Censoring Perversion
J.G.Ballard’s Crash, the Novel and the Film
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36399/GroundingsUG.8.207Keywords:
JG Ballard, Crash, Cronenberg, Utopia, Consumerism, Futurism, Pornography, Ennui, Morality, CensorshipAbstract
This article considers JG Ballard’s seminal novella Crash and its film adaptation by David Cronenberg within the tradition of lascivious, subversive literary utopias. It examines how Crash, as both a caustic critique of consumerist culture and a work of futurist pornography, sought to uncover the psychopathologies of sexual and political transgression simmering beneath the concrete surface of suburban ennui. The controversy ignited by Cronenberg’s film amongst critics and audiences alike brought contemporaneous social morality into sharp relief with the black mirror Ballard held up to society, two decades earlier.
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Copyright (c) 2015 Klara Kofen
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