I thought I’d post another media reference that we looked at in class on our first day of discussion on Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents–from Stephen Frears’ film High Fidelity (2000).
To situate the clip a little bit…Rob Gordon (played by John Cusack) is about to meet his ex-girlfriend, Laura’s, new boyfriend, Ian (played by Tim Robbins), as Ian enters Rob’s record store to discuss Rob’s frequent phone calls to Laura. Co-stars here are Jack Black and Todd Louiso, who are the loyal employees of Rob’s record store.
We discussed in class the ways in which we can see pretty clear illustrations of the id, the primal response, and the superego, that which is a societal patrol on our beings to stop us from doing unthinkable things, on display here.
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March 2, 2009 at 5:31 am
q213
This scene does a great job of illustrating the id and super ego. It was easy to determine which personality was which. Obviously, the scene in which he is enraged is representing the id that comes out. Fight club on the other hand was a little more difficult to determine what Tyler was trying to represent until the end of the film. This scene is much more straightforward.
March 17, 2009 at 6:49 am
stephanieluber26
This clip from the movie provides a good portrayal of one of the reasons why we can’t always act upon our “Id,” in that society patrols the way we must act and it would be considered ‘outrageous and crazy’ if Rob Gordon decided to beat Ian up. It is humorous to viewers because we would never expect that situation to turn into a a fighting scene, yet we all feel that it should; we just would never consider acting upon it. Society has shaped us to be less aggressive, and it’s understandable because of the amount of people there are could lead to more wars and definitely more violence. I just think that over time, if everyone was able to freely act upon their “Id,” it would prevent a lot of problems (in the long-run) because eventually situations would be settled one way or another.
March 17, 2009 at 7:51 am
sarah49
This clip really makes the viewer question why one obeys their super ego when everything else in their being challenges it, especially when matters of the heart are concerned. And it brings up the consequences of what society would look like and the repercussions of us actually listening to our ids and fulfilling those primal desires that are at the core of human existence.
March 18, 2009 at 7:34 am
smcolegio
the clip does a very good job in presenting reasoning
on why we cant really capture our “id” .