Monday, April 11, 2005
Necro-Porn, cont'd.
Finchy writes (elevated from the Comments):
You can't forget the role and impact of the international media in all of this, however. TV has never been more of an "altar of human sacrifice," as Paul Virilio has put it.
But even within this twisted, cannibalistic mode of mass representation of death, there is a hierarchy. Not only are the deaths of white individuals (Schiavo, the Pope) considered more desirable and entertaining (hence receiving ten times the attention and prattle of mass catastrophes in developing countries such as the recent earthquake in Indonesia, the ONGOING catastrophe of the earlier tsunami in that region), but even these nonwhite mass deaths are ranked. The recent outbreak of Marburg in Angola will, like SARS, get ongoing coverage because of the sensationalistic nature of the disease (and the titillating possibility that it could somehow migrate from "there" to "here"). This, after all, is far more "fun," or ingestible, than, say, the mass casualties of anarchic conflicts in the Congo; yet another African genocide going more or less unreported. Clearly, different corpses offer different degrees of flavor and edibility; the Pope's has clearly been delectably seasoned with incense.
posted by Blicero : 4/11/2005 04:29:00 PM
You can't forget the role and impact of the international media in all of this, however. TV has never been more of an "altar of human sacrifice," as Paul Virilio has put it.
But even within this twisted, cannibalistic mode of mass representation of death, there is a hierarchy. Not only are the deaths of white individuals (Schiavo, the Pope) considered more desirable and entertaining (hence receiving ten times the attention and prattle of mass catastrophes in developing countries such as the recent earthquake in Indonesia, the ONGOING catastrophe of the earlier tsunami in that region), but even these nonwhite mass deaths are ranked. The recent outbreak of Marburg in Angola will, like SARS, get ongoing coverage because of the sensationalistic nature of the disease (and the titillating possibility that it could somehow migrate from "there" to "here"). This, after all, is far more "fun," or ingestible, than, say, the mass casualties of anarchic conflicts in the Congo; yet another African genocide going more or less unreported. Clearly, different corpses offer different degrees of flavor and edibility; the Pope's has clearly been delectably seasoned with incense.
posted by Blicero : 4/11/2005 04:29:00 PM
