Ciberlegenda (Jul 2012)
Cyberpuppets:The Marxist discourse and the collision between the public and private sphere in Alex Rivera’s films
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyze a possible Marxist discourse and how technologies of telepresence favor the collision of the public and private sphere in Alex Rivera’s films Why Cybraceros? and Sleep Dealer. Why Cybraceros? is a mockumentary based on the American Bracero Program, which was put in practice during World War II. This short film satirizes the 1940s American policy for foreign workers with the ideals of homeoffice working and remote technology, devising a tragicomic dystopia in which Mexican labourers are exploited in their own country. Sleep Dealer enhances this dystopia in a 2008 science fiction feature film. Regarded as a kind of “Latin American Matrix”, Sleep Dealer’s speculative dystopia sets further debates in terms of alienation, reification, global capital, the impact of technology on everyday life, and social relations mediated by technologies of telepresence. Thus, Sleep Dealer’s dystopia proposes the implosion of the individual, private sphere, in as much as the working time invades the personal time for intimacy, leisure and cultural practices. Memories can be exploited as merchandise, whereas misery and violence are sold as mass entertainment
