Exactly! I can see that it might be suggestive enough for a few giggles here and there. But if droves of people get seriously hot and bothered about the banana lamp, and it gets subjected to reactionary backlash (oo-er!) by millions of people, then I would say their perspective has become funnier than the item.
Perhaps itās a tenuous link, the thing that really seems to set the Russian government off in both these cases is doing something sexy or frivolous with symbols of nationalism. I think the colour scheme of the Orenburg dancers may be significant in the heavy-handed reaction.
I think someoneās white balance is very confused.
On the other hand, the bees in Russiaās version of Winnie the Pooh are orange and black, so who knows.
Nationalism sucks anyway.
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Most of the complaints Iāve read are plain prudish nonsense. Lots of racist (eww, thatās black dancing) and sexist (whoremongers! begone foul temptress!) remarks. Some people seem to actually suppose that witnessing people dance is a an explicit sexual proposal to themselves, which suggests to me that the dancers are not the ones with āboundary issuesā. I didnāt mean that as a Ukraine/Crimea pun, but it works!
Hear, hear!
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Jesus christ, you got so shocked you voided your vowels!
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Donāt know if thatās the usual misinformed US superiority complex showing ā¦
I donāt think thereās any reason for USians to get on their high horses lately.
Imagine the headline:
US Citizens sent to prison for dancing next to memorial
While I think both cases of āarrested for dancingā are ridiculous, in the case of the Russians it appears that the video was created, and they were later arrested, whereas in the US the people dancing were arguably interfering with (some) other peopleās enjoyment of the monument, and therefore creating a public nuisance. Of course, thatās not why the dancing ban was put in place there. Both stupid situations, though.
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Same could be said of the russian dancers. Free speech becomes illegal when it creates a public nuisance? Usually thatās the point where a lot of USians crawl out of the woodwork to spout overused slogans like āI disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say itā.
Not that I agee with the US courtās decision, but Iāll quote from it all the same.
Oberwetterās expressive conduct occurred in the interior of the Jefferson Memorial, not
on the sidewalks or parkland surrounding it. And the physical characteristics of the Memorialās interior indicate that it is a nonpublic forum. It is physically distinguishable from the surrounding parkland: an individual must affirmatively decide to visit the interior of the Jefferson Memorial. The visitor must step off of a path, ascend forty steps, and traverse a portico ā passing a sign requesting āQuiet Respectā ā before entering the Memorialās interior. Unlike the sidewalks at issue in Grace and Henderson, the pedestrian is inevitably aware that in moving from the parkland to the interior of the Memorial he or she āha[s] entered some special type of enclave.ā Grace 461 U.S. at 180. A pedestrian simply does not āhappenā upon the interior of the Memorialā¦
Wheras the russian memorial coulde be seen only in the background.
Moreover, the Jefferson dancers were arrested and held for a few hours, not sentenced to spend fifteen days in jail. Deplorable but not necessarily comparable.
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From the Moscow Times
Russiaās morality police are on the warpath
In contrast to the Soviet era, the aimless search for new standards of morality has not been entrusted to such powerful structures as the Communist Party, the Young Communist League, the Pioneers or the ideological department of the CPSU Central Committee.
Those agencies regularly issued answers to the pressing questions of the time: Who is a friend and who is a foe, what defines a dissident, which ensembles can perform and which cannot, which films can appear in movie theaters and which are best banned. They even made rulings on whether it was patriotic to wear jeans or long hair. They set clear, simple and narrow limits for acceptable behaviors and ideas.
In modern Russia, it all boils down to individual, and at times outlandish initiatives by politicians suddenly seized by the crusading spirit, or else āprojectsā imposed by senior officials that, upon closer inspection, turn out to be nothing more than cynical, shameless and, yes, immoral attempts to pocket budgetary funds.
Maybe itās just my choice of reading material for the past few days, but this exercise of political power based on āindividual initiativeā seems a little bit fasciā¦ antithetical to liberal ideals.
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As far as we can tell there were no other people at the Russian monument when they were doing their dance. Or at least, not visible. They were dancing in a field pretty far away from the monument, which really just happened to be in the background. Whereas the US dancers were dancing right inside the Jefferson memorial.
Well, in the case of ādisturbing the peaceā laws, yes.
But again, as I said, both are stupid reasons to arrest people. The Russian one moreso, but I wasnāt excusing the US one. I was just pointing out that they arenāt really the best situations to compare (aside from the fact that they involve people being arrested for dancing, and memorials). Also, see @jerwinās comment above.
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Thatās the reason most of western Europe bans hate speech - a fact that is usually seen as unduly restricting freedom of speech by the US public. Funny how the perspective suddenly changes in this case.
Why is this funny? Are you uncomfortable grappling with the deeper ethical issues involved?
The words "inappropriate"and āunacceptableā come to mind. I think they are fascinating words, because they deny a certain amount of agency.
For instance, it may be said that to bare the shoulders n certain churches in Rome. is āunacceptableā or āinappropriateā.
The daily mail captioned this photo
Follow the rules: A sign at St. Peterās Basilica clearly points out what is and is not acceptable to wear in the Vatican City
But what that really means is that those who make the rules for this particular venue have prohibited this sort of costume. They find it unacceptable, even if you do not. Perhaps an extreme case, since the Vatican is a sovereign state, and does not derive its legitimacy from the consent of the governed-- who are nearly all clerics and henchmen, anyway
In any case, it is easy for me to avoid churches.
The problem is that certain nations wish to construct a sacral society, in which the people intuitively understand that certain behavior is āunacceptableā throughout wide swathes of territory, in which the very soil of the county is consecrated by the blood of heroes, and to engage in certain behaviors is āinappropriateā because of this blood magic.
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Itās obvious whoās āuncomfortableā ā¦ when resorting to ad hominen.
Well, I live my life so as not to be disturbed by the dead. I do not live my life so as not to disturb the dead.
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Yeah, the US is far from perfect but has a MUCH better record for free speech and freedom in general than Russia.
Even today with your high profile cases like Pussy Riot show some of the absurdity still going on there.
Of course the Mad Magazines snipe from the 60s was much more applicable back then. They still had the KGB, secret police, people were imprisoned for their political beliefs, both in Russia and in their sister puppets of the Iron Curtain.
When the zombie revolution comes, youāll be the first against the wall!
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