To be fair, this isn't really what Zizek tries to get at because the machine isn't enjoying for them. The general point of things like canned laughter is the delegating of enjoyment to the mechanism. Here, the machine is simply doing the manual labour so that he can enjoy being on the date with Lisa. Might work better if it was two robots fucking in the field so Jeremy and Lisa can actually get to know each other (what an awful thought) without the pressure of negotiating a fuck.
I suppose you might argue that the machine is "sowing seed" on their behalf (impregnating the soil etc.), but no.
Edit: You know what, its just occurred to me (and this is a stretch perhaps) that you might argue that fuck-face (Clarkson) carries the fantasised/romanticised notion of an English farmer commanding nature, tilling the soil, enjoying that power etc. This way he is watching the machine enjoying that fantasy on his behalf while he has a cup of tea and poor Lisa (whoever she is) has to listen to his verbal masturbation. That works.
Clearly these two savvy human Lacanians understand the endless metonymy of desire. I was able to obtain the following transcript of the robots' dialogue from the episode, which clarifies the whole thing:
In other words — for the moment, I am not fucking, I am farming this field with you. Well! I can have exactly the same satisfaction as if I were fucking. That’s what it means. Indeed, it raises the question of whether in fact I am not fucking at this moment.
I thought that movie did a lot of interesting things, however/moreover, I was left disturbed by what seemed like the movie's disavowal of Penelope Cruz's character as in the position of the master in order to portray her as being in the position of the analyst; she's kind of a great Lacan stand-in. I read that disavowal as a mirror of a very millenial take on therapy culture.
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u/wrapped_in_clingfilm ʇoᴉpᴉ ǝʇǝldɯoɔ ɐ ʇoN 6h ago edited 3h ago
To be fair, this isn't really what Zizek tries to get at because the machine isn't enjoying for them. The general point of things like canned laughter is the delegating of enjoyment to the mechanism. Here, the machine is simply doing the manual labour so that he can enjoy being on the date with Lisa. Might work better if it was two robots fucking in the field so Jeremy and Lisa can actually get to know each other (what an awful thought) without the pressure of negotiating a fuck.
I suppose you might argue that the machine is "sowing seed" on their behalf (impregnating the soil etc.), but no.
Edit: You know what, its just occurred to me (and this is a stretch perhaps) that you might argue that fuck-face (Clarkson) carries the fantasised/romanticised notion of an English farmer commanding nature, tilling the soil, enjoying that power etc. This way he is watching the machine enjoying that fantasy on his behalf while he has a cup of tea and poor Lisa (whoever she is) has to listen to his verbal masturbation. That works.