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Slavoj Žižek on "They Live" (The Pervert's Guide to Ideology)

Christian G · 427.1K views · 2014-08-04 · 6:01

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Overview

A short excerpt from The Pervert's Guide to Ideology in which Slavoj Zizek analyzes John Carpenter's They Live. He uses the film's fight scene and sunglasses to explain how ideology works.

On Hacker News

HN cites it as a concise, memorable explanation of ideology, often in threads about advertising, propaganda or AI-shaped narratives.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2020–2026

Topics

Film analysis & criticismPhilosophy & ethics
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zizekthey liveideologyfilm analysisphilosophy

What people said

yard2010 · 2026-05 · Strong recommendation

Edit: Slavoj Žižek. As always, phenomenal and humble take. "I’m already eating from the trashcan all the time, the name of this trashcan is... ideology" Slavoj Žižek on "They Live" (The Pervert's Guide to Ideology) [VIDEO]

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ahelwer · 2022-01 · Recommendation

Yup. As soon as you think you're "non-ideological" at that point you're fully ensconced in ideology, because your beliefs are so invisible to you that you mistake them for reality. Zizek beats this drum a lot. He did a very entertaining documentary on the subject called The Pervert's Guide to Ideology , examining ideology through the lens of various classic films. You can see a fun excerpt here: [VIDEO]

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rdtsc · 2020-08 · Recommendation

I like that one too. Slavoj Zizek did a great description of it in "Pervert's Guide to Ideology" [VIDEO] I didn't understand the reason for the absurdly long fight sequence, but it finally clicked after hearing Zizek talk about it.

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Sources

Video by Christian G, played through YouTube.

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