Analysis Of The Movie 'Shame'

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Point of No Return
In the film Shame, Brandon represents a successful middle class man working in Manhattan, but is constantly trapped within his addiction to sex and compulsive thoughts to oppress the dirty thoughts when his sister Sissy comes into his life. How does Brandon’s sister Sissy reverse the predator and victim role on a psychological perspective? And what sexual subjectivities does Sissy impose on Brandon that ultimately drives the monstrosity as sexual pathology? The film Shame directed by Steve McQueen explores the hidden unspeakable addiction and consequences of neurosis. The main character Brandon has a successful career, but is constantly …show more content…

He felt extremely unfit for his identity when he began to watch pornographic movies in his office, so he lied to his boss that it was his assistant who watched it on his computer. Furthermore, he blatantly shouted at his assistant as if he was punishing himself for the dirty movies that he watches in his office. The director deliberately covers the unblinking truth contained in the character’s sexual urge as a way to allow interpretation for the audience. It is easy to get lost in one’s identity in the society, and the availability of sex has made people lost interest in what is ordinary and acceptable. Sissy as an intruder of Brandon’s life insinuates the monstrosity that devours his personality and interrupts his identity to make him feel desperate and scared for his unconscious sexual attempt of his sister. The incest delusion triggers Brandon’s monstrosity that lays within his inability to suppress his addiction to sex, dual personality, and repetition trauma occurrences in the extremity …show more content…

From going for married woman, gay club, and threesome relationship, Brandon reaches for the indiscriminating options for his sexual addiction. In one of the crucial scene, He was having sex with a prostitute but the entire shot was a close up of his facial expression. Painful, helpless, and the guilty shameful look on his face imply the parasitism of monstrosity. There is no trace of pleasure on his face yet he cannot stop. He has to indulge himself in sex restlessly even when his mind refutes the sex. Halberstam explains it as “Parasitism, especially with regards to the vampire, represents bad or pathological sexuality, non-reproductive sexuality, a sexuality that exhausts and wastes and exits prior to and outside of the marriage contract” (Halberstam 17). His exhaustion on the face and craving for sex while at the same time resentful to the idea of marriage is an embodiment of parasitism. His sexual activity can be interpreted as a way to escape his complicated feelings with Sissy. Furthermore, he would not even engage in relationship with any woman, because his intention is to lose himself to the world of no limitations. He carries his addiction as a conscious weight on his shoulder. One after another, his connection with woman is purely based on sex and the pursuit of sex. In addition, Freudian suggest

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