Abstract
T he symbolic death of Clark (Christ) would be to sacrifice his superpowers in such a way that they can be put to use to help overcome the “sins” of humankind—to negotiate the transcendental and secular worlds. The voice from the Real, Jor-El, never entirely leaves him. He is still “heard” in the seventh season (702, “Kara”; 708, “Blue”; 710, “Persona”). Psychoanalytically, all this simply means is that Jor-El is none other than Clark’s superego. The superego “is nothing other than… jouissance at the core of being—which we encounter in anxiety, in an altered form [as a power]” (Copjec 2006, 108, author’s emphasis). Clark’s ad(hear)ance or disobedience to this Voice in “Solitude” is all related to how, what, and why he is able to enjoy (jouissance); here I signal this affectivity as the entwinement of both joy and suffering—painful pleasure/pleasurable pain.
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© 2008 jan jagodzinski
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jagodzinski, j. (2008). Stamping Out Alien-Human Freaks: Smallville’s Moral Duty. In: Television and Youth Culture. Education, Psychoanalysis, and Social Transformation. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230617230_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230617230_12
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-4039-7808-0
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-61723-0
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