Jean-Paul Sartre said that hell is other people. The poet Ángeles Mora evoked the French existentialist’s postulate, affirming that hell, far from being the other, is within us. Poetry, at least that which wants to fight against the unconscious which produces it, must search the interior of the individual to find there the hell which constitutes us, the other which inhabits us.
It is no coincidence that so many divided subjects appear in poetry – or crossed out or crossed out, we would say. At Lacan–: poetic subjects that unfold to dialogue with that other who inhabits him and prevents him from saying I amto present itself as a full and autonomous subjectivity. The intimacy of the snakeby Luis García Montero (2003), opens with a poem entitled Quarantine, which stages a dialogue between a poet who reached maturity at forty years old and the young man who was, at twenty years old, militant and committed, who looks at him with impertinence from the photo and sanctions him for having given up his dreams for simple survival , the replacement of the exclamation of protest by the question of doubt, the exchange of the heart for reason. In conversation, impostures and betrayals are reproached. The presence of this other who inhabits it generates discomfort in a subject who nevertheless cannot get rid of it. She has no choice but to live with him. In an enlightened manner, instead of dueling with the enemy within, they enter into negotiation to reach consensus and achieve peaceful coexistence.
In brothel, published in Contradictions, birds (2001), Ángeles Mora also reveals herself. The poet looks at herself from the outside and discovers that her poetry was written by someone else. Dictated by his patriarchal unconscious, his verses dialogue with the great names of universal literature, “almost always men”, who are found in the paratexts. If Walter Benjamin spoke, in his Thesis on historyof the brothel of historicism to designate the way in which the dominant classes went to history to empty it, rape it and make it say what legitimized their position in power, Mora describes in this poem the functioning of a literary brothel , that “house of quotations” in which a literary history is configured solely composed of men of prestige who displace or eclipse other histories written outside the prestigious places of the literary institution. Unlike what happens in Quarantine, In Mess The self does not want to reach an agreement with the other from the past, it wants to extirpate it, to establish a break in its unconscious so that, from this crack, it can perhaps illuminate a new unconscious capable of tracing the traces of all these women whose voices have been erased from literary history.
The self is another to the extent that it projects an external image which says less what it is than what it wants to become. This splitting of the subject is beautifully told in the film ‘The Substance’
“I am another”, Arthur Rimbaud wrote, crossed out: “I am someone else. » Not only because we are all someone’s others, but because we shelter another who determines our steps, our gestures, our language, and whom we want to get rid of. But the self is also another when we look at it from the outside, when the news it has about itself is the image that the mirror reflects to it; The self is another to the extent that it projects an external image which says less what it is than what it wants to become. This division of the subject between what he really is and the image he projects – a division with constant shifts which inaugurate a problematic relationship of the subject to himself – is magnificently narrated in the film. The bottom, written and directed by Coralie Fargeat and starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.
In the film, a fading Hollywood star is fired once she reaches fifty. The actress, far from living on the sets of the cinema city, presented an aerobics television show. But the small screen requires the presence of a younger body. The ideology of beauty expels from public spaces bodies that do not conform to dominant canons. There are lives that don’t deserve to be told, said Judith Butler in precarious lifesuch as that of racialized or migrant subjects, non-heteronormative sexualities or sick bodies; but also those of women like Elisabeth Sparkle, which is the name of the protagonist played by Demi Moore, who cease to be functional for the system when they exceed fifty years of age and are left outside the framework of visibility to begin with to inflate the list of these invisible lives that do not deserve to be mourned or told about. Until “the substance” comes into her hands, a serum that she acquires on the black market and which, once injected, generates a better version of herself. When the liquid is inoculated, Moore falls to the ground, his back opens and from the crack emerges a young and beautiful woman, another, portrayed by Margaret Qualley.
The two women are one, as highlighted in the leaflet that accompanies the substance taken by Moore. The self and the other maintain a symbiotic relationship based on a balance which must be scrupulously respected: every seven days, without exception, they must transfer their consciousness: while one body remains unconscious and inactive, the other leads a life normal. Sue, which is the name given to the character played by Margaret Qualley, replaces Elisabeth in the television series and begins her rise to success, based on a beautiful, young body and still sexualized by the image industry.
As Miyagi said in Karate Kid, The main thing is to maintain balance. Young Sue, who at the beginning only recorded her programs every other week, to ensure balance, suddenly found herself overwhelmed by erotic and professional success, and the arrival of new contracts and commitments, but also relationships. sexual and a world of leisure, prevent him from precisely respecting the agreement to take turns with Elisabeth every week. The balance is upset and the problems begin. Each stolen minute involves a radical deterioration and aging of Elisabeth’s body, which transforms her into a monster.
The battle against itself begins. The self and its other begin to compete not only to occupy more active, conscious time; Above all, the struggle begins against the image of the young and beautiful body, a memory of its expulsion from the framework of capitalist visibility. In Literature, fashion and eroticism: desire (2003), Juan Carlos Rodríguez pointed out that a good part of the psychological disorders caused by capitalist society do not find their cause in the fact that we have internalized capitalism, as they say, and that we manage our lives as if it was a business. , with constant balances between debit and credit; These come rather from the impossibility of externalizing the image that the mirror of ideology imposes on us, challenging us as strong, complete and autonomous subjects, capable of overcoming any adversity that life presents, capable of beat and emerge victorious from the situation. daily capitalist competition. When the real conditions of existence come into contradiction with the imaginary representation that subjects have of themselves, the image suffers and the mirror cracks. Neuroses, depression and anxiety emerge from these cracks. We are not up to the image and we find ourselves unable to say I amto constitute us as fully individualized subjects.
A good part of the psychological disorders that capitalist society causes do not find their cause in the fact that we have internalized capitalism but rather in the impossibility of externalizing the image that the mirror of ideology imposes on us.
Elisabeth Sparkle, when her image no longer conforms to what the mirror wants of her and she is returned, injects herself with the substance to continue to externalize the subject’s image in its entirety, literally removing it from its own body. Sue represents the possibility of continuing to nourish this imaginary representation and of displacing the reality which has distorted it. But the repressed always comes back and when Elisabeth looks out the window of her luxurious house in Los Angeles and sees a poster advertising her old television show, now with the image of the young and sensual Sue, the reality of her material living conditions returns. existence, of his body unsuitable for the audiovisual industry. Like a mirror, it reflects the image which reminds her that her failure is due to the fact that she does not live up to what capitalist ideology expects of her. The other-Sue who observes, and who observes her from the poster, is the imaginary representation that every subject wants to project but does not succeed. This mismatch between reality and imagination – this competition between self and other – definitively expels Elisabeth from life – professional, but also erotic – eroding her self-esteem and condemning her to solitude. With no social life, she just waits for the week to pass so that her better version, Sue, comes to her senses and can enjoy a full life. Yours doesn’t matter and isn’t worth living. Until her body, increasingly repugnant due to the impertinence and uncontrollable and selfish desire of the young woman, who does not respect balance, announces to her the danger of her total annihilation.
“Substance”, like much of current literature, speaks of this divide and this mismatch between what we really are and the image we want to project so as not to be condemned to nothingness. It is about the psychological discomfort generated by the effort represented by having to maintain the image when we have almost nothing left – the material conditions – to do so.
The bottom, Like much of current literature, it speaks of this divide and this inadequacy between what we really are and the image we want to project so as not to be condemned to nothingness. It is about the psychological discomfort generated by the effort represented by having to maintain the image when we have almost nothing left – the material conditions – to do so. The success of Fargeat’s film is that it does so by mixing terror with parody of the aesthetics of the music video, abruptly moving from one style to another, from the eroticism of beautiful bodies to the monstrous. . There is, in The bottoma politics of the abject, of ugliness, of becoming a monster which destabilizes and directly attacks the heart of the ideology of beauty of advanced capitalism and the commodification – and eroticization – of bodies.
Perhaps this is a way of saying that hell is within us. Hell is the other that we carry within ourselves and which prevents us from saying I amis the trace that remains of the lost battle between the image projected by the mirror of ideology and the real conditions of existence of vulnerable and alone subjects, who need care and common erotic and professional competition, and not daily, to which. we are forced to do so daily by the capitalist market.
