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[MrRealDeal]

Film festivals should not boycott entire countries gay or otherwise ....... It's like asking in the 50's if Freedom film festivals should boycott Russian films on freedom .... the answer is obviously NO ..... because it's censorship

[Jingthing]

The core of this film festival controversy was about so called pinkwashing. OK, I think pinkwashing is a real thing and the Israeli government finds it a useful tactic, and will continue to be interested in using it. In the case of films and cultural products, they can represent more than one thing, and do. Just the film, maybe what the film says about a country, etc. However, this story tells us just how absurdly far this anti-pinkwashing campaign can and does go:

Quote

Could one imagine a group of American liberals boycotting a group of gay Zimbabweans or Iranians - people who reside in countries whose leaders, respectively, call homosexuals "worse than dogs and pigs" and hang them from construction cranes? Boycotting individuals because of the actions of their government, over which they have no control and that they may very well oppose, is absurd. Boycotting Israeli gay teenagers because of the occupation is akin to boycotting a group of Czech beer brewers because of their nation's abysmal treatment of its Roma minority, or a French opera company because of the dismal state of the banlieues. And selectively boycotting Israelis - whether they be artists, professors or gay teenagers - is nothing short of anti-Semitic.

http://www.haaretz.c...gument-1.422951

[RonanTheBarbarian]

Mr. Kirchick, the author of the above article (as well as being member of a neo-con lobbying organisation)claims:

"Could one imagine a group of American liberals boycotting a group of gay Zimbabweans or Iranians...".

As the boycotting stems from the alleged pinkwashing, the above example would only make sense if the Iranian or Zimbabwean government were sponsoring gay arts events in the USA to try and improve the image of their government.

Is this likely, does anybody think?

And in the vanishingly unlikely event that the Iranian government sponsored gay arts events in the US, you can be pretty dam_n sure that pro-Israel groups would kick up a stink about it, I can assure you.

Edited by RonanTheBarbarian, Yesterday, 19:17 .

[Jingthing]

RonanTheBarbarian, on Yesterday, 19:15 , said:

...
And in the vanishingly unlikely event that the Iranian government sponsored gay arts events in the US, you can be pretty dam_n sure that pro-Israel groups would kick up a stink about it, I can assure you.

No, they wouldn't, because an Iran like that wouldn't be the same Iran we have now.

Aside from that, Iranian films have been shown in the USA for many decades, through different regimes. I dare you to find even one incident where pro-Israeli groups in the US have attempted to nix the showing of these films. Don't you think the Iranian government sees propaganda benefit when their films win awards in America, as one recently did? (A very good film, BTW.) Of course they do and again, you won't hear one peep of protest from "pro-Israeli" groups in the USA about that.

How anyone can possibly defend what happened to this teenage gay group from Israel is really beyond my imagination.

Edited by Jingthing, Yesterday, 19:42 .

[RonanTheBarbarian]

Jingthing, again you are obscuring the fact that the target of the SF boycott is the financing coming from the PR arm of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Can you name one reputable Arts organisation in the USA that has accepted Iranian funding recently?

Because unless you can (and I accept that it is unlikely that the current Iranian regime would be going around looking for Arts festivals to sponsor), you are not making like for like comparisons.

[Jingthing]

I see. So bottom line based on your response, I reckon you agree with me that the way the gay teens were treated in Seattle was despicable. As far as your other example, it's you that set the test of exact like for like. Not me. Israel and the USA are the closest of friends. Iran and the USA don't even have diplomatic relations! There are plenty of Iranian Americans and they do very well there (but of course most of them are anti- Iranian regime). Look, if you bothered to reed this thread, there was a link in the OP about the funding issue, and I personally agree that a pinkwashing tactic does exist. It is a legitimate area of controversy, but I just can't get behind censorship of arts, and I know for a fact that MANY foreign governments help fund cultural events and film sharing in MANY countries, in the U.S. and Thailand.

To be clear, I have a lot of disagreement with many policies of the Israeli government, but it stops at demonizing the Israeli people as a whole, their artists, their filmmakers, their academics (who are most liberal politically), their scientists, their novelists, their musicians, etc. And especially their GAY YOUTH who guess what, don't live in  a gay utopia.

Also, in case it wasn't clear, YES Frameline should take any money it can from any government to help bring in the artists live to the festivals. Running film festivals is very expensive and if the directors and actors aren't there to speak, hear the applause or hisses (San Franciscan audiences tend to hiss when they are displeased) and answer questions, it's just another movie screening! If they've selected an Israeli film, they select it because it belongs in the festival, just like any other selection.

Edited by Jingthing, Today, 02:36 .

[RonanTheBarbarian]

Jingthing, as regard the Israeli teenagers, i am not defending what happened to them (as I said before, I think boycotts that affect israeli individuals are counter-productive), however there are many individual tragedies in the Israeli Palestinian situation.At least the teenagers only faced a one-day setback, which I am sure they will recover from.  

The New York Times had an Op-Ed just this week from an Israeli Arab who is married to a woman from the West bank. They met in the United States, but cannot go back to live in his hometown in Israel because she wouuld be barred from living with him, simply because she was born in the West Bank.

This situation may continue for the rest of their lives.


You can read the story here:
http://www.nytimes.c...-are-equal.html

If the link is blocked here on TV, you can get to it by Googling "Not All israeli Citizens are Equal Yousef Munayyer"


I hope you will join me, Jingthing, in stating that the way the Israeli government is treating the Munayyer family is despicable.

Edited by RonanTheBarbarian, Today, 02:43 .

[Jingthing]

You're going way off topic, dude. This is the gay forum here. Tie it to the gay angle somehow, or don't go there. I picked up you want to move this thread into a general Israel/Palestinian conflict topic. That ain't gonna happen.

But I will respond this way on topic. If you're suggesting that being against boycotting Israeli cultural products and being OK with Frameline Gay Film festival taking money from ANY government, including Israel, to help fund the film festival translates into support for all Israeli government policies, that's completely wrong.

Edited by Jingthing, Today, 02:53 .

[RonanTheBarbarian]

Well, Jingthing, to bring it back to the gay issue, what would be an acceptable way in your mind  for opponents of "pinkwashing" to fight it?

[Jingthing]

RonanTheBarbarian, on Today, 03:13 , said:

Well, Jingthing, to bring it back to the gay issue, what would be an acceptable way in your mind  for opponents of "pinkwashing" to fight it?

Speak about it. Informational pickets. I think its an awareness thing. I don't think the goal should be to suppress Israeli gay cultural products from international distribution. Those products exist for what they are. Their government may be using them for PR, so just let people know what the government is doing and to encourage people take that into account when enjoying the cultural events. Then intelligent people themselves can decide whether the creators themselves were producing propaganda. Generally, they were not! Don't punish the artists.

That is. If that's your thing. There are about 100 other governments in the world that do disgusting things. It's interesting that many leftist types are only interested in the bad things one country does -- Israel.

Edited by Jingthing, Today, 03:39 .

[RonanTheBarbarian]

Jingthing, I have a lot of sympathy for what you say in your first paragraph. Targetting individual artists is not the way to go I think.  But it is hard to see what the other options are.

As regards your idea that "informational pickets" would be a better way to go, I remember that when an Irish pro-Palestinian group had a picket outside a concert where an Israeli orchestra were playing here in Dublin, they were accused of being "intimidatory", etc.

I have a feeling that only the most decorous of letters to the editor (and in an obscure publication at that) would pass muster as acceptable for the partisans on the other side of this issue.

Regarding the other hundred evil regimes, there is some truth in that. But only some - Israel is known around the World as an ally of the US (recipient of huge sums of US aid). Therefore what it does reflects on the US - and badly in many cases.

It matters not for the reputation of the US what Iran (or Syria or North Korea) do as everybody know they are enemies. Even countries such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia are known to be allied to the US purely as a marriage of convenience. However, Israel and the US are best buds - the US claims that part of the reason it supports Israel is that it is the "only democracy in the Middle East".

Therefore,the US is claiming its support for Israel is based on democracy and an ethical foreign policy.

That carries certain expectations and obligations. And it seems not at all surprising to me Israel question loom large in the imagination of the American left, including the doughty lefty GLBT campaigners.

[Jingthing]

Excuse me, but I never said everyone has to or will agree with your informational pickets. I just think in this case that's a better way to than to either boycott gay Israeli films and/or suggest Frameline shouldn't take money from Israel when they're open to money from any other foreign government to support their worthy and always needy festival. Frameline isn't the bloody state department!

That all said, you've had your generic anti-Israel government speech, going way off the gay topic. If this is the direction this thread is going, just another general Israeli-Palestinian conflict topic, might as well close it.

Edited by Jingthing, Today, 04:43 .

[RonanTheBarbarian]

Well, in fairness, my generic anti-Israeli government speech (as you call it) was in response to YOUR generic "why are they all picking on Israel when there is loads more baddies out there " argument, which you brought in unprompted.

But this argument is turning into to a bit of a two person debate between ourselves , so perhaps letting it drop down the rankings would be a good thing unless there is some fresh blood to bring more perspectives.

[Jingthing]

Fine with me.  I think this thread is played out anyway, no matter how you cut it.