Power Theory in Film

Featuring Kids by Larry Cark and Harmony Korine

Michel Foucault

• A famed French philosopher and theorist, Foucault is known for many great works of thought.• The History of Sexuality contains several theories key to my

interpretation of Kids. Other works by him include concepts also key to my interpretation, such as the concept of “biopower”• Foucault says that in history there has been two epochs of power, the

epoch of Deductive power and the epoch of Generative power, the latter being the current epoch.• Here is a scene from the film in which Telly uses Deductive power to

take what he wants, to sieze it, a theme prevalent through the film

Giorgio Agamben

• Agamben, also a famed thinker and Italian philosopher, used Foucoults theories to look at specific actions of power in society.• One such theory that made Agamben realize his prized though, that

of the Homo Sacer, was the theory of biopower. Biopower is the action of biopolitics.• This is in essence based on the fact that the social and political

spectrums of society have direct control over life.• The Homo Sacer is a concept heavily intertwined with Kids,

The sacred man is the one whom the people have judged on account of a crime. It is not permitted to sacrifice this man, yet he who kills him

will not be condemned for homicide; in the first tribunitian law, in fact, it is noted that “if someone kills the one who is sacred according to the

plebiscite, it will not be considered homicide.” This is why it is customary for a bad or impure man to be called sacred.

~ Pompeius Festus

Jean Luc Nancy

• A French philosopher and theoretician, Nancy interpreted the works of past philosophers to create works in relation to modern time. One such work was The Inoperative community.• In this work, Nancy spends a whole chapter on myth and it’s relation to community, and

the general myth of community.• Kids uses the post modern mythos of city life to create an abstraction of classical

philosophic inquiry.• By using rituals of modern society throughout his films, Korine manages to imbue each of

his films with their own mythological structure, thus allowing them life beyond simple storytelling.