Fahrenheit 9/11 - The Iraq War

          This was an interesting prompt, and I actually loved getting into the research.  I decided to look at one of Eric Louw’s concepts: The Iraq War section of chapter eight.  The Iraq War section discusses the ways that President Bush and the government planned the war in accordance with their PR-ized warfare model and revised model. I will relate all these points made by Louw, to the Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.  This is an extremely informative documentary that uncovers many issues about George W. Bush and the US war on Iraq. 

          First off, The Iraq War was the majority of Moore’s focus for the first half of the documentary; it was also a pretty large focus of chapter ten from Louw.  Both Moore and Louw agree that there was a PR-ized warfare model that President Bush followed.  The first point Louw makes simply states, “Saddam Hussein was demonized in the lead-up to the war” (156).  This is expressed in Moore’s film many times.  He actually makes fun of Bush several times for his stupidity and decision making.  He also puts a fantastic interview into his film from a man named Richard Clarke.  You should listen for at least a minute and a half because the content is extremely insightful.  Clarke actually gets a quote from Donald Rumsfeld saying, “There are no good targets in Afghanistan; let’s bomb Iraq.”  What a ridiculous thing to say right?  This administration, beginning with Bush, had an agenda and they demonized Saddam in order to spin it in the direction they wanted.

          Louw mentions, in his second point, that Bush and other privileged higher-ups assisted in getting twenty-four members of Bin Laden’s family out of the country even though the airlines were completely shut down in the days after the attacks.  Moore dives into this further telling us that there were private as well as commercial jets deployed to take these Saudi’s out of the country.  Moore talks about how in any type of criminal situation the police always look to the suspect’s family for questioning.  This situation was treated differently because, again, Bush had an agenda.

            The third point of Louw’s PR-ized warfare model states that war was justified by creating victims.  The US – and I remember this from living through it – did this by talking about how oppressed the Iraqi people were because of Saddam.  Bush and the government made it seem as if they were going to war to save a group of oppressed and helpless people.  That was never the intention of Bush; he had different ideas.

This original warfare model was then revised.  Louw suggests that it was revised to address more specific issues that arose in Iraq.  Some of his points include, “Ensuring that the Pentagon stories were always much more exciting,” and, “Making sure that the opposition’s stories were simply drowned out and smothered” (157).  Moore illustrates this to perfection in his film.  He finds tons of prominent news networks introducing all kinds of scare-stories in an attempt to keep American’s minds on what they wanted them to hear and off what they didn’t.  The media was directed by Bush and the Feds to put out these outrageous stories and then contradicted them with mixed messages in order to confuse the publics.  This tactic worked to perfection; pertinent information was kept from the public, while they were fed outlandish stories by the media.

This documentary is honestly very eye-opening.  Moore brings all these important facts to light that are echoed by Louw in chapter eight.  The Iraq War was controlled by Bush and his administration, and they were able to take it in whatever direction benefited them and their allies the most.  They used Saddam as a scape-goat.  They demonized him through the American media in order to gain public support.  Louw also states that in order to gain the war some support, you have to create victims.  The government did just that by showing oppressed citizens of Iraq and saying it was all because of there horrible dictator Saddam Hussein.  He was made into the villain, and that combination got us into a war with Iraq for no real reason.

Norms in The Office

          I have one all-time favorite show that I've faithfully watched since it started.  That would be The Office, so there was no way I was picking any other show to use as my example for this assignment.  However, I thought to myself, the office isn't a political show, so how am I going to find some examples within the show to go along with James Curran's points in Media & Democracy?  Well, I found that relating some moments and characters from The Office to public norms (not necessarily political norms) as they were discussed in chapter four would not be so hard after all.  Curran states that, "Public norms generate shared understandings about what actions are appropriate and inappropriate" (72).  This is exactly what The Office does in the clips that I've found online.  That is actually a big part of what makes the show so funny is the way it plays on particular public norms; whether it be mockingly following them or crashing over the norm-line at one-hundred miles an hour.
          The book had some examples that it focused on, so I decided to run with those.  The first thing Curran talks about in relation to public norms is the way gays were portrayed in the first half of the twentieth century.  There was strong social disapproval of gays, and this was reinforced with negative portrayals in films.  This worked out perfectly with my example of The Office because Oscar Martinez plays a gay man on the show.  The show decided to 'out him' as gay in the second season and I found a clip from that episode.  In this clip you see Michael, the boss, being extremely insensitive to Oscar because he is gay.  This would be a similar way people would have acted back in the early twentieth century.  However, in today's society, gays are becoming more and more accepted.  This change was majorly seen around the 1980s.  The book states, "For the first time, there were also screen portrayals of gays and lesbians as 'ordinary'" (72).  This is how The Office also went; however, I could not find a clip depicting that.  With the exception of a few episodes, the characters on The Office treat Oscar with respect because he is just a regular human being.  This reflects the way we (the majority) as a society see gays now.
          The second big thing that Curran talks about regarding norms is gender differences.  These gender norms have been in existence since the beginning of time.  The ones I'm talking about would the ideas that women belong in the house and men are to be the breadwinners of the family.  This was true for the longest time, and is still the way things go to an extent.  The Office uses this norm to create humor in several cases.  I found one clip of Dwight talking in which he highlights several stereotypes about women during a sales presentation.  They use Jim's character for disapproval (his wide eyes and shaking of his head) of the things that Dwight is saying throughout that entire part of his presentation.  I also found another clip from Dwight as well, talking about the NBA vs. WNBA.  For some context, since the clip barely gives enough, all the people of The Office are having an open discussion about how men are being given opportunities that the women aren't.  This was true for this particular instance on the show because Deangelo Vickers (Will Ferrell's character) becomes boss and is outwardly sexist.  This is an extreme example playing on our social norms, but it still happens.
          Gender norms and sexism are certainly still an issue in the workplace; however, it is not nearly as prevalent of a problem as it was years ago.  You can actually sue for unequal opportunities in the workplace between men and women.  According to Curran, it has generally become accepted across our society today that men and women are equal in the workplace.  The Office also portrays this ideology in another clip.  Basically I just want you to ignore most things in the clip except for the fact that Nellie (Catherine Tate) is the boss of the whole office.  She is a woman and she is the boss.  This would have never been accepted a while back, but now it isn't even questioned.  It's crazy how social norms that have existed for hundreds of years can be broken down in such a short amount of time.
          The Office is a very unique show, and the more I was forced to think about it, it actually uses public norms to create humor.  The show is constantly either crossing the line and challenging norms or it's mocking them in a way.  I've found some clips that perfectly portray the way gays were viewed, and the way they are mostly viewed in todays society.  Another big part of the norms section of chapter four discussed gender norms.  This is all about the opportunities that are afforded to men and not women.  Curran stated that it used to be unequal, but it the gender gap has actually gotten significantly smaller; almost to the point of there being no gap at all.  The Office also had many examples of existing and non-existant gender gaps which went along with what Curran has stated.  The Office is my favorite show and I'm glad it worked so well with Curran's points about public norms.