Septopia and the wastialized Other: Allegorizing neo-liberalism in the age of COVID-19.

Sepsis, septic tank, septum – these terms help to locate phantasmatic representation of waste spaces in cinema, which is here termed "septopia". Those who inhabit septopia are positioned as broken, fractured, or discarded identities. Amid COVID-19, septopia becomes more relevant to political realities, where people rebel against sanitized spaces and lockdown policies. Using Fredric Jameson's concept of the political unconscious and theorization of allegory, this article navigates how media and film can map anxieties and clashes surrounding pandemic measures. It first explains the concepts of septopia as a mode of political commentary in the 2000s post-apocalyptic movies: Wall-E, District 9, and Land of the Dead. It then explores how "septopia" and wastiality contribute to expressions of the political pandemic's unconscious, superstructurally mediating peoples' responses to lockdown. The article argues that attempting to understand why people protest against COVID measures can help avoid counterproductive responses and counter increased social abjection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]