Crash depicts sex as irreducibly fantasmatic and cultural rather than brute
Evidence
By firm contrast, Crash is as passionless as a Delvaux dream. Sex here is entirely colonised by culture and language. All the sex scenes are meticulously constructed tableaux, irreducibly fantasmatic, not because they are “unreal”, but because their staging and their consistency depend on fantasy. … There is no “it” of sex, no brute, naked, definable moment when “it” happens, only a plateau that is (paradoxically) both dilated and deferred, in which words and memories reverberate more powerfully than any penetration. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 172
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies what ‘fantasmatic’ means: dependent on fantasy staging, not unreality.
- XREF: connects to: Crash reads body-technology fusion as empty inscription, not repressed psychosexuality — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 367; Crash’s accident-based pleasure is nonperverse because it is denuded of meaning — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 369; Human sexuality depends on fantasy, not biological excitation — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 168 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Crash reads body-technology fusion as empty inscription, not repressed psychosexuality
#corroborates(0.85) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 367 - Crash’s accident-based pleasure is nonperverse because it is denuded of meaning
#contradicts(0.85) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 369 - Sexual acts in Crash occur within reflected automotive surfaces mediated by gauges
#exemplifies(0.85) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 373 - Human sexuality depends on fantasy, not biological excitation
#expands(0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 168