{"title":"From Death Drive to Entrepreneurship of the Self: Film Noir's Genealogy of the Neoliberal Subject","authors":"T. Nagypál","doi":"10.1353/pmc.2019.0012","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Through the comparative analysis of Double Indemnity (1944), Body Heat (1981), and The Usual Suspects (1995), this paper argues that what Michel Foucault called the neoliberal entrepreneur of the self has its prototype in the subject constructed by the classical discourse of film noir. While in the genre's early form the individual's attempt at existential self-valorization remains death driven, incommensurable with the ideological values of classical liberalism, neonoir reframes its isolated protagonist's unique mode of being as a reservoir of human capital beyond the limits of shared social norms.","PeriodicalId":55953,"journal":{"name":"POSTMODERN CULTURE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2019-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"POSTMODERN CULTURE","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/pmc.2019.0012","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:Through the comparative analysis of Double Indemnity (1944), Body Heat (1981), and The Usual Suspects (1995), this paper argues that what Michel Foucault called the neoliberal entrepreneur of the self has its prototype in the subject constructed by the classical discourse of film noir. While in the genre's early form the individual's attempt at existential self-valorization remains death driven, incommensurable with the ideological values of classical liberalism, neonoir reframes its isolated protagonist's unique mode of being as a reservoir of human capital beyond the limits of shared social norms.
期刊介绍:
Founded in 1990 as a groundbreaking experiment in scholarly publishing on the Internet, Postmodern Culture has become a leading electronic journal of interdisciplinary thought on contemporary culture. PMC offers a forum for commentary, criticism, and theory on subjects ranging from identity politics to the economics of information.