'Actual Idiocy' and the Sublime Object of Susan Boyle

This chapter is provoked and inspired by Žižek in equal measure. The provocation comes from a fleeting reference to ‘actual idiots’, a term used in the background of Žižek’s analysis of the protagonists in the film Idioterne.1 The consideration of this term prompts a reflection on what might constitute ‘actual idiocy’ as a topic for analysis in its own right.