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May 19, 2005
Sixty Percent American and Calling Bush an Asshole
The controversial Danish film director Lars von Trier this Monday premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in France with his film “Mandalay” in the competition for the prestigious Golden Palm. His film set in the 1930s is about slavery and racism in the United States, a country von Trier never visited but still feels part of.
This film is the second part of his trilogy about the U.S. – the first film was “Dogville” starring Nicole Kidman. Von Trier decided to set "Mandalay" in the U.S. because its culture is so dominant, he said according to the Washington Post.
"America is kind of sitting on the world. There's no question about it. It's sitting on the world, and therefore, I'm making films that have to do with America, because America fills about 60 percent of my brain… And I'm not very happy about that. Sixty percent of my life is America, so in fact, I am an American. But I can't go there to vote. I can't change anything because I'm from a small country, and we sit there and be American.”
as David Germain quotes von Trier for saying in his May 16 article in the Washington Post. He continues quoting von Trier:
"We are a nation under the influence, and I think under the very bad influence, from America I would say right now; also because I think Mr. Bush is … an asshole that is... doing a lot of completely idiotic things."However, the words "an asshole that is” is not part of Germain’s quote in the Washington Post article. Supposedly, it is inappropriate to use such a word in the WP, at least while speaking of the President.
In Denmark, however, the very fact that von Trier used the word “asshole” to describe George Bush immediately became a lead story in the media and provoked headlines such as “Trier: Bush is an Asshole”, found similar in Swedish newspapers.
This story is interesting for two reasons. First, American culture seemingly can come to dominate foreigners’ identity, but these affected foreigners do not feel able to influence America back, and that creates frustration and in some cases even hate. Von Trier is a good example of that. Ironically, he now is influencing America back through this trilogy. Second, why can’t an American newspaper quote a prominent cultural personality for calling the U.S. President an asshole? Isn’t that kind of censorship compromising the freedom of speech? And isn’t this very provocation a worthy news story in itself?
Last year, Michael Moore won the Golden Palm for his Bush-bashing “Fahrenheit-911”. If Trier wins this year’s Palm an interesting pattern might be evolving. It’s not a favorite, though.
Posted May 19, 2005 02:06 AM
Comments
sadly, bush IS an asshole and it's too bad that a quote like that had to be "redacted" (using current goverment-approved terminology)... bush is also a "loser" according to my u.s. senator, harry reid, who nonetheless later apologized...
while i'm not an advocate for invective and name-calling, sometimes nothing feels quite as good as venting my spleen on a topic i feel passionate about...
Posted by: profmarcus ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/worldandus/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 22, 2005 11:50 AM
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