Abstract

Helen Day

Modest proposals and love supreme: Metaphorical, literal and virtual cannibalism in capitalist society

Since Swift's notorious “A Modest Proposal" of the eighteenth century, cultural texts have used the images and symbolism of cainnibalism to interrogate the behaviour and consequences of capitalism. Swift's political pamphlet and its suggestion that the poor sell their babies to the prosperous landowners as luxury food. takes human relationships under capitalism to a logical conclusion where man becomes a dehumanised economic saleable commodity. The nineteen seventies' film Soylent Green and an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer both reveal how the dehumanisation of mass production provide for the construction of cannibalism. With films of the 1980's such as Society and Eat the Rich the focus moves from poverty to the excessive behaviour of the rich. In a society where everyone wants more and more one can only stay on top by consuming everyone else. In his X-rated video Rock DJ. Robbie Williams uses footage of his own literal cannibalisation to express his ambiguity about both the use of his image and the music industry in general. Robbie Williams' rise to fame has transformed him into a floating signifier detached from his own body, which is shown violently yet desirably decomposing. Life inside the velvet cage of consumerism means making choices and allegiance, which necessarily involve the ingestion of one group by another.