"A Terrorism of the Rich": Symbolic Violence in Bret Easton Ellis's Glamorama and J. G. Ballard's Super-Cannes

Abstract

This article offers a close reading of two contemporary novels that question the received idea of terrorism as the desperate violence of disenfranchised groups. Glamorama and Super-Cannes symbolize the violence perpetrated by Western states and institutions by presenting us with terrorists who are corporate executives and supermodels, and who inflict their violence on ethnic minorities, or allow them to be wrongly blamed for it. The texts present an ironic riposte both to Samuel P. Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis and Francis Fukuyama's "end of history" theory by suggesting that they are not in fact contradictory, but that instead, the contemporary West depends for its structural integrity on an ongoing conflict with an excluded outsider. The novels demonstrate that the West's sense of security before 9/11 had been purchased through the perpetuation of violence throughout the globe. They expose the structural violence within Western society and the lies and evasions surrounding a highly contentious contemporary issue: the war on terror.