Slavoj Zizek offers a metaphorical example of the superego, ego, and id through Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece Psycho, with the character Norman Bates.
In a Freudian psychoanalytic interpretation, Norman Bates, as the ego, is bombarded by the superego authoritarian mother who commands and belittles from above. From the basement, Bates’s id of primal desire also cries out to him.
Split between the dueling demands, he snaps and moves his mother (now a mummified corpse, an apt metaphor for uptight restriction) from the “thou shall obey” attic of the superego to the “thou shall indulge” of the cellar.
When the strain between the won’t and the will becomes too strong, the character’s subservience (to the superego) falls into obeisance (to the id), causing a downward collapse of the ego.
The point is: If I am made ridiculous (by superego), I have nothing left to lose, and I will at least take glee in making my folly my own: I will take pleasure in my perversion and embarrassment.
(from "Pervert’s guide to cinema")
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