Fangs for the memory

Amardeep Singh reviews Snakes on a Plane:

The eponymous “snakes” here are clearly the wild slithering irruption of the Real, while the “plane” is the Phallus that operates in the angular, metallic register of the Symbolic. The film thematizes the rebellion of the Real (the resisting third world subaltern, who also represents the death-drive) over the tyrannical, inscribed authority of the Industrial-Aviational Master. Note that the deadliest of the snakes on this particular cinematic plane is the “Monocled Cobra,” mainly found in India, which despite its Cyclopean insignia strongly suggests the film be read as a subaltern allegory of “Multitudes,” arrayed in a heterogeneous composite Coalition of the Venomous against the complacent bourgeois “passengers” (nearly all of whom are fated to die), who have sanctioned the postmodernist military adventurism of President George W. Bush.