Abstract
The paper examines the way Vermes’s bestseller and its cinematic adaptation, Look Who’s Back, are structured in analogy to Lacan’s notion of the fundamental fantasy, i. e., the framework within which subjects organize their desire in relation to the Other or to the Other’s desire. Employing mainly Adam Kotsko’s terms of awkwardness and sociopathy, I argue that the characters in the novel and the film and the implied and actual audiences constitute Hitler, the narrator and protagonist, as a fantasmatic awkward-sociopath big Other. Hitler is portrayed both as a ludicrous representation of an unsettling and awkward social order, that cannot implement clear and definite norms, and as a cynical sociopath who is incapable not only of overcoming this order but also of fixing it by making it ‘whole’ and consistent again. Discussing major differences between the novel and the film, I examine the ways audiences may fall and avoid falling into the trap of the novel’s and the film’s fantasy. This interpretation contributes simultaneously to the assessment of Hitler’s specific portrayal in Look Who’s Back and the critical exploration of his emblematic representation in our contemporary culture as well as its reasons and effects.
Works Cited
Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago, IL: The U of Chicago P, 1983. 10.7208/chicago/9780226065595.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Donadio, Rachel. “‘Look Who’s Back’: Germans Reflect on the Success of a Satire about Hitler.” The New York Times: Books, 4 May 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/books/look-whos-back-germans-reflect-on-the-success-of-a-satire-about-hitler.html?_r=0. Accessed 19 Apr. 2017.Search in Google Scholar
Er ist Wieder Da. Directed by David Wnendt, performances by Oliver Masucci, Christoph Maria Herbst, Fabian Busch, Katja Riemann, and Franziska Wulf, Mythos Film, 2015.Search in Google Scholar
Hofmann, Sara Judith. “Hitler is ‘Back’ – But did He Ever Leave?” Deutche Welle, 9 Oct. 2015, www.dw.com/en/hitler-is-back-but-did-he-ever-leave/a-18770902. Accessed 19 Apr. 2017. Search in Google Scholar
Huggler, Justin. “Hitler Gets the Borat Treatment with New Film Helping Germans Laugh at Past.” The Telegraph, 21 Aug. 2015, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11817315/Hilter-gets-the-Borat-treatment-with-new-film-helping-Germans-laugh-at-past.html. Accessed 19 April 2017. Search in Google Scholar
James, Henry. The Portrait of a Lady. 1881. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1963. Search in Google Scholar
Kotsko, Adam. Awkwardness: An Essay. Hampshire: John Hunt / O-Books, 2010.Search in Google Scholar
Kotsko, Adam. Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to late Capitalist Television. Hampshire: John Hunt / O-Books, 2012. Search in Google Scholar
Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London and New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1981. Search in Google Scholar
Pfaller, Robert. “The Familial Unknown, the Uncanny, the Comic: The Aesthetic Effects of the Thought Experiment.” Trans. Astrid Hager. Lacan: The Silent Partners. Ed. Slavoj Žižek. London and New York: Verso, 2006. Search in Google Scholar
Richardson, Michael D. “Hitler in the Age of Irony: Timur Vermes’ Er Ist Wieder Da.” Persistent Legacy: The Holocaust and German Studies. Eds. Erin McGlothlin and Jennifer M. Kapczynski. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2016. 249–68.Search in Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, Gavriel D. Hi Hitler: How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2015. 219–25. Search in Google Scholar
Sheehan, Sean. Žižek: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York, NY: Continuum, 2012. Search in Google Scholar
Sloterdijk, Peter. Critique of Cynical Reason. Trans. Michael Eldred. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987. Search in Google Scholar
Taylor, Adam. “‘Look Who’s Back’: New Film Asking What Would Happen if Hitler Returned to Germany has a Worrying Answer.” The Independent, 23 Oct. 2015, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/look-who-s-back-new-film-asking-what-would-happen-it-hitler-returned-to-germany-has-a-worrying-a6706736.html. Accessed 19 Apr. 2017.Search in Google Scholar
Van Hoeij, Boyd. “‘Look Who’s Back’ (‘Er ist Wieder Da’): Film Review.” 14 Jan. 2016, www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/look-whos-back-er-ist-851346. Accessed 19 Apr. 2017. Search in Google Scholar
Vermes, Timur. Look Who’s Back. 2012. Trans. Jamie Bulloch. London: MacLehose Press, 2014.Search in Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj. In Defense of Lost Causes. London and New York: Verso, 2008. Search in Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj. The Parallax View. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2006.10.7551/mitpress/5231.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj. The Plague of Fantasies. London and New York: Verso, 2008.Search in Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj. The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2003.10.7551/mitpress/5706.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London and New York: Verso, 1989. Search in Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj. The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology. London and New York: Verso, 1999. Search in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston