boundary between Durden and Jack, the film attempts to create an illusion beyond that of any ordinary multiple-personality film. The film challenges viewers to engage into the story by brainwashing us for two hours. Viewers have an active relationship with the story because it is we, as Americans that play the part of antagonist. We are the system that defines Norton’s character, and we must abandon our reliance on capitalism to continue the plot. I feel this is an intriguing experience because at the end of the two-hour film or 300-page book, we question the logic and foundation of our own government and economy. It’s as if we are the Korean clerks from the scene where Durden holds him hostage. Durden attempts to teach us a lesson on how to live our lives, but he doesn’t force us with a gun; he merely poses the task of making us ask questions. These questions are essential in understanding the theories of culture and our current civilization. I believe in order to understand popular culture, you must be able to ask questions, and constantly, because culture is always changing, and in effect, the theories of what define culture are also changing. Why do we base our existence, our identity, our confidence and happiness on the items we possess and the jobs that signify us? Why do we allow the things we own in the modern, post-industrial metropolises of today own our identity and us? Does it really take a schizophrenic, multiple-identity, sociopath, insomniac, torn between two ideals in order to ask these questions, or is it possible to live our lives without asking these questions? “Fight Club” is a diverse film, abundant with questions and theories on culture, economy and social order. By deconstructing the foundations of a commodity-reliant, postmodern world from the perspective of a working class, insane individual, we are given the experience of questioning what makes us human, individuals, and especially, American.

Works Cited
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. New York: Owl Books, 1997

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. London: Sage Publications, 2000

Derrida, Jacques. "Differance."

Fight Club. DVD. Dir. David Fincher, 20th Century Fox, 1999

Bordo, Susan. "'Material Girl': The Effacements of Postmodern Culture."

Baudrillard, Jean. "The System of Objects."

FWD from Week 15 discussion

I have a funny story to mention as I prepare my final paper. Prior to
moving to the valley and attending CSUN, I used to be a supervisor
at a Starbucks in upscale Brentwood. I would serve coffee to the most
elite of industry professionals (such as the Governator, Spielberg,
Toby Maguire, Afleck, ect. ect.) and other top real estate junkies,
doctors and lawyers ALL making over 100k a year. My tiny coffee
shop was located under a pilades studio, yoga, fitness gym, and
rapid rehab establishments, so the area was basically infested with
women and men, obsessed with increasing (or keeping) their image.
This is kind of funny in regards to our last Bordo discussion in that
weird classroom, because after the first year, Botox, plastic
injections and breast augmentations were a common thing,
especially if the women were in the industry or married into it. I
found even the teenage daughters of these high class individuals
had some sort of nip tuck done in order to fall into mommy's
footsteps. I used to take my little cigarette breaks and would over
hear some of the most absurd of the conversations. Women would
plan out an entire years worth of plastic work done in communal
meetings at the Le Pain Quotidien. Some would even condemn
other desperate, rich housewives if they hadn't had any work done.
I always had something to laugh at, being one of the few consumers
in the area who made less then 10 grand a year.
It's pretty ridiculous how consumers can become sucked
into their own environment, and put under extreme expectations and
stress. I'm sure they didn't realize that they were all becoming
"stepford wives" of the like, but then again, I don't think they
cared.
It's just like back in high school. I would buy the 100$ pair of
nikes because all of my peers had them and I wanted to fit in.
Brentwood and many other elitist communities work in the same fashion.
If your not driving the newest Porshe, Benz or Beamer, you better get
one or you'll be cast out just like that school kid nobody talks to.
If you're married to one of the highest grossing Producers in
Hollywood, and your age shows the stress, you can't afford to look
"normal" because it could actually be detrimental to your wallet
and/or your career, so stretch out your face like the lady from
"Brazil". This theme has always confused me up the wazoo. In fact,
after two years in that slice of material heaven, I even began
to re-evaluate my own image and identity in response to my customers.
That was when I knew I had to leave, and I think it was the best
choice I had ever made. I guess it's a great experience if you want
to see the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but if you ask me,
it's more of a prison than a haven.

FWD from Week 13 discussion

I found Barker's chapter 11 of "Digital media Culture" interesting because I feel my generation, especially growing up as a teenager, is the age of cyber-evolution. I found the section about "gaming and identity" the most fascinating, because I too used to be one of the millions and millions of online gamers, playing games such as the SIMS and the ever popular World of Warcraft (WOW in the cyber dialect), games where players in reality, could transform and create new personas of themselves, and pretend to have a different identity, without the boundaries of class, race, gender and location in the global scale. As a child, the games did serve as an escape from some of the limitations and fears of reality, because my character, most of the time was about 7 feet tall, fully ripped, and usually was pretty good at killing things, giving me a cyber-constructed confidence both in the gaming world and outside. I think it's also kind of funny that Turkle points out, many gamers in real life, often don't even create characters that resemble themselves.
Women can create male avatars, and experiment, through chatting, the advantages of a masculine ego and confidence, and in contrast, a male can choose to be created as a female character, allowing themselves to be more "assertive" and even experiment with reactions from other gamers that may "believe" you are actually a female in real life, sitting behind a keyboard (which is actually pretty common nowadays in the online gaming industry). I for one, never crossed-dressed online, because I was a fan of the "race" manipulation as a teen. Keep in mind, I am a caucasion male, who grew up in a 5% white population city, I found it fascinating as a kid, talking as if I were a black male from the Bay Area, or a Latino from New York. I would screw with people in my "make believe", online voice, by using slang and stereotypes just to get different reactions. I don't really think that the cyberspace gaming community is exactly beneficial to the gamers in reality, but it does serve as an escape, or portal to re-evaluate one's identity. I wasted about two years of my teenage years, addicted to the trend, and didn't really achieve anything but an excuse to sit in front of my computer for hours on end. It was truly an escape from the tremendous boredom and distance I felt as a kid, trying to make friends in a city that declared me a minority. I guess this really poses a question about the current trends in the online gaming industry. With the games getting more detailed and advanced in forms of cyber-sex, cyber-violence, cyber-hangouts and malls, and even cyber-gambling, recruiting consumers in now the billions across the globe, is our society as a whole confused/bored with our identity or are we just looking for an escape?

FWD from Week 10 discussion and Response to Bisexuality in the City

It's about a week or so after these postings, but I just felt I had to respond to this discussion...even if it is out of order of discussion. I grew up in the Bay Area, specifically, San Jose about 15 minutes South of San Francisco. I grew up with a lot of gay and bisexual friends, and in that area, homophobia can actually get you more damaged than than actually being gay or lesbian. That being said, many of my friends over the last few years have had official same-sex wedding ceremonies, and I find it puzzling that Prop. 8 will actually allow the weddings prior to the election valid, but make them illegal after the ban. I think that might be the most absurd bit of information I have ever heard, and it might be perfect example of why Prop 8 should be illegal in the first place. On another note, I don't think weddings are really capitalistic, but do agree with Jessica's comment that divorces are, especially marriages founded on prenuptual agreements of high class society. Kinda reminds me of that flick with George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones, "Intolerable Cruelty". It's quite amusing because it satires how common most marriages are used in American society as stepping stones for riches and wealth, regardless of the emotion involved in a marriage. This could also be seen with actors/actresses and media symbols, ironically marrying their costars and fellow colleagues as PR and more profit. Once again, I don't think marriages are exactly capitalistic, but marriages within a capitalistic society pretty much make the sanctity of marriage
irrelevant.

FWD from Week 9 discussion and Response to Heidi's post

I don't quite agree with Heidi on this one. I found 40 year Old Virgin to be a bit on the traditional side in comparison to some of the other radical examples given by McDonald and especially in contrast to Annie Hall, BUT I do think there are a few radical elements involved that might be overlooked. For example, although Carell's character does fit the stereotypical guy meets girl scenario, it's the different characters around him that help Andy go through a character development. Rudd's character, the nastalgic, damaged (two souls intertwined) seems to be the typical heartbroken character; what Woody Allen would be like after Annie Hall's climax. He gives Andy a big box of porn to try and help him because that is probably what he uses to get over his love malfunction. Malco's character tells Andy he needs to better his image, and to attract women with looks, thus forcing him to wax portions of his hamburger meat off, ironically making a huge smiley face on his stomach. Rogen's character, being the silent poetic type, tells Andy to plant a seed (marijuana reference) and ask questions to women, and once again Andy attempts, but doesn't really get anywhere except a confusing, mislead conversation. All three characters, including the others in the workplace, help develop Andy's character in comparison to the real world around him. They reinforce the stereotypes of sexually active adults to contrast the rarity of a virgin adult. Since the film purposely recognizes the "boy meets girl" scenario, and at the same time develops the theme with radical supporting characters, I would consider this film within the radical romance sub-genre.

I feel I must also mention, since this film really doesn't ever show any sexual activity (minus some pornography, failed attempt flashbacks and wet dreams), and becomes the central conflict of Andy's character, the theme of the film and the fable taboo in the workplace, this film might
be considered a sex comedy as well. Yes, he does finally have intercourse in the end with someone he loves, but that's the big pay off for beating around the bush for two hours (by bush I mean false love or just sex, the object of what Andy is not trying to achieve based on his friends recommendations). If Andy would have taken the drunk girl, the book store girl, the weird bath tub freak or any others besides Keener's character, the same message would not be well received. Andy would only fall into the trap that his friends put him into. Through Andy's trial
and error, patience and experimentation he gains a valuable lesson in love and not just the overused term: SEX.

FWD from Week 8 discussion

Yes, this discussion will be in the form of a film student's perspective, but that's what I do and why I'm taking this course... so shoot me.

I found McDonald's chapter on "Radical Romance" the most insightful so far in this course, especially since we are now getting into films and relevance in pop culture. The Graduate and Annie Hall, two of my most cherished films of this genre, strike me on a personal level because of their brutal honesty and depiction of love and individuality. This is a
pet peeve of mine because, as McDonald states, the two previous sub-genres of sex comedy and screwball are complete opposites and mere foundations for what filmmaking can really achieve once production codes are diminished, thus allowing the filmmaker to portray the romance on a much more personal and controversial level. I especially liked how McDonald breaks down Annie Hall to demonstrate the power of a Director/Actor in a form that can define its own genre. Woody Allen uses the film as a "therapeutic activity" to attempt to dissect the human condition. He uses filmmaking techniques such as jump cuts, flashbacks, sub titles, split-screen, cartoon, third and first person narration to acknowledge the conventions of the traditional romance, European films and false ideology as well as his own flaws as a human being. As McDonald states, these techniques aren't used to dazzle us or ignore the morals Allen is trying to project, but they are used to accentuate how one might reflect on the theme of romance, through bits and pieces of awareness through the subconscious. I love this film because it does play out like a dream, or a confession to an analyst, but instead of words being used, we see images. Sometimes the images are actually contradicting Allen's narration, which allows the audience to take a major part in deconstruction Alvy, even though he deliberately talks to the camera/audience to break the illusion of wholeness in a film. We are reminded constantly that this is not a story, made up of over-used and cliche characters, themes and conversation, but a modern perspective
(and a narcissistic one at that) on society, sexual frustration, paranoia and the reality of romance. Woody Allen is concentrating on the individual and all the flaws that come with it, which is radicalism and subversive when compared to the obvious boy meets and loses girl/ happy ending structure of its predecessors. I feel the best characteristic of films such as The Graduate and Annie Hall are the fact that they don't incorporate happy endings. I mean because, 'cmon...let's face it, life isn't as perfect as the films from the 30's up to the end of the 60's made it out to be. Life isn't exactly divided into the "miserable and the horrible" as Alvy states half-way through the film, but it definitely doesn't always end "Happily Ever After" either. I guess call me a pessimist too, but this is actually one theme I can relate with on a personal level to these films.

Though they are about two decades before my time, I still feel that the films of the 70's, as innovative as they were, are still relevant today and hold their ground as the most honest and analytical depictions of romance... redefining the genre forever.

Sexual Taboo

For my response paper, I chose to analyze one of my favorite stories in literature and film; Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, first published in 1955. Seven years later, in 1962, Nabokov and Stanley Kubrick adapted the novel into a feature film, which received an Academy Award nomination for screenwriting in 1963. In my response, I will be comparing the literature and film adaptation, as well as finding contrasts and correlations with related text from Foucault and McDonald. Not only is this one of my most cherished college novels and most respected of Kubrick’s films, I also feel it’s the most controversial of any subject matter I have ever experienced. In fact, Nabokov finished the novel in 1949, but was rejected from numerous American publishers because of its taboo themes. It took six years until a French publishing company, Olympia Press, finally took notice of Nabokov’s masterpiece and put the novel into circulation, and years later for American readers.
The protagonist of Lolita, Humbert Humbert, or H.H., is an educated, middle-aged college professor who has just moved to New England in search for a residence to live and work. He shortly finds a room under Charlotte Haze, and decides to move in due to his infatuation with her twelve-year-old daughter, Dolores, also nicknamed Lolita. In Nabokov’s story, we are introduced to the protagonist, knowing that he has a fixation with “nymphets” as he describes, or young, underage girls to be blunt, and confesses his forbidden desire to destroy the conventions of love and sexuality. H.H. spends the rest of the novel acknowledging his crimes and tries to justify it as a force of nature and not a psychological imbalance or genetic induced pleasures. In fact, H.H. and even Nabokov are critical of psychiatry, Freud, and of the human dilemma and boundaries of sexuality. Nabokov allows us to deconstruct H.H. as a human being with many flaws, being a pedophile and a murderer, and we are obligated to sift through H.H.’s clever usage of words and imagery to understand, or even accept the human condition. In contrast, Foucault attempts to state the history of “aberrant sexualities” through games of “perpetual spirals of power and pleasure” as a way of explaining the sexual inconsistency and reality of the individuals and those who classify them. Nabokov destroys these conventions and explanations through H.H.’s narration, not allowing the point of view of the observers, outside society, or reality into his confidential love. The narration of the story from H.H. states that his attraction, perversion or “pleasure” doesn’t derive from the evasion of an apposing law, construct or “power”, but is much more innate. H.H. describes his love through a journal, using vivid, magical phrases to compare his emotion to a trance, spell or euphoria. Like Foucault states, from a readers’ point of view, we are classifying, rather than condemning H.H. as a human being and not as a mental patient. The emotion is uncontrollable and natural for Humbert, and so he marries Charlotte to abide by societies normalcy, only to be secretly to be closer to his love. Charlotte then dies after finding H.H.’s journal, thus allowing H.H. to pursue his Lolita without interference, but now, unfortunately, as a father figure and not a lover. Lolita and H.H. go into exile from normal society, in secrecy from suspicious observers, but eventually Lolita grows up. H.H. tries to control Lolita, tries to run away with her, or even marry her, but Lolita, now aware of the situation, goes into her own exile, and marries a man half way across the country. H.H. dies in a jail cell, awaiting a trial for the murder he committed against the man that took Lolita from him. H.H. dies alone, heartbroken and widowed, only with his journal to pass on to future psychiatrists.
In comparison from the book to Kubrick’s version (and even the 1997 remake) of the film, one could refer to McDonald’s chapter on the “Sex Comedy”: a time when the subject of even legal, heterosexual sex was considered taboo. The film, made in 62, within the limits of censorships and the Production Code Administration was considered controversial because it acknowledged the forbidden “sexual perversion”, which was one of three taboos, McDonald states, that held the weakened PCA code together until 1966. Indeed, Kubrick could not portray the love between H.H. and Lolita as effective as Nabokov could, so Kubrick uses imagery and subtext within words to point out the blatantly obvious. Kubrick opens the film with foreshadow of H.H. killing a man who is also fond of Lolita, which is actually the last chapter in the book. We then cut to the introduction of H.H. as a narrator and his discovery of Lolita. Kubrick does this to get the categorization of H.H. as a murderer out of the way so we may concentrate on the more important aspects of H.H.’s subconscious and condition. Like Nabokov, Kubrick forces us to relate with H.H., his narration, usage of illustrative words, making us pedophiles, and at the same time, accepting it as just another part of the human condition. The film never received as much recognition as the 1958 American release of the book, which was controversial, yet a bestseller, because the film couldn’t achieve the graphic intensity, flow of emotions and clever usage of postmodern literature as Nabokov did. Overall, the subject matter of pedophilia may never be accepted in modern society, but we cannot dismiss that it exists. The book is still banned from every high school and more than 1/3 of countries in the world, but I think that is also why it is so highly accepted and intriguing as a form of classic literature that dares to question the conventions of passion, love and sexuality.

Works Cited
Foucault, Michel “The Perverse Implantation.” The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge. London: Putnam, 1976.

McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. Romantic Comedy, Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London: Wallflower Press, 2007

Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. France: Olympia Press, 1955. New York: Putnam, 1958.

Lolita. DVD. Dir. Stanley Kubrick, Warner Brothers, 1962