the wonderful story of censure… October 18, 2008

Have you ever noticed why sometimes you didn’t understand one part of your favorite episode of “Sex and the city”, or your favorite video clip of the time? Have you ever wondered why it is preferable to use the term “hot”, rather than “sexy”?  Don’t blame yourself, but rather tell yourself that you are officially member of a society manipulated by the notion of censure.

Why? you don’t understand? it’s normal, if you were born here, and grew up in this society, you never felt this sensation of frustration when you know sometimes has been cut, or blurred. I did, and you know why? because with my French girl’s eyes, I dissected and compared the difference between the US media and the one from the other side of the Atlantic. And, I have to tell you, you are so sucked into a society governed by discretion and fear of appearing rude in front of its components. In fact, the US society seems so happy with life, commercials are nice, funny and joyful, musics are good for dancing, and movies are entertaining, however where do you see the reality of things a little bit more serious and shocking ? Personally, I rarely see them in this country. In the contrary, all I see is leaders of the medias, so afraid of loosing their public that they take all the necessary precautions, in order to relief the audience of seeing, listening or reading things too rude at TV or movie theaters, in music, and also sometimes in the newspaper. Therefore, they decide of the restrictions adapted to each case, in other words you probably already encountered at least one G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17 in your life, on TV or movie theaters. The truth, here, is that this doesn’t help kids to grow in whole conscience of what happens in life, because being prevented from attending some kinds of TV programs or movies is certainly not the best solution to be aware of the real life (even if I agree on the fact that media don’t always give a plain view of life). Moreover, what can happen is that when teens have always waited for being 18, and the D-day can do absolutely what they want (except drinking, of course!), can engender a revenge on a too restricted life, represented by a sensation of invincibility, and in long-term doing some activities, which this time can be potentially dangerous for the young adult. However, I’m not saying that you have to put a 8 year-old kid in front of a TV program reserved to adults, but just put the child in front of the “real” truth, i.e. life is not always pink as she pretends in cartoons, etc. and warn the kid by showing him what people really undertake in the media field, instead of protecting him from seeing something that they will anyway know about, one day, so just about a question of time… What I really want to express, is that putting some too severe restrictions is just a countdown timer to activities much more dangerous this time, and sometimes totally uncontrollable.

Furthermore, what I noticed is that US media can bluntly be so afraid of the repercussions, that they can be able to take off some scenes of movies, TV series, video clips (but also cut off some words replaced by “bips” in music). And I tell you that, because I remember scenes of the same entertainments in France, image for image (yes, I’m a fan of TV!), and I was astonished when I saw that they dared prefer to remove some scenes, instead of keeping the integrity of the work. Therefore, I was totally angry against the way the media manipulate us, by deciding for us what to do concerning the entertainment field. And now I understand but not approve what they did, because I was raised in a society where everyone has his right to express himself, gives his opinion, and that it will be take in consideration, owing to the fact that in France, the work is nowadays done in team (government and people seem closer), and everyone has his word to say. People can even demonstrate in the streets to express what they feel is the right thing to do, and often the people won, even if sometimes I agree to the fact that it is a little bit over exaggerated!  Meanwhile, here, it seems that people have often closed their mouth to what they felt was good or wrong. I have been here for two months, and I’ve never seen people demonstrating in the streets to show their feelings about a law, or something they disagreed about.

Consequently, now I understand why the media is here so restrictive, and why you’ll never see something quite exuberant in TV, or here some bad words in songs. It can be explained by the US culture. Since a long time, US people have always been raised in discipline, the love of their family, and the desire to be nice and rigorous, in good faith, and do what they were told to do when they were younger. I was pretty surprised when I saw that people always pay in buses, or car drivers let pedestrians cross the street, never steal, are nice with you… all that because they were told to do it. But the fact is that they were never told by parents or older people as teachers for example to express their own opinions, think in depth, or things maybe less instinctive and ask more self analysis. Seriously, people never get angry here, and sometimes it makes me angry to know that I have no reasons to get angry, such as when I lived in Paris! But all that is a generality, and I am sure there exists people here who learnt how to assert themselves and fight for what they wanted, or not. 

Finally, I would say there is good and bad in this country. On the one hand, people are disciplined, nice, well-raised, but in the end too much of all that kills this, and I’d have loved them whether they were more spontaneous and less formatted, leave the familiar cocoon to beat on their own and yell…

death penalty : pro or con ? October 15, 2008

If there is one thing that the US should have to think about and challenge, this would be undoubtedly the question on the death penalty. In fact, even if some states such as for instance Minnesota, Michigan, Vermont, Massachusetts, don’t support the capital punishment (by the way such as most countries of Europe, for example France, erased 27 years ago), the majority of the US states support it; therefore I was surprised when I heard that the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was supporting this form of death, because he seemed one of the “nouvelle vague” of governors that want to change the statements expressed by the federal government some centuries ago. Besides, some states like New York don’t really know if they should keep it, and the state government is still reflecting about it. So, I am asking you : what would you decide if you were governor, keep this quite brutal and rude kind of death, or would you make the revolution, and decision to get rid of it? 

Because I am from France, you’ll probably think that I’ll choose the “con” side, because I was raised in the idea that no one should die of death penalty, etc. but it seems to be a difficult question, because there are a lot of reasons why we should eradicate this “tortured” end of life, but also some reasons why we should keep it.

If you are “pro”, you will probably think this is the best way to remove some bad people from this world. Think about Saddam Hussein, fifth president of Iraq, executed two years ago for being convicted of charges related to the executions of 148 Iraqi Shi’ites suspected of planning an assassination attempt against him. Anyway, a lot of people should have been relieved when they heard these news. Meanwhile, this can be funny (despite the circumstances) to think that we killed someone because he did the same thing to other people, whatever might be the number of people killed. In that way, we are not better than him, so why would we be happy for what we’ve done?

In the contrary, if you are “con”, like me, you might have a lot of reasons against execution actions, owing to the fact that above all this is against human nature to kill deliberately someone of your species. don’t you think? I frankly believe that whatever someone could have done in his/her life, errors are part of humanity, and we shouldn’t blame this someone with so much torture just to remain the past… besides, don’t you think that death penalty can be some kind of facilitation which would allow someone to go directly to heaven (or hell…) without passing by the case “think about our mistakes, and try to improve yourself, it’s never late to restart a new life” ? Even if sometimes it might not be possible, because of the huge importance of facts and an extrapolation to the entire world, in most cases, I think that this option with helps of specialists would be much more human and beneficial for death row people. Think about that: how many people have been killed in the death row, just because they did a mistake, somewhat irreparable i agree, but about they certainly would feel guilty for the rest of their life? Think about the waste of lives, just because governments decided to apply “zero tolerance” and not think about possible repents? 

Besides, do you think about the possible mistakes coming this time from the government? about innocent people wrongly accused, about unfounded proofs, and even executions based on the ethnicity of prisoners? A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court of the US decided to put in the dock Troy Davis, a prisoner who should have been executed, but who arrived to have some extra time, in order to revise his case. Unfortunately, they decided very recently to reject his call, and we don’t know what is going to happen to this black prisoner who was accused a few decades ago of killing a white policeman. This could be another topic of debate : like I said, does the jury base his decision on the “race’ of the prisoner? In fact, we noticed that proportionally to the number of white and black prisoners in the US, Black people were more accused and sent to the death row than White people, especially when the victim was White, like in the case of Troy Davis. A lot of people and even celebrities, or the Europe council, expressed their desperate feelings in favor of Troy Davis, and strongly disapprove the Supreme Court decision. Therefore, does it worth to kill deliberately someone whom you are not sure of the guiltiness? Up to which level can you be sure about the testimonials, and all what can prove of the culpability of someone?

Besides, is it really living peacefully than thinking you can be someday on an electric chair, just because of potential past mistakes?

 

Sources: 20 minutes (french newspaper)