In Professor Bethke’s presentation she brought up how surrealism is all about what lies underneath, unseen, but influences us. This unconscious self, with all of its desires, is what unsettles us because it is the “real” us, or what we really want. Surrealism, which came about in 1924, is an interesting response to the oppressive, restrictive conscious self. Fascism from what I have seen, appeals to very basic ideals. It appeals to identity, to violence, to emotion, and to what looks good. These are all things that seem to lurk under the surface, but are also very ingrained in our society. For example, we support violence (sports, war, movies, video games) as long as it’s not us feeling the urge to be violent, or it’s not someone we know committing the act. As an extreme example, there is a difference in reaction to seeing a soldier in a clean and shining uniform come back to a hero’s welcome (ignoring all the violence they would have seen and committed during their service) and Grimm’s fairy tales of a woman killing and devouring children (which goes against the expected maternal, demure nature of women).
