#the loss of identity and control... the subservience......

[mariacallous]

"If you can't take care of me while I'm alive, you have made me dead anyway," Amy says. "Nick destroyed and rejected the real me a piece at a time - you're too serious, Amy, you're too uptight, Amy, you overthink things, you analyze too much, you're no fun anymore, you make me feel useless, Amy, you make me feel bad, Amy. He took away chunks of me with blasé swipes: my independence, my pride, my esteem...He killed my soul, which should be a crime. Actually, it is a crime. According to me, at least."

Amy is, admittedly, a monster. But she's right that there's more than one way to kill your wife. Beyond the spectacular violence of shootings and stranglings and wives thrown in rivers, there is the daily, grinding violence of subservience and loss of self - which, like those more visible attacks, is a built-in part of the system. To this day, women are expected to give up more of themselves in marriage than men are; to change our names, change our goals, to give up our homes or careers or autonomy or our very identities. Like the protagonist of Rebecca, we are still expected to be "Mrs. [Whoever]" and no one else. The stories contemporary women tell about marriage are documents of a fractured consciousness; torn between the complicated, thinking people they are and the wives they're supposed to be, between the marriages they have and the capital-M Marriage that is still the cultural ideal. At the points where autonomy and personhood bump up against the edges of wifeliness, monsters arise.

But those monsters are only reflections of a deeper powerlessness, impractical revenge fantasies against a system too huge and old and powerful for even the most monstrous woman to defeat. Despite all the work we've done to reform it, the bones of marriage are not romantic. As originally intended, a wife is just a woman who's been brought under male control, and marriage is just the process by which men make wives out of women; an institution built, like Bluebeard's bloody chamber, to make girls disappear.

Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Feminine Power by Jude Doyle

[demivrg]

Ultima as a 'Mother' Figure

Ultima used their powers to create humanity, imbuing them with life. They birthed the original humans that eventually repeated the same mistakes as Ultima's species- Relying on near identical magic technology. The Fallen warred against God and their civilization was destroyed, but the side-effect of using magic continued to plague humanity in the form of Dominants and Bearers who suffer the Blight.

When Clive and Joshua confront Ultima at the site of it's abandoned, ashen husk does Ultima mention that humanity was 'nurtured and fed' by them. They also make it a point to dig at Clive's childhood neglect at the hands of Anabella, pointing out that she should have shown Clive the same maternal attentions that Ultima believes they performed.

Maybe the devs included Ultima having these moments of comparing themself to a mother/providing 'their Mythos' and people like Barnabas with the maternal protection and care just because it's fucking creepy, but I can't help but also see Ultima as a bad parental figure trying to control their own children.

Parents have children for various reasons: to leave behind a part of themselves, animal instinct & survival, to better the world with a person who embodies their values that they want to instill. Ultima expects subservience for parenting humanity like that's just what's owed to them for having the 'benevolence' to care for the things that they create. True love is selfless, not a form of currency to be repaid or a tool used to control and manipulate others to your will- Clive's so called 'anime power of friendship' is just another example of the narrative showing how important selfless love and interpersonal bonds are in life, which are values that any parent should perform towards their children. Instead, Ultima (and Anabella) turn their children into vehicles for their own desires or to rectify personal failures they experienced in their own lifetime and try to control everything about their childrens' actions.

I've noticed the fandom making a lot of negative comments about Ultima and the theme of Final Fantasy XVI as "God killed by the anime power of friendship" trope, but I don't believe this is the theme of the game. The theme is about life and what constitutes as living, I think Clive's last conversation with Ultima conveys this in a really obvious fashion. Ultima and humanity both fight to preserve their own lives, but Ultima cannot accept that fear and suffering are intrinsic to the quality of life- One cannot experience joy and fulfillment without suffering and loss. One cannot fully or truly live without the knowledge of death.

Ultima also fears death itself and they fear the lack of control and perfection they believe themselves to embody, which is why they abandon humankind. It wasn't just that the Fallen tried to fight their creator, it was a reflection of Ultima's own flaws- Their heavy reliance on magic. Even as magic is factually the source of the Blight, Ultima cannot conceive of a world without it's use, they STILL rely on magic to make their vision of paradise come to fruition rather than abandon it as a tool the way Clive eventually does. Ultima can be seen as an arrogant being because they think their use of magic will be somehow different than the previous attempts of using it's powers, that their use of magic is the power that is necessary to create a world without fear, death, or loss/suffering.

In a weird way, I think that Ultima earnestly wanted to create a paradise. The issue is that they saw humans as simple vehicles to carry our their plan when they actually gave birth to something unique and worthy- That in the process of creation, left a bit of their own divinity inside of humanity itself and gave them the same potential they believe their species solely possessed.

Anyway, TL;DR- I feel like Ultima as provider/mother figure was very intentional and not just a one-off addition? It would have been interesting if they'd leaned on it even harder, but alas.

[theabstruseanon]

More wuvvy thoughts but the "I want whats best for you" is the more insidious part of wuvvy's sicko mode for sure and I think that it ties into her complicated reality of being left behind. Rue was someone defined by their role as MoC (out of personal fulfilment but also for acceptance), and while the role placed undue burden on them, it was something they took immense pride in. Wuvvy has faithfully been a part of rue's identity and pride as MoC, supporting them unconditionally, protecting them when it called for that. But now that rue is no longer interested in that role, they're willingly shedding that mantle for much deserved self fulfilment, while wuvvy gets left behind. Wuvvy is a part of rue's old life, and as far as rue has indicated, has no part in their new life. The most uncharitable interpretation of her line is one of manipulation, but the way I see it it's a heartbreak and spiralling loss of personal control that comes with change, even if that change is necessary. Esp with something as central to BOTH their identities as rue being the MoC (both cause rue has never denied wuvvy's subservience either. If anything, they've taken it for granted).

I've said before in notes that I think reading wuvvy's actions as only being jealousy is too shallow. I also don't think that this is one of those unrequited loves where the angst comes from it not being reciprocated cause i haven't seen indication that that's something central to wuvvy's fulfilment (hoping aabria doesn't honk my clown nose LOL). Wuvvy willingly left her court as champion to be at rue's side as a glorified errand girl - because she loves rue and what rue stands for and rue's vision and passion and love and personhood. And in all this time she's never expressed a strong need for "reciprocated (same) 'love'", just being with rue was enough. Her devotion was enough, rue knowing her, seeing her, acknowledging her devotion (her heart) was enough - she basically expressed that this ep.

The angst comes from the depth of misunderstanding between rue and wuvvy. That rue has been with wuvvy for so long and still understands nothing about her. This esp kills me bc (looks at the camera in Chinese) to understand someone is to love someone. Hell, so much of the rue and hob romance is built on "you understand me" like do u see the parallels do u see what I see. That they'd say you're my confidante and then say "I've never truly been myself in front of anyone before". That they'd pull them aside and ask them "what fulfills you?" and wuvvy's heart breaks again. And added on with how little rue is communicating to wuvvy, there has been no assurance, no plans for their (plural their) futures, no trust to deliver the first letter, then suddenly a second as if the first didn't happen, and wuvvy is not taking it well. And to wuvvy, whom rue confides in but like.... Truly hasn't been lately, there's no process or explanation of such a huge decision. For all wuvvy knows hob fuckin bewitched rue for politics like. FOR A MAN THEY JUST MET. Also??? Rue no longer being MoC means that wuvvy no longer gets to be with rue, and as far as wuvvy understands, rue is all too happy to leave her behind. Simple and final as that.

anyways I support womens' wrongs. Especially when the person you've devoted yourself to (and has accepted your devotion while [not to sound mean but it is true] it's been convenient for them) claims to love you (and worst of all truly did love you in whatever way they did) but shatters your trust on a whim with no true apology then takes you to a ball in matching clothes because you're their little servant but you're not really their friend (and even this is complicated by wuvvy's willing subservience to rue) and maybe this wouldn't break your heart as much if they didn't say 'i love you' too.

[frankendeers]

“I am Made of Love and It’s Stronger than You”: Steven Universe and Alternative Models of Queer Resistance in Science-Fiction.

I needed to motivate myself because I have been working on this for ages - so here, have the prospectus to my M.A thesis. Maybe you’re interested in talking about it, or reading more as the thesis is being developed?

How do we resist oppression? Even before the emergence of queer theory as an academic discipline, authors and activists alike have wondered how the persistent structures of hegemonic discourse can be opposed. Aside from important endeavours to organise and dismantle political ideology and its effect on the material world, fiction is slowly recognised as a possible tool for queer resistance. By representing marginalised groups and opening discussions about different kinds of subjectivity, fiction provides new frameworks for dreaming queer revolution. Stressing the importance of conjuring imaginative scenarios to explore societal issues, it is no surprise that the genre of Science-Fiction has risen to the challenge. Its visions of both utopian and dystopian futures speculate upon how issues of marginalisation might be dealt with going forward and is therefore meaningfully engaging with the Other.

A particularly interesting outlet for social commentary is constituted in the figure of the alien. By taking the concept of the outsider to its most literal meaning, Science Fiction is able to extricate itself from reality and use imaginary cultures to draw parallels to our own world. In some texts, the alien is meant to incite the Freudian concept of the uncanny. The relative proximity to humanity is here meant to signify cultural lines and warn the audience against transgression. In other works, the distance between human and alien is reduced further, until a certain level of identification with the strange Other is reached. This strategy is most often employed to show the alien as a bringer of progress and incite positive change in how the audience sees what it cannot understand. Due to the multiplicity of the alien’s symbolic meaning, utilising the concept to interrogate the nature of gender identity and sexual desire has been proven quite fruitful. From feminist utopias where all men go extinct to allegories of same-sex relationships, extra-terrestrial characters are useful metaphors to discern how we view queerness. More than this, the ways in which queerness is constituted in alien cultures, technologies and biologies can be utilised to point towards strategies to free marginalised groups from oppression. One recent work of Science Fiction stands out in its attempt to interrogate the nature of queerness and rebellion by employing the alien as a symbol for human society: The Cartoon Network’s children’s program Steven Universe. My paper will examine how Steven Universe reflects on queerness through alien characters and, furthermore, offers a unique model of radical empathy as a viable way to resist oppressive structures.

Steven Universe has proven to be undeniably relevant to queer discourse. The show received the Media Award for Outstanding Kids and Family Programming by the GLAAD Organisation (Gay and Lesbian Association against Defamation) in 2019 and wrote history by depicting the first on-screen queer kiss in a children’s animated program. Steven Universe focusses on its titular character, Steven, a young alien/human hybrid who learns to control his supernatural powers under the guidance of his four alien surrogate mothers: Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl. The heart of the show is constituted in Steven’s engagement with the society, biology and history of his alien heritage, an extra-terrestrial species called the Gems. Throughout the show, the plot reveals a legacy of oppression and war, with the gem’s homeworld representing imperial and fascist ideology against which his late mother has rebelled. As the story continues, Steven must realise that the ancient war his mother battled against her home planet merely resulted in a stand-still and that it is his duty to find ways for resistance.

In order to see how Steven Universe uses the alien in relation to queer identity, my paper will first reflect on how queerness is represented within the show. Although the nature of queerness is notoriously hard to articulate, it will be necessary to outline the terminology and specify how the concept is used for my specific purpose. Queerness defines itself exactly through its breaking of boundaries and blurring of conventional lines, it pertains -most commonly- to matters of sexuality, identity, gender and desire: “Broadly speaking, queer describes those gestures or analytical models which dramatize incoherencies in the allegedly stable relations between chromosomal sex, gender and sexual desire. Resisting that model or stability –which claims heterosexuality as its origin, when it is more properly its effect –queer focuses on mismatches between sex, gender and desire.” (Jagose 3). In other words, I will use queerness as a direct opposition to the hegemonic discourse, which demands stable and unchanging categories of gender, sexuality and their expressions. These demands are rooted in normative assumptions about the naturalness of heterosexuality[M3]  and rigid ideas about gender roles. Defining these boundaries, will furthermore be achieved by looking at Simone de Beavoirs The Second Sex and Judith Butler’s analysis on the performative nature of gender.

Using these definitions reveals the usefulness of Steven Universe in queer context. One outstanding detail is the fact that all gems, Steven himself excluded, are female presenting to human audiences, yet their internal gender identity remains ambiguous. Gems reproduce asexually, having no need for biological sex (or even gender) and are often even unable to grasp the concept itself. Their presentation as female is shown to be an unquestioned default, putting the dominant assumption of neutral masculinity into question. Characters like Amethyst, are shown to explore their gender on a deeper level, occasionally taking on masculine alter egos and preferring male pronouns while presenting this way. Steven himself is positioned in opposition to general notions of hegemonic masculinity. His weapons are defensive, his powers involve healing, and his design is dominated by soft shapes and the colour pink. More than that, Steven is empathetic, gentle, and shown to enjoy stereotypically feminine activities such as wearing dresses and planning weddings. His close connection to the figure of the mother queers him in more ways than one. Besides this being an unusual feature of a male-centred storyline, the asexual nature of the Gems negates his gender identity. Strangers to reproduction, the enemies mistake Steven for his mother, misgendering him and drawing direct parallels to lived experiences of transgender people. His fight against their oppressive regime is ultimately similar to the struggles of transgender people, who are fighting for recognition of their identities.

This explicit disconnection between sex and gender also means that various romances formed between main characters are visually presented as lesbian relationships, while simultaneously putting the essentialist nature of gender into question. Complex romances are put to the forefront, meant to interrogate issues of prejudice, authenticity and power relations. The character Pearl, formerly a servant of Steven’s mother, rebels against her home planet out of romantic affection for her master. The narrative presents the death of Steven’s mother as a traumatic event and invites questions of how her queer identity interacted with her liberation. On the one hand, “lesbian” affection was the cause for Pearl joining the rebellion, yet she is unable to shed her subservience to Steven’s mother. The narrative criticises her loss of self-worth, rooted in ideological indoctrination as much as romantic dependence.

Connecting multiple issues of gender and sexuality, the alien biology of the gems is infused with inherent queerness. Steven Universe’s alien race has a mechanism to question fixed identity itself: Fusion. Here, two gems perform a dancing routine to synchronise with each other until they fuse to form a new entity altogether. Most often employed as a strategy to gain strength in battle, fusion is also shown to be a deeply intimate and emotional matter. The resulting character is physically and mentally an amalgam of the two (or more Gems) who created them. In this way, fusion functions as an exploration of identity and relationships, deeply queer in matters of gender and sexual desire. One fusion particularly stands out when analysing gender fluidity: The fusion of Stevonnie comes into existence when Steven, and his best friend Connie fuse. Stevonnie is explicitly stated and shown to be nonbinary and intersex.  They are capable, relatable and even shown to be desirable in the eyes of other characters. The fact that Steven and Connie break with gender conventions by switching masculine and feminine roles, makes analysing Stevonnie all the more fruitful. Stevonnie is also far from the only nonbinary fusion of the show. Throughout the seasons, Steven fuses with multiple gems, resulting in an array of nonbinary characters of vastly different gender representations and pronouns.

The show’s revolutionary approach is reinforced by the fact that the gem’s planet, simply called Homeworld, practically operates under a fascist dictatorship. Its society is made up of different types of gems, created for distinct purposes they are meant to fulfil without question. Remarkably, Homeworld explicitly forbids fusion between two different types of gems. Overstepping this line is not only cause for scandal but punishable by death. The show presents this as a thinly veiled allegory for the oppressed nature of LGBT relationships in the real world. In relation to that, the show examines themes of queer oppression and queer resistance in the character of Garnet. Garnet is a permanently fused gem, made up of Ruby and Sapphire who chose to rebel against Homeworld. Their romantic relationship is not weakened by its metaphorical nature, as Ruby and Sapphire’s visual resemblance to women is a constant reminder of its queerness.

As the show progresses, Steven is forced to confront Homeworld and decide upon strategies for liberation. Here, the show is ambivalent towards the usage of physical force. On the one hand, the war for independence fought by the rebellion five thousand years ago, is shown to have been effective in fighting against Homeworld’s armies. However, it also wiped out nearly all the rebellious gems and has ultimately only achieved a temporary peace. Contrarily, Steven’s innate empathy and deep desire to engage with whom he opposes is presented as inciting long-lasting change. Not only pertaining to his personality, but also encoded in his alien biology, Steven has the power to feel the emotions of his enemies. As he recognises physical force as inevitable in some instances, the real shift always occurs due to him trying to understand his opponents on an emotional level. The show hereby raises the complicated question of how to consolidate liberation and a need to cease the perpetuation of violence, offering radical empathy as a possible solution. Radical empathy, as the idea to resist oppression through understanding, is negating the more masculine realm of physical fight. Using a male character to introduce this idea, is already marked as queer. Nevertheless, radical empathy is also a contested subject and it will be necessary to evaluate how Steven Universe answers to the possibility of its ineffectiveness in queer liberation discourse. For this purpose, I will employ, among others, Jack Halberstam’s theories on Queer Violence in media and Lee Edelman’s No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Both will be used to examine whether the progressive politics of Steven Universe can truly be used as an advocate for queer resistance, or if they promote liberalism and complacency.

In conclusion, my paper will examine how the concept of the alien is shown to be queer in Steven Universe, and how alien society is utilised as a metaphor for real-world queer discourse. It will further attempt to outline the different models of resistance brought forth by the show and address criticism towards its compliance with systemic injustice and accusations of demonising more violent forms of revolution.

  Bibliography: (Preliminary)

Primary Texts:

Steven Universe. Cartoon Network. 2013-2019.

Secondary Texts:

Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books 1989, c1952. Print.

Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Dunn, Eli. “Steven Universe, Fusion Magic, and the Queer Cartoon Carnivalesque.” Gender Forum: An Internet Journal of Gender Studies, vol. 56, 2016, pp. 44–57.

Edelman, Lee. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. , 2004. Print.

Jagose, Annamarie. Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York University Press, 1996. Print.

Halberstam, Judith. “Imagined Violence/Queer Violence: Representation, Rage, and Resistance.” Social Text, no. 37, 1993, pp. 187–201.

Hollinger, Veronica. “(Re)Reading Queerly: Science Fiction, Feminism, and the Defamiliarization of Gender.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 26, no. 1 [77], Mar. 1999, pp. 23–40.

Lothian, Alexis. “Feminist and Queer Science Fiction in America.” The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction, edited by Eric Carl Link and Gerry Canavan, Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 70–82.

Melzer, Patricia. Alien Constructions: Science Fiction and Feminist Thought. University of Texas Press, 2006.

Merrick, Helen. “Gender in Science Fiction.” The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 241–252.

Moore, Mandy Elizabeth "Future Visions: Queer Utopia in Steven Universe," Research on Diversity in Youth Literature: 2.1, 2019.

Pawlak, Wendy Sue. “The Spaces between: Non-Binary Representations of Gender in Twentieth-Century American Film.” Dissertation Abstracts International, vol. 73, no. 11, U of ArizonaProQuest, May 2013.

Pearson, Wendy Gay. “Queer Theory.” The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Mark Bould et al., Routledge, 2009, pp. 298–307.

Pearson, Wendy Gay. “Science Fiction and Queer Theory” Published as a book chapter in: The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction. Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn. (Eds.), 2003. Pp. 149-160.

Roqueta Fernandez, Marta “Posthumanism and the creation of racialised, queer identities and sexualities: An analysis of ‘Steven Universe’” Monográfico: Nuevas Amazonas, 2.7, 2019. Pp. 48-84.

Thomas, Misty. “‘I am a Conversation’: Media Literacy, Queer Pedagogy, and Steven Universe in College Curriculum”. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 6.3, 2019.

Valentin, Al. “Using the Animator’s Tools to Dismantle the Master’s House? Gender, Race, Sexuality and Disability in Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time and Steven Universe.” Buffy to Batgirl: Essays on Female Power, Evolving Femininity and Gender Roles in Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Julie M. Still et al., McFarland & Company Publishing, 2019, pp. 175–215.

[valorandheart]

Animal Personality

Sheep!

Small to average size

Conservative

Supportive

Punctual

Servile

Boring

The affable and meek nature of the sheep personality evokes some derision from carnivores, but a grudging respect from its fellow herbivores. Sheep have no real defense mechanisms other than the safety of numbers, so they huddle in the suburbs with like-minded individuals, pooling resources and raising families. They are religious creatures, seeking comfort in the collective reassurance of the church where they are quite content to be labeled as flock. When confronted by obstacles, they hate to make decisions - deferring instead to their partners or their religious leaders. While this may help the sheep maintain a superficial sense of well being, it leads to the loss of identity that typifies the sheep persona.

Love & Friendship

Sheep are content to stand in the shadow of their mates and are willing to make sacrifices for the long-term good of the relationship. By living on the deferred happiness plan, they consider boredom and subservience to be necessary evils in a successful relationship.

When problems crop up in their relationships, sheep tend to assume the role of victim and have trouble with confronting their partners directly. However, from their mate's point of view, the sheep is a wonderfully compliant partner whose quiet loyalty and sturdy body make for some wild and wooly nights.

Often attracted to the dog personality -- probably because of its commanding voice and leadership skills -- the sheep's willingness to compromise its sense of tranquility for the powerful benefit of being dominated by the dog, results in a bittersweet alliance. But ultimately this match is ill fated. The over-controlling nature of the dog eventually exhausts the poor sheep, and the relationship simply collapses.

While it might have the occasional affair with a carnivore, the sheep's compulsive need to avoid conflict makes it perfect for a relationship with its second cousin the mountain goat. Liaisons with deer and prairie dogs are particularly comfortable, as is the bouncy cottontail whose breeding ability satisfies the sheep's most powerful emotional needs.

tagged: @lachalaine

tagging: @circusglass @feralandfair @dissimulxte @intothewildsea @theycallmekaibara @instabilitat @dckv  @rcguna and everyone else

[imsymbolicobjects]

Brother Tarp’s Leg Chain

In Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison emphasizes the possibility for freedom from oppression through the crucial symbol of Brother Tarp’s Leg Chain. Concerned about the intentions and perceptions of the other members of the Brotherhood due to the anonymous letter, the narrator seeks assurance and consultancy from Brother Tarp, a fellow Black member of the Brotherhood. During their conversation, Brother Tarp reveals to the narrator that he was chained for “‘Nineteen years, six months and two days”’ because he said “‘no to a man who wanted to take something from [him]”’(Ellison 318). The confession from Brother Tarp ties back to the words of the narrator’s grandfather. As a part of his last words, his grandfather had advised the narrator to “overcome ‘em with yeses” (Ellison 14) while referencing the white men. Brother Tarp’s disclosure about being chained for simply saying “no” highlights the significance of the grandfather’s words. Saying “yes” was not simply a method of appeasing the white men, but it was rather a method of saving yourself from the destruction of life and pain. Still, the narrator solely experienced the loss of identity by showing acceptance to the orders of the white men around him. Brother Tarp’s revelation sheds light on the severity of punishment Black men faced for a simple act of defiance. Racism and oppression perpetuated these punishments because it became a crime to even say something as simple as “no” to a white man. Finally, Brother Tarp explains that he was able to escape by breaking the chain and leaving. The action of breaking the chain is symbolic for Black men that defied societal expectations and refused to accept their fate as being inferior to white men. By breaking the chain, Brother Tarp was breaking his cycle of oppression that had continued for nineteen years. Brother Tarp passing his broken chain to the narrator is his hope that the narrator also learns to seek for freedom and break free from his subservient role. In the process of catering to the needs and desires of the Brotherhood, the narrator was losing his identity. The broken leg chain link is symbolic of his possibility to obtain freedom and regain control of his identity. Receiving this chain link takes the narrator back to the link he saw on Dr. Bledsoe’s desk. This parallelism between the links in the novel is significant because it portrays two contrasting symbols. Whereas Dr. Bledsoe’s link was smooth and seemingly untouched, Brother Tarp’s “bore the marks of haste and violence” (Ellison 319). Dr. Bledsoe’s shackle is superficial as he has no past experiences to display his struggle and fight against oppression. In fact, he continues to preach the ideas of acceptance and serving the white men. This mimics the Brotherhood because they put on a facade that they know the realities of the Black experience when they never faced the true oppression. On the other hand, the twisted, rusted nature of Brother Tarp’s link symbolizes his twisted past and the real cruelty he was subjected to. Thus, his link symbolizes the potential to break free and hope to seek freedom from the oppression that racism brings.

More info on chain gangs: 

https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/chain-gangs/

-Saanvikha Saravanan

[courtneybreakingboundaries]

Shirin Neshat

Shirin Neshat is a video and installation artist who explores the political and social conditions of Iranian and Muslim life in her works, particularly focusing on women and feminist issues. Neshat was born in Qazvin in Iran, and left the country to study in the United States. when she returned to her home country in 1990, she found it barley recognisable from the Iran before the 1979 Revolution, a shocking experience that incited the meditations on memory, loss, and contemporary life in Iran that are central to her work.

Her ‘Woman of Allah’ series, created in the mid-1990s, introduced the hallmark themes of her pieces through which she examines conditions of male, female, public, private, religious, political, and secular identities in both Iranian and Western culture. Shirin Neshat photographic series ‘Women of Allah’ examines the complexities of women’s identities in the midst of a changing culture landscape in the middle east - both through the lens of Western representation of Muslim women, and through the more intimate subject of personal and religious conviction. 

Shirin Neshat, ‘Rebellious Silence’, Women of Allah series.

While the composition - defined by the hard edge of her black chador against the bright white background - appears sparse, measured and symmetrical, the split created by the weapon implies a more violent rupture or psychic fragmentation, a single subject, it suggests, might be host to internal contradictions alongside binaries such as tradition and modernity, East and West, beauty and violence. In the artists own words, “every image, every woman’s submissive gaze, suggests a far more complex and paradoxical reality behind the surface”.

One of the most visual signs of culture change in Iran has been the requirement for all women to wear the veil in public. While many Muslim women find this practice empowering and affirmative of their religious identities, the veil has been coded by Western eyes as a sign of Islam’s oppression of women. The opposition is made more clear, perhaps, when one considers the simultaneity of the Islamic Revolution with women’s liberation movements in the U.S. and Europe, both developing throughout the 1970s. Neshat decided to explore this fraught symbol in her art as a way to reconcile her own conflicting feelings. In ‘Women of Allah’, initiated shortly after her return to Iran in 1991, the veil functions as both symbol of freedom and repression.

The veil is intended to protect women’s bodies from becoming the sexualized object of the male gaze, but it also protects women from being seen at all. The “gaze” in this context becomes a charged signifier of sexuality, sin, shame, and power. Neshat is cognizant of feminists theories that explain how the “male gaze” is normalised in visual and popular culture: Women’s bodies are commonly paraded as objects of desire in advertising or film, available to be looked at without consequence. Many feminist artists have used the action of “gazing back” as a means to free the female body from objectification. The gaze, here, might also reflect exotic fantasies of the East. In Orientalist painting of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for instance, Eastern women are often depicted nude, surrounded by richly coloured and pattern textiles and decorations; women are envisaged amongst other beautiful objects that can be possessed. In Neshat’s images, women return the gaze, breaking free from centuries of subservience to male or European desires.

Shirin Neshat, 'Faceless' Women of Allah

Most of the subjects in the series are photographed holding a gun, sometimes passively, as in Rebellious Silence, and sometimes threateningly, with the muzzle pointed directly towards the camera lens. With the complex ideas of the “gaze” in mind, we might reflect on the double meaning of the word “shoot,” and consider that the camera—especially during the colonial era—was used to violate women’s bodies. The gun, aside from its obvious references to control, also represents religious martyrdom, a subject about which the artist feels ambivalently, as an outsider to Iranian revolutionary culture.

The Iranian Green Movement or Green Wave of Iran also referred to the Persian Awakening or Persian Spring by the western media, refers to a political movement that arose after the 2009 Iranian presidential election, in which protesters demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office. Green was initially used as the symbol of Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign, but after the election it became the symbol of unity and hope for those asking for annulment of what they regarded as a fraudulent election. Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi are recognized as political leaders of the Green Movement. Hossein-Ali Montazeri was also mentioned as spiritual leader of the movement.

https://www.ted.com/talks/shirin_neshat_art_in_exile/up-next?language=en

[theblipmagazine]

Identity & Modernity in The Third Man

In order to evaluate how identity is framed by Modernity and the urban context in The Third Man (directed by Carol Reed 1949) we must first understand what is meant by the term Modernity.

Modernity essentially refers to all that is “new” or a modern improvement, in terms of a social revolution which occurred around the 17th Century in Europe. In Marshall Bergman’s book, ‘All that is solid melts into air: The experience of Modernity’, he explains that “To be modern is to live a life of paradox and contradiction. It is to be overpowered by the immense bureaucratic organizations that have the power to control and often destroy all communities, values, lives, and yet to be undeterred in our determination to face these forces, to fight and change their world and make it our own. It is to be both revolutionary and conservative: alive to new possibilities for experience and adventure, frightened by the nihilistic depths to which so many modern adventures lead” (All that is solid melts into air: the experience of modernity-By Marshall Berman… Verso, 1983)

Modernity highlights the changes throughout society, from industrial and technological advances to the new avant guarde art movements that were beginning to challenge the social constraints of modern life; communication was sent into overdrive with the inventions of photography, film and later television. Social Theorists such as John B. Goodman embrace modernity as a positive movement “If man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, as Geertz once remarked, then communication media are spinning wheels in the modern world and, in using these media, human beings are fabricating the webs of significance for themselves.” (Thompson, John B. The Media and Modernity 1995 Blackwell Publishers)

Modernity also brought us bureaucracy and the nation- state which enables nations to not only control economies but allows a form of national identity and social understanding.

Modernity focuses predominately on city life. This is because, whilst cities are not new, it is a modern reality that the majority of people live and work in them. Bustling metropolitan cultures were therefore the main fascinations for modernist artists and thinkers alike.

Film noir is a genre that is particularly appropriate for this question. This is because the genre has always been notorious for being particularly interested in modernity; it is a genre that gives the audience a darker more pessimistic view of a time in America that was somewhat more positive, economically and culturally. In particular, modernity is shown through the urban context, the winding and shady streets of the urban landscape, which reflect the shady inhabitants of the film noir city. It also gives us more obvious references to modernity, particularly by using modern (within the films historical context) transport, the romanticised use of trains or old Morris-Minor type cars.

Focussing on post-war America the genre film noir appears particularly transfixed on using a sometimes sinister cityscape, which helps to create an aura of mystique, nostalgia, and most importantly claustrophobia. Edward Dimendberg sums up the alienation of the protagonists in film noir and explains that such claustrophobic emotions can be externalised through the settings of film noir.

“Nostalgia and longing for older urban forms combined with fear of new alienating urban realities pervade film noir. The loss of public space, the homogenization of everyday life, the intensification of surveillance, and the eradication of older neighbourhood by urban renewal and redevelopment projects are seldom absent from these films. Thus, it is hardly surprising that the movement of protagonists from urban centre to periphery is a pervasive spatial trope. Unlike the contemporaneous conquests of the big sky and open frontier by characters in the film genre of the western, the protagonists in film noir appear cursed by an inability to dwell comfortably anywhere” (Dimendberg, E, Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity Harvard University Press 2004)

I have chosen to write about The Third Man because I have found it to be a particularly interesting film from the film noir genre. This is because, while it follows all of the general rules of the genre, such as the shadowy lighting, the story of an unlikely hero, it is not a typical film noir being that it is not set in post war America. Instead, the film follows an American man on his journey to post war Vienna, a city savaged by the war not only physically, but in the unusual bureaucratic politics enforced as well. The gothic style city is torn up, quartered, with mostly Austrians not allowed in to the specific quarters, and passports needed for any inhabitants that wish to live in different quarters, highlighted by the character of Anna, originally Czech but who used a forged passport to escape the Russian quarter of the city. The bureaucracy of the film is often emphasised within the film as Anna is caught out by the police with regards to the forged passport. As well as this, the Viennese locals are left looking somehow subservient to the other nationals that have moved into the city as a result of the war. They are often seen serving the other nationalities, as porters, taxi drivers and musicians in restaurants and are seen in many shots as neighbours “peering” through windows, watching the seemingly chaotic lives of the protagonists that are not native.

The Third Man also literally encapsulates itself with an artistic style that is definitive with Modernity, that which is the avant guarde style of abstract expressionism. Abstract expressionism is a style that developed in the 1940’s but originally derived from German Expressionism in the 1920’s, and was a style that was very rebellious in the fact that it challenged the conventions of the art world and also of its predecessor, surrealism.

A style that was often thought to be nihilistic, there is little wonder why abstract expressionism was chosen stylistically to be incorporated into the cinematography, as it incorporates the overall isolation and alienation that film noir stands for. The film has some very deliberate nihilistic undertones to it, which is why the city seems so unforgiving and lonely. Nihilism is brought in to the spotlight through the script in the scene in the Ferris wheel, when Harry Lime says: “Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't. Why should we? They talk about the people and the proletariat, I talk about the suckers and the mugs - it's the same thing. They have their five-year plans, so have I.” and Holly Martins replies: “You used to believe in God.”

The Third Man has a balance of chaos and order as an underlying story throughout the film. There is the chaos of the war stricken city, buildings damaged and demolished, the chaos of Holly Martin’s story, arriving in a faraway country from America to see his friend, only to find he had died not long before, the winding unlevelled structure of the streets of Vienna, but order is also enforced by way of the police rule, the political restrictions inflicted on the inhabitants, the strict composition of every shot within the film, and the diagonal and strict shards of light and shadow that resonate throughout the frames. This is reminiscent of the abstract expressionist art that was being produced at the time, metaphorically from the chaotic paint spattered works like Jackson Pollock’s “No. 5 1948” to the stricter, geometric works of the artist Mondrian, emphasising the cinematographic theme of using strict lines throughout the film.

From literally the opening credits, the film opens with a geometric shot of close up of the strings on a musical instrument, a ‘zither’, a popular and traditional Austrian instrument, immediately hinting about the ambiguous nationality of the film or the protagonists within it. The close up of the strings set the audience up immediately for this style of composition in the shots, a particular style which resonates the whole way through the film, including the famous scene on the Ferris wheel, where the framing appears rather graphic- like, with stark diagonal lines of the wheel slicing and the background and foreground around the protagonists. It is also echoed through shots on the bridge and the beautiful shots on the staircase when Holly Martins first arrives in Vienna.

Perhaps the use of these compositions is to give us a sense of order, and structure, amongst the chaos that Vienna has found itself in. Half of the shots are exactly the opposite, they are tilted, a lot of the shots are stationary with the camera completely immobile, sometimes obscurely cropping the protagonists’ faces, which gives the audience a disorientated disposition, the feeling of not belonging and unease. An example of this is when Holly Martins first introduces himself to Anna, the framing of the doorway is at a very obscure angle, and the whole image appears rather tilted.

This is typical to the genre, as throughout film noir it is usually vital to the composition of the framing that the camera is stationary and the characters move throughout the space of the city, rather than the camera moving and actually following the characters around the space, emphasising the city, the urban. As the city has been savaged by war, crime thrives which is typical to the film noir genre. In The Third Man, it is the fact that there is a booming black- market (of which Harry Lime we find out is involved with) which is another example of how the film emphasises the ‘urban’ theme.

One of the most interesting aspects of The Third Man is the spectators gaze throughout the film. There is an increasing sense of unease in Vienna, not only because it has been hit extremely hard by the war, but because it feels increasingly like a city that doesn’t belong to its native inhabitants, another example of the modern beaurocracy that has been forced upon the capital.

Viennese people in the beginning of the film are seen not being allowed into one of the military quarters of the city. Throughout the film there are constant little looks from behind shutters or through gates, which Holly is unaware of. The audience is reduced to watching a race watch different races patrol the streets of their city, as outsiders that no longer belong in their rightful home. Holly is oblivious to the fact that while he is observing a foreign city, it seems the city itself is characterised and is also observing him, the sporadic shots from cranes help to create an uncomfortable sense of voyeurism. The eeriness of the situation is highlighted, because, although he does not realise that he is actual fact being watched by so many people, he finally gives the audience and indication that he can sense their presence, when he proclaims that he will soon return home to the United States : ‘It’s what you always wanted, all of you!”

In conclusion, identity is framed by modernity in many ways in the urban context of The Third Man. The visual references throughout the film almost personifies the city itself as an important protagonist within the film. The set gives us indications, not only to the historical and urban context of the film but also references in to the shady characters that thrive amongst the cities where film noir is set.

The Third Man uses strict, geometric artistic compositions in order to emphasise the modernity of the film. Through a cleverly interlaced narrative, the film also hints at modernity and the changing politics of the lives of Vienna’s inhabitants the racial segregation, alienation, and claustrophobia, which is what film noir as a genre is notorious for.

-The Blip

[racingtoaredlight]

Opening Bell: April 20, 2018

First, some news…

After he was fired by President Donald Trump, now former FBI Director James Comey revealed that he had recorded several in-person and phone conversations which he had with the president through a series of typed memos based on contemporaneous notes he made during this conversations. Comey has testified to Congress as to the contents of the memos and has mentioned them in his newly released memoir, for which he is currently on a national book tour. Comey turned his memos into the Justice Department which, through Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, had permitted some members of Congress to review the memos, so long as they kept confidential their contents. Then, in recent weeks, members of the House Judiciary Committee began to publicly demand that the Justice Department turn over all of the memos. Rosenstein demurred despite rumors that the White House might use such a move as a reason to fire Rosenstein and place the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller III under greater control within the Executive Branch. This week, the Justice Department agreed to release the memos to Congress, and then within minutes of doing so last night, they were promptly leaked to the Associated Press. At first glance, the memos largely seem to confirm Comey’s previous statements and characterizations of his interactions with the president, and the former FBI Director probably appreciates the additional attention while he markets his book.

In another unexpected turn of events, former New York Mayor and Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani announced that he was joining the president’s legal team. Cryptically, when asked about this, Giuliani, who has not been in a courtroom in nearly a quarter-century, said that he was joining Trump’s other lawyers in an attempt to “negotiate an end to the Mueller investigation.” Neither Rod Rosenstein nor Robert Mueller have indicated any desire to end the probe in exchange for anything, other than the ability to continue until no more evidence and facts are left to be uncovered. Because of this, it is not clear what Giuliani’s statement actually means. And moreover, Giuliani, who was a prominent federal prosecutor who took down several mob bosses in the 1980s, would be aware that criminal investigations do not “end” usually by negotiation. This statement feels almost like one made by Trump which Giuliani then parroted, for whatever reason. It is also uncertain what service Giuliani would provide, as he has not actively practiced law—his role at the firm Fulbright and Giuliani was been more in management and as a name partner—since he became Mayor of New York in 1993. It is possible that Giuliani could be an advisor on how federal investigations occur, but, again, he has not actually tried a federal case since Seinfeld was in its fourth season. All in all, this was a very curious addition to Trump’s team of lawyers.

 In what would have been big news but for the above stories, the FBI’s Inspector General made a criminal referral to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia regarding former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. McCabe, who has been at the center of a firestorm for how he allegedly mishandled supervision of the FBI’s investigation into then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions one day before he was to qualify for his federal pension. McCabe allegedly misled FBI agents inquiring into his handling of the Clinton investigation and the Inspector General’s report states several times that McCabe was less than candid in answering several questions, something which falls slightly short of lying to the FBI; lying to a federal agent is a felony. Inspector Generals function as the legal watchdogs for their respective government agencies. They are non-partisan, non-political appointments which usually go to career government lawyers. If the U.S. Attorney for D.C. decides to prosecute McCabe, it is possible that one of the witnesses could be his former boss, James Comey.

 And now for some features:

 Marie Colvin was a renowned, well-regarded war reporter who traveled the world from one conflict zone to another. Along the way, she always reported from near the center of action and often risked life and limb; in 2001 while reporting on the Sri Lankan civil war, an RPG exploded near her, causing the loss of her left eye. Colvin recovered and returned to reporting on war zones, now sporting a black eye patch. In the fall of 2012, as the Syrian civil war still in its early stages, Colvin and her French photographer were sitting in a rebel controlled enclave of Homs, Syria, getting ready to depart a renegade broadcast center which western news outlets used to report from on the fighting and destruction in Homs. Before Colvin could leave, Syrian artillery rounds began falling on the broadcast center, causing severe damage. Colvin and her photographer were killed, while several other journalists were wounded. Tellingly, the artillery rounds had fallen near the center, but were then walked back on successive shots until the building itself was hit several times; the artillery was being guided by a forward observer, indicating that the Syrian Army had located the broadcast center and perhaps knew that several western journalist, including Colvin who had filed a report by Skype from there the previous evening, would still be present. This story looks at how the Syrian military and intelligence were able to use surveillance technology acquired before the civil war to track down and kill Marie Colvin.

Alexis de Tocqueville, after the Marquis de Lafayette, is perhaps the most celebrated Frenchman in American political, literary, and social history. While Lafayette provided his expertise during the Revolution, helping to separate the states from their erstwhile colonial masters in Britain, Tocqueville’s contribution to America came decades later, when the nation had firmly established itself and developed a unique identity, untainted by any vestiges of Britishness. After taking a grand tour of the United States, Tocqueville published Democracy in America in 1835, and it proved an immediate best-seller and received critical praise. But, as with most books, it was quickly forgotten in France. Its popularity perpetuated in the United States until the horrors of the Civil War undermined Tocqueville’s sunny appreciation for the American form of governance and the society which supported it. Tocqueville was revived in the mid-20th century in the United States and Democracy in America is on the reading list of pretty much every American Political Theory or Modern Political Theory class taught in colleges today. For his praise of mid-19th century America, Tocqueville is widely lauded still in the States, but as this piece points out, Tocqueville’s admiration of America included its use of slaves, and he sought to establish a socio-economic political system similar to the American South in northern Africa during France’s military campaigns in Algeria. In short, Alexis de Tocqueville is not quite what he is made out to be by 21st century political academics and observers.

In this country, dinner and supper are often used to refer to the same meal in some regions, while in others those area distinct meals. This distinction seems to have arrived in this nation from our European forebears, but whatever one may call the meal served at the end of the day, it is undoubtedly for most Americans the primary meal of the day. It seems, however, that in France, dinner, though the primary meal of the day, was served midday. The pomp and circumstance of this meal evolved greatly from the time of Charlemagne, who apparently preferred that his soldiers wait to eat until after battle, through the Bourbon Kings, through a period of decline during the Revolution, and finally becoming a multi-part affair associated with luxury in the home of the French Foreign Minister in the 1830s, Charles de Talleyrand. This is a short history of the French art of dining, in which it is possible to see parallels to how American attitudes towards dining have evolved.

Anyone who grew up in a coastal community near a major port or ship channel or owns a boat and has sailed out into the coastal seas, has probably come across large container ships, tankers, or bulk carriers. And, if you can get close enough, there are a number of markings around the ship’s hull, most of which looks like gibberish or nonsense, but which actually contain vital information about the ship for the benefit of tug boats and port operators. This is a relatively short explainer of what all of these markings mean and what function they serve. When I was young, we used to go out in my grandfather’s 30 foot boat into the Houston Ship Channel, with lines of oil tankers, some empty and some full, steaming in and out. The sheer size of these vessels, and the wake they generate, is awe inspiring. And the markings upon the hull, at a glance, can tell you a lot about the ship without ever boarding it.

The widespread affection for dogs among the writers of RTARL and the commentariat is well-known. Many of us, myself included, have shared posts about dogs, pictures of new puppies, and remembrances of loyal companions, recently passed. While we are generally satisfied to appreciate dogs for the happiness they bring us and dogs are contented with their role as loyal, people pleasers, the relationship is more complex than that. Our relationship with dogs is both one of friend, but it is also parental in nature. Dogs are, generally, forever trying to please us, to extract from us the fullest measure of love possible. This essay by Jacob Bacharach ponders this relationship from a historical and personal perspective; from Shakespeare’s apparent distaste for dogs as “lowly” and “subservient” creatures, to his own experience with a rescue providing the only continuum in life through failed relationships and personal crises. The best quotations come towards the end, which I will not spoil here, but this should give a proper sense: “It is absurd, logically considered, to propose that the mere presence of some mammal in a room can by itself make a person better, but that is what they do.”

Reverting back to something with levity, the shoot for Caddyshack is legendary in Hollywood for the amount of excesses which took place among the actors and crew behind the scenes, including an all-night booze soaked party which took place as a category five hurricane came ashore in south Florida. It’s also well-known for how much of the script was improvised or, in some cases, ad-libbed on the spot. Sports Illustrated has a short oral history of the shoot, which shows how miraculous it was that a coherent movie, let alone a movie that has become a modern classic, emerged. Money quotation: “We brought Rodney in to the studio,” says Jon Peters, Caddyshack’s executive producer. “He comes in wearing this aqua-blue leisure suit and takes out a plastic bag and does two lines of coke. He undoes his shirt and says, ‘Where's the p----?’ ” It was a hell of a first impression.”

Finally, presidential historical Paul Brandus guest writes for the Center for Politics on the danger which confronts Donald Trump’s chances of being reelected in 2020. Brandus focuses on Trump’s weakness among Republican voters, many of whom abandoned the president when it became clear he would not be all things to all people within the GOP. Brandus suggests that Trump may be the first sitting president to attract a serious primary challenger in nearly three decades.

Welcome to the weekend.

[x-olotl]

Biocultural Impacts of Tourism in Mexico

Tourism is an ever-growing industry with the potential of bringing substantial national revenues. Tourism in Mexico has contributed to high economic growth, but also degradation of the biological and cultural heritage of the country. A yearly influx of 32,093,000 tourists to Mexico (World Bank 2015) and the industry that surrounds them, threatens nature preservation, especially in the coastal areas of the Yucatan peninsula, Baja California and the Pacific coast.

In this essay I will present two different discourses on tourism globally, and discuss these related to Mexico. The first is the main discourse on tourism driven by governments and institutions, and the second is a post-colonial and academic perspective. With a case study from a Maya community in Quintana Roo, I will discuss how tourism is changing the socio-economic status and biocultural foundations of indigenous groups. I will start by presenting discourses and impacts of tourism. Then I will briefly discuss ecological tourism as an alternative. Lastly, I will present the case study from Mexico with a discussion.

Background and discourses Since the 19th century, certain regions of the world have been presented as areas for relaxation, especially for the wealthy (Chavero 2013, 13). Indigenous or cultural tourism has become a bigger submarket, especially in developing countries and post-colonial contexts in the global South (Smith 2002, xi). This sort of tourism has among other things been seen as a way to revitalize cultural traditions and identities of those communities (Smith 2002, x). Mexico has become a major tourist destination over the past 40 years, well known for its pristine beaches, landscapes, archeology and cultures (Greathouse-Amador 2005, 709). The indigenous groups constitute a big market value in the tourism of Mexico. As Greathouse-Amador puts it, after conquest, colonization and the ongoing process of 'modernization' and 'globalization', several indigenous cultures of Mexico have survived until today (2005, 709). The main discourse on tourism today is that it is one of the most effective ways to increase national revenue and generate development. The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) introduces a report about the positive economic impact of tourism on Mexico in 2015:

"Travel & Tourism’s impact on the economic and social development of a country can be enormous; opening it up for business, trade and capital investment, creating jobs and entrepreneurialism for the workforce and protecting heritage and cultural values." (WTTC 2015, foreword).

In 2014 tourism contributed to 6,8% of the total GDP of Mexico (WTTC 2015, 1). 3,692,500 jobs were in the tourism industry, which makes up 7,4% of total employment. Investment in the tourist industry was 3% of total investments in the country. The total contribution to GDP, including wider effects from investments and incomes, was 14,8% in 2014. It is safe to say that tourism consitutes an important part of the Mexican economy. The tourism industry has grown steadily since the 1970s. Most tourists are still from Western countries, but many tourists in Mexico are also nationals with an economy that allows them to travel.

The discourse of the tourism report and the government of Mexico follows the main discourse of tourism, where the fundamental goal of tourism is economic development. Other positive consequences can be infrastructural development, funding for conservation of cultural sites and tradition, renewal of cultural pride, cross-cultural exchanges, local integration to national and global economy (Smith 2003, 56). However, a problem is that many governments consider tourism as a 'quick fix' for their economic problems (Smith 2003, 57). This leads to the temptation of developing tourism as fast as possible and to maximize visitors and attractions, not considering environmental and cultural consequences. Local needs are thus easily bypassed by the national agenda.

The second discourse is a post-colonial one. According to Mathieson and Wall (1992) in Smith (2003), there are three economic conditions that support the argument that tourism is a new form of imperialism. The first is that tourism creates an economic dependency for developing countries. This is related to the 'quick fix' mentality of goverments. The second is that a large percentage of profits flow out of the country and wind up with foreign investors, for example through resorts that are owned by foreigners. The last condition is the dynamics of the workforce. Foreigners are often holding the high professional positions in the tourism industry, while locals more often are low-wage workers in the service industry. Hall (1994) in Smith (2003) suggests that the socio-cultural influence of tourism depends on whether the country tourists come from has a hegemonic relation to the host country. Since most tourists come from Western countries who can be argued has a global cultural hegemony, the influence "will be pervasive in both social and cultural spheres" (Smith 2003, 49). Locals might not question their subservience to Western tourists, because the hegemonic and economic dynamics are inherent in upbringing and understanding of the world. Globalization has provided another layer to inequal host-guest power dynamics. Locals are exposed to lifestyles and luxurious products they cannot attain on a daily basis as workers in the tourism industry.

Many researchers have interpreted tourism as a new form of imperialism, because of the imbalance in power dynamics that arise between tourists and locals. According to Smith, cultural tranformation is an inevitable fact of tourism, something which strikes indigenous societies primarily (2002, 53). Their traditions, customs and values are adapted to tourism, rather than the other way around. In this way, tourism leads to homogenisation of culture in favor of the Westernized global culture. Behavior and lifestyles are sometimes copied by locals (Smith 2002, 53). In highly religious, indigenous or patriarchal societies these changes can lead to intra-generational conflicts, when younger generations desire a Western lifestyle while older generations are conserned about protecting traditions. Another example of deterioration of culture is how tourism commodifies culture. Excessive demand for traditional hand-made products can lead to mass production and loss of artisanal practices (Smith 2002, 55). Nevertheless, it is important to remember that culture is dynamic and will change over time, irrespective of tourism. However, it is clear that tourism contributes to the globalization of indigenous cultures, for better and worse.

Ecological tourism as a sustainable alternative? 2002 was declared the International Year of Ecotourism by the United Nations (UN) Commission on Sustainable Development (Smith 2003, 58). Smith uses the following definition of ecotourism by the Ecotourism Society, "Responsible travel to natural areas which conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of the local people" (2003, 58). Ecotourism has been promoted as a possible solution for conservation of biodiversity and a way out of poverty by international organizations such as the UN.

Growing concerns for climate change and cultural preservation have caused critique towards mass-tourism for its unsustainability and effects on local cultural and natural environments (Chavero 2013, 13). Ecological tourism has been presented as an sustainable option to the consumption-oriented mass-tourism. It is meant to help local economies and at the same time give tourists a more 'authentic' experience of nature and culture. But, according to Chavero, it has lead to a never-ending search for untouched nature and authencity of cultures, ironically disturbing the untouched and authentic parts of it. Often ecotourism takes place in indigenous or poor communities, left behind in terms of modernization and Western development (Chavero 2013, 14). This leads to a growing value of 'authencity' and indigenous and poor people, in the market of tourism.

Smith stresses that not all ecotourism is sustainable, and refers to Hall (1994) and Hawkins and Khan (1994, 193), who states that the footprint of an ecotourist is essentially the same as a 'mass-tourist' (2003, 58). What differentiates ecotourists is that they tend to be richer and looking for natural experiences in pristine environments, while also being concerned by environmental issues and wanting to be part of the solution. A problem is that the label of ecotourism is being abused as a marketing ploy, without any real monitoring of whether the companies are operating in a sustainable way (Smith 2003, 59). According to Smith, ecotourism and other forms of tourism can be successful; if it remains small-scale and the power of the locals is maximized.

It is worth keeping in mind the term 'indigenismo' when discussing cultural tourism. Most tourists who visit Mexico go to the coastal areas. However, there is a great interest among tourists to experience indigenous cultures and archeological sites. According to Greathouse-Amador, tourists often display a somewhat condescending attitude to the indigenous people. It goes into a pattern of wanting to experience the 'the other'. This self-acclaimed superiority and distance mixed with and romantization of the indigenous cultures is referred to as 'indigenismo'.

Case: Mayas in Quintana Roo Juárez conducted a study with a Maya community south of Tulum, where since the 1970s an immense tourist industry has been developing. Based on ethnographic field study, she found that the Maya communitites do not critique globalization in itself, but inequality, loss of cultural autonomy and their subordinate position in the global culture and economy. Mayas have limited control over the globalization process and the following mass tourism and its effects on their cultures and lives. In their lifetimes, they have experienced a shift from a subsistence based economy, where they grew food in milpas, to a commercialized tourist-oriented economy, where engaging in wage labor is a necessity. Tulum is in the state of Quintana Roo, which has had highest economical growth rate since the start of mass tourism in Mexico in the 1970s. Still, most local citizens remain marginalized. Quintana Roo is one of the countries wealthiest states, but also has some of the poorest citizens. Juárez refers to higher rates of infant and maternal mortility and lower life expectancy than average in Mexico.

The Mayas of Quintana Roo had centralized control over the area until the mid 1900s. After that, they were subject to state interventions such as land reforms in the 1930s, which were successful in other southern areas of Mexico, but hurt the autonomy Mayas previously had had over their lands, by being subject to laws that changed their communital land-sharing traditions. Since 1971, when the Mexican government and private entities started building megaresorts in Cancún, global tourism became a major factor in local Maya economies and lives. According to Juárez, the turn toward commercialization increased social stratification and inequality between Mayas. Furthermore, rapid population growth and influx of tourists has led to ecological degradation in the area. Juárez explains that the Mayas went from efficient, autonomous farmers who only needed to work half a year to have food for a whole year in unregulated lands, transformed into overworked farmers who are dependent on wage labor in addition to farming. The biological degradation has been very notable for them. For example, the access to game has reduced rapidly. In one of the interviews, a woman says that before, game was available to be hunted "as soon as you went out". But now (1992), "there is no game". The milpas were no longer creating enough corn, so they needed to buy, in addition to what they grow. Still, the community expressed that the tourist developments did bring benefits to them as well. Some said that life was harder before, for example childbirth, health issues, food shortage and so on. The benefits they mentioned were centered around material things and entertainment - having access to TV, radio, meeting more people, having soap and packaged goods. The costs they identified as natural degradation, for example in terms of less food from milpas, game and seafood. They no longer had the same access to the same lands or the coast. They used to have bigger areas and access to the coast for food. Now, private resorts took up much of the coast, even though all beaches are public by law in Mexico. They also missed immaterial things of the culture, such as oral traditions, a sense of reciprocity in the community and egualitarian social relations. The main shift was what life revolved around, from seeking food to seeking money, and an increased desire for modern products and lifestyles. According to Juárez, modernization in Tulum brought benefits for the Mayas, but also positioned them as a structurally and ideologically inferior global class.

Discussion and conclusion The case of the Mayas in Tulum show the reality of an indigenous community that went through social, cultural and economic changes as a consequence of tourism. They did not identify globalization itself as an issue and see themselves in a metaperspective, but they identified the changes they could sense in their own lives. As mentioned, inequality, loss of cultural autonomy and a subordinate position in the global culture and economy were identified as issues. These issues correspond with the issues in the debate of whether tourism is a new form of imperialism. The post-colonial discourse argues that tourism has parallels to imperialism because it is dominated by Western nationals who travel to post-colonial countries, where the locals are subservient to the tourists needs and wishes (Smith 2003, 49). As Smith writes, "the majority of the world population, particularly in some of the poorest nations, will never have the chance to venture outside their country, nor perhaps even their home or village" (2003, 49). This seems to be true for the Maya community in Tulum according to Juárez' observations. There is often a vast contrast between the opportunities and lifestyles between the tourists and hosts, as in this case. I would argue that this creates dichotomies between visitors and hosts. While the visitors are: rich, mobile, modern, consumers, often from countries that have benefited on colonialism, locals are: poor, stationary, in development, providing services and from a post-colonial context. This establishes an unequal powerdynamic between host and visitor. In the Mayas case, these developments, completely out of their control, has changed their access to lands and changed the land itself, with infrastructure that has driven game away, less food in milpas, access to the coast and so on. They have experienced cultural and social changes, that may or may not had happened without tourism. Quintana Roo has become one of the richest states in the country, yet they haven't experienced the same rise of wealth. This makes them experience themselves as inferior in their homelands.

However, they also identify benefits from globalization and tourism which should not be forgotten. The benefits they mention correspond to the main discourse on tourism, because they focus on the material development and integration into a globalized culture. They seem ambiguous towards the changes, because on one side their culture has changed, but on the other side "some things were worse before" and they have bigger access to goods. Ecotourism could be a viable alternative for the Mayas, to be able to take pride in their culture by showing it, and at the same time experience the economic benefits of tourism. But, also in ecotourism, the local versus external power relations can be a major problem. Often, the conservation practices of ecotourism are adapted from a Western perspective, while indigenous population may have had their own well functioning practices in the past. Another problem for the Mayas close to Tulum may be that they are not considered as 'authentic enough' for the tourists prejudice of what indigenous cultures should be in modern day Mexico. They are a Christian society, and Juárez' article give the impressions that the have similar lifestyles to many meztisos in Mexico.

In the end, a major issue is that the changes that are brought upon the indigenous communities are out of their own control. Other actors' interests are above the local communities wishes. Tourists have their demands, and there is a huge market there to tend to them and capitalize on the demands. When tourists are interested in authentic culture, indigenous communities often adapt to the demands. When tourists want to relax in nature, locals work in the hotels as staff, while foreign investors and foreign employees in higher ranking positions are on the top of the pyramid and take most of the profits. Another important actor is the national government, who will most probably set economic goals over preservation of nature. When even important organizations like the UN promote ecotourism without putting focus on measures to make sure it is really being done in a sustainable way, it is hard to see a way in which tourism can be controlled outside of the market. I would argue that ecotourism can be a sustainable option, but that it needs a mechanism to control it. Furthermore, governments and tourists alike need to change their attitudes and see the whole picture of the impacts on tourism.

Bibliography

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Expert: … a nation in which 87 percent of eighteen- to twenty-four year olds (according to a 2002 National Geographic Society/Roper Poll survey) cannot locate Iran or Iraq on a world map and 11 percent cannot locate the United States (!) is not merely “intellectually sluggish.” It would be more accurate to call it moronic, capable of being fooled into believing anything … —Morris Berman, The Twilight of American Culture, June 28 2001 I cannot remember U.S. culture ever being quite so compromised by ruling class control. Hollywood turns out one jingoistic and militaristic and racist film and TV show after another. Corporate news is completely controlled by the same forces that run Hollywood. It is the complete capitulation of the liberal class to the interests of the increasingly fascistic U.S. elite. And this didn’t start with Donald Trump. Certainly in its current incarnation it goes back at least to Bill Clinton, and really it goes back to the end of WW2. The ideological trajectory was formed under the Dulles brothers and military industrial complex — representing U.S. business interests and exhibiting a demand for global hegemony. But once the Soviet Union collapsed, the project was accelerated and intensified. Another starting point might well be the 1960 Bay of Pigs fiasco, or the 1961 CIA (and MI6) assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Or Kennedy’s 1962 speech at American University calling for the end of Pax Americana. We know what happened to Kennedy soon after that. Pick any of these incidents. But it was the fall of the U.S.S.R. that signaled to the governing class, the proprietor class, that the last real obstacle to global domination had been removed. In the interim one finds the Iran/Contra affair, and the invasion of Iraq. The real and the symbolic meaning of the Soviet Union is forgotten today, I think. Its meaning for the developing world, especially. The next conscious trial balloon was Clinton’s attack on the former Yugoslavia. A test run for expanding NATO. And it worked. The propaganda machine has never been as successful as it was when it demonized the Serbs and Milosevic. Then came 9/11. And the well honed PR machine spewed an endless barrage of hyper patriotic rhetoric and disinformation. American exceptionalism was given full credibility. And remember Colin Powell and his cartoon visual teaching aids at the UN? Nobody was going to argue. Certainly not the white liberal class. And Hollywood upped its game in churning out military fantasies. And in just churning out fantasies. A genre that lent itself to obvious neo-colonial messages. By 2007, when Barack Obama announces he will run for President, the master narrative for America was firmly entrenched. The biggest hit from Hollywood in this period is Avatar (2009), a neo-colonial fable that fit seamlessly with Obama’s reconquest of Africa. Dan Glazebrook recently wrote: The year 2009, two years before Gaddafi’s murder, was a pivotal one for US-African relations. First, because China surpassed the US as the continent’s largest trading partner; and second, because Gaddafi was elected President of the African Union. The significance of both for the decline of US influence on the continent could not be clearer. Whilst Gaddafi was spearheading attempts to unite Africa politically, committing serious amounts of Libyan oil wealth to make this dream a reality, China was quietly smashing the West’s monopoly over export markets and investment finance. Africa no longer had to go cap-in-hand to the IMF for loans, agreeing to whatever self-defeating terms were on offer, but could turn to China – or indeed Libya – for investment. And if the US threatened to cut them off from their markets, China would happily buy up whatever was on offer. Western economic domination of Africa was under threat as never before. The US response was to increase base building, upgrade AFRICOM, and then murder Gaddafi. Hollywood hits from this period include The Hurt Locker and The Dark Knight. Meanwhile domestically Obama was giving the OK for militarizing of police departments across the country. On another front….Danny Haiphong wrote… What isn’t discussed often enough is how Obama has worked tirelessly to protect and fulfill the interests of the corporate healthcare system. In 2009, he collaborated with the monopoly health insurance industry and its pharmaceutical counterparts to repress the demand for single payer healthcare. The conditions at the time appeared ripe for a single payer system. Popular discontent with Republican Party rule was at its highest point. A relatively organized movement for single payer care was represented by organizations such as Healthcare Now. The Democratic Party possessed a majority in both the House and Senate. Obama came to power as Wall Street went into meltdown, 2008. But instead of hope and change we got almost 5 trillion dollars moving to the top 1% of the financial elite. Poverty increased every year under Obama, as did inequality. Social Network came out in 2010 and Wolf of Wall Street in 2013. Both were big hits. The message from Hollywood never changed. And part of that message is that wealth is its own justification and a symbol of virtue. Hollywood, and U.S. liberals just naturally gravitate toward the rich. Obama attacked Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. And it is perhaps that last venture that will prove to be his most significant. Arming, training, and coordinating the Saudi aggression (and now that has escalated to boots on the ground) against the helpless Yemen has resulted in the largest humanitarian catastrophe in five decades. The U.S. now has all but formally criminalized dissent, especially if that dissent is aimed at Israel. None of this is to create exact corollaries between political action and studio product. But rather that the overriding message of Hollywood in both film and TV is to validate U.S. exceptionalism. And to hedge criticism with faint token protest. But its not just Hollywood, its theatre and fiction and all the rest of the arts. The erasure of the working class is the most pronounced truth in American culture today. There are no Clifford Odets (a high school drop out) anymore; they have been replaced by a steady stream of well groomed compliant MFA grads. Mostly from elite and expensive schools. Hemingway and James Baldwin were not college grads, nor was Tennessee Williams, the son of a traveling shoe salesman. Even more recent authors such as Thomas Pynchon were college drop outs (to join the Navy) but the point is that today mass culture is carefully controlled. Dreiser was a college drop out, and Twain was a typesetters apprentice. Others like Faulkner, went to University, but also worked. In Faulkner’s case as a postman. Same profession as Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski. Stephen Crane and Hemingway worked as journalists, when that was a honorable profession. The decision makers in mass culture are mostly firmly entrenched in the Democratic Party ethos (witness stuff like House of Cards, Madame Secretary, or Veep). If one only gets one’s news from MSNBC or FOX or CNN then one will take away mostly pure propaganda. Rachel Maddow has a career based on craven parroting of DNC approved talking points and conclusions. Bill Maher, whose show is on HBO, is of late pimping for war. Sunday news talk shows do not invite radical voices, not ever. Michael Parenti isn’t on those shows, Ajamu Baraka or Glen Ford, not Mike Whitney or Ed Curtin or Dan Glazebrook or Stephen Gowans. No, but there are plenty of retired generals and politicians. This is a media that exerts absolute control of message. The loss of the working class, of class diversity, has been a far bigger blow to the health of the culture than anything else. One might argue that culture has always been, in the modern era, a province of the bourgeoisie, and that’s true. But there is still a rather pronounced change that has taken place. But Americans are discouraged from thinking in terms of class. They see individualism and identity. Get me more women directors they cry….which would give us more versions of Zero Dark Thirty, I guess. Gender equality matters, something every single socialist country in history has emphasized. Something Chavez saw fit to write into the Bolivarian constitution on day one. Chavez, who liberal avatar Bernie Sanders dismissed as a “dead communist dictator”. Chavez, who feminist avatar Hillary Clinton worked overtime to oust from power. People are shocked…shocked I say…that US soldiers are killed in Niger. Darn that Donald Trump. When it is pointed out that it was Obama who sent troops there in his pivot to Africa, one is met with blank stares. The concern over U.S. soldiers dying is simply mind numbing in its hypocrisy and blinkered exceptionalism. I mean just count the numbers of dead civilians due to U.S. drone strikes from just one year. Pick any year you like. Under Obama, the US African Command (AFRICOM) has penetrated every African country but Zimbabwe and Eritrea. AFRICOM has locked African nations into military subservience. In 2014, the US conducted 674 military operations in Africa. According to a recent Freedom of Information Act request by Intercept, the US currently has Special Forces deployed in more than twenty African nations. — Danny Haiphong, “The Destruction of Libya and the US Military Invasion of Africa“, August 18, 2016 People are terrified today lest they be called conspiracy theorists. No single pejorative term has exercised such disproportionate power. There is a subterranean subject position associated with this, too. A masculine identity that connects with the presentation of those accepting of the official version of things. It is ‘no nonsense, mature, and sort of tough guy’ pose. Only weak and muddled (feminine you see!) would bother to question official narratives of…well, anything. It is staggering, really, why so few ask why is it OK to assassinate people without due process? Why is it whistleblowers, truth tellers, are being locked away and shunned? Why are there 900 plus US military bases around the world. Why, given the growing poverty in the U.S., do we need an updated nuclear arsenal that will cost trillions? In fact, why is the defense budget over 4 billion a day? The liberal educated class seem not to ask such questions. Let alone ask is the U.S. arming takfiri jihadists in Syria? Most of what people call conspiracy is just perfectly reasonable skepticism. Given a history that includes COINTELPRO, Operation Northwoods, Gladio, MKUltra, and Operation AJAX. This is also relevant in terms of the coming war on *fake news*. An idea put forward by Obama and now in enthusiastic Orwellian operation by Facebook, YouTube, and Google. In the U.K. Theresa May proudly announces the government SHOULD control what one can see on the internet. Censorship is pitched as protection. And then we come to NATO and Europe. Why does NATO even exist one might ask? I mean the USSR doesn’t exist anymore. Well, the answer has been under construction for a few years now, and that answer is the extraordinary anti Putin propaganda of the U.S. The “Russian Threat” is now an accepted trope in public discourse. Or the anti Iranian disinformation. In fact, Iran is far more democratic and less a global threat (actually its NO global threat) than U.S. boon allies Israel and Saudi Arabia. Which brings us back to Yemen. The utter destruction of Yemen, poorest Arab country in the world, and now one with the largest Cholera outbreak in history, posed no threat to ANYONE. Certainly not to the United States. Are we to believe the House of Saud is worth supporting? They behead homosexuals and witches in Saudi Arabia. The leader of KSA is a 32 year old psychopath named Mohammed Bin Salman. Someone please explain the U.S. support for this country? Or Venezuela. The U.S. has waged various campaigns against this sovereign nation for over a decade now. A democracy. But a disobedient one. Where is the outcry? When people are going on about Harvey Weinstein, a troglodyte movie producer that literally everyone knew was a serial abuser, I wonder that the women of Venezuela seem not to count. Or of Libya, or Haiti, or Puerto Rico, or hell, the women of Houston right now. Poor women. Ah, but that is class again. Now perhaps the Weinstein affair will yield good results and some form of collective protection and maybe even unionizing will take place to limit the power of rich white men. I doubt it, but maybe. Still, given that the liberal class today applaud the idea of making it OK for women to bomb defenseless villages in Afghanistan or Iraq or Yemen, just like men, and given that most of these horrified by Weinstein were and are solidly behind Hillary Clinton and the DNC, and laud adulation on figures like Maddie Albright, it seems hard to imagine. Sexual abuse and violence in the U.S. is as old as the country. America’s patriarchal culture long legitimized sexual abuse and violence toward women — and children — whether conducted at the workplace, at home, a nightclub or on a deserted street. During the nation’s earliest days, the custom of sexual abuse and violence was legitimized through the notion of “chastisement.” This was a feature of Anglo-American common law that recognized the husband as master of “his” household and, thus, permitted him to subject “his” wife to corporal punishment, including rape, so long as he did not inflict permanent injury upon her. Sexual abuse was institutionalized in the rape of African and later African-American female slaves. As the legal scholar Adrienne Davis notes, “U.S. slavery compelled enslaved black women to labor in three markets – productive, reproductive, and slavery – crucial to the political economy. — David Rosen, Male Sexual Violence: As American as Cherry Pie, October 20, 2017 One need only note the sexual violence that takes place in the U.S. military (See Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War). But that is not the military you see in this season’s TV shows such as SEAL Team or Valor or The Brave. The current Tom Cruise film American Made is a sort of comedy about Barry Seal who worked as a pilot for the CIA, and with various cartels in South America. Yeah, nothing funnier than squashing a socialist government like in Nicaragua. There is not a single Spanish speaking character who is not either a drunk, a sadist, or just incompetent. This stunningly racist revisionism was called “jaunty and bouncy” by the Hollywood Reporter. The liberal class will always side with the status quo. Always. They do not care if the status quo is fascist. And it suits them much more to lay out bromides about male abuse of women, as long as this doesn’t mean having to untangle the complexity of women in unfamiliar non tourist visited nations like Yemen or Libya or Honduras. Just like the fact that U.S. domestic police departments murdered over a thousand black men in 2015. And continue to do so, along with increasing numbers of black women. That’s just not a jaunty bouncy story, I guess. Obama has never been comfortable talking about or to black people. He did manage to scold Colin Kaepernick recently though, about the pain he, Kaepernick, might be causing. The pain of white billionaire sports team owners I guess. The Uncle Tomism of what Glen Ford called black misleadership has never been greater. And that’s another crime we can lay, largely, at the feet of Barack Obama. The U.S. House voted unanimously to sanction Iran and North Korea, an absurdity and a crime, and yet one that barely registered on the media Richter scale. What has Iran or North Korea ever done to hurt anyone in the United States? It is Saudi Arabia and Israel that fear a democratic nation like Iran and the influence they wield in the region. Iran is accused of fomenting instability but evidence is never given. Russia is said to control U.S. public opinion, but evidence is never given. The U.S. doesn’t even bother to really try and make claims about Venzeuela, because it’s just part of inherited wisdom that they are *bad*. Like Castro was bad, like Gadaffi, like Aristide, like anyone exhibiting independence. The world according to media entertainment is made up of bad guys and good guys. Mike Pompeo, head of the CIA, recently stated that his agency would become a “much more vicious agency” in fighting its enemies. Its actually hard to imagine what that might look like given CIA history. More vicious than rendition, drone killing and black site torture? Remember it was the U.S. and its School of the Americas that trained those death squads in Central America. Hollywood makes comedies about this. In any event nobody in Hollywood complains. Just as none of the actresses assaulted by Weinstein (and countless others) said anything lest they lose career opportunities. Just as nobody complains about the racism and demonizing of Muslims or Serbs or North Koreans or Russians lest they not get the job. Coercion is silent and a given. It is also absolute. Most actors and directors simply don’t think about it, and most know little beyond what they hear on corporate news or read in the NYTimes. But I understand. People have to eat, have to feed their families. The real problem is that power is ever more consolidated. Distribution of films is monopolized. And for most Americans, foreign policy remains a giant black hole about which they know very little. Tell someone Milosovic was actually a good guy and they will laugh at you (this still happens on the left, too, rather depressingly). Tell them Russia is not threatening the U.S., or Europe, and they will laugh at you. Try to explain what Imperialism is and means, and you get that bored look of irritation. A good rule of thumb is if the U.S. targets a country or leader, then its worth questioning the western generated propagated propaganda in mainstream media about said country or leader (think Syria, Gadaffi, Aristide, Milosovic, Iran, North Korea). The U.S. does not go after countries who welcome western capital. One of the things I’ve noticed about Hollywood film is the extraordinary amount of self pity from most characters. Self pity, entitlement, and sarcasm. The people who produce and make film and TV today, by and large, tacitly censor themselves. Some don’t have to, of course. But there is a general group think at work. And it extends to the way characters are written. The problems of affluent white people is the template here. Few examine the wider world, and mostly when they do it is seen as a world of threat and menace. An uncivilized place in need of guidance from the civilized white West (The Lost City of Z comes to mind, which made all the approved anti colonial notes while still creating a colonial narrative anyway). But it is even more narrow than that. Everything resembles a studio; political discussions, even if they take place in outer space, resemble studio executives discussing opening weekend profits, or Neilson ratings. And since Hollywood itself ever more resembles Wall Street, or some corporate headquarters, that is increasingly what the world looks like. It is a profound loss of imagination. Westerns look and sound the same as melodramas set in Santa Monica or New York. Fantasy worlds resemble corporate headquarters or corporate motivational weekends. It is a world created by writers under thirty, largely, and certainly under forty. These are worlds created by people who themselves know very little of the world. They know even less about having to work for a living. The entire universe of film is absent any class awareness. History is simplified the better to appeal to a wider audience. Everything feels and sounds the same. And it is stultifying. There are films and TV from Europe, even from the U.K. that have merit, have heterogeneous sensibilities, but not from Hollywood. Like White House press conferences, the idea is to stay on message. Black characters sound white (or are given caricature *black* dialect and dialogue), brown characters sound white (or are given caricature barrio dialects), and Muslims sound dangerous and devious. Asians seem lifted from Fu Manchu serials or Charlie Chan. Strange when I hear people make fun of ethnic cliches from the 1940s, because it is really no different today (and check the recent TV incarnation of the venerable Star Trek franchise where the Klingon villains are very dark, live in dark spaceships and utter a guttural invented language all of which suggests something oddly racist and like nothing so much as colonial portraits of savages from darkest Africa). Fixation on Trump’s crimes distracts from a system in which crime is a built-in factor. Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump. They are only the figureheads that carry water for the system. And the system is the property of the ruling class. People vote as if it crucially matters, and they vote for who they *like*. Not for policy because mostly they have no idea of policy. Trump is an obvious target, but that’s the problem in a sense. America didn’t become racist and violent overnight. The forces of social unrest have been building for decades. Trump was inevitable. His lack of basic literacy mirrors the nation he nominally heads, and his vulgarity mirrors the vulgarity of America, as does his misogyny and racism. The same advisors are in place and if Hillary had won, those openly fascist thugs applauding Trump would still be committing hate crimes. Has Trump empowered them? To a degree, yes. But an HRC win would likely have provided motivation of a different sort and the same violence would be taking place. You cannot sustain, as a country, this level of inequality. And as more super hurricanes descend on us, as the bio-sphere collapses, none of this may end up mattering. There is something disturbing, actually, about the relentless attacks on Trump. It’s like beating up a special needs kid. Where was this hatred and outrage before? I mean Trump’s America, a term I hear a lot, is just America. We have over 2 million people in prison in the U.S. Far and away leaders in the world. Infant mortality, however, puts the U.S. between 26th and 51st, depending on who is counting. There is no Universal Heath Care, no union protection for workers, no maternity leave, no free education. What is there to feel so special about, exactly? Trump was very popular on his moronic reality TV show. I’m guessing more than few now outraged by this buffoonish reactionary watched that show. I mean it did last fifteen years I believe. Who did they think he was? There is nothing wrong with identifying the crimes of Trump’s administration. But there is something deeply wrong in not recognizing it as a continuation of prevailing policy. Yes, it is worse in many areas. The environment for one. But then again, 47% of the world’s pollution is caused by the military. And the U.S. has a military bigger than the next ten largest militaries in the world. And every president since the first Bush has increased the military budget. The nightmare did not begin with the swearing in of Donald Trump. But nobody *likes* him. They *liked* Obama. And that is why he was able to do so much harm. Trump is dangerous not because of what he thinks (he mostly doesn’t) but because of his ignorance and weakness (and fear). And that weakness generated his welcoming hand to the Pentagon. Foreign policy is really in the hands of a man nicknamed ‘Mad Dog’. One cannot blame this catastrophic situation on one man. This is the creation of American history. http://clubof.info/