War-porn is sick. Of course war is sick but even considering certain justifications given for war at face value, romanticizing war is an entirely different matter.
The Ukraine war is unfortunately not heading toward the territory of a negotiated settlement. It seemed on an earlier occasion that perhaps Mr. Macron the French leader would intervene. That didn’t happen.
If the war is destined to go on forever — or forever and a day — does it mean that voyeuristic TV coverage should be endured? If the response is, if you don’t want to see war-porn then switch off the tube, that’s not merely inadequate, it’s crass.
Television coverage is pervasive. Not everyone has the discernment to switch the tube off. For some TV is a modern replacement to the fireplace. It keeps crackling while the family gets about its business in the living room. In some public places such as airport lounges and hotel reception rooms, TV news channels are almost considered obligatory, and are on 24/7.
Children watch the news and are exposed to war-porn. They are induced to think that war and violence is entertainment or at least infotainment, and these days there is no difference between the two.
The grouse of international television channels such as CNN will be that this writer and the likes of him are casting their conscientious reportage as war-porn. They’d say it’s ridiculous because they are exerting on behalf of a good cause which is to, according to them, expose the repercussions of Russian aggression. They’d also contend that they are highlighting the chinks in the Russian war armour, because Vladimir Putin’s troops are now fast losing the advantage they previously enjoyed because of the dogged response of the Ukrainian troops aided by the international community.
NEWSREEL
But if this is information and information is vital, why is it delivered the way it is? The tone of the reportage is voyeuristic and often, well, simply war-pornish. A running commentary is never needed about Ukrainian soldiers being gung-ho about their tactics and Russian ones not being happy-campers, and surrendering at the drop of a hat.
The other war-porn aspect of the coverage is that the newsreel is made into a mini-movie or at least a mini-documentary. There are the interminable interviews with civilians that are either fleeing or have bravely stuck on, come what may.
What’s galling also is the assumption that the viewers like this stuff and are waiting to gulp it all up. But viewers are generally impatient for the war coverage to end, and that is so with all the viewers that this writer knows. That’s because war under any circumstances is depressing, and that’s even when the international news channels try to glamourise war and make war the staple in the newsreel.
What’s fundamentally eerie about this type of war coverage is the fact that it escapes the attention of the news producers that war or any depiction of war and carnage is generally repugnant. If the producers think that reporting this type of war is important they can give a brief situation report each day in the news so that they are certain the war they determine is so important stays in the news. Restoring to war-porn does not do any favours, least of all to the people who want to keep war news within the prime-time news crosshairs.
LASTING
What’s also depressing about the war coverage so-called is the fact that there is no peace-coverage. Peace is off the radar altogether. This is conspicuous, this total absence of a desire for peace. It has been assumed that any kind of peace will favour Putin and will not do. If that is the case, there should be coverage of how peace can be achieved without the outcome skewed in such a way as to be positive for Putin and Russia. But nobody is interested. Peace is considered altogether politically incorrect. Those who want war are indeed virtue-signaling to the rest of us because war has been considered a primary virtue under the circumstances.
There is absolutely no coverage on the protest movements against the war either. There are such movements and they do have some prominent figures in them. Why not cover these people even if in the end there is somebody saying they are all horribly wrong? But no news producer seems to be interested.
When there is no news agenda against the war, the only conclusion is that in fact the news agenda is to have the war going on interminably, or to put it more colourfully, in perpetuity. In the entire war narrative in each day’s news cast, there is no desire seen from the news anchors or the persons being interviewed, about an end to the war, one way or the other. There is not even any discussion about the war ending with it all going Ukraine’s way, in a clear and lasting victory for the Ukrainians.
If none of that comes into the consideration either, why is it so? Is it because the newscasters are not pro-Ukraine or that they don’t want to seem biased in their coverage? Everyone knows none of those assumptions are correct, as of course the news is pro-Ukraine all the way and there is not even an incidental poser about ‘bias’ because the entire coverage is presented in terms of the conflict being a virtuous war.
If there is no end game in contemplation, not even in a way that would favour the Ukrainians, then the inescapable conclusion is that nobody wants an end to the war and nobody wants an end to the war-porn. It’s not in the end about Ukrainians, even, one has to think out loud. It’s perhaps about war as an end in itself.
DEEMED
As George W. Bush said about the war on terror, “if you are not with us you are against us.” But there is a large part of the world that is by and large neutral about the war in Ukraine. That’s because it’s simply not their war and the war is far too distant from their reality. Why is the war in Yemen not being covered in the same way by the international television networks as the war in Ukraine? It’s because the war in Yemen is quite distant from the reality of the news broadcasters.
The war in Ukraine has become part of their reality because their Governments are backing the war as a campaign against Putin’s aggression, and an effort to keep democracy alive. If in this way the war in Ukraine is part of the lived reality of a great majority of television viewers all over the world, does it still mean that the war should never end? Does it mean that a virtuous-war so-called must indeed go on forever because it’s by definition virtuous?
No war should be reported in this way because it’s dangerous. A war without end? It’s the ultimate dystopian scenario. But a war without end that’s also supposed to be the ultimate virtue-signal?
It’s bizarre or at least it should be seen as such but what’s generally seen as bizarre by the commentators is any reluctance to watch continuing war-porn. Life is not some video-game in which bows and arrows or full on warfare is celebrated. War is repugnant and should always be avoided and if there is a war that’s deemed a must, even then, there must be a quickest route that’s sought to either end it or to talk peace.
Instead of that we have endless war-porn. Maybe because recruitment or support is sought on behalf of Ukraine, but if that’s so it’s the wrong strategy. Television war-porn is not making people fond of the war or making them want to be there on the ground toting an AK-47. At best it just makes them want to grab the remote and change the channel.
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