“Now you’ve stopped, now we can say ‘long live Stalin’ or whatever. We are not recorded there.” Slavoj Zizek was, in fact, being recorded, but I’m sure he didn’t mind.
That’s how the critical theorist opens up his latest interview with Vice. A fitting introduction for a man whose sense of humor the narrator credits with his widespread popularity. The Vice team took a break from meeting cannibal warlords and corrupt Pakistani politicians to delve into a new kind of evil, the mind of Slavoj Zizek.
Vice’s Alex Miller traveled to Slovenia and met Zizek who greeted them with an abrupt “I hate life, hi.” The Vice crew sits down with him in his apartment, which still touts infamous Stalin poster. It’s “purely to annoy idiots,” Zizek reminds us.
Zizek hates the work of Martin Scorcese, we learn, and is “disgusted” at the site of himself on his screen. He has not seen either of his docuementaries, the “Pervert’s Guide to Cinema” and the “Pervert’s Guide to Cinema,” respectively.
And his Slovenian fans? He has none. “People hate me pretty much here. I’m not kidding.”