October 7, 2007
How far is too far?
Thursday night I went to a lecture by Yasmina Khadra, a world famous Muslim and Algerian best selling author, on a book tour here in Geneva. He lives in France with his wife and children (his nom de plume are his wife's first two names. His real name is Mohamed Moulessehoul. He was a commander in the Algerian army for 25 years).
There was a moment in his lecture where he mentioned that watching television with his family was rarely enjoyable as constantly interrupted by shouts from his wife, his children being asked to leave the room and and the switching off of the set, because of profanity or offensive content. These are not our values. I know about this culture, but I don't want it", he said.
My point is that each season seems to bring on a new show which crosses yet another moral boundary, which we take in stride, but perceived by another culture may be extremely offensive.
In our world, we enjoy and even like the characters of Tony Soprano, Dexter, Nancy Botwin or Vic Mackey. They come from some of the top rated shows in America and obviously from the popularity of the rogue video sharing sites, these series have a huge following in both Europe and Asia.
But with satellite dishes now popping up in remote parts of the world, in Afghanistan or Irak, TV streaming on the Internet, and soon TV on cell phones, are we not fueling hatred for our culture in some parts of the world?
Maybe they should simply not watch. Hey, it's our culture. But maybe we have some soul searching to do as well. Why do we enjoy Dexter so much (and that goes for me too) and is it really okay to promote the launch of it's second season in 14 cities across America with red water fountains, a death threat e-mail campaign, or a contest in Italy for the launch of the first season where one of the prizes is a set of knives e? How far is too far?
Image from Sat-7 Egypt
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