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In ''City Lights'', one of [[Charlie Chaplin]]'s absolute masterpieces, there is a memorable scene (commented on by Levinas, among others) which establishes the link between this object and shame. After he swallows a whistle by mitake, the Tramp gets an attakc of hiccups, which leads to a comical effect - because of the movement of air in his stomach, each hiccup makes the whistle blow and thus generates a weird sound of whistles comign from inside the body; the embarrassed Tramp desperately tries to cover up these sounds, not knowing what exactly to do. Does this scene not stage shame at its purest? I am ashamed when I am confronted with the excess in my body. It is significant that the source of shame in this scene is sound: a spectral sound emanating from within the Tramps' body, sound as an autonomous "[[organ without body]]," located in the veyr heart of his body and at the same time uncontrollable, like a kind of parasite, a foreign intruder - in short, what Lacan called the [[voice]]-[[object]], one of the incarnations of ''[[objet petit a]]'', of the ''[[agalma]]'', that which is "[[in me more than myself]]."
{{LA1}}p. 75
==References==
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[[Category:Culture]]
[[Category:Looking Awry]]
[[Category:Slavoj Žižek]]
[[Category:Index]]
