What "swing," Dave? Has Britain no history of race riots, no tradition of
editorializing about "mogs," "wogs," and so forth?
Nor has there been any new rightwing U.S. swing as far as I can see, just
the same old, same old shined up by warmongering in the guise of patriotism,
which is bad enough. And "Hollywood" is a sufficiently globalized enterprise
by now, in theory and practice, as to render its U.S. origins moot.
Case in point (and one that goes to the prejudicial core rather amusingly):
Liam Neeson was given a special award by the Dublin Film Institute for his
mega-bucky film _Braveheart_ (as "Hollywood" as they come) because he'd
employed so many Irish actors and extras for the battle scenes that it had
revitalized that country's resource-starved film industry. But the kicker is
the reason he gave for not having employed great numbers of SCOTS actors or
extras for _Braveheart_--he said he didn't think it would be possible to
find enough who were capable of "spontaneity."
Your mention of urban myths in the Leicester context also has globalized
implications, it seems to me, because there are global myths now too, and a
prevailing one casts the United States as the Great Alibi. "Everybody's
looking for somebody to blame," whether on the micro- or the macro-level,
and I think the lure of alibis must be scrupulously avoided if we're to
avoid falling into the trap of falling for our own myths.
Opinionatedly,
Candice
> Nope, Candice
>
> the implication is that the swing to the _open_ expression of right-wing and
> racist opinions has been sanctioned by the swing to the right in the US,
> aided and abetted that by the pusillanimity of the majority of its writers,
> a quality that is equalled in Britain, and the constant bombardment of
> mindless violence as a desideratum that objects such as Hollywood pump out.
>
> Best
>
> Dave
>
>
> David Bircumshaw
>
> Leicester, England
>
> Home Page
>
> A Chide's Alphabet
>
> Painting Without Numbers
>
> www.paintstuff.20m.com/index.htm
>
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Candice Ward" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2001 10:27 PM
> Subject: Re: opinion
>
>
>> "Everybody's looking for somebody to blame..." (Tom Waits).
>>
>> If the implication here is that Leicester anti-Somalianism is down to US
> and
>> not a by-product of venerable-traditional Brit prejudice against anything
>> and everything non-WASP, then this yUKy post must derive from the same
>> tradition (shame on you, Dave!).
>>
>> Candice
>>
>>
>>
>>> here detention without trial is being legalised, as is interception of
> all
>>> private e-mail, while the tv (just) was showing a programme that
> portrayed
>>> Britain (of all places) as being beset by armed criminals. For this
> reason,
>>> the show opined, soon we will have to become like America, with the
> police
>>> routinely armed. People I talk to, day to day, are swinging further and
>>> further to the right. It's all the immigrants' fault, they think (people
> in
>>> Leicester are apt to go on strange diatribes against Somalis, as urban
> myth
>>> has established hereabouts that armies of Somalians are being pampered
> by
>>> the state, they get free tv's, cookers, suites, carpets, I'm told)
> Myself
>>> I've never seen a Leicester Somali, but the tale is peddled.
>>>
>>> But I think the key-point is the US, a country that supposedly prides
> itself
>>> on its democratic traditions but in reality is totally corrupt, in its
> arts
>>> and letters as well as its social organisation, it is poisoned and it
> wants
>>> its poison everywhere else too, by the standards of some of the
> right-wing
>>> rhetoric that comes out the States (which rhetoric has some very strange
>>> bedfellows) even the social critiques of The Simpsons would be a
> subversive
>>> act if committed in poetry.
>>>
>>> Best
>>>
>>> Dave
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