6 ms·

On the screen, Libyans learned about everything but themselves (2021)

54 points by thomassmith65 1y ago

spectraldrift 1y ago
It's scary and sad how well this works.
actionfromafar 1y ago
[flagged]
cjs_ac 1y ago
If you're an American and don't know what it's like to have your country and culture reduced to about three wildly inaccurate stereotypes, I think the Top Gear USA Special episode may enlighten you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNrybXt-_J0&list=PLWpVvJ8o7wzwBGp24A2V6gcXTaKS_Ypmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNrybXt-_J0&list=PLWpVvJ8o7w... That said, this kind of thing doesn't come from a position of racism or malice. The writers of these films have a story they want to tell, and taking the time to portray a given country accurately might very well hinder that storytelling.
- hliyan 1y ago
  On a somewhat related note, re-watching one of my favourite childhood TV shows (Mission: Impossible, the original series) now gives me several jaw-drop moments per episode -- each one involves a team illegally entering another country and committing a series of crimes or fraudulent activities, frequently to free someone who was caught doing the same activities earlier, often against various generals, leaders and shieks belonging to a relatively narrow set of ethnic stereotypes. 1960-70's sensibilities did mean that storytelling was much less of a minefiled than it is today, but it still gives me pause.
  - makeitdouble 1y ago
    > 1960-70's sensibilities I'd argue there was more to that. The political climate needed the public to be aligned with meddling a lot with foreign countries (and the Vietnam war was still happening), and passing it as something that isn't just happening, but needs to be done. The more modern equivalent would be 24h (the tv series), which basically shoved to the public the notion that torturing and going extra-legal ways was something heroes had to do.
    - cobbzilla 1y ago
      Interesting perspective! Is this a component of what’s been called “manufacturing consent”?
      - balamatom 1y ago
        Absolutely. It's part of a very elaborate society-wide system that went online during the 2nd half of the XX century, for the purpose of establishing a global ingroup. You can see it working today as the participation-ensuring building block of the contemporary "attention economy", which is based on the democratization of the same technology, namely the tools for creating convincing intermedia narratives. What's new about it is that as the means of creating the requsite affective environment of hyperreality ("engagement") gradually became available not only to nation-states but to private parties (down to the individual amateur influencer starting with no political agenda), they managed to interpose themselves as the very means of our critique of themselves. Which on the meta level is a genius, as it establishes whole new channels for inter-reality exchange (a.k.a. cultural osmosis) on a first-come-first-serve basis, knowledge arbitrators love those. Not everyone necessarily finds it too comfy to find themselves in the same ecosystem as said ingroup though. Hence also the equally elaborate evolution in faux-antisystemic reaction since the turn of the century (while they try to bury the potential of technology as means of critique and bottom-up social reengineering.)
      - rayiner 1y ago
        Have you read the book? “Manufacturing Consent” is about how incentive structures align to achieve the effect of coordinated propaganda without actual formal coordination. The classic example offered in the book is establishment media giving favorable treatment to information leaked by the White House in order to ensure future information coming their way. 24 isn’t an example of “Manufacturing Consent” because there’s no alignment of interests of incentive structure. It’s an example of a different thing, that is an underlying cultural pattern that’s reflected both in media and foreign policy. Americans love their heroes to shove weenie bureaucrats in the locker. 24 is just Dirty Harry in a more contemporary law enforcement setting.
    - rayiner 1y ago
- D_Alex 1y ago
  >If you're an American and don't know what it's like to have your country and culture reduced to about three wildly inaccurate stereotypes... ...you can watch Borat, which is far less about Kazakhstan than it is about the US.
  - cjs_ac 1y ago
    I don't think Borat works as well for this. Borat was made for an international audience, including many Americans, and involved Sasha Baron Cohen meeting Americans in person to wind them up, so there had to be an element of accuracy in his satire. Top Gear, on the other hand, was made primarily for a British audience, so the jokes in that episode are very much lazy stereotypes that the British have about Americans without having to be too rooted in reality. I imagine that the production crew spent some time looking for a filling station where they could provoke the 'throwing rocks' incident, for example.
- prasadjoglekar 1y ago
  It's all storytelling. And when a good story is being told, the audience understands that it's a caricature with a lot of truth and a bit of simplification. US TV is endlessly about reducing a certain subset of the US to a bit of a caricature to entertain. Real housewives of (insert town), Jersey Shore, Sopranos, Duck Dynasty. I don't think anyone here believes all Italians in Jersey are mafia. Real maturity comes from being able to laugh at yourself without getting offended at every second line.
  - paulryanrogers 1y ago
    > Real maturity comes from being able to laugh at yourself without getting offended at every second line. To a point. When the entertainment market is flooded with wildly inaccurate stereotypes (produced by a majority/mono culture) then it can become a punching down situation. That's not OK.
  - Newlaptop 1y ago
    > the audience understands that it's a caricature with a lot of truth and a bit of simplification I suspect a whole lot of TV fails both parts of this test. The audience doesn't understand and there is only a little bit of truth and a lot of simplification.
    - like_any_other 1y ago
      There's merit to your suspicions. For example, the 1996 movie A Time to Kill depicts a black father avenging the rape and attempted murder of his ten-year-old daughter by two white men, using it to depict the evils of white racism, and justifying vigilantism. The rape (but not the vigilantism) is based on a true event, when the author witnessed the "harrowing" court testimony of a 12 year old rape and assault victim, with two simplifications: there were two victims and one assailant, instead of two assailants and one victim, and the races were reversed: the perpetrator was black, and the victims were white: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Time_to_Kill_(Grisham_novel)#Inspiration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Time_to_Kill_(Grisham_novel)... Similarly, the film Bad Ass features an older Latino that beats up white skinheads that were harassing and threatening him. Based on a real event, where an older white man was being harassed and threatened by a black man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Ass_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Ass_(film) The film River's Edge is about a boyfriend that kills his girlfriend, both white teens. Based on a real murder, but the perpetrator there was black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River%27s_Edge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River%27s_Edge The Netflix series Painkiller features a capable black woman lawyer that takes on the Purdue pharma in the opioid epidemic. The real lawyer was white: https://www.thepublica.com/netflix-accused-of-race-swapping-after-replacing-investigators-who-took-down-purdue-pharma-during-opioid-crisis-with-a-fictional-black-woman/ https://www.thepublica.com/netflix-accused-of-race-swapping-... In Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazis have free reign in Egypt, and the locals support and cheer for the British and Allies, to the point of breaking into song lauding British sailors. In reality, Egypt at that time was effectively under British occupation, which the Egyptians fiercely disliked, and hated the British (they would have a revolution against them in 1952).
- runamuck 1y ago
  I went to Prague and people could not believe that I was American. More than one person said "but you're not fat!" Talk about stereotypes.
contrarian1234 1y ago
Nationalism wrapped in sentimentality.. "A lot of Libyans today are still surprised to discover there were Amazigh, Tuareg and Tabu peoples in Libya before 2011." I'm not sure knowing about Tuaregs is inherently more important than Bruce Lee if they're so marginal to your local life that you don't even know they exist. Okay, you and them have a common government.. but that's some artificial construct that's distant and abstract - there are more important things in life. Enjoy the culture you want to enjoy and find stimulating/enriching. I'm Californian. I don't know anything about the people and life in say.. South Dakota. I have no idea what their capital is. I have zero conception of the people there. And I have zero interest. I rather learn about life in Korea or Uzbekistan. I'm pretty confident I'm going to find it more interesting and stimulating. I don't think it's some giant cultural shame the US doesn't present compelling representations of South Dakotans.
- modo_mario 1y ago
  >And I have zero interest. That's you. >I'm Californian. I don't know anything about the people and life in say.. South Dakota. I have no idea what their capital is. I have zero conception of the people there. I'd argue it's like you not knowing there's native americans in your state and why they might be there.
  - cobbzilla 1y ago
    To link back to TFA, if the explanation was that he didn’t know because the government made all the movies and never showed anything about the indigenous peoples, that ignorance is somewhat understandable.
  - contrarian1234 1y ago
    This reminds me of a situation over a decade ago. Where we had some proposition that we had to vote on - concerning allowing some native american tribe near Sacramento to open a casino on their reservation. I spend a considerable amount of time trying to understand the issue and never really ended up having an opinion on it. I don't live near Sacramento, I don't know any of the people involved or affected. It was a giant waste of my time and honestly exemplifies my point. I don't think I should have any say in this matter. I left that part of the ballot empty
JKCalhoun 1y ago
The film he describes as the best film about Libya, The Lion of the Desert (1981), appears to be here: https://youtu.be/4sRz964lfcU https://youtu.be/4sRz964lfcU
firesteelrain 1y ago
I don’t know how best to react to this article. On one hand, Hollywood is immensely popular and so is American media. It has taken over a lot of what people look up to On the other hand, it is so popular that it unintentionally smothers lesser budgeted and not as popular national and cultural aspects such that you need to actively seek out those things in other ways rather than sitting in front of a screen. The same could be said for even the US where not every possible aspect of society is represented. I got the sense that the West was being blamed for the portrayal of Libyans when few movies actually try for accurate representation. Like the movie Kandahar that is on Netflix now is about Afghanistan (fictionalized account) but perhaps could be criticized because film locations in Afghanistan were not actually used. This is common where like Vancouver is used and the movie will say it is Chicago for example. Not meant to be a shallow dismissal of the article’s premise The problems are really rooted in the reign of Gadahffi and the inability of Libyans to understand who they are culturally and broadcast that image out
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
rayiner 1y ago
When Back to the Future was made, Libya was ruled by Gaddafi, who was the archetype of a crazy middle eastern dictator. So the movie’s portrayal wasn’t exactly a stretch. Putting that aside, one of the luxuries of having your own movie industry is not having to care how other people depict you in their movies. I’ve been watching low budget Indian action/horror movies in Netflix lately, and the depictions of foreign countries are similarly one-dimensional. Because why should Indians care? They’re just trying to tell a story and they need props to fit into archetypes in the narrative.
- netsharc 1y ago
  Isn't that what the author laments? Libya doesn't have a film industry, and as far as you know, portraying Libyans as only a group of henchmen of a crazy ME dictator is not a scretch. As he writes, it's up to Libyan creatives to tell stories of their own heritage with more dimensions...

54 points by thomassmith65 1y ago

spectraldrift 1y ago

It's scary and sad how well this works.

actionfromafar 1y ago

[flagged]

cjs_ac 1y ago

If you're an American and don't know what it's like to have your country and culture reduced to about three wildly inaccurate stereotypes, I think the Top Gear USA Special episode may enlighten you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNrybXt-_J0&list=PLWpVvJ8o7wzwBGp24A2V6gcXTaKS_Ypmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNrybXt-_J0&list=PLWpVvJ8o7w... That said, this kind of thing doesn't come from a position of racism or malice. The writers of these films have a story they want to tell, and taking the time to portray a given country accurately might very well hinder that storytelling.

hliyan 1y ago
On a somewhat related note, re-watching one of my favourite childhood TV shows (Mission: Impossible, the original series) now gives me several jaw-drop moments per episode -- each one involves a team illegally entering another country and committing a series of crimes or fraudulent activities, frequently to free someone who was caught doing the same activities earlier, often against various generals, leaders and shieks belonging to a relatively narrow set of ethnic stereotypes. 1960-70's sensibilities did mean that storytelling was much less of a minefiled than it is today, but it still gives me pause.
- makeitdouble 1y ago
  > 1960-70's sensibilities I'd argue there was more to that. The political climate needed the public to be aligned with meddling a lot with foreign countries (and the Vietnam war was still happening), and passing it as something that isn't just happening, but needs to be done. The more modern equivalent would be 24h (the tv series), which basically shoved to the public the notion that torturing and going extra-legal ways was something heroes had to do.
  - cobbzilla 1y ago
    Interesting perspective! Is this a component of what’s been called “manufacturing consent”?
    - balamatom 1y ago
      Absolutely. It's part of a very elaborate society-wide system that went online during the 2nd half of the XX century, for the purpose of establishing a global ingroup. You can see it working today as the participation-ensuring building block of the contemporary "attention economy", which is based on the democratization of the same technology, namely the tools for creating convincing intermedia narratives. What's new about it is that as the means of creating the requsite affective environment of hyperreality ("engagement") gradually became available not only to nation-states but to private parties (down to the individual amateur influencer starting with no political agenda), they managed to interpose themselves as the very means of our critique of themselves. Which on the meta level is a genius, as it establishes whole new channels for inter-reality exchange (a.k.a. cultural osmosis) on a first-come-first-serve basis, knowledge arbitrators love those. Not everyone necessarily finds it too comfy to find themselves in the same ecosystem as said ingroup though. Hence also the equally elaborate evolution in faux-antisystemic reaction since the turn of the century (while they try to bury the potential of technology as means of critique and bottom-up social reengineering.)
    - rayiner 1y ago
      Have you read the book? “Manufacturing Consent” is about how incentive structures align to achieve the effect of coordinated propaganda without actual formal coordination. The classic example offered in the book is establishment media giving favorable treatment to information leaked by the White House in order to ensure future information coming their way. 24 isn’t an example of “Manufacturing Consent” because there’s no alignment of interests of incentive structure. It’s an example of a different thing, that is an underlying cultural pattern that’s reflected both in media and foreign policy. Americans love their heroes to shove weenie bureaucrats in the locker. 24 is just Dirty Harry in a more contemporary law enforcement setting.
  - rayiner 1y ago
D_Alex 1y ago
>If you're an American and don't know what it's like to have your country and culture reduced to about three wildly inaccurate stereotypes... ...you can watch Borat, which is far less about Kazakhstan than it is about the US.
- cjs_ac 1y ago
  I don't think Borat works as well for this. Borat was made for an international audience, including many Americans, and involved Sasha Baron Cohen meeting Americans in person to wind them up, so there had to be an element of accuracy in his satire. Top Gear, on the other hand, was made primarily for a British audience, so the jokes in that episode are very much lazy stereotypes that the British have about Americans without having to be too rooted in reality. I imagine that the production crew spent some time looking for a filling station where they could provoke the 'throwing rocks' incident, for example.
prasadjoglekar 1y ago
It's all storytelling. And when a good story is being told, the audience understands that it's a caricature with a lot of truth and a bit of simplification. US TV is endlessly about reducing a certain subset of the US to a bit of a caricature to entertain. Real housewives of (insert town), Jersey Shore, Sopranos, Duck Dynasty. I don't think anyone here believes all Italians in Jersey are mafia. Real maturity comes from being able to laugh at yourself without getting offended at every second line.
- paulryanrogers 1y ago
  > Real maturity comes from being able to laugh at yourself without getting offended at every second line. To a point. When the entertainment market is flooded with wildly inaccurate stereotypes (produced by a majority/mono culture) then it can become a punching down situation. That's not OK.
- Newlaptop 1y ago
  > the audience understands that it's a caricature with a lot of truth and a bit of simplification I suspect a whole lot of TV fails both parts of this test. The audience doesn't understand and there is only a little bit of truth and a lot of simplification.
  - like_any_other 1y ago
    There's merit to your suspicions. For example, the 1996 movie A Time to Kill depicts a black father avenging the rape and attempted murder of his ten-year-old daughter by two white men, using it to depict the evils of white racism, and justifying vigilantism. The rape (but not the vigilantism) is based on a true event, when the author witnessed the "harrowing" court testimony of a 12 year old rape and assault victim, with two simplifications: there were two victims and one assailant, instead of two assailants and one victim, and the races were reversed: the perpetrator was black, and the victims were white: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Time_to_Kill_(Grisham_novel)#Inspiration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Time_to_Kill_(Grisham_novel)... Similarly, the film Bad Ass features an older Latino that beats up white skinheads that were harassing and threatening him. Based on a real event, where an older white man was being harassed and threatened by a black man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Ass_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Ass_(film) The film River's Edge is about a boyfriend that kills his girlfriend, both white teens. Based on a real murder, but the perpetrator there was black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River%27s_Edge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River%27s_Edge The Netflix series Painkiller features a capable black woman lawyer that takes on the Purdue pharma in the opioid epidemic. The real lawyer was white: https://www.thepublica.com/netflix-accused-of-race-swapping-after-replacing-investigators-who-took-down-purdue-pharma-during-opioid-crisis-with-a-fictional-black-woman/ https://www.thepublica.com/netflix-accused-of-race-swapping-... In Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazis have free reign in Egypt, and the locals support and cheer for the British and Allies, to the point of breaking into song lauding British sailors. In reality, Egypt at that time was effectively under British occupation, which the Egyptians fiercely disliked, and hated the British (they would have a revolution against them in 1952).
runamuck 1y ago
I went to Prague and people could not believe that I was American. More than one person said "but you're not fat!" Talk about stereotypes.

contrarian1234 1y ago

Nationalism wrapped in sentimentality.. "A lot of Libyans today are still surprised to discover there were Amazigh, Tuareg and Tabu peoples in Libya before 2011." I'm not sure knowing about Tuaregs is inherently more important than Bruce Lee if they're so marginal to your local life that you don't even know they exist. Okay, you and them have a common government.. but that's some artificial construct that's distant and abstract - there are more important things in life. Enjoy the culture you want to enjoy and find stimulating/enriching. I'm Californian. I don't know anything about the people and life in say.. South Dakota. I have no idea what their capital is. I have zero conception of the people there. And I have zero interest. I rather learn about life in Korea or Uzbekistan. I'm pretty confident I'm going to find it more interesting and stimulating. I don't think it's some giant cultural shame the US doesn't present compelling representations of South Dakotans.

modo_mario 1y ago
>And I have zero interest. That's you. >I'm Californian. I don't know anything about the people and life in say.. South Dakota. I have no idea what their capital is. I have zero conception of the people there. I'd argue it's like you not knowing there's native americans in your state and why they might be there.
- cobbzilla 1y ago
  To link back to TFA, if the explanation was that he didn’t know because the government made all the movies and never showed anything about the indigenous peoples, that ignorance is somewhat understandable.
- contrarian1234 1y ago
  This reminds me of a situation over a decade ago. Where we had some proposition that we had to vote on - concerning allowing some native american tribe near Sacramento to open a casino on their reservation. I spend a considerable amount of time trying to understand the issue and never really ended up having an opinion on it. I don't live near Sacramento, I don't know any of the people involved or affected. It was a giant waste of my time and honestly exemplifies my point. I don't think I should have any say in this matter. I left that part of the ballot empty

JKCalhoun 1y ago

The film he describes as the best film about Libya, The Lion of the Desert (1981), appears to be here: https://youtu.be/4sRz964lfcU https://youtu.be/4sRz964lfcU

firesteelrain 1y ago

I don’t know how best to react to this article. On one hand, Hollywood is immensely popular and so is American media. It has taken over a lot of what people look up to On the other hand, it is so popular that it unintentionally smothers lesser budgeted and not as popular national and cultural aspects such that you need to actively seek out those things in other ways rather than sitting in front of a screen. The same could be said for even the US where not every possible aspect of society is represented. I got the sense that the West was being blamed for the portrayal of Libyans when few movies actually try for accurate representation. Like the movie Kandahar that is on Netflix now is about Afghanistan (fictionalized account) but perhaps could be criticized because film locations in Afghanistan were not actually used. This is common where like Vancouver is used and the movie will say it is Chicago for example. Not meant to be a shallow dismissal of the article’s premise The problems are really rooted in the reign of Gadahffi and the inability of Libyans to understand who they are culturally and broadcast that image out

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

rayiner 1y ago

When Back to the Future was made, Libya was ruled by Gaddafi, who was the archetype of a crazy middle eastern dictator. So the movie’s portrayal wasn’t exactly a stretch. Putting that aside, one of the luxuries of having your own movie industry is not having to care how other people depict you in their movies. I’ve been watching low budget Indian action/horror movies in Netflix lately, and the depictions of foreign countries are similarly one-dimensional. Because why should Indians care? They’re just trying to tell a story and they need props to fit into archetypes in the narrative.

netsharc 1y ago
Isn't that what the author laments? Libya doesn't have a film industry, and as far as you know, portraying Libyans as only a group of henchmen of a crazy ME dictator is not a scretch. As he writes, it's up to Libyan creatives to tell stories of their own heritage with more dimensions...