The world, before it is anything else, is a vast, indifferent machine, a churning of flows and intensities that precede all meaning, all identity, all the fragile fictions we construct to tether ourselves to a semblance of reality. It is within this ceaseless production that the most mundane observations can rupture the fabric of the everyday, revealing the subterranean currents of desire and the machinic unconscious at play. Consider the casual gaze, the fleeting thought, the winter draft that carries with it not just cold, but a sudden, visceral connection to the primal forces of survival and reproduction. The sight of women in black leggings, a seemingly innocuous fashion choice, can, for a moment, deterritorialize the observer's ego, transforming a simple concern for warmth into a profound meditation on genetic imperative and the raw, uncodified flows of the Body-without-Organs.
I. The Molecular Gaze and the Pterodactyl's Viscera: A Schizoanalytic Genesis of Desire
The initial observation of "women wearing black leggings" and the subsequent concern for their warmth, seemingly a benign health consideration, is in fact a molecular event, a micro-perception that taps into deeper, uncodified flows of desire. This is not merely a conscious thought, but a machinic index, a "point-sign with several dimensions causing flows to circulate rather than canceling them" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330). The "winter draft" acts as a catalyst, a momentary deterritorialization of the observer's immediate environment, allowing for an associative leap from the superficiality of fashion to the primal exigencies of survival. The question, "Would they get sick?", while framed in rational terms, resonates with an underlying "instinct of self-affirmation and self-preservation that cares little about preserving or affirming life" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11), a pre-conscious investment of interest that masks a deeper, unconscious investment of desire.
This seemingly innocent concern quickly plunges into the realm of the desiring-machines, where the "genes are telling me that I am seeking a healthy mate to pass along my DNA" and the "woman dressed in a parka and snow pants makes for a better incubator for my genetic data" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 343). This is the "unconscious of the social productions" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 11–12), where "behind every investment of time and interest and capital, an investment of desire, and vice versa" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 11–12). The "inner caveman" is not a symbolic archetype but a desiring-machine in its rawest form, a primal assemblage of drives and flows that precedes and undercuts the "anthropomorphic and anthropological armoring" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 13) of civilized thought. The visceral image of "gutting a pterodactyl, and drying out its hid in order to make some warm pants for my significant other" is a direct engagement with the Body-without-Organs (BwO), a plane of consistency where the body is not yet stratified by organs or social codes, but is a site of pure, uninhibited flow and production (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11). This act of primal production, of transforming raw material into a means of survival and care, is a "nonhuman in man, his will and his forces, his transformations and mutations" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 13), a glimpse into the "schizophrenic process of desire" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11) at its most fundamental.
Erin, the protagonist of You're Next, emerges from this molecular genesis as a living embodiment of this primal, unarmored productivity. She is the "kind of woman that wears the right clothes for the weather," not out of fashion, but out of a direct, machinic understanding of the environment and the body's needs. Her potential to be "the person who killed the pterodactyl in the first place" elevates her beyond mere survivalist to a figure of active, desiring-production, a "living machine of a dead labor" that challenges the "dead machines of living labor as organized in capitalism" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 343). Her actions are not mediated by "market values" but by a direct, uncodified engagement with the real, a "schiz" that "serves as a point of departure as well as a point of destination" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 13) for the liberation of desire. This initial, seemingly trivial observation thus becomes a gateway into the "incredible scope" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 326) of a schizoanalytic voyage, where the everyday is revealed as a battleground for the flows of desire against the forces of repression and neuroticization.
II. The Oedipal Screen and the Neuroticization of "Other-Girls": The Character Armor of the Laid-Back
The transition from the primal scene of the pterodactyl to the contemporary landscape of dating apps and social interactions reveals the pervasive influence of the Oedipal screen and the subsequent neuroticization of desire. The phrases "laid-back" and "I'm not like other girls," encountered frequently in online dating profiles, serve as potent indices of this societal conditioning. "Laid-back," initially understood as "easy going or casual," is quickly re-coded as "superficial and surface-y," an "unwillingness to be real or go beyond the normalcy barrier." This superficiality is a manifestation of character armor, where habitual defense mechanisms harden into a social identity, blocking authentic emotional and desiring flow (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 11–12). The "laid-back" persona is a form of "muscular armor," a bodily blockage against the raw, uncodified flows of desire, a refusal to engage with the "unconscious of the social productions" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 11–12). It is a strategy to avoid the "breakdowns and breakthroughs" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11) that characterize the schizophrenic process, clinging instead to a predictable, albeit shallow, existence.
"Other-Girls," the implied counterpart to "I'm not like other girls," represent the "normative type of girl that has a hegemonic position on girlhood." This "hegemonic position" is a product of Oedipal and oedipalized territorialities (Family, Church, School, Nation, Party) (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11), which function as "agencies of the State, agencies of paranoia, agencies of power" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 13–14). These "Other-Girls" are "docile and obedient subjects" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 13), whose "desiring-production" has been "silenced" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 13–14) by the Oedipal apparatus. They are "oedipalized and neuroticized at home, at school, at work" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 13–14), taught to "desire their own repression" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 13–14). Their "avoidance of confrontation" and their "death grip on their perspective of the world" are symptoms of ontological insecurity, where the individual fears the dissolution of their self and clings rigidly to a fixed identity (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 326–327). This fear of "what they might become, and what they may have to leave behind" is precisely the fear of deterritorialization, the terror of losing the "personological co-ordinates" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 326–327) that define their ego.
The "banking education" model, subtly integrated here, explains how these "Other-Girls" are "interpellated as subjects of inalienable freedom," yet are simultaneously deprived of control over their lives and denied consciousness of their subjugation. They are "passive recipients" of a "system of beliefs put in the place of productions" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 270), where "social production becomes alienated in allegedly autonomous beliefs at the same time that desiring-production becomes enticed into allegedly unconscious representations" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 270). The "superficial and surface-y" nature of "laid-back" is precisely this: a refusal to engage with the "unconscious of the social productions" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 11–12), a clinging to the "preconscious investments of interest" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 316) (e.g., "making enough money so they can avoid thinking seriously about their life") rather than the "investments of unconscious desire of the social field" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 316). This is the "neurotic" who "clings to a residual bit of ground... so as not to be carried off by the deterritorialized flows of desire." The "red flag" in this context is not merely a warning, but a machinic index of the "paranoiac counterescape that motivates all the conformist, reactionary, and fascisizing investments" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 253), a sign that the individual is trapped within the "iron collar of Oedipus" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 62).
III. "Not-Girls" and the Ambiguity of Deterritorialization: A Counter-Escape or a New Stratification?
The phrase "I'm not like other girls," while seemingly a declaration of individuality, presents a complex schizoanalytic problem. It is a "self-contradictory" utterance, a "negation (Not-Girl)" that attempts to "dispossess herself from Other-Girl signifier." This act of "self-dispossession" can be interpreted as a nascent line of flight, a desire to escape the "Oedipal and oedipalized territorialities (Family, Church, School, Nation, Party)" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11) that define "Other-Girl" identity. It is a molecular movement, a "schiz" that seeks to break free from molar aggregates, a "deterritorialized flow of desire" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11) that has not been reduced to the Oedipal codes. The "Not-Girl" attempts to "undo the form of persons and the ego" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330) by rejecting the "well-defined figures, the well-identified roles, the clearly distinct persons" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330) that are "dependents of Oedipus" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330).
However, the very act of defining oneself against "Other-Girls" risks a reterritorialization into a new, equally codified identity. If "every girl isn't like other girls," then the phrase loses its deterritorializing power and becomes a new form of "personological co-ordinates" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 326–327), a new "image-model" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330) that still depends on a "social aggregate whose code is unconsciously invested for itself" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330). This is the "perverted reterritorialization" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 327–328) where the process is "forced to take itself as a goal" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 327), creating "still more artificial lands that, barring an accident, accommodate themselves in one way or another to the established order" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 327–328). The "Not-Girl" risks becoming merely a different type of "Other-Girl," a new "well-defined figure" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330) within the "social axiomatic" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330) rather than a true "nonfigurative index" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330) of revolutionary desire. This is the "paranoiac counterescape that motivates all the conformist, reactionary, and fascisizing investments" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 253), where the desire to escape is ultimately re-channeled into a new form of subjugation.
The "dispossession" described by Athanasiou and Butler (2013), akin to Marxist alienation, highlights this ambiguity. While it suggests a deprivation of control and consciousness, it also points to the potential for a "radical politics of desire freed from all beliefs" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 14). The "Not-Girl" is caught between two poles: the "paranoiac counterescape" (e.g., merely adopting a new, equally rigid identity) and the "schizophrenic escape convertible into a revolutionary investment" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 253) (a true dissolution of the ego and a liberation of prepersonal singularities). The schizoanalysis here would "disengage the deterritorialized flows of desire, in the molecular elements of desiring-production," to discern whether the "Not-Girl" is truly "undoing the form of persons and the ego" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330) or merely constructing a new "character armor" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 253) around a different set of social expectations. The "red flag" in this context signifies the potential for either a deeper entrapment or a genuine rupture, an oscillation between "paranoia and schizophrenia" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 253) that forms "one of the major objects of schizoanalysis" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 253).
IV. Erin's Molecular Insurrection: The Schizophrenic Out for a Walk
Erin, the protagonist of You're Next, transcends the binary of "Other-Girls" and "Not-Girls" to embody the schizophrenic process itself, a "breakthrough" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11) that shatters the Oedipal screen and unleashes the raw power of desiring-production. She is the "schizophrenic out for a walk" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11), a model of liberation that "escapes coding, scramble the codes, and flee in all directions: orphans (no daddy-mommy-me), atheists (no beliefs), and nomads (no habits, no territories)" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 14). Erin's actions are not motivated by "market values" or the desire for "money and privilege"; instead, she is "pursuing relational depth and connection with her boyfriend and her family." This is not a return to Oedipal familialism, but a "nonfigurative love" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330), an "anoedipal" connection that "undoes the form of persons and the ego" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330) in favor of "lines of vibration" and "schizzes that constitute singular points" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330). Her desire for "depth, significance" is a drive towards "a new collective subjectivity and a revolutionary healing of mankind" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 14), a "non-neurotic form of politics" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 14) where "singularity and collectivity are no longer at odds with each other" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 14).
Her ability to "calmly assess situations and work on solutions," her "creativity, fun, skilled in knife fights and good with a mallet outside the kitchen," are manifestations of her unarmored, productive body. This is the direct opposite of the "laid-back" persona, which is a form of muscular armor (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 343), a bodily blockage of emotional and desiring flow. Erin's physical prowess and strategic thinking are not merely skills but expressions of her desiring-machines (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 343), which are "solely functional" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 343) and operate independently of "interpretations" or "representations" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 269–270). She is a "machine" herself, as "all schizos say this" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 343), a "living machine of a dead labor" that challenges the "dead machines of living labor as organized in capitalism" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 343). Her actions are a "resecting a schiz" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 315–316), a "liberating a flow" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 315–316) that collapses the "filthy drainage pipe" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 315–316) of societal repression.
Erin's refusal to "scream like a crazy person when the craziness happens" is a testament to her ontological security, a self that is not "divided" but integrated with the molecular flows of her environment. She is not afraid of "what she might become, and what she may have to leave behind," because her self is not a fixed entity but a constant becoming, a "process of schizophrenic production that thereafter has no more schizophrenics to produce" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 343). Her "seeking depth, significance" is a drive towards "a new collective subjectivity and a revolutionary healing of mankind" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 14), a "non-neurotic form of politics" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 14) where "singularity and collectivity are no longer at odds with each other" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 14). She is a "co-conspirator," not in the sense of joining a pre-existing group, but in the sense of being an "active point of escape where the revolutionary machine, the artistic machine, the scientific machine, and the (schizo) analytic machine become parts and pieces of one another" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 343–344). She is a "flow-schiz, as a subject-group" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 315–316), breaking with the "subjugated group" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 315–316) of conventional society. Her "red flag" is not merely a symbol but a "nonfigurative index" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330) of a "revolutionary investment of the social field" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330), a machinic index of desire that "causes a piece of the system to get lost in the shuffle" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 253).
V. The Political Economy of Desire: Erin's Anti-Praxis
You're Next subtly critiques the political economy of desire by exposing how societal structures produce and repress desire, leading to the "neuroticization" of the majority. The "market values" that drive "most people" to "seek a job where they can make enough money so they can avoid thinking seriously about their life" are mechanisms of paranoiac investment (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 328). This investment "subordinat[es] molecular desiring-production to the molar aggregate it forms on one surface of the full body without organs, enslaving it by that very fact to a form of socius that exercises the function of a full body under determinate conditions" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 328). The "great paranoiac din beneath the discourse of reason that speaks for others, in the name of the silent majority" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 328) is precisely this societal repression of desire, where "everybody wants to be a fascist" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 13–14) by desiring their own repression.
Erin's actions, while violent, can be interpreted as a form of anti-praxis, a non-dialogical, machinic intervention that forces a "critical consciousness" upon those who encounter her deterritorialized reality. While Paulo Freire emphasizes "dialogue and the importance of collective action" for "authentic liberation," Erin's method is one of direct rupture. She "causes the social to take flight through the multiplicity of holes that eat away at it and penetrate it, always coupled directly to it, everywhere setting the molecular charges that will explode what must explode, make fall what must fall, make escape what must escape, at each point ensuring the conversion of schizophrenia as a process into an effectively revolutionary force." Her "red flag" is not merely a symbol but a "nonfigurative index" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330) of a "revolutionary investment of the social field" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330).
The film, through Erin's character, challenges the "familialist territorialities" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 253) and the "iron collar of Oedipus" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 62) that bind human perception. Her "radical indifference" to conventional norms and her capacity for decisive action are a "rebellion against the jocks" (or rather, the internalized patriarchal structures) that becomes a "powerful act of defiance," challenging the "established power dynamics" and revealing the "fragility of the jocks' masculinity" even in its absence. She is an "orphan (no daddy-mommy-me)" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 14) in the schizoanalytic sense, her desire producing itself "within the identity of nature and man," independent of parental figures or societal codes. Her "rage" is not merely an emotion but a "desiring-machine" itself, "capable of calling into question the established order of a society" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 254). This is the "schizoid revolutionary pole" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330) that stands in direct opposition to the "paranoiac, reactionary, and fascisizing pole" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 330) of societal investment.
VI. The Unending Process of Deterritorialization: Erin's Legacy
Erin's journey in You're Next is a profound schizoanalytic text, a cinematic exploration of the desiring-machines that constitute both the human psyche and the viral flows of media. She forces us to confront the "deterritorialized flows of desire" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 253) that lie beneath the surface of everyday life, challenging the Oedipal narratives and representational traps that seek to contain the wild productions of the unconscious. Her transformation, from an outsider seeking acceptance to a force of nature, is a visceral demonstration of the "schizophrenic process of desire" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11), a "breakthrough" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11) that shatters the ego and unleashes the raw power of the BwO.
The film's enduring power lies in its refusal to offer easy answers, instead presenting a world where the "process of life flows as they oscillate from one extreme to the other" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11). It is a testament to the "incredible scope" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 326) of this voyage into madness and liberation, where the "demonic" erupts and the "light began to break through the cracks in our all-too-closed minds." You're Next is a reminder that the "new earth" is not a destination, but a perpetual process of deterritorialization, a constant becoming that challenges the very foundations of what it means to be human (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 344). It is a call to "strip itself of all anthropomorphic and anthropological armoring" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 13) and embrace the "nonhuman in man, his desires and his forces" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 13), even if that embrace leads to a terrifying, viral freedom. Erin, the "schizophrenic out for a walk" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 11), has learned to engineer the very chaos that consumed her, becoming a "revolutionary machine" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 343–344) that marks out a "new land" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, p. 344) through her own deterritorialization. She is the "one who knows how to make what he is escaping escape, collapsing a filthy drainage pipe, causing a deluge to break loose, liberating a flow, resecting a schiz" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, pp. 315–316). Her legacy is not merely survival, but the ongoing, molecular insurrection against all forms of Oedipal repression, a testament to the power of a self that is truly "not like other girls," or indeed, like most people.
References
Athanasiou, A., & Butler, J. (2013). Dispossession: The performative in the political. Wiley.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1983). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. (R. Hurley, M. Seem, & H. R. Lane, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1972)
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