Sensitivity or censorship? The Diana effect

Week after Diana's death cinema takings went up 80% as the TV were still being "appropriate".

I personally feel that my writing may change if the world is now a different place, if terrorism and war and economic collapse are now to be the order of the day (I really hope they aren't).

I've talked elsewhere about how Japan produces a certain kind of cutely perverse art because of the specific cultural environment there -- 'ostranenie in the context of low anomie', I called it. In these terms, I think this week's terrorist attacks must be seen as raising the level of anomie (lawlessness, structurelessness) to almost unbearable levels in the west. There will be a dismal amount of artistic comfort food and pabulum as a result.

Whether that will be any worse than Primal Scream's idiotic terrorist chic (and they weren't the only ones -- here in New York we have all sorts of faux terrorists like ARE Weapons) is a matter of taste.

Equally cancelling all UEFA football last night. Why? I'm all for cancelling the Ryder Cup, but really shouldn't sport be outside all of this?

On other notes, who has witnessed racist attacks in North America against ethnic peoples? The media is hate mongering.

I was in a shop last night buying cigarettes and the store owner was being verbally abused as being "responsible" for the world trade center bombing and that they will "get him and his kind".

Any comments?

i'm getting paranoid now. my boyfriend is half pakistani muslim and has arabic-looking skin. i fear similar idiocies (but oh so terrible and dangerous idiocies) bring aimed at him. his brother is due to go on the hajj in a couple of months time.

In the US, well that may be a different kettle of fish. The Siege - an otherwise appaling Denzel Washington movie - is quite interesting on this issue. But then if the US media has already decided its Bin Laden then who needs proof?

It has not looked at it's own facist foreign policy of "democracy", the hi-jackers boarded the flight in Boston and trained as pilots in the United States.

This is really pissing me off. The Canadian/US border is impossible to cross, six hours at most to travel past the check points. Coming to Canada from the US it takes 30 minutes at the most. Canadian airspace is restricted until further notice.

Police State, anyone?

Which made me think about abstraction - a big critical cliche about the move from representation after WWI is how it was a reaction to the horror of it and impossibility of representation - but might it also not be seen as a comforting retreat from it. Is formalism a cop- out in these situations?

And, sad to say, the decision to pull some of these fllms and so forth is in part protecting the investment.

Merely showing the WTC is not be offensive, but the producers of "Spider-Man" have the opportunity to cut a trailer any way they'd like so why not remove it? Re-editing completed works of art would be silly, however, and that "Seinfeld" thing is just odd.

And the United Nations is a joke. America has not paid it's dues in fifty years to the UN.

Because it hadn't been brought up in any newsreports at all.

I was disappointed to see that even Moby, in his online journal, uses that line about this being 'an attack on civilisation'. He also greatly exaggerates the difficulty of moving around in Lower Manhattan, saying he has no papers with his address on them. I went from Central Park to Canal Street yesterday on the subway and wasn't controlled once. All you need is a check book with your address on it. I can't believe Moby doesn't have one of those, unless it's against his principles.

The Americans are looking for something iconic to grasp during these terrible times.

It is nothing like Pearl Harbour. I am personally very afraid that George Bush will start a war. He is a lunatic with his comments about war. He does not know he did this.

I am in my office and people are already taking on certain ethnic communities as enemies, not even realizing that those same people work in the same company.

My heart sickens at what could be a holy war.

The media coverage has been sensationalistic and full of prograndhi.

The Pearl Harbour meme - you think they are as pissed off with the film as I was? Actually if you look at say the Tokyo subway gassing - that would have parallels (organization being the key one I would imagine).

Momus: It entirely depends on which area of the city you live in. Financial district and below are virtually impossible to get into if you aren't in uniform. However, I truly doubt that Moby lives on the heart of Wall St - he's in the Village, for heaven's sake. He should be fine, he is exagerrating. OTOH, no one in our company is allowed to get anywhere near our hotel to assess the damage (we already know that 8 months work of T1 phone lines are completely gone, but we aren't 100% certain that that's the only damage) - they were forced back by police officers, thankfully cos quite frankly it's stupid to go down there if you don't have a reason to.

As for the comments about the attack on civilisation - um, it IS an attack on civilisation. Civilised people do not go and hurl airplanes into buildings. Terrorist organizations, no matter what their "lofty" goals are, are not civilised people. It's the same thing with terrorist groups bombing each other in the middle east or the IRA or whatever - civilised people do not do that. The unfortunate thing is that I'm afraid certain groups of people right now are having a hard time distinguishing between "anyone who looks like the race of the supposed terrorists" and "the terrorists" and have decided that terrorists being uncivilised and wrong means an entire race of people are uncivilised and wrong, which is clearly not true.

Ally, I am afraid of the repercussions. I was sickened as the everyone was about the horrific tradegy that occurred. The aftermath is coming and I'm shitting it. History repeats itself. I am very afriaid at the moment and angry.

I would be much more comfortable with the discussion if the word "rational" was used instead of "civilized".

Sorry, that's appallingly phrased. What I mean is, use of that phrase doesn't require a belief in the moral superiority of the West.

Unfortunately Dan I fear that whoever organized and did this were probably very rational, especially considering they had to convince a fair number of other people to take part in the suicide bombings.

Organized, cunning, intelligent, and convincing have nothing to do with rational, at least not in my experience. I had very little faith in humanity's capacity for reason before this; the attack and many subsequent reactions have done little to change my mind. In fact, the one thing that's surprised me the most is how rational Bush has been. Connections to bin Laden may be a ruse or hasty, but they haven't thrown in the towel and begun chucking nuclear weapons at Afghanistan and it's been three days. I was expecting some type of retaliatory strike by now and the fact that it hasn't yet surfaced is doing more for my frame of mind than the tracing of this paper trail could.

It's a horrible irony that Islamic civilisation gave the world the geometry and mathematics which allowed the (undoubtedly Islamic) terrorists to navigate radar beacons as they approached the World Trade Center on Tuesday.

Of course flying an aeroplane into a bullding is uncivilised, unless you want to retire the word from meaning altogether (which you obviously don't, since you're busily producing examples of civilisation).

Public evidence the hijackers are Islamic (as opposed e.g. to bitter enemies of Islam) = no better so far than evidence for "Queen Mother Theory"

McCain is such a freakin war hawk! I can tell Bush will easliy be swayed by Generals to get revenge against the bad guys who fought Daddy.

I like Americans. They look like they have a bright shining light on them at all times and it is the future. Being American, is an identity on it's own. Ethnic communities are not represented during times of crisis (I could be massively wrong but it is my own humble opinion).

Look no further than Vietnam, Communism is wrong, Democracy is the way.

Right now the thing that...not unsettles, but makes me stop and think, is simply that the group being rounded up *is* it. Flight training, some engineering, some evasions of security. You don't need to be supported by a government or what have you to pull that off. Like Dan says, the fact that nothing's been done is actually a weight off my mind, in that somebody somewhere realizes that at base maybe there's nothing *to* do.

Describes what I failed to do above.

Someone earlier said how they were annoyed that the US constitutes ''civilisation'' now. I agree. The egotism of *some* americans is breathtaking.

eBay bans sale of all World Trade Center memorabilia
LOS ANGELES, Sept 13 (Reuters) - The online auction site eBay has banned the sale of all World Trade Center and Pentagon memorabilia after everything from chunks of rubble and bits of glass to videotapes of the disaster appeared for sale within hours of Tuesday's kamikaze passenger plane attacks.
The auction house eBay moved swiftly on the evening of the attacks to impose what it called "extraordinary measures," saying it was acting out of respect for the victims, their families and the survivors.
"So far we have probably removed several hundred items put up by people suggesting they were selling anything from debris to videotapes or calendars and books," eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said on Thursday. He said the prices being asked were "all over the map.".
The ban covers legitimate items such as postcards of the soaring twin towers of the World Trade Center - a landmark now obliterated from the New York skyline - as well as more grisly mementos seized by bounty hunters from the rubble.

re: "civilisation" of course it is not civilised to attack vietnam. it is not "civilised" to attack anyone for, basically, no real reason. i don't believe the us should've been involved in vietnam. desite my ties to israeli nationalists in my life, i also don't believe the us should be involved in the middle east. but ramming buildings like this - be it in the us or the uk or tokyo - is just beyond the level of involving oneself in an ongoing war. it is beyond the level of civilisation or sanity. if you want to use another term besides the dictionary term "civlised" then i am happy to accomodate that - sanity? humanity? i don't know what else to use. i just know that whether you are randomly bombing saudis or americans or english, it's all the same - it's not something that should be the result of modern civilisation. it's primitive and horrible and base - we have so many other ways now.

that's where my frustration is coming in. i understand that it is awful that so-and-so bombed so-and-so and the US took the side of so- and-so #2. BUT SO WHAT? that doesn't justify the destruction of....everything.

you don't understand, you the universal you. i grew up staring at those buildings i am an architectural freak, i admired those buildings, they represented everyting to me and they are gone. they got the symbolic structure representing our security as well, and if you believe the suspect rumors it's because we got involved in something we shouldn't have. because we took sides. fucking a.

it's NOT civilised. it wouldn't be civilised anywhere regardless of who does it, and i don't see how pointing to vietnam war or hiroshima justifies this any more than pointing to fucking pokemon would justify it.

this is why i'm defending the americn media, for all it's faults. it's certainly hysterical and obnoxious, but so is everyone else pointing a finger that we should've known better.

i'm sorry but this is not the time to say we deserved it. no one deserves something like this and i think anyone who thinks anyone deserves this is nuts. the problem with our foreign policy is we took sides. i NEVER thought we should've gotten involved in the middle east. let them blow each other up. but the government idsagrees has this stupid involvistionist policy - fuck it never again, i say.

i am rambling, sorry, i have drank a lot and i am a bit of a wreck, i finally got my tickets out for the weekend and i am okay, hapy but it's everytin g at once, sorry. i am not trying to offend anyone, i swear to god.

Right. The rhetoric is that the U.S. et al.'s retaliatory strikes (if any) will be a war for civilization.

And the reason Europeans are saying these things is not I think because Europeans are comfortable and cossetted and callous, but because most Europeans have lived with the various stages and permutations of domestic terror for several decades (though not on this ghastly scale), and understand that indiscriminate response is the surest way of turning an extremist minority into a mainstream political force. I'm writing stuff on these boards to try to work out what I think, but also to try and work through the fear and horror than I'm feeling.

I apologise, again, if anything I've said has offended those nearest these events. Most people I know in Britain are working towards and organising fund-raising efforts here so that we can do something to help. We're not sitting idly by and bashing the US. But as well as troops and money and supplies, what Europe can contribute is perspective.

I think my point would still be that it's possible to understand the violent bigots at the same time as shooting (or being a lily-livered liberal I would prefer 'arresting') them.

NB follow-up to Europe terrorism point. I think a big part of European ambivalence, where it exists, is a horrid feeling that we have become desensitized to terror - for a UK example, I remember my Gran telling me (and still feeling) about the wave of revulsion and anger that swept Britain after the '74 IRA pub bombings, whereas she had no such feelings about the city of london bomb or even Enniskillen. Might part of our ambivalence be the sad realisation that we've lost the ability to react like that?

Princes are furious about a shocking picture in an Italian magazine

Leave Our Princess Alone, "sickening picture", censored.

In fact, it's being turned into that big a deal that you expect the original picture to be some rotten dot com type mangled bloody thing.

Well, it's not like that: the only shocking and sickening thing is that we know she died moments later. Which you can't see on the picture.

See for yourself:

http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Esteri/2006/07_Luglio/12/diana.shtml
http://www.corriere.it/Media/Foto/2006/07_Luglio/12/chi--140x180.jpg

Also, if they're asking The World Press to not distribute the picture, why do the British media mention the story at all? Nobody would have known about it. Now, everyone is going to be apalled over not much at all really (but they haven't seen the picture, so everyone's going to look for it)...

To sell more copies of their appalling, morally bankrupt rags.

omfg

what the shit?

Are you on about the stupid british tabloid press covering the diana inquest on their front pages over the ACTUAL FUCKING GENERAL ELECTION, by any chance? I didn't think they could plumb any further depths of stupidity, wow I was wrong about that.

not so much that but that a couple of months ago they were all "OH NOES CHANNEL FOUR SHOWS SNUFF MOVIE!!1!" and now it's okay for them to blah blah blah.

this country is insane, the way the diana story is still front-page news after a decade.

would the Diana story still be front page news after a decade if she'd been 4'9" and cross eyed with buck teeth and split ends?

Well, Charles wouldn't have fancied her then. There would have been a Lady Mo or something instead.

Well, Charles wouldn't have fancied her then.

Yes. He only fancies attractive women.

Camilla doesn't have split ends.

Elvis was a bit of an ugly porker when he died, but there are still conspiracy theories circulating about him.

Diana couldn't sing.

you should have heard her play piano

Why is timothy spall not shutting up about this one