>>23050795
it seems like ellie completely breaks the format of the show. she is not there to posture, not trying to be hot or ironic or damaged in the acceptable, monetizable way. just sitting there, painfully sincere but yet so seemingly detached. ellie is the maybe the wrong kind of broken. she is too sincere to exploit, too real to ignore. Like a mirror and I think it makes the people uncomfortable, they are afraid of seeing themselves that clearly. In a way she is bringing back the real into the hyperreality. Especially this episode seemed to be a showcase of late stage male fragility, the host oozes of nietschean resentiments, mocking spirituality, trauma, traditional and liberal ones. No beliefs, just the very americanised 'will to power' sublimated through money and control. heidegger said we flee from authenticity into the 'They', the anonymous comfort of roles and routines. ellie does not play along and that refusal passive as it is, makes her such a fascinating figure to follow. she does not seem to uphold tradition because it is virtuos, she seeks structure in the chaos not because she wants to serve a man, because she wants 'safety, meaning and maybe love if I am lucky'. Like the echo of the wreckage that once was a value-system. baudrillard would call her the last gasp of the real in a world of simulacra.

"Da-sein heißt: Hineingehaltenheit in das Nichts.[...] Ohne ursprüngliche Offenbarkeit des Nichts kein Selbstsein und keine Freiheit." - M. Heidegger,'Was ist Metaphysik?'