How broad is the anti-burqa law? Would footage of a motorcycle race violate it, the riders wearing full-face helmets? A Mummenschanz show? Heavy prosthetic makeup?
Burn victims beware, youāll have to go un-bandaged in public! Plus Parisian masquerade balls are just totally lame now. Letās not even get started on The Phantom of the Opera.
Yo. Ex-Parisian, now in duel Paris/SF residence here. This guy and his video need to get over himself. Self-righteous self-promotion done by acting like a law that is ONLY being enforced on women of color is ridiculous. This was no brave act on his part. Watchmen saw yet another rich white tourist dude doing some lame attempt at art/joking, and dismissed it. He is in no way shape or form in danger by this law, nor is he paying critical attention what offence and harm the law has done on the women affected by it. At best heās just flaunting his privilege. āWhite american dude doesnāt get arrested for breaking a lawā. hardly news, more like a way of life.
How about White American Dude draws attention to racist laws?
Hmm. To be honest I didnāt even think about the law, and wasnāt trying to make any kind of point. It was only when we shot the Eiffel Tower bit on day 3, and the cops walked past, that my Parisian friend told me what I was doing was technically illegal. No pretense of bravery or protest on my part, since I was unaware. My sympathies are with anyone affected by the law.
And for fuckās sake, some of us white guys are not American. Hard to believe, I know, but there it is.
What, so providing you with the opportunity to discuss the law and its abuse counts for nothing?
I thought you Frenchies knew the point of art.
(Post clearly composed before reading any further, but whether a given point made by a work of art is intentional or not is beside the point : p)
Watching this forced my mind to imagine the soles of my feet burning with the heat of a thousand suns.
Face cover when mandated by law are exempt. Another exemption is carnival.
Though I wonder about ski masks in the mountains.
So how many exemptions are there?
Could it amount to āthis law totally isnāt all about burqas, even though thatās the only thing it seems to apply toā?
OK, having calmed down, I will concede Margaret_Bombinās point. This video is indeed a demonstration of privilege, even though I didnāt intend it to be one. I didnāt even think about the burqa law when I wrapped my face up, I was just going for the look I used when I made the dance up. But thatās where sheās right: privilege is not having to think about things that other people are forced to. If Iād been a Muslim woman in Paris, I couldnāt have done what I did without thinking about it.
Iād go further, actually: having the money to visit Paris is evidence of privilege; not everyone has the liberty to do that. Also, I was there because Iād gotten a grant to do an artist residency in rural France, and anyone whoās gotten a grant like that has to admit thatās a position of privilege, too. You get things like that from being able to write grant apps well, as much as anything else. Having the liberty to make art is a position of privilege as well, since so many people around the world have to struggle just to eat.
Separately, itās interesting the framing effect the headline has on the clip. To me, itās a clip about my dumb dancing in a pretty place. Even that draws attention away from the lyrics, which are, in this case, what I think the the song is about. When I submitted the clip I mentioned the accidental illegality as a kind of āps, itās funny thatā; the point of the video was never to say anything about that law, and I donāt even mention it on the Vimeo site itself. Coreyās headline is snappier than the one I proposed, which didnāt mention burqas at all, but then frames the whole video differently. The song, which was the point of origin for the whole thing as far as Iām concerned, retreats even further into the distance, and commenters here talk only about how the video relates to the headline.
Finally, itās still annoying the way anyone in America seems to assume anyone who might look like them on the internet is American. You might not notice this, but as a non-American I see it often enough to have the shits with it. It seems like cultural narcissism to me. Seriously guys, thereās a whole world out there. We are not all you.
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