Society of the Spectacle

In Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, published in 1967, the philosophical firebrand and founding member of both the Lettrist and Situationist Internationals decried the world of modern consumer capitalism, in which “the commodity [had completed] its colonization of social life,” and “being” had given way to “appearing.” Debord’s critique, which he would adapt into a combative 1973 film of the same title, was borne specifically from his observations of a France he believed had lost its soul with its postwar prosperity, but has subsequently inspired critiques of the media’s role in shaping public discourse and understanding of political power dynamics the world over. In this series, Debord’s cinematic screed screens alongside works that explore the role of the media in delineating our contemporary “reality,” films which find the supremacy of the spectacle uncontested.