Santo el Enmascarado de Plata vs Panopticonism!
Снился мне сегодня волшебный Делез на английском. Весь такой большого формата - и про Пруста, и про складу, и про все на свете. Причем это были неизвестные работы, мутанты и уродцы. Порой я во сне брежу классными несуществующими книгами, как истеричка 19 века тоскует о трансцендентном фалосе, материализованному Шарко в виде металлической палки.
И вот про Фуко, раз уж такая тема. Читаю "Mexploitation Cinema: A Critical History Of Mexican Vampire, Wrestler, Ape-man And Similar Films, 1957-1977" by Doyle Greene, про которую напишу позже по прочтению. В этой книге мне очень симпатизирует то, как автор ловко применяет концепции так любимых нами философов при анализе фильмов про Санто и вообще mexploitation в целом. Местами очень смешно. Вот, к примеру, речь идет о фильме «Санто: Серебрянная Маска против Марсианских Захватчиков» 1967 года.
Inside their spaceship, the Martians watch the events unfold on a large, circular monitor screen that functions as a sort of "all-seeing eye" and affords the Martians an omnipresent ability to see any event at any time. At the same time, the Martians seemingly become a film audience, silently and attentively watching a "scary movie" as it unfolds on a circular theatrical screen. In this regard, the Martians' technologically-advanced ability to monitor any space at any given time on Earth suggests Michel Foucault's famous concept of "Panopticonism," the basis of modern societies of surveillance in which power is exercised through the ability to observe without being observed?"' Foucault wrote, "Our society is not one of spectacle, but of surveillance ... We are much less Greeks than we believe. We are not in the amphitheater, nor on the stage, but in the panoptic machine." Through this all-seeing "panoptic machine," the Martian power of surveillance, the ability to observe and monitor any moment of any activity on Earth, is panopticonism taken to the point of omnipresence through technology. However, given the already-explicit relationship established between ancient Greece and the futuristic Martians, it could also be said that the Martians are much more Greeks than Foucault believes. The Martian "panoptic machine" not only provides them unlimited surveillance, but also unlimited spectacle. As observed by the Martians on their immense circular screen, Earth (and specifically Mexico) becomes an inexhaustible theater of fantastic cinema and the athletic melodrama of lucha libre-in short, a mexploitation film starring Santo.
