Class Camouflage

We are living in intricate times. Consequently, I propose a period piece; the contradiction is intentional. Putting the present and the past in perspective is necessary; it is like exploring an alien wound to understand our traumas as if the autopsy of a third one could offer us some tentative escape. The decade of the 60s can be read as a parable of how transformative impulses were gradually silenced, leading to the neoliberal turn (both economically and culturally).

Prat, the main character, embodies some sort of Tom Ripley figure. Even though I’m fully aware of Ripley’s corruption, I always felt sympathy toward him. This empathy is only explained by how Ripley’s behavior perfectly echoes some of the post-colonial identity diagrams in America’s urban centers. Mortally wounded by Eurocentrism, one of his distinctive traits is concealing his class and cultural origins. Unable to reveal himself to this power dynamic, he becomes a counterfeit of the other he places above himself. That mirror is a fraudulent idea of a blurry national past, an heir reverence for the oppressors that translates into a mimetic attitude towards their culture.

I am interested in reflecting through Prat on post-colonial identity, addressing this original trauma of cultural imposition.