Clyde appears as an image of impotence, which is a connotation that has never been seen in traditional genre films before. A simple symbolic explanation is "He did not kill innocent people because of the excess libido caused by the gangsters in traditional bandit films, but it signifies the impotence of society." This explanation is undoubtedly too simplistic and modular. Now, Clyde’s impotence is precisely here to show its complex diversity-it is entangled with the change of Bonnie’s female position and the gaze of the social other. As the myth of male and female thieves is shattered, we see It is not only the incompetence of social order, but also the revolutionary meaning of women.
Here we need to re-understand the symbolic meaning of male roots. The male root is hollow in a fundamental sense-not only that it always suppresses the fear of castration, but also that it can never completely make up for the void of "pre-castration". Clyde's incompetence directly reflects this-in the sense of incompetence, he was castrated by symbols. So when Bonnie asked, he took the initiative to take out the gun-he used it to compensate for his missing male roots. What is more symbolic here is Bonnie's position. She took the initiative to touch the gun. She was not surprised at all but questioned Clyde's courage to use the gun in a playful tone, "Will you really use this gun? "It is equivalent to the same question: "You do have that guy, but aren't you still incompetent?" At this moment, Clyde's minimum distance as patriarchalism collapsed-male roots were interpreted as castrated Signifier, this is the logic of male root perversion. Clyde's subsequent attempt to rob to prove his courage must be useless-the display of power has become a confirmation of basic incompetence.
Afterwards, the film introduced a meaningful inversion: Bonnie and Clyde had a quarrel, Bonnie pointed out the fact that Clyde was incompetent without mercy, Clyde was speechless and turned and left, and Bonnie hurried up. Go to comfort. Isn't this the exact opposite of our life attempts? Too often, women collapse under the oppression of male power, and male power turns to re-symbolize it with a hypocritical face. In the movie, Clyde can only be weak when facing Bonnie. The reversal of subject and object redefines both sexes-women are no longer castrated men. On the contrary, men are not women with penis. ? The appearance of phallus merely repeats an imaginary identification with idealized organs. More directly, at this moment, Bonnie became Clyde’s male root, here is Lacan’s famous judgment: "Women do not exist." Women do not have male roots, so there is no castration anxiety, women should be "Not all" of the patriarchal society.
If the film's interpretation of sex stays at this moment, staying at the conclusion that "Bonnie is an impossible object of desire for Clyde", the film is undoubtedly a strong female, but it lacks a deeper critical power. The profoundness of "Bonnie and Clyde" is that it continues to describe the reshaping of the male roots-it is precisely that it regains its power and "doubling" explains the void of castration. In the latter part of the movie, Bonnie wrote a poem for the two of them and published it in the newspaper. Seeing the poem in the newspaper, Clyde excitedly said to Bonnie: "You let me be named in history." He At this moment, the sexual ability is restored-this is a typical symptom point, at this time Clyde has realized the transformation from imaginative identity to symbolic identity. It is not only pursuing "more like oneself", but also pursuing "self in the eyes of others." The subject’s desire is the desire of the other. At this moment, he transcends the incompetence of castration fear, precisely because of his compromise with the symbolic order. When I look at me outside of me, I must be a powerful image.
Therefore, from this moment on, the film can no longer be simply understood as the opposition between Bonnie Clyde and the decadent society, the dual opposition between the transcendent death drive and the Big Other. The real antagonism has become the antagonism between Bonnie and Clyde. If a real subversion is to be achieved, Bonnie cannot be confined to the symbolic relationship between the sexes, but must become the basis of this duality. , Become the remnant of resisting symbolization. In other words, Bonnie must not only become the male root of Clyde, but also the impossible male root of the patriarchal symbolic order, thereby exposing the basic antagonisms and contradictions of the symbolic order.
Clyde's coordination with the symbolic order is a fit of "nothing" (he is impotent, and he can do nothing) and "omnipotent" (society can forcefully suppress all violations). "Bonnie and Clyde" here reveals the final definition of male roots-"male roots" are "transcendental signifiers" after all, and the subject/big other experiences its severe limitations as constitutive power. At the end of the movie, Bonnie and Clyde died together in a chaotic gun. Of course, this is not a victory of social violence, but should be understood as a victory of revolution-the confrontation between Bonnie and Clyde ended in the destruction of both sides. The only way to legitimize a revolution is negative. It is a will to break with the past, including oneself.
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