The Jouissance of the Torturer in Zero Dark Thirty and the Enjoyment of the Unacceptable

Juliet Brough Rogers

doi:10.5130/portal.v11i2.3307

Abstract

Abstract: In the scene of torture we can see a paradox at work in which the torturer is both sanctioned by positive law and prohibited by oedipal law. This latter prohibition brings the perpetrator into the proximity of, what can be understood as a Lacanian mode of jouissance, an enjoyment that both defies and demands the law. This enjoyment can be seen in the film Zero-Dark-Thirty in which the torturers animate the tortured to, arguably, further their enjoyment and further their goal of/as torture. In these scenes it is the very unacceptability of the breach in oedipal law, coupled with the sanction of positive law – as a command to torture – that makes the act of torture so exciting.

Highlights

My interest is in the particular production of the victim in the practice of the torturer and in some instances for perpetrators of violence more broadly, and the impact of this arrangement on the victim, to understand this it is perhaps helpful to confront the dynamics engaged in particular scenes of violence, and examine the textures of these dynamics as they relate to the perpetrator’s enjoyment of the acts
An enjoyment that appears at the point when positive law sanctions and oedipal law prohibits; an enjoyment which the victim experiences and in which torturers may revel, repeatedly
For most soldiers the return to the ordinary law of relations after being subject to the laws/commands of war is traumatic, in varying degrees, precisely because the flesh rendered object begins to return in memory as human flesh; flesh with its own life and flesh subject to the ordinary injunctions of oedipal law

Summary

Introduction

My interest is in the particular production of the victim in the practice of the torturer and in some instances for perpetrators of violence more broadly, and the impact of this arrangement on the victim, to understand this it is perhaps helpful to confront the dynamics engaged in particular scenes of violence, and examine the textures of these dynamics as they relate to the perpetrator’s enjoyment of the acts.

Results

Conclusion