Mrs. Worldwide

[kathrynvstheglobe]

Blog Post #4: Zero Dark Thirty, the War on Terror, and Torture

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine that you are in a dark, unfamiliar room. You are exhausted, and you want to sleep––but you cannot. Your arms are attached to ropes hanging from the ceiling, music blares non-stop throughout the room, and you are covered in bruises. You stay awake, not because you want to, but because your captors have made it impossible to fall asleep.

This was just part of the reality of the torture committed by the CIA against detainees in Pakistan during the manhunt for Osama Bin-Laden, the orchestrator of the 9/11 terror attacks, as depicted in the 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty. However, critics of the film condemned it for its depiction of torture, also known as “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Journalists and authors including Emily Bazelon, Michael Wolff, Frank Bruni, Karen J. Greenberg, and Jane Mayer described the film as presenting a pro-torture stance, with the torture of detainees being presented as a necessary evil for the CIA to track down Bin Laden. Notably, John McCain, a U.S. Senator who once suffered torture as a prisoner of war, objected to the film by stating that the portrayal of torture as an effective interrogation method was inaccurate and that the torture committed in the Bin Laden manhunt often produced misleading or false information. 

The controversial portrayal of torture in Zero Dark Thirty as a necessary and effective interrogation method provides a lens onto the issue of globalization in a post-9/11 world. Since 9/11 and the resulting War on Terror, discussions of terrorism, especially Islamic terrorism from the Middle East, have dominated discourse and turned globalization into an issue of national security from international threats. A consequence of this development has been the injection of themes from the War on Terror, including the normalization of torture against those deemed potential terrorists, into popular media, including film. While some may argue that Zero Dark Thirty is simply a product of its time, it is nonetheless reflective of patterns in the discourse of terrorism and globalization that persist to this day. 

[kathrynvstheglobe]

Blog Post #3: Video Games, Anime, and Transnational Protest Symbols

On October 6, 2019, Taiwanese Hearthstone player Ng “blitzchung” Wai Chung was granted an interview in a Blizzard Entertainment eSports tournament. In the broadcasted interview, he wore a gas mask and said “liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time”, both the mask and the slogan referencing anti-Chinese government protests in Hong Kong. Blizzard Entertainment suspended blitzchung from the tournament, resulting in international outrage at Blizzard and support for blitzchung and the Hong Kong protestors. Amidst the backlash, protestors began to make protest signs and fan-art of Mei (a character from another Blizzard game titled Overwatch) in an attempt to get Overwatch banned in China and hurt Blizzard’s sales. Overwatch fans from around the world joined in, posting fan-art online of Mei dressed as a protestor and spreading the hashtag #BoycottBlizzard.

Around the time of the Blizzard controversy, anti-government protests in Chile were also taking place. The protests began in response to increased train fare prices, but later evolved into riots over rising financial inequality. The 2019 Japanese anime Demon Slayer had also gained considerable popularity in Chile before the protests. One of the anime’s characters is Inosuke Hashibira, an aggressive young man wearing a boar’s head who has little regard for authority and even head-butts a train in one scene. These characteristics turned Inosuke into a symbol of resistance for protestors, including fan-art depicting him resisting arrest from Chilean police and evading train ticket barriers.

The transnational spread of pop culture such as video games and anime is a side-effect of technological globalization. With the rise of the internet, MMORPGs in which players can game and interact with other players from around the world are now possible and widely accessible. As well, TV shows can be easily distributed and accessed online via streaming services. As a result of media’s global spread, pop culture is no longer limited to its country of origin. Without technological globalization, a character in an American-made game would have never been a protest symbol in Hong kong, and a character in a Japanese anime would have never been a symbol of resistance for protestors in Chile.

[kathrynvstheglobe]

Blog Post #2: “I Do” to War Crimes?

[kathrynvstheglobe]

Blog Post #1: Globalization Is The New Black?

What if I told you that you and I wear globalization every day? Look at my clothes tags: even though I live and shop in Canada, several of my clothes were made in China, Bangladesh, or Vietnam. This discrepancy is the result of market globalization, wherein free market forces within the global capitalist economy allow for companies to not be confined by state boundaries. A controversial by-product of market globalization is the practice of outsourcing, in which companies obtain goods and/or labour from foreign countries. Countries like Bangladesh and China are popular amongst outsourcers due to their cheap labour costs and lack of workplace standards compared to most developed capitalist states in the West.

While outsourcing can help lower our shopping bills, it usually involves the exploitation of foreign labourers working in sweatshops, which are defined by their long hours, meagre wages, and disregard for workers’ rights and safety. The abysmal conditions of sweatshops can have devastating consequences, such as the 2012 Tazreen Fashion factory fire in Bangladesh where a fire caused by a short circuit killed 117 people and injured over 200.

Incidents like the Tazreen Fashion fire have provoked calls for companies to enforce better working conditions abroad and adopt ethical sourcing. Organizations such as United Students Against Sweatshops have campaigned for the abolition of sweatshops, the protection of labour unions, and the improvement of outsourced workers’ wages. As well, there have been calls for consumers to boycott companies including Gap, Nike, and Forever21 over their poor treatment of outsourced labourers. These transnational calls for social justice are the product of cosmopolitanism, the idea that all human beings are members of a global community unobstructed by international borders. Thus, it is the responsibility of everyone to band together and fight against injustices around the world. 

As cosmopolitans, we must remember that globalization is a double-edged sword: is exploitation too high a price for cheap fashion?