1. Daniel Potes
10/24/14
Spring Breakers Breaking out of Society
To deny that Harmony Korine uses Spring Breakers as a social commentary is to deny
the evolution of society that Deleuze and Foucault so vehemently argue. Deleuze and Foucault
insist that society underwent a shift in control mechanics during the crises within and after World
War II, this shift tilted the underlying control mechanism of society from what had been a
society of discipline to a society of control. This shift can be best understood as a shift from a
constantly changing, evolving series of enclosures to an enclosure that contains all yet that
excludes all as well. Spring Breakers creates a dialogue for the shift from a disciplinary society
to a society of control by showcasing the social movements of the four protagonists.
To Deleuze, the shift to a society of control creates entry into a never ending cycle of
control, where graduating school to join the work force is not all that different, where jail isn’t
used to discipline failing community members but instead used to maintain a form of control
over those that society has deemed unworthy to join it. This Banishment of individual or rather
“Dividual” to a state of constant control is counter to the original idea of the Homo Sacer, in
which the banned individual is beyond the control of the society and is therefore literally outside
of the law. To kill a Homo Sacer is to kill no one, this banned individual has escaped the
disciplinary society to escape into a lawless existence. Korine uses Spring Breakers as a sort of

2. window into the attempted escape or self-banishment of the four protagonists from their society
of control. The girl are even quoted
“I’m so tired of seeing the same thing every single day. Everyone is miserable here
because everybody sees the same things , they wake up in the same bed, in the same houses,
same depressing streetlights, one gas station, grass that’s not even greed, it’s brown, everything’s
the same everything the same and it’s sad, it’s more than just spring break, I’m searching to see
something different. ”
This self-exile from their boring repetitive societies is their attempt to escape the modern
society of Control, to escape their endless recycled lives. To be different and to live differently.
This dream is compared to the American dream over and over again by the other Homo Sacers,
such as Alien. To Alien, being a member of his community didn’t mean living a normal life, but
instead meant one thing, being “bad”. This self-instilled need for evil can be compared to an urge
to separate himself from the laws and control of this modern society of control. Alien is just
trying to escape to stay an individual and to evade becoming dividual, like Deleuze says in his
postscript on Societies of Control “the new medicine "without doctor or patient" that singles out
potential sick people and subjects at risk, which in no way attests to individuation--as they say--
but substitutes for the individual or numerical body the code of a "dividual" material to be
controlled.”
Spring breakers uses clashing communities to instill a sense of separation
between characters, for instance, Faith is a member of several communities that do not interact
well. Her church group calls her other friends “demons” and warn her of the danger of joining
them. Faith however; in her tireless search for escape from this endless society of control ignores

3. the warnings of the “spiritual” church community and joins another community, one that
becomes just as “spiritual” as their journey progresses.
The community of girls that Korine uses as his instrument of change bring to mind his
use of female communities in his other films. A strong example is at the 14:00 minute mark in
Kids. First a community of boys is introduced, they’re messy, doing drugs and cursing at each
other, this is then contrasted with the community of girls via a phone call scene change. The girls
are in a much neater enclosure and talking about their horrible first times, this separation of girls
from boys not only is shown through the physical separation of the locations, but also through
the topics being discussed. The male community discuss girls irreverently and the female
community slowly changes their discussion from not liking boys to talking about how much they
love sex. This contrast between the two communities is a glance into the minds of individuals,
not dividuals, this means that Korine intended the members of both communities to be within a
greater community of youths rebelling against the bio power of the city. By using Foucault’s
epochs of power the two subcommittees of youths can be subdivided into types. The boys
operate under the epoch of deductive power, a power in which the seizure of power and sexuality
is at its core.
“Power in this instance was essentially a right of seizure: of things, time, bodies, and
ultimately life itself; it culminated in the privilege to seize hold of life in order to suppress it.”
The girls on the other hand use generative power, with which they try and control their own lives
and sexuality.
Foucault’s argument that the epoch of deductive power is weakening that he introduces
in “The History of Sexuality” is countered by Korine in both films with his use of deductive

4. power. In Spring Breakers the difference is shown between Deductive and Generative power by
the two sub communities of girls. Faith is both a member of the best friend girl group and the
church group that she is a part of. Her church community warns her of her three other friends
saying that they have “Demon” eyes and that they are dangerous. Ignoring this warning Faith
joins the attempted escape from their endless society of control and they all leave for spring
break.
Following the mantra repeated through the film, “Spring break, spring break, spring
break forever” the girls wish to live in spring break for ever in order to escape the monotonous
drone of existence in their controlled society of home. They abandon the modern epoch of
generative power and escape to a land of Deductive power, a land that Foucault says is full of
fascist like sentiments and the will to take power/life/goods through use of their forceful power.
This is exemplified when the three “bad” girls go to rob the chicken shack. Their use of
deductive power is so intense in this scene it brings the question to mind whether or not Corinne
is an avid reader of Foucault. Upon entering the store the girls assert their deductive right to seize
anything and everything that interests them, the role reversal introduced when they approach the
black male in the back of the restaurant is taken and reinforced later on in the film.
When the girls are introduced to Alien and his larger than life community of deductive
power the lack of generative power scares Faith away and forces her to abandon her tight knit
community of friends. The three other girls however, are thrilled to finally find another
community full of the type of power that they crave and seek religiously. The spirituality of
some of the situations that arise in this new community is mentioned several times by the
characters, especially with Faith while she stays with them.

5. Though at first it appears that Alien has saved them and that they are in his debt, we
quickly find out that Alien is more than meets the eye and in fact is in their debt. By
asserting deductive power on Alien, especially in the double pistol blowjob scene, the
two “baddest” girls manage to transcend his level of deductive power and assert total
control over him and his “shit”
“Look at my shittttt” Alien says, repeating it over and over again instilling his
love for power and consumption, this secondary mantra is associated loosely with the
spring break mantra repeated throughout the film, though in this instance it almost
appears to be an invitation for the girls to assert their deductive power over him. He
wants to be seized, he wants to lose his “shit” and in the end he even gives up his life for
the benefit of his two “mothafuckin soulmates”.
The final scene is a perfect ending for the theories introduced in the film,
the deductively powered “bad bitches” arrive at Big Arch’s territory, they begin the
seizure by sacrificing Alien, he was never meant to survive, only to influence and sculpt
their growth into the perfect Homo Sacer. The bullets shot at them have no effect, they
walk steadily through the island calmly shooting every man in the head, seizing their
lives and showcasing that they are out of the reach of “law”, or in this case, of the law of
the gangsters, weapons. By being banned from both the modern society of control and the
created society of Deductive power, the two final girls escape death, escape Spring break
and most importantly escape their origin, their society of control.