Popular Culture Review 30.2
conversation with Michel Polacco , “ We are animals that like to imitate , who willingly repeat a gesture or a word . You tell me something , I repeat it , and a hundred other people that I tell it to repeat it in turn , as if mimesis , as if imitation is the core of the social link par excellence . This is how to explain fashion [ ... ] we are the most imitative animals , even more imitative than monkeys ” ( Polacco 58 ). In addition to tapping into our imagination thus convincing us to suspend disbelief and all critical reflection related to erotic simulacra that are utterly divorced from reality , Morin also observes that “ many mimetisms focus on clothes ” ( 136 ). Harnessing the power of mimesis , the financial system sells us all of the metonymical pieces that we need to conform to a preexisting mold of an ideal mate .
In Chapter 3 of The Stars entitled “ The Stellar Liturgy ,” the philosopher includes persuasive excerpts from interviews that he conducted in the field as a formally trained sociologist to reinforce the theory of mimesis . One of the most revealing of these recorded conversations is between Morin and an unidentified nineteen-year-old girl . Confessing that the steady diet of romantic comedies that she devours has distorted her appreciation of what true romance entails outside of the confines of cinematic ( hyper- ) reality , the young woman divulges , “ The settings of love scenes always held my attention and I ’ ve always noted little tricks ( which I ’ ve put into practice ) such as curling my boyfriend ’ s hair in my fingers and stroking his face exactly as I ’ ve seen my screen favorites do in the love scenes ” ( Morin 80 ). In the remainder of this section of the essay , Morin probes the philosophical implications of this complete internalization of a code solely conceived to maximize revenue for a corporation . The philosopher argues that it is becoming increasingly difficult to establish any sort of meaningful romantic bond with another person because of
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