ABSTRACT
Mark Leyner looks identical to Leyner by virtue of the fact that the form of Et Tu, Babe has a ‘hyper’ feel to it. Forced to resist the law of positive value otherwise than by adopting an easily co-opted oppositional posture, the best he can do is to mark his time by hiding in the shadow of Leyner, masking his resistance by mimicking the principal values of late capitalism: a devotion to speed and a worship of image. Leyner cleverly documents the way cultural products and activities are now instantly subjected to such capitalizing impress. He challenges the repressiveness inherent in the culture’s devotion to speed by fashioning a text that imitates the art of dispatch in order to expose the scandalous faults in its totalizing structure. The emotional rush of the scandalous will give way, almost instantaneously, to the rush to capitalize on scandal.
