Strangely unreflective media...
Aug. 25th, 2008 12:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsWhen you read a magazine from another culture, if it's a culture you have at least heard of in some respect, you bring to your reading certain expectations. Those expectations may be far from valid, they may even be offensive to those putting out the magazine, but they're your expectations. Having them met would be validation of your prejudice; not having them met would be an eye-opening experience.
It doesn't even have to be a culture far from home. I'm not talking about reading the cherry-picked articles that appear in MEMRI, for example. Just Country Weekly, a magazine about country music and the artists who make it.
I was stuck in a doctor's office for an hour with only this magazine. It's a slim and easy thing to read, and I went through it from front to back. There were mentions of various country singers and performers and even an interview with Jeff Foxworthy, the country comedian.
There was even a report about Country Thunder, a four-day music festival with all the greats of the genre, dozens of performers, and (according to the article, if not the website), extra percussion from the National Guard in the form of a (small) howitzer.
And yet, for supposedly all this "Music from the Heartland of America!" stuff, for all the flagwaving, for all the pictures of men in unform firing off a canon, for pictures of country music stars in camo jackets and helmets holding their ears while the cannon was fired, for all of that, two words appear precisely zero times in this magazine. Can you guess what those words are?
"Iraq" and "Afghanistan." For that matter, "supporting our troops" is also strangely absent.
Okay, I don't expect every magazine to be thinking about the war all the time. But you'd think that there'd be mention, somewhere, in all this banal jingoism, all these routine pictures of stars dealing with their kids or talking about their marriages, of the real prices of freedom. Maybe some middle-tier star doing a USO tour somewhere. Fundraisers. Awareness raisers. Something.
Huh.
It doesn't even have to be a culture far from home. I'm not talking about reading the cherry-picked articles that appear in MEMRI, for example. Just Country Weekly, a magazine about country music and the artists who make it.
I was stuck in a doctor's office for an hour with only this magazine. It's a slim and easy thing to read, and I went through it from front to back. There were mentions of various country singers and performers and even an interview with Jeff Foxworthy, the country comedian.
There was even a report about Country Thunder, a four-day music festival with all the greats of the genre, dozens of performers, and (according to the article, if not the website), extra percussion from the National Guard in the form of a (small) howitzer.
And yet, for supposedly all this "Music from the Heartland of America!" stuff, for all the flagwaving, for all the pictures of men in unform firing off a canon, for pictures of country music stars in camo jackets and helmets holding their ears while the cannon was fired, for all of that, two words appear precisely zero times in this magazine. Can you guess what those words are?
"Iraq" and "Afghanistan." For that matter, "supporting our troops" is also strangely absent.
Okay, I don't expect every magazine to be thinking about the war all the time. But you'd think that there'd be mention, somewhere, in all this banal jingoism, all these routine pictures of stars dealing with their kids or talking about their marriages, of the real prices of freedom. Maybe some middle-tier star doing a USO tour somewhere. Fundraisers. Awareness raisers. Something.
Huh.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 08:32 pm (UTC)But, going by the website, I don't get much sense of it being any different from any other music festival. Country Music, yeah, and I can't judge if it's as musically, inquisitive as a UK pop festival can be.
It's almost fake rednecks with the ultimate BFG. and I do wonder if you've misread the symbology.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 09:10 pm (UTC)Maybe they're dealing with the fact that the national consciousness has shifted, and they're at stage 1 of Grieving (http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/stages-of-grief.jpg) for their old worldview, namely, denial.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 10:55 pm (UTC)And here, I was about to suggest that perhaps its absense made more sense because the people in this culture get their news about the war from letters home. They don't need any more from their media.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 07:40 pm (UTC)I always thought "canon" was singular. Isn't it?
no subject
Date: 2008-08-26 08:50 pm (UTC)