Crises, Social Relevance, and Critical Discomfort: Shooting Ourselves in the Foot

The social, political, economic, environmental, and epidemio-logical crises of the last three decades have radically altered societies and cultures around the globe—and with them inevitably the role of cultural analysis. But how can cultural analysts respond to these fast-changing challenges? At a time of widespread depoliticization, our critical approach has become too palatable for the power structures we examine; we seem to be playing into a system that asphyxiates us little by little. By bringing together Third Cinema, horror, and psychoanalysis, this chapter argues that our radical potential demands first and foremost for us to refocus our efforts on critical analysis and allow ourselves to become deeply uncomfortable.