When I first got my hands on this book by Slavoj Žižek, I wasn’t really aware of what to expect. I wasn’t actually interested in Lacan, however I new I was interested in popular culture and on of it’s effects on society.

The language of Slavoj Žižek is very fluent and glides you through contemporary media products from Stephen King’s “Pet Cemetary” to Hitchcock’s “The Trouble With Harry”, explaining these with a psychoanalitical (Lacanian) perspective. As in the title of the book, Žižek provides an alternative perspective to reading popular media products, and his depictions make you say “why didn’t I see that?” Although understanding Lacan from his own writings can be difficult Žižek makes it easy. You don’t have to be a scholar doing a Phd to understand Lacan when you read Žižek.

Other readers generally review “Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture (October Books)” as a good guide to understanding Lacan. However, I found the book as a good source to a psychoanalytical reading of popular media culture by itself regardless of Lacanian study. You don’t need to be curious about Lacan to read this book. Everybody who has interest in media studies can gain much insight from what Žižek has to offer in his “awry” interpretations.

For a different perspective of popular culture I definitely suggest reading this book!