I had to hunt it down – it’s been on all the blogs the past few days, Mac
MacClelland’s story of how violent sex with her buddy Isaac cured her of the
post-traumatic stress disorder she had acquired watching a horrendously abused
Haitian woman called Sibylle flip out. The usual stable of highly privileged
journalists were calling the story brave – but I’m pretty sure that only other
journalists would have that reaction. I think that rest of us are probably more
likely to think that poor Sibylle is sad hero of the story, the one with the
problems, the one who must be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The
journalist from the most comfortable society the world has ever known who plays
at living in war zones, disaster areas, then flies back home after a couple of
weeks, doesn’t really have a lot of standing to represent herself as deeply
traumatized but still brave after a trip to Haiti and then a really violent
round of sex.
What kind of a person writes a story like this after
witnessing the absolute catastrophe of tens of thousands of ruined lives? “The
shocking lack of sympathy I got from some industry people I talked to about my
breakdown was only compounding my concerns that I didn’t deserve to be this
distraught. ‘Editors are going to think I'm a liability now. What kind of
fucking pussy cries and pukes about getting almost hurt or having to watch bad
things happen to other people?’"
No. The question is not what kind of
pussies puke after seeing tragedy. The question is what kind of prima donna asks
us to sympathize with her when she has just asked to stare at pretty much the
worst life has to offer. What would make her imagine that we read her accounts
of disaster zones to sympathize with her reactions to them?
Happily, it
looks like journalists are beginning to feel a bit silly about embracing the
article. One journalist's defensive response to readers’ generally disgusted reaction to
Mac’s grotesque egocentrism pretty much says it all. The journalist sort of
gives up trying to defend herself and settles for: “On behalf of free thinkers
and art lovers everywhere, I reserve the right to enjoy writing you'd rather I
didn't. I'm as overly politicized, hypercritical, and analytic as any other
neurotic journalist….Some things are simply to be enjoyed for their decadence.
This is one of them.”
No. No one gives a rat’s ass what any journalist
reads for pleasure. We are objecting to your characterization of Mac’s piece as
fearless. Yes, to the half-witted assertion that it takes guts to hang around in a
situation which you can LEAVE, go home to food, comfort and fake violent sex
after a couple of weeks.
Okay, we need journalists to do that. But we do
not need hear from them how brave they have been. Because their psyches just
aren’t really the point. We need them because we wouldn’t know anything at all
without them, but having to wade through the journalist to get to the
information is a pretty high price. It is really disgusting and really
embarrassing.
No comments:
Post a Comment