Naming the Royal Baby
So, the current huge "news" of the moment is this: the royal couple, William and Kate, had a baby boy!!!
But here's the thing: I don't care.
Moreover, I want to scream a question: Why in the hell is this considered "news"? It does not pertain to my life one little bit. It does not pertain to your life one little bit, either. Hell, I live in the United States, and although i would love to visit Great Britain someday, I wonder why we here across the pond have to hear about the Royal Family. If I am so fortunate as to visit the United Kingdom, one thing that I am really not interested in is following the Royal Family.
I don't care, and I wonder why anyone really does. Why are we not past following them around? They are figurehead leaders, more symbolic than anything else. And symbols ofm what, exactly? An old, feudal order that is completely outdated and irrelevant in modern life? An obscenity of wealth and privileges, paid for by the taxpayers?
Perhaps it's just me. But I just don't get, and I guess I will never get, why this type of crap keeps not only making it to the position of prominent news, but why it dominates our news so damn much. I know some women who claimed that the royal wedding, and perhaps this baby, are the equivalent of the World Cup Final, or the Super Bowl or World Series for women.
But why? You may not be into sports, and I am not as much into it as I used to be. Yet, at least they worked hard for what they got, and have some talent.
The Royal Family? They are born into it. They could be complete asshole (like, say, two stupid kids who think it the height of hilarity to dress as Nazi officers for a Halloween party). Yet, they are not only forgiven time and again for their idiocies, but are then glamorized to such an extent, it is offensive.
So, yes, I am sick and tired of hearing about the Royal Family. I love babies, love children, don't et me wrong. I have one of my own. But as for the Roayal Baby? As for the Royal Marriage not long ago, or the Queen's Jubillee? I could happily go the rest of my life without hearing about any of them ever again.
Not to sound crass, but fuck 'em.
We have people working full-time and losing their benefits. A non-livable minimum wage. People are losing their benefits left and right, and this is what we are supposed to be watching? The Royal Family is what we should be most interested in? Guessing the baby's name, and dismayed that we'll have to wait a few more days before learning the name (but I just can't wait!!!)?
Bullshit!
So, You Like the Glitter of Dubai?
Well, if you do, it should be remembered that this city with tremendous wealth that seems suspiciously like it was built on a bubble is still in a region where few countries seem to treat women as anywhere near equals.
Consider this - a Norwegian woman was raped in Dubai. She did what we here in the West often think is the right thing after something like that. She reported the incident, and as a result, was herself convicted and imprisoned!
How about that?!
Lord knows I have my problems with the country I presently live in, the United States. But when I hear stories like that, or about how some of the most excessive measures against women during the Taliban regime are beginning to be reintroduced.
Well, she was finally released, and this is making news now. Take a look at this story, and se if you believe it:
"Dubai ruler pardons Norwegian woman convicted after she reported rape" by Nicola Goulding. Jennifer Z. Deaton and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/22/world/meast/uae-norway-rape-controversy
Rolling Stone Cover
I was listening to the Jian Ghomeshi show earlier this evening, and they were having a very interesting and lively debate about a controversy regarding the choice of cover for a major magazine publication.
There is a huge controversy brewing right now, and it is about a controversial Rolling Stone cover.
Rolling Stone magazine's cover this month features Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston bomber who managed to elude the law for almost a week after the bombing, but which ended infamously with the shutdown of the city, and his bloody capture inside of a boat in someone's backyard.
The controversy is that the photograph that they chose to grace their covers was an idealized picture that he took of himself, clearly as he wanted to see himself. Critics say that the magazine is giving him the kind of press that he would surely have wanted. He looks young and almost dreamy, perhaps like a rock icon.
Perhaps.
Perhaps, like they say, it is glamorizing a terrorist, and allowing him to be seen in a light that we rarely see terrorists.
Perhaps, then, the boycotts of this month's issue, and the refusal to sell them by CVS and Walgreen's is justified.
But there was something about this issue that bothered me, and I could not quite put my finger on it. But the debate on the radio program tonight I think put it in perspective.
Arguing that the magazine cover was not well thought out and generally disrespectful was University of Pennsylvania professor Kathleen Jamieson. Arguing that the magazine cover was actually a stroke of brilliance was Mark Stern, a writer from Slate magazine.
Jamieson more or less gave the arguments that you might expect, that it is irresponsible of Rolling Stone, that they are giving Tsarnaev exactly what he wants, and that it serves as a de facto endorsement of him. According to Jamieson, Tsarnaev looks like a rock star on the cover, although she did mention that the actual article inside is supposed to be a prime example of excellence in journalism. She suggested that, at the very least, Rolling Stone should have published a picture of him when he was bloodied, after being captured on the boat, to balance it out.
Stern, on the other hand, said that the magazine cover was a stroke of brilliance. It challenges our notion of terrorism. We always seem to see them as these big, ugly, bearded men, definitely of Middle Eastern origin. People that are definitely foreign to us in every way. Essentially, we have these preconceived notions that men who engage in terroristic activities have to fit a certain stereotype, and this magazine cover challenges this.
The picture was taken before the Boston bombing, before Tsarnaev became a monster, if you will. It shows Tsarnaev as he would have wanted to see himself. And with it, we see a different thing than what we normally see. This kid does not fit the image of a monster that we expect, or perhaps that we want, to fit such a person under. The picture shows a good-looking kid. On the radio program, he was described as looking like "the boy next door".
One interesting point, as well, was that there was a similar magazine cover back in 1999, after the Columbine school shooting, that showed Dyland Klebold and Eric Harris looking very much like typical American teenagers themselves, and there is no indication of what lies beneath. Nothing in the pictures to suggest that these kids were monstrous, that they were capable of gunning down their classmates and teachers in one of the most infamous school shootings in history.
Stern acquitted himself very well, and I think the magazine cover challenges us to do something that we have gotten away from. it provokes us to think beyond our preconceptions and prejudices, to see Tsarnaev in a different light. Prior to the bombing, this was supposed to be a very normal kid. He was a jock who liked basketball. he was well-liked. Nobody who knew him believed that he was capable of such a horrific act.
So, seeing a picture like this, we can delve deeper, and ask how a good-looking, young kid like this, who should be thinking about basketball and girls and his future, instead turned to terrorism. How was he capable of ruining so many lives in such a cold-blooded manner?
Isn't that what good journalism is supposed to do? An investigative report that is supposed to challenge us, to make us think deeper about an issue, is exactly what we do not have enough of, particularly in this country. I never understood why people were so dismissive of any effort to portray Tsarnaev, or the other Tsarnaevs of the world, as anything but the monsters that they wound up being. After all, is it not also glamorizing Nazism when we show the swastika, or images of prominent Nazis, particularly Hitler, in their glory days, knowing ultimately what they were, what they did, and what they were capable of, in hindsight? We still show such things, but people do not have such a problem with that, it seems.
It makes me wonder why.
In any case, this was a very interesting and thought-provoking debate in it's own right, and you can find the link to it below, if you want to investigate it for yourself. Also, here is a picture of the controversial Rolling Stone cover:
FEATURED Rolling Stone's cover controversy Monday, July 22, 2013 | Categories
http://www.cbc.ca/q/#igImgId_76631
Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman
George Zimmerman has a lot to celebrate right now, doesn't he? He was found not guilty of murder, and now, the latest news is that he has come out of hiding to save the day following a truck crash.
Now, I'm not sure, but the timing here seems a little bit weird. It sounds like a set up, an attempt to change his image. Maybe I'm wrong, of course. Maybe the guy is truly a hero. But still, really just days after making such news, and then with the protests and the popular portrayal of the man as a racist redneck, the guy just happens to be responsible for a truly heroic and inspiring act? The same guy who refused to retreat and followed a guy that was half his size, after specifically being told not to by the authorities, and then winds up killing a kid?
Although I have a subscription to RS magazine and received the issue in question several days ago, I admittedly haven't yet read the article about Tsarnaev. I would however certainly second what you seem to be saying: there's nothing wrong with depicting him in a more nuanced way than most people in the media have done. Acknowledging that he doesn't fit our collective mental image of what a terrorist looks like and refraining from compensating for that by Photoshopping devil horns onto the side of his head isn't tantamount to endorsing or trivializing the horror of what he did. As a matter of fact it seems to me that to suggest otherwise is to insult the intelligence of the readers. I say this because that position is centered on the assumption that we need to see Tsarnaev demonized (literally and/or figuratively) and to have every paragraph preceded by a refutation of his ideology in order to know how we feel about what happened. If we're going to have that much contempt towards (and that little faith in) the public, we might as well have the sportscasters and weather forecasters loudly booing in the background while the news anchors read from their teleprompters. You know - lest we're lead astray...
ReplyDeleteIt's just tiring, how everyone automatically assumes that when someone takes a slightly different approach to these things, they are somehow seen as terrorist sympathizers. Rolling Stone may be viewed by some (like those in the Tea Party)as a liberal rag, but it is hardly a revolutionary magazine, or anything. I have not read the article yet myself, yet have heard that it is very good. And the picture that is on the cover has proven provocative and stirred up debate, which makes people think. That was the intent, I think. It's just unfortunate that the general debate is limited by what is lacking, which is the honesty and, yes, the bravery to examine these things with a more careful eye, to try and understand how a good-looking, young boy like this could do such a horrible act and, in the process, effectively ruin his own life in the process. He will either get the death penalty or, more likely, I think, spend the rest of his very long years rotting in a jail cell. It seems to me we have an obligation to try and understand why, to try and understand this thing more fully. If we don't understand history, we are indeed condemned to repeat it.
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