HOLOCAUST as a power word

I was watching CNN just now, their report on the protests in front of the Israeli embassy in London against Israel's air strikes on Gaza.

Among the assorted - not very many different - signs the protesters were carrying two were predominant: Free Palestine and Stop the holocaust in Gaza.

In the news "ticker" running at the bottom of the screen CNN chose to highlight the slogan Free Palestine - which is indeed the most all-encompassing and essential message of these protests. That is, in fact, the ultimate goal of most politically active Palestinians - certainly of the Hamas.

The eye of the camera, however, lingered on another one: Stop the holocaust in Gaza.
(N.B. It may have "lingered" on it simply because the group displaying it was the most vocal and visually agitated one.)

In the past thirty years or so, the term holocaust has become synonymous with the most unfortunate chapters in the history of Jewish people.
Furthermore, it has been elevated to a sort of "trademark" of the Jewish people and culture. This statement may sound cynical (even though its intention is far from it), but it is the truth.
(Should you need proof, you can prove it to yourself quite easily. When you hear it, do you think of, say, Rwanda? Armenia in 1916? The Nuba? The Roma - AKA Gypsies - in Nazi Germany? Do you?)

And it was the EYE - not history books or articles - which elevated it to such a status. The eye of the camera - of Hollywood, to be more precise. (Of Steven Spielberg's cameras, to be painfully precise.) The public in the TV era think with their eye.

And so, if you are going to use it - or any "power word" - for your own purposes, you'd better do it by harnessing the power of the camera. Articles, editorials and so on will only get you so far - which, in this day and age, with functional illiteracy rampant, isn't very far. To be seen at all, you have to be seen on TV.

Which brings us to today's protests in London.

If the protesters are using the word "holocaust" as a premeditated attempt to succinctly represent the extent and human suffering, the horror (perceived or real) of what the Israeli government is doing, they have jumped the gun.

To have its presumed intended effect, such a powerful "power word" should only be used in conjunction with much more spectacular protests - or as a consequence of much more (you're going to hate me for this, but your hatred will be misplaced) "dramatic" carnage.

For the media, a few hundred dead - unless it's in the USA or a European capital - is simply not "striking" enough. Worrying - yes, breaking news - most definitely. But at this stage - which, admittedly, may escalate, and quickly - those protests don't seem compelling enough to command "the world's" - i.e. the media - undivided attention.

Now imagine this scene. The air strikes continue, the number of dead rises, the media reports become much more alarming, until there is an ocean of people willing to take center stage in one or more prominent European and USA cities - all displaying just two signs: Free Palestine and (as an example) Stop the Holocaust in Palestine.

The message you want picked by the media and the world's public must be clear and concise (and should not contain too many - more than four - words) - and, of course, in direct correlation with the events that triggered the protests.

And so, you choose a clear and concise wording of your ultimate aim - in this case, - complemented by a message the force of which is directly borrowed from the force of your adversary.
In martial arts terms: you use your adversary's own weight and strength against him. The use of the word holocaust in these specific circumstances is such a message.

What happens?
By seemingly (I said seemingly) mis-using the term usually "reserved" for the Jewish (hence, by implication - whether justifiably or not is another question - Israel) it triggers a brief pause: it makes people stop and think, evaluate what the term really means (we're talking of an extremely fast thought process here: of seconds, perhaps tenths of seconds).

The final conclusion regarding its validity (most reasonably educated people would, of course, agree that the term cannot be justifiably applied to just one group of the world's population) is almost irrelevant.

Because the power of the "power word" - holocaust - is still there.
The emotional and intellectual power it has accumulated - via books and, most especially, the media - from the countless tragedies associated with it is intact. Only, now it has been transfered onto another group.
Furthermore, when it is associated with bloody events - on a large scale - that everyone can witness it potentially harnesses the haunting shadow of historic collective guilt expressed (if not necessarily heart-felt) by parts of the intellectual public - including politicians - regarding the world's lack of reaction to the mistreatment of Jews (and not just them, by the way) 70 years ago.

We're not talking of necessarily very profound emotions on the part of the viewing public; and even the rage - i.e. the direction of the emotions - of those who may oppose its use by the Palestinians is more or less irrelevant. (And BTW, the less the public knows about history, the better.)

What matters is that the transfer of such a powerful and long-lasting "power word" effectively attracts attention; and when it's done on a very large, visually overwhelming scale - and consistently - the process of empathy, emotional adoption (on the part of the viewing public), begins.

And so does the increase of the protesters' bargaining power.
In the eye of the public, of course.
What goes on behind the scenes... ah well, that is another matter.
"History-makers" aren't always the fastest thinking lot around. And they seem to be blood-powered or something: they don't budge unless X-number of gallons of blood have been spilled.
But that is another story.

Or is it?



* This is a slightly longer version of the article published here.

TOYS R... WHO?

This being the season to be merry (= shop until you drop, lest your offspring shoots you just for the fun of it), I thought I'd share a leftover crumb from my pantry of used, misused, underused, unused, abused musings on marketing and propaganda in general.
(I am a freelance copywriter, among other things... many other things. A slogan-smith, to be precise.
And yes, I am always open to new business offers. :))

There's a terrific blog on marketing, called The 60 Second Marketer.
In November, the name of the famous store, TOYS-R-US, came under scrutiny.

Is it a great name for a company of its profile?
According to the blog authors, it just might be "the best company name ever".

Yours truly begged to disagree.
Here's the "crumb" as it appeared in the comments section - minus the typos, plus a link or two.

IS it the best name "ever"?

Ever since I first saw this name, I have been under the impression that it is a more or less witty word play on the term - THESAURUS.
And it makes sense: it is a "treasury" of toys.

Conversely, the way it is generally pronounced makes no sense whatsoever.

"Toys ARE US?"

What does that mean?
"We" are toys...?
Is that supposed to be an all-too erudite pun on Louis XIV's "L'Etat c'est moi", or what?

Which is why I used to be endlessly irritated whenever I heard the "hillbilly" pronunciation - which, to my amazement, eventually turned out to be be THE "correct" way.

One could justifiably expect that, IF my assumption were correct, the PR people would have publicly clarified the confusion.

Or would they? :)

Still assuming that my "theory" is correct, they would have noticed that nobody had picked the allusion - which would mean that the allusion was worthless, totally "off", from the marketing point of view.

Furthermore, considering that people were seemingly pleased with, and accepting of, the "meaning" THEY (the people themselves) had attributed to the name - not realising that it was probably never intended to be pronounced aloud - the executives would have kept their mouths shut, all too happy to play along.

Am I right?
Who knows.
Anyway, analysing names it's fun. ;)
If I were right, it would mean that the name was anything BUT "the best name".
It would mean that it was a FLUKE - a very lucky strike for the company, courtesy of the general public's lack of erudition (or sheer common sense).

Good for them. Who am I to bash sheer luck? ;)

But true or false, I know I will continue being profoundly irritated by its pronunciation.

So there.
For all I know, it may have been a Casablanca situation: a script that went nowhere and/or in all directions, only to end up being a mind-bogglingly beloved film.
It triumphed in spite of itself.
Whatever it was - and only God knows what it was - the public loved it.
Mission accomplished.


What do YOU think?

(Oh, you have no idea?
Well, I guarantee you, my friend, the next time - every next time - you see that name, you shall think of this.
I do.
Mission accomplished.
See? ;)

Funky Finch Finds Film F*** Filth

There was an article in the Times Online recently, which called to my attention the scandalet brewing among the cinematic community (and presumably affecting the none-too self-sufficient minds of Oscar voters), following a denunciation of the film The Reader by an American critic, Charlie Finch.

Finch attended the first advanced screening of the film (based on the famed novel by Bernhard Schlink, published in 1995), which opened on December 10th.

Like the book, the film includes explicit sex between a woman, who turns out to have been a prison guard in a Nazi concentration camp (and she is illiterate, to boot), and a teenager half her age.

You may or may not like nudity or explicit sex on film, you may or may not like the book itself - but the fact is the book does contain sex, and it does so for a very valid reason.

(You'll have to read it to understand. Or try this study guide written by Schlink himself.)

But Finch disagrees.

What is especially repellent about The Reader is the use of Kate Winslet's nubile body to create sympathy for a repellent character, whose triumph over illiteracy somehow mitigates unspeakable crimes that are never actually depicted on screen.

(You can read the rest here: The Personal is not Political.)

So, we learn that Finch finds Winslet's body nubile, therefore attractive.

And we learn that said body moves Finch to almost-sympathise with her character.

We also learn that he considers (understandably so) the main female character to be "repellent" - and that he finds that her triumph over her illiteracy somehow (how, exactly?) mitigates "unspeakable crimes".

One suspects he may not have read the book - and, in all fairness, he doesn't claim to have read it. Furthermore, one suspects it would have not made much difference if he had.

What Finch seems to want is that a "repellent" character be as de-humanised as possible.

I am sure - I may be wrong, of course - that he would have much preferred an old hag playing the main character. (For obvious reasons I couldn't possibly advance any specific casting suggestions in this direction.)

More importantly, it sounds as if he would have preferred the sex to be omitted not only for aesthetic reasons but to avoid presenting the woman as a sexual being.

Why?

Because presenting her as an asexual being would further de-humanise her: it would further remove her from the common human experience.

It would make her a non-human.

But she is not a non-human.

She is inhuman.

She is all too human.

And herein lies the danger of such treacherous sacred indignation: by considering inhuman people to be non-human, one implicitly (and blindly) denies the ever-present danger of inhumanity among even the most "civilised" societies.

I am not going to say that everyone is potentially inhuman.

(I dislike demagogy and "truisms" - with a passion! - in case you haven't noticed.)

But there is no doubt that very many people can be inhuman - sometimes, with eerie ease. 

Or else, how could have so many atrocities happen so many times, in so many places, to so many millions of people - over and over and over again?

How could the Maos, the Stalins, the Hitlers (and their petty epigones a la Pol Pot or Milosevic) of this world prevail, if it weren't for the millions of people - pretty or not, sexy or not, tall or short, fair or dark, sociable or unsociable, highly sexed or virgins or impotent, music lovers or tin-eared, elegant or shabby, rich or poor, cultured or illiterate - who found reason in their leaders' words? 
Or who simply didn't find it necessary to expose themselves and their families to the potentially dire consequences of disagreeing with the regime? 

OR, indeed, those who found a certain pleasure in the misery of others, or who had been victimised themselves to the point of becoming blind to other people's pain?

There are as many core reasons for inhuman behaviour as there are people who perpetrate inhuman acts.

But being non-human is not one of them.

Such people may commit monstruous acts, but they are not "monsters", as they are often ridiculously called.

And it is precisely this delusion - that only "monsters", i.e. non-humans, can act monstruously - what perpetuates the possibility of atrocities. Over and over and over again.

Did Finch, writing his review, really think it through, I wonder?

I may be wrong - of course - but I don't think so.

I suspect voicing his impressions, as loudly and as conspicuously as possible, is really his first priority.

(I am not about to judge him for that. I understand; after all, I am writing this to express my opinion - even though there is much more pressing work awaiting my attention...)

And in doing so, I suspect he knows which c(h)ords to play to elicit the maximum attention from the breed best described as the aspiring intellectual in haste.
(That's the crowd who graduated from the entire "... for Dummies" series and who rest easily in the satisfaction of being able to distinguish Monet from Manet - sometimes, even visually!)

Consider this rather typically titled offering:

Dubious Dumas

(Oh yeah: alliteration works every time, in nursery rhymes as in art critique. It might not gain you the respect of your peers - or your subjects, unless your rhymes are flattering to them - but it will attract the attention of the notoriously ADD-afflicted "masses" in search of a cultured facade. Aliteration makes things easy to remember and gives even the most pedestrian word combinations a certain rotundity that compensates the lack of substance by sheer verbal force. Oh, and by the way: I don't like Dumas' work either.)

I am all for abandoning the pretense of "objectivity" (which is a sham, anyway) and critiquing works - and, eventually, people - from a blatantly subjective view.

I don't even mind the alluring antics of alliteration - as long as people are aware of its aims: to beguile, to razzle, to dazzle... To conceal.

But that's just it... Are they?

Some are. Many are.

Very many aren't.

But there will always be those who'll find the means to talk their way to the head of the herd. 

They are the ones who know that the blind don't really mind another blindman leading them - as long as s/he does so loudly and proudly, with confidence, concealing ignorance and fear.

Ignoring ignorance and fearing fear.

And I am not talking about film.
Or about Finch, for that matter.

Oh Kate: the Shrewing of a Tame One

Originally published by Lynx, the one and only ;)

Please, note there is some "strong" language herein.

Oh, and keep your etymology dictionary nearby... :)

I lost respect for Kate Winslet today.
Not all of it, but a considerable amount.
More than a little.
In fact, quite a bit.
Well, a little.

First, read this (if you haven't already), and then report back to tell if you've spotted the reason.
Or just to read me talking about it.

Isn't she deneuvely?

Oh yes, she is very "deneuvely".
(And considering I never particularly liked Deneuve - except her looks - that might not fare too well with me. But I digress.)

She is suddenly gorgeous beyond belief (even considering the heavy airbrushing).
And that's coming from someone who LOVED her as an actress, but never really saw her physical attraction.
(Yes, of course she was pretty. But... come on, was she really all that?)

That's certainly not the reason for my discontent.
Even her alarmingly sudden loss of all facial fat - which made her lose her delightfully "period" appearance - didn't bother me to the point of eliciting this blurp.
Or her apparently needless "tarting up".
(We get it: she is sexy. We don't really need to see her naked body to get the idea.
Or is it the "once a fat kid, always a fat kid" - that's Winslet talking, not us - that made this show-off of bare curves irresistible to her?)


No, it was this:


Casually dressed in a gray T-shirt, black pants, and flats, Kate Winslet has just descended from the rooftop deck of the downtown-Manhattan loft that she shares with her husband, film and theater director Sam Mendes, and their two children. <...> She admits she has just been upstairs indulging in her only known vice—smoking. Winslet, 33, rolls her own cigarettes; she picked up the habit on the set of Sense and Sensibility when she was 19. “I don’t smoke around my kids,” she’s quick to point out. “Like that makes it any better that I smoke at all, because obviously it doesn’t. But I don’t smoke in the house. I mean, I had a cigarette this morning, which is because I hadn’t been. Coffee and a cigarette: bingo!” She pauses. “I’m not sure if I want you to print that,” she says. Then she laughs.


The woman apologises for her smoking - so profusely that it takes half of a passage.
Smoking is obviously the mother of Satan. Yes. We know that.
And, God forbid, she doesn't smoke in front of her children.

OK, so she is concerned about her children, bless her heart. Of course. Who could blame her?

And also about her public image.
(Especially considering she was in NYC at the time, and we all know that smoking is the latest incarnation of Belzebub there. Not that London is much better in that regard, not lately.)

Personally, I would have preferred to elegantly dispense with such explanations and apologies, but then it's not my terrace, or my interview.

But consider the very next passage:


Hang around her for five days or only five minutes and you get the same woman: unfiltered, frank, sometimes blunt, though her British accent and her musical intonation make her speech, even the way she uses the word “fuck”—and she does use the word a lot, for comma, period, and exclamation point—sound like poetry.


And notice how the reporter herself beatifically qualifies this idiosyncracy (as opposed to the mute approval of her self-bashing regarding smoking): Kate's florilegium of assorted fuckery (Fuck yeah!, You bet your fucking ass I do! - now theres a good-sounding wedding vow - et-fucking-cetera) sounds like poetry.
And lest we don't get the picture: "Winslet exhibits a refreshing lack of pretention".

Ahem.

But then, we have come to almost expect such gregarious conformity from reporters (especially American ones) - haven't we?

It's the actress' conformity, its her gregariousness, what surprises me.
And not in a good way.
Not like her acting.
Or even like her new-found blonde bombshell look.

Let me see if I understand this: she feels compelled to apologise for her smoking (on her terrace, to boot) - but she doesn't feel the need to be even remotely embarrassed by her documentedly copious and blatantly unnecessary use of expletives, including the F word?

Are we being told that, in Winslet's opinion, seeing mum indulge in smoking (on the terrace!) would be more damaging to her children than hearing the poetry of effing as a substitute for punctuation?
(No Queen's garden party for you, kiddies!
And believe it or not, they CAN be fun.
Really.
No, really.)


When I started this, it was much less Kate's odd perspective than a certain frame of mind - and the insidious forces that do the framing - what I had in mind. And the best illustration of it that I can think of right now is certainly not this interview but rather certain passages in Milan Kundera's book The Unbearable Lightness of Being in which said frame of mind and said framing forces are brilliantly exposed.

But it will have to wait. Late afternoons are always made later by heavy rain.

And besides, you can always go and read the novel for yourself - and then tell me if you see its connection to this apparent rambling about Kate's interview.
(It is a very, very subtle connection, I'll give you that. Definitely. But subtle doesn't equal irrelevant.)

Or just read it.
If nothing else, parts of it are pure poetry.
(Unless, of course, you manage to find some prim and purged translation...)


Bah... this vent has made me see that I do still like you, Kate.
Come over, we'll have a cigarette.
On my terrace.
I'll even let you roll it for me.

Just don't bring any fucking reporters with you.