#i dont think that if the film was never made then racism would be solved forever or anything

[jheselbraum]

Birth of a Nation revitalized the KKK in America and is perhaps the only piece of "irredeemable media" I can think of that's actually like. You know, a story, and I don't know of anything else off the top of my head that had that kind of lasting, palpably harmful impact that isn't like, direct state mandated propaganda like Mein Kampf. In 1915 the KKK was effectively dead, they'd slowly dissolved around the 1870s (particularly after the introduction of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871) and Birth of a Nation led to the most notorious American terrorist group reforming. As far as I'm concerned, DW Griffith has actual blood on his hands, for murders committed at the very least through the 40s (they disbanded temporarily in 1944 after America's most effective violent crime task force, the IRS, got involved, though it could be argued he's only responsible for murders committed by the KKK through the 20s, as membership declined rapidly after that once people saw that being part of a terrorist organization wasn't like how it was in the movie).

And like, look I generally don't think the word "irredeemable" can really be applied to art in any form, but there is something viscerally reprehensible about Birth of a Nation that makes us not want to watch it. Like it (arguably) pioneered a lot of film techniques but that's more of the science side of film than the art side, I'm completely certain that people would have figured out that contrasting long shots with close-ups made movies more interesting if Birth of a Nation was left on the cutting room floor. (In fact, several of the techniques 'pioneered' by Birth of a Nation were actually from earlier films, it's just that DW Griffith was more popular and his films are the ones that were remembered). But like we don't screen this movie publicly, we don't like it, we don't like the what DW Griffith had to say. Birth of a Nation just... repels people away from it. Its in person screenings are relegated to a few film classes and maybe some klan meetings, though I'm certain there are some racists on 4chan who've downloaded a copy. If you ask normal people to pick one movie to stop existing, there's no way out of it you have to pick one, chances are they'll pick Birth of a Nation, assuming they've even heard of it (my first exposure to it was in high school, some people might not get to it until college, or even later, that's just kind of what happens with something like this. It's not like you can learn about something through cultural osmosis when the culture is trying like hell to osmosis that thing out of itself). It's an acceptable loss.

Meanwhile, from what I've read, I'd say the decision to use A Serbian Film alongside Birth of a Nation is actually a reasonable one, not because of the graphic nature of it's content, but rather its themes and message and how flat it can feel because of who's saying it (DISCLAIMER: I haven't watched it, I'm not going to watch it, take this with a grain of salt). It's about a man who's forced to commit horrific crimes to survive (economically, though he may be directly threatened with death I'm not sure, he's doing it as a job basically). If you'll recall, Serbia committed genocide during the Bosnian War in the 90s, the targets being primarily Bosniaks but also including anyone in Bosnia and Herzegovina that wasn't Serbian.

The director of the film, Srđan Spasojević, had this to say when asked if the acts depicted in the film were related in any way to crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars:

A Serbian Film does not touch upon war themes, but in a metaphorical way deals with the consequences of post-war society and a man that is exploited to the extreme in the name of securing the survival of his family.

Additionally, he described the film as "a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government ... It's about the monolithic power of leaders who hypnotize you to do things you don't want to do. You have to feel the violence to know what it's about."

A Serbian Film is an exploitation film that's apparently considered one of the most disturbing of all time, but the film is not a snuff film as many people have claimed. A snuff film is the filming of actual gruesome crimes like murder, torture, and rape, committed for the purpose of selling the resulting film and making money. It's not "a movie that depicts gruesome crimes like murder, torture, and rape through the use of special or practical effects."

Based on the quick read-through of the Wikipedia article I did, it seems like most of what the film is trying to say is through the lens of the aftermath of the Yugoslav Wars, or at least that's how the audience largely interpreted it. The script writer, Aleksandar Radivojević, said this about the process of securing funding for the film and the state of the Serbian film industry in general.

you had this EU arts council funded production using Serbia for EU's political agitprop agenda of 'promoting tolerance and reconciliation in the post-war Balkans' by boosting sappy local projects of no aesthetic value whose sole reason for receiving EU financing was their respective authors' willingness to amplify the EU-approved message, i.e. to express 'Serb contrition over what happened in the Yugoslav Wars' via essentially making victim porn, showing small miserable Serb people who are struggling mightily while nevertheless simultaneously 'doing their part in search of collective redemption' by being extremely remorseful

Now, I'm a white American who does not experience racism of any kind, let alone the violently dehumanizing prejudice necessary to convince a group of people to commit an ethnic cleansing, but if my people had been the victims of a genocide, and I heard someone from the group of people that committed that genocide complain about media depicting his people's remorse, and saw that that guy also wrote a movie where the plot is a man is forced to commit gruesome rapes, and again, my people were gruesomely raped as a part of that guy's country's plan to wipe my people from existence, I'd be fucking pissed. Like again, I haven't seen A Serbian Film, and Radivojević wasn't the only person in the writer's room, so maybe in practice it reads less as "our government was controlling us we did nothing wrong" and more "our government is controlling us and we're monsters for listening." And we can argue the merits of the latter another time, but at least the latter acknowledges that genocide doesn't happen in a vacuum because some schmucks at the top said so, that the people bear as much responsibility as their government.

Now, is A Serbian Film actually trying to say anything about the Yugoslav Wars at all? I don't know. I haven't seen it. Maybe it isn't about the Bosnian genocide at all. But then what is it saying about Serbia? Serbian actor Dragan Bjelogrlić said this about the film and its director, a year after its release:

I have a problem with A Serbian Film. Its director in particular. I've got a serious problem with this boy whose father got wealthy during the 1990s—nothing against making money, but I know how money was made [in Serbia] during the '90s—and then pays for his son's education abroad and eventually the kid comes back to Serbia to film his view of the country using his dad's money and even calls the whole thing A Serbian Film. To me that's a metaphor for something unacceptable. The second generation comes back to the country and using the money that had been robbed from the people of Serbia, smears the very same people by portraying them as the worst scum of the earth.

OP was right, it's fucking insane that this site only uses words like irredeemable media to talk about cartoons for children. Like, no, Steven Universe or The Owl House or My Hero Academia or whatever TV-Y7 cartoon you're hyper focused on that week isn't irredeemable media. Your bar for even discussing it as a possibility is "did this story's public existence revitalize a terrorist organization and lead to several murders," a qualification which A Serbian Film, despite its content, themes, and possible interpretations, does not meet. It's offensive, and disturbing, it possibly excuses genocide, but as far as I've read, no one has gotten physically hurt because it exists.

A Serbian Film is more violently graphic than Birth of a Nation. Birth of a Nation did more to physically harm real people than A Serbian Film ever could.

It's fucking wild that the above reaction to A Serbian Film mentions next to nothing about what it's trying to say, how well it works, who's saying it and in what context, but focuses purely on the graphic and violent scenes depicted in the film. It's probably why they slapped Salo on at the end even though a cursory glance through Wikipedia (I don't care enough to read thoroughly on the plot and themes you get the point graphic exploitation films aren't inherently evil for depicting murder or rape or whatever I don't want to read about more graphic shit it's not something I personally enjoy doing) reveals that that film is strictly antifascist, though several actors were actually injured during filming. Notably, the director of Salo, Pier Paolo Pasolini, was gruesomely abducted, tortured, and murdered in 1975 shortly before Salo's release at the Paris Film Festival. He was openly gay, and a Marxist, and while his death was initially contributed to one Giuseppe Pelosi (17 at the time of the murder) after he confessed, he later retracted his confession claiming that he made it under the threat of violence to his family (which unfortunately tracks, Americans may recall the more recent case of Amanda Knox, who was arrested in 2007 for the murder of her friend and forced by Italian police to confess to a crime she didn't commit and was later exonerated from). The case was reopened after Giuseppe's retraction in 2005 and other evidence that had come to light, and as of 2023 the Italian authorities are looking at the far right group Banda della Magliana as possible suspects. While I agree that "I hear it's kind of. nasty" is frankly an understatement when attempting to discuss the graphic content of Salo, and really fucking hilarious in the context of trying to argue that Salo shouldn't exist at all, I don't know that that's really a fair criticism to make, considering the other two examples are if not directly far right (using the term because of the changing political landscape between 1915 and 2010, like I can't really call Birth of a Nation fascist because it was made before fascism was a fully congealed political ideology, even if it upholds the ideology of fascism) then at least debatably so. As previously established, the actual content of the film, as in, the acts depicted, don't immediately make a work reprehensible. Remember, A Serbian Film is more graphic and disturbing to watch than Birth of a Nation, but Birth of a Nation is worse than A Serbian Film.

Tldr; op is right, and the person whose tags have been drowned is exactly the kind of person op was talking about

'Irredeemable media' is such a funny concept to me because it's never used for stuff like Birth of a Nation or A Serbian Film. It's always The Owl House or My Hero Academia because these people only watch things for children and can't stand any conflict more complex than Super Mario Brothers.

[latestnews2018-blog]

We Don't Need 'Who Is America?' To Tell Us How Bad Things Are

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/we-dont-need-who-is-america-to-tell-us-how-bad-things-are/

We Don't Need 'Who Is America?' To Tell Us How Bad Things Are

His pants lowered to bare his buttocks, Georgia state Rep. Jason Spencer scuttled backward at his opponent, who was portraying an Islamic terrorist. “America!” Spencer bellowed. “I will turn you into a homosexual!” he tells the terrorist.

Welcome to the second episode of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Showtime comedy “Who Is America?” The premiere arrived last week on a wave of critical buzz, thanks to a torrent of outraged statements from conservative politicos who’d been fooled by the actor into advocating for the arming of small children.

But despite the anticipation, the debut ratings were dismal. Though the numbers edged up with encore and On Demand viewings, viewership was weak compared with the debuts of cable TV’s recent successful political comedies, like TBS’s “Full Frontal with Sam Bee” and HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” Even Comedy Central’s “The Opposition with Jordan Klepper,” canceled thanks to abysmal ratings after one season, started stronger than Baron Cohen’s new vehicle.

Why is “Who Is America?” opening with more of a whimper than a bang? Perhaps we’re tired of political humor, or it’s been too long since Baron Cohen’s last hit. Or perhaps this particular brand of comedic exposé has lost its appeal. After all, it’s not like we really need it anymore to grasp how bad things are.

Not that Sunday night’s segment with Spencer wasn’t jaw-dropping. The Republican lawmaker believed he was taking part in anti-terrorism training with an Israeli former military officer, Erran Morad (Baron Cohen in heavy, rather obvious makeup). Morad put Spencer through his paces, having him participate in exercises in which he yelled racial slurs as a diversionary tactic, performed an offensive parody of a Chinese tourist, and took an upskirt photo of a person in a burka to check for weaponry. 

It was an astonishing display, even for a politician previously best known for threatening a former Democratic state rep — a black woman — that she might “go missing” in the swamp due to her public support for removing Confederate statues. Spencer, who in May’s GOP primary lost his bid for a fifth term, put out a statement before this embarrassing footage aired, saying, “It is clear the makers of this film intended to deceive me in an attempt to undermine the American conservative political movement.”

But meanwhile, the party’s leader, President Donald Trump, was in the midst of a rather typical evening of tweeting: referring to his long-ago opponent in the presidential election as “Crooked Hillary,” then sending an all-caps threat of military engagement to President Hassan Rouhani of Iran. 

Of course, no statement needed to be issued to explain how the president was tricked into this unhinged behavior. With Trump leading the way, conservatives have become more and more comfortable showing their own asses unprompted. 

Sure, it’s still quite alarming to see lobbyists and congressional representatives eagerly advocate arming kindergartners with stuffed animal guns. In the most successful sketch from the premiere, Morad peddles a program, “Kinder-Guardians,” intended to solve America’s school shooting epidemic by arming schoolchildren as young as four. As a work of entertainment, the segment is masterful ― and it takes the gun debate in a daring direction by pulling in the right-wing fascination with Israel and its military culture.

Showtime

Gun rights advocate Philip Van Cleave participating in an fictional ad campaign for stuffed animal guns for children in the premiere of “Who Is America?”

The Republicans caught by the Kinder-Guardians trick are defensive and embarrassed, at least for now. Being fooled by a liberal comedian makes them look gullible. But then again, they really weren’t fooled into revealing much that didn’t already exist out in the open.

There was a moment, when “Da Ali G Show” and “The Daily Show” were in their prime, that comedy like this could be genuinely revealing. In the old-fashioned days of the aughts, seeing Baron Cohen or a “Daily Show” correspondent coax a shocking statement out of a public figure, or even a random person on the street, had the power to truly jolt us.  Comedy interviews stood to expose the depths of our fellow humans’ carefully hidden cravenness, bigotry, ignorance, extremism.

“Da Ali G Show” character Borat Sagdiyev, a Kazakh reporter also played by Baron Cohen, made a specialty of baiting subjects with his own professed anti-Semitism, racism and sexism. During a wine-tasting segment, he asked Norman Harris, the head of a Mississippi wine organization, whether the black waiter was “his slave.” Harris responded that slavery had been outlawed, which was a good thing. “For them,” he added. “For you, not so much!” Borat replied jovially. Harris agreed.

“That guy normally would never say that he thought it’s a shame that slavery doesn’t exist anymore,” Baron Cohen told The New York Times. “But because he’s in the room with somebody who’s totally naïve and seems to not mind that slavery existed, he was fully honest.”

By comfortably displaying racist views, a character like Borat made interviewees feel safe in revealing their own. In another interview, the comedian described the technique as “a dramatic demonstration of how racism feeds on dumb conformity as much as rabid bigotry.”

Now, 14 years later, that seems hard to dispute. We don’t even need to turn to edgy comedy for overt demonstrations of the phenomenon. Trump himself functions as an always-in-character version of what Baron Cohen pretends to be for a comedy show: a public figure who offers tacit encouragement for others to voice and enact bigotry by doing so himself.

Baron Cohen’s variety of comedic exposé was perfectly engineered for a time when the kind of middle-class white liberals who watched “Ali G” and “The Daily Show” weren’t confronted with the extremity of others’ views all the time. Back then, it was relatively easy to avoid people who think things were better before the Civil War or that, I don’t know, you should give high-powered weaponry to children on the cusp of learning to use a fork.

But we’re bathed in it now, in the ambient Pizzagate conspiracy theories and “build the wall” rants we face on every platform. We don’t need Borat to bust GOP officials and candidates when they’re recklessly posting racist memes to their own Facebook pages. 

As for random citizens, they easily can, and do, broadcast their own anti-Semitic, misogynistic, anti-gun control and racist views to Twitter ― no comedic sting required. During the second episode, NPR host Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello, another Baron Cohen character, announces the construction of an enormous new community mosque to a meeting of Kingman, Arizona, residents. They respond with trembling outrage; one shouts that he identifies as “racist against Muslims,” and several more argue that they already tolerate black people, although they don’t like it. The scene felt gratuitously painful, an unfunny rehash of a racist debate we already know too well.

Then again, much of Baron Cohen’s shtick has always been a straightforward troll. In “Who Is America?,” he subjects Bernie Sanders to a mathematically incomprehensible presentation on how to move all of the 99 percent into the 1 percent while the senator, with a single-mindedness familiar to those who followed the 2016 Democratic primary, steered the conversation back to his stump speech. This showed nothing new about Sanders, but Baron Cohen didn’t seem to be aiming to.

Showtime

“Bachelor” star Corinne Olympios poses as an aid worker who helped combat an ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. She didn’t perform such service, and the scene for the second episode of “Who Is America?” was filmed in front of a green screen.

Aside from Morad’s interviews with conservative officials and activists, Baron Cohen’s antics seemed tame, even pointless, compared with the charged conversations we deal with daily in real life. Take the segment in which one-time “Bachelor” star Corinne Olympios, while endorsing a fake charity supposedly providing relief for an Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, blankly reads a script for an ad urging people to support child soldiers by providing them with training and equipment. Yes, yes, reality stars will do anything for attention; it’s hard to recall a time when such a revelation would have rocked anyone to their core.

In “Who Is America?,” Baron Cohen repeatedly whiffs on opportunities to illuminate what bizarre things people really would support. Why send an absurd parody of a lefty NPR host to the home of GOP local bigwigs? Without exactly giving a flattering read to the Trump-supporting couple, it does offer them an opportunity to politely condemn behavior that most on the left would also decry, like forcing a young girl to stand while urinating. The takeaway is muddled at best. Getting liberals to cosign those choices on camera ― that might be a coup.

Resurrecting his particular brand of stunt comedy journalism ― honed in a very different cultural and political context ― for a Trump era already awash in gleeful incompetence, extremism and trolling, might seem like a perfect fit for the times. Instead, it’s outdated. (Perhaps that’s partly due to the outdated writers’ room, which consists entirely of men, including one who lost his job on “Inside Amy Schumer” after publicly bragging about choking his ex and sending hordes of sexist trolls after female writers.)

We also must ask whether his approach could be as harmful as it is informative and entertaining. Baron Cohen’s provocations have always raised the question of whether the end of exposing prejudice justifies the means of recreating it, and the evidence is piling up that comic bigotry may only make people more comfortable with the real thing. Take the spillage of Reddit Nazism-for-lolz into genuine radicalization and violence. Take Trump himself.

GOP politicians certainly haven’t become less openly racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Islam and sexist than they were when Baron Cohen first started scamming them in the early aughts. And given how far-right shit-posting has likely helped accommodate the country to outright white nationalism, I found myself wondering uncomfortably whether the guns-for-kids stunt on “Who Is America?” might not also be absorbed into the political debate. Maybe irony can move the  Overton Window, too. 

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