A Western Wake

WORKING

Blouin, Michael J. "A Western Wake: Difference and Doubt in Christopher Nolan's Inception." Extrapolation 52.3 (Fall 2011): 318-337.

Essay puts INCEPTION into political, cultural, and philosophical contexts and most relevantly, into the context of cyberpunk, almost all literary, with a reference to the Wachowski's THE MATRIX. Quotes with apparent approval David Kaufmann on cyberpunk generally as "yuppie postmodernism" but finds INCEPTION worthier of respect in its self-referential examination of fantasies, including movies, as part of the "dream-manipulation employed by 'soft-power superpowers' such as the U.S. and Japan" (Blouin p. 332). Includes useful discussions of Bruce Sterling's short story "Maneki Neko," William Gibson's Idoru, and, in cultural studies, David Morely and Kevin Robin's suggestions on "'techno-orientalism'" and its "need to imagine 'a more human age beyond Western modernity' (149)" (Blouin p 322).