(Originally published in The Peak on January 17, 2011)
On January 8, U.S. democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head at a public gathering in Tucson, Arizona. Her attacker then turned on the rest of the crowd, shooting haphazardly until he ran out of ammunition. Although Giffords herself miraculously survived, a state judge and a nine-year-old girl were among the six others slain.
The logical reaction would be to assume that Sarah Palin was behind this, right? Not directly, maybe, but through what was described as her “violent political rhetoric”.
Of course the shooter was a right-wing hillbilly; of course he was inspired by Sarah Palin and the far-right Tea Party movement. Hours after the news broke, before anything was known about the identity of the gunman, it was claimed that Palin’s website had an image of Giffords with a cross-hair superimposed.
A Vancouver blogger summed it up on Twitter: “the dangers a large uneducated population of armed rednecks & a right wing [Palin], [Beck], [Limbaugh] hate machine urging them on . . .” Comments like this betray a misguided, reflexive spite that seeks to demonize before it seeks to answer.
The killer, as it turns out, is neither a radical Christian nor a right wing ideologue. His politics appear to be those of a paranoid lunatic, more concerned with the government’s secret mind control agenda than partial birth abortions. He was paradoxically a fan of both Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Hitler’s Mein Kampf. In fact, he was described by peers as “far left”.
The reaction of the press to this tragedy stands in stark contrast to the rational reaction to the Fort Hood shootings in November of 2009. In that case, which appeared to be a clear-cut case of Islamic extremism which resulted in 13 deaths, CNN repeatedly warned against “jumping to conclusions.” With all of the PR implications around such an event, it’s reasonable to be cautious about such matters. Get the facts right, and make sure to keep the speculation to a minimum.
But there was a very different attitude towards the Giffords shooting, where CNN’s Wolf Blitzer first pointed out that there was no evidence linking Palin to the shooter, and then continued to engage in discussion which speculated about ways in which there might be a connection, anyway. Ironically, the discussion has since spun into the power of rhetoric and the responsibility that politicians have for what they say and how they say it, the finger being not so subtly pointed at Palin and the GOP.
Whether this is true or not is irrelevant; this isn’t a message to be preached using the coffins of the victims as a makeshift soapbox.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Who owns the Gift Shop?
(Originally published in The Peak on January 17, 2011)
The rumors around street artist Banksy’s documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop aren’t stopping. First it was a question of the film’s authenticity. Now it has become a question of ownership.
Released as a documentary, the elusive Banksy appears on camera in a mask and voice modifier to tell the story of Thierry Guetta, a street art documentarian turned artist himself. Thierry climbed his way to the top of the street art ladder, beginning with Space Invader in France, then Shepard Fairy in California, eventually making his way to Banksy’s inner circle. He had his camera on the entire time. When it came time for Thierry to produce the documentary he’d been promising, the result was a film called Life Remote Control, which was, for all intents and purposes, 90 minutes of complete nonsense. Banksy took the thousands of hours of Guetta’s footage and decided to make a documentary of his own. Exit Through the Gift Shop is the result.
Banksy insists that the Gift Shop material is authentic.
“If I’d written it myself there would have been a car chase and lasers. Unfortunately there’s neither,” he said in an (anonymous) interview. Critics didn’t care much; they said the intrigue added to the film.
Rumors persist about an impending Oscar nomination. A wanted street artist, the most famous anonymous person in the world, who seems to spend most of his time thinking up ways to poke fun at the establishment, could be nominated for an Oscar. Will the irony never cease?
Now Jaques Levy, the filmmaker who helped Guetta put together Life Remote Control, wants credit for his work, which only adds to the discussion. If Exit is a ruse, then it only becomes more elaborate. If it’s authentic, then it’s just getting more complicated.
If the film truly is about challenging the artistic values that we hold, I find a deeper sense of irony that Banksy, and everyone else involved, still rides the monetary wave of success that his fame has brought him.
“Graffiti isn’t meant to last forever. I’d prefer someone draw a moustache and glasses on one of my pieces than encase it in Perspex,” he says. Of course, that’s easy enough when no one knows who you are, and with Levy looking for his pound of flesh, this philosophy might have to take a back seat to more practical considerations.
The film sits in the public eye like everything else Banksy does: half beautiful, half shocking, and with just a dash of hypocrisy.
The rumors around street artist Banksy’s documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop aren’t stopping. First it was a question of the film’s authenticity. Now it has become a question of ownership.
Released as a documentary, the elusive Banksy appears on camera in a mask and voice modifier to tell the story of Thierry Guetta, a street art documentarian turned artist himself. Thierry climbed his way to the top of the street art ladder, beginning with Space Invader in France, then Shepard Fairy in California, eventually making his way to Banksy’s inner circle. He had his camera on the entire time. When it came time for Thierry to produce the documentary he’d been promising, the result was a film called Life Remote Control, which was, for all intents and purposes, 90 minutes of complete nonsense. Banksy took the thousands of hours of Guetta’s footage and decided to make a documentary of his own. Exit Through the Gift Shop is the result.
Banksy insists that the Gift Shop material is authentic.
“If I’d written it myself there would have been a car chase and lasers. Unfortunately there’s neither,” he said in an (anonymous) interview. Critics didn’t care much; they said the intrigue added to the film.
Rumors persist about an impending Oscar nomination. A wanted street artist, the most famous anonymous person in the world, who seems to spend most of his time thinking up ways to poke fun at the establishment, could be nominated for an Oscar. Will the irony never cease?
Now Jaques Levy, the filmmaker who helped Guetta put together Life Remote Control, wants credit for his work, which only adds to the discussion. If Exit is a ruse, then it only becomes more elaborate. If it’s authentic, then it’s just getting more complicated.
If the film truly is about challenging the artistic values that we hold, I find a deeper sense of irony that Banksy, and everyone else involved, still rides the monetary wave of success that his fame has brought him.
“Graffiti isn’t meant to last forever. I’d prefer someone draw a moustache and glasses on one of my pieces than encase it in Perspex,” he says. Of course, that’s easy enough when no one knows who you are, and with Levy looking for his pound of flesh, this philosophy might have to take a back seat to more practical considerations.
The film sits in the public eye like everything else Banksy does: half beautiful, half shocking, and with just a dash of hypocrisy.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)