Face control: everynight selection and “the other”

The paper analyzes micro-inequality in Tel Aviv night clubs, relying upon Levinas’s concept of the face. In-depth interviews with nightclub doormen, or “selectors”, as they are called in Israel, revealed that the clients’ faces comprise a critical component of their screening work. At the same time, they reported that customers’ faces make it difficult for them to do their jobs and force them to engage in evading faces and suspending ethical judgments. The paper shows how in these face-to-face interactions, the face of the “Other” (the “dangerous” Mizrahi male client) is fully recognized and then suspended, enabling the selectors to affirm and then resist its ethical call. The paper’s discussion points to some of the implications of the ability of the selectors to affirm and resist the ethical obligation that Levinas attributes to the face, including a focus on the selectors’ justification of violence.