The aesthetics of entertainment in the contemporary "living dead"

Abstract

This essay aims to reflect on the fun with an aesthetic of violence in cult movies and some of its effects in contemporary subjectivity. It is based on some concepts of psychoanalytical theory in combination with the critical perspective of Theodor Adorno. The text makes use of the concept of diversion (at the same time as fun, entertainment, distraction or its opposite: deviation) as a source of criticism of the cultural industry, in order to demonstrate how certain aesthetic of violence produces a passive sublimation and, in a certain way, alienates many subjects, mainly at the political point of view. They represent a sort of "undeads", or helplesslies zombies, as demonstrated by the analysis of Slavoj Žižek. The movie Funny Games by Michael Haneke ilustrates this analysis.