‘We the People of the United States…’: <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Matrix</Emphasis> and the Realisation of Constitutional Sovereignty |
| |
Authors: | Kirsty Duncanson |
| |
Institution: | (1) Legal Studies, School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia |
| |
Abstract: | In its enunciation of “We the people,” the Constitution of the United States of America becomes a constitution of the flesh
as it simultaneously invokes a constitution, a nation and a people. Correspondingly, its amendments as a list of rights pertaining
to sex and race discrimination, and freedoms of bodily movement and action, assert the Constitution’s authority through the
evocation of “natural” human bodies. In this article, I explore the way in which a sovereignty of the United States’ Constitution
is realised in the particularlised bodies of its citizens. The fundamental and foundational laws of the United States, and the narratives
and myths used to interpret them, are in part rendered legitimate by the Constitution’s embodiment, which extends from its
physical manifestation in written documents into the flesh of its citizens. In order to make this argument, I turn to the
film The Matrix (1999), the success of which relies on an investment in bodies and the United States’ Constitution as matter through its interwoven narrative themes of human slavery and emancipation, reality and computer-generated simulation. At
the same time, The Matrix extends its ideological play into the bodies of its audience, who experience the film’s thrillingly sensorial fantasies of
constitutional rights while enjoying its affective special effects. Thus, the sovereign authority of United States constitutional
law is experienced as “natural” through the phenomenological experience of cinema. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|