Contradictions of Disaster Porn

We call what's happening in New Orleans a natural disaster, yet its worst effects were almost entirely man-made. We say it's a surprise that the results of this storm have been so severe, yet something exactly like this has been predicted for years. We're amazed to learn that so many people apparently ignored warnings to evacuate before the storm, as if we don't know full well that probably close to a third of the people in New Orleans simply had no resources to leave. We decry the looting, pretending again from high atop our horses of righteous indignation, that we don't understand what it means to live in utter poverty. There are so many questions we won't see asked or answered on our idiot boxes because the asking and answering might make us uncomfortable, disrupting the hypnotic trance of our voyeuristic fascination with the latest footage of poor people waving for help from their rooftops or climbing out of store windows with arms full of goods they didn't pay for (forgetting, apparently, that there was no one there to pay and people still need to eat!). Do you wonder why it fascinates you? Do you wish you had cared about these people and their problems before they were placed in mortal peril? Do you wish that acknowledging all of these contradictions would force us to face them and do something about them?

I do.

Posted 09:22 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | general politics