In my previous video on the Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord, I focussed on creating a summary of the Society of the Spectacle, explained in a fairly general sense, particularly placing within the context of the Situationist International, May 1968 and Debord's wider work on situationism. In today's follow-up, I focus on a specific aspect of Debord's concept of the Spectacle: récupération (sometimes translated into English as recuperation and sometimes as cooption) with reference to "simulacra" as defined by Jean Baudrillard and "capitalist realism" as defined by Mark Fisher and explored through Black Mirror: Fifteen Million Merits and the Alfonso Cuarón film Children of Men.
In particular, I discuss the manner in which Debord suggests the Spectacle interacts with radical or subversive ideas and movements and how the Spectacle might work to protect late stage capitalism from critique.
As I mention in the video, if you'd like to download a free copy of the script for today's video complete with references and footnotes, you can do so for free over on my Patreon page (and, while you're there, I would really appreciate you considering supporting my work):
Further Reading
Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
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UK:
Comments on the Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
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UK:
Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher
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Bibliography
Jean Baudrillard. "Simulacra and Simulations." Translated by Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman. In Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings, edited by Mark Poster, 169-87. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
Bernie 2016, "America | Bernie Sanders." 2016, accessed 14 May, 2019,
Cuarón, Alfonso. "Children of Men." 1:49Universal Studios, 3 September 2006.
Guy Debord. Comments on the Society of the Spectacle. London: Verso, 1998. 1988.
———. "Report on the Construction of Situations and on the International Situationist Tendency’s Conditions of Organisation and Action." Edited and Translated by Ken Knabb. In Situationist International Anthology, 25- 43. Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006.
———. Society of the Spectacle. Translated by Ken Knabb. London: Rebel Press, 2005. 1967.
Mark Fisher. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Alresford: Zero Books, 2009.
"M&S Launch Lgbt Sandwich and It’s Dividing Opinion." Pink News, 2019, accessed 13 May , 2019, sandwich-dividing-opinion.
Ken Knabb. "Notes." In Situationist International Anthology, edited by Ken Knabb, 479-92. Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006.
17 Guy Debord, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (London: Verso, 1998), 19.
Horacio N. Roque Ramírez. "Gay Latino Cultural Citizenship: Predicaments of Identity and Visibility in San Francisco in the 1990s." In Gay Latino Studies: A Critical Reader, edited by Michael Hames-García and Ernesto Javier Martínez, 175-97. London: Duke University Press, 2011.
Charlie Brooker and Konnie Huq. Black Mirror, Season 1, episode 2, "Fifteen Million Merits." Aired 11 December 2011, 2011, on Channel 4.
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Twitter: @Tom_Nicholas
Website: www.tomnicholas.com
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