vox--2020-09-11--How Cuties, a French movie on Netflix, became part of America’s culture war

Sometimes , a movie is just a movie .
And sometimes , a movie becomes an unexpected flashpoint in the ever-escalating culture wars .
That ’ s what has happened with Cuties , a French movie released this week on Netflix .
The film is about a young girl in a devoutly religious family who chafes against her upbringing and wants to join the secular world of her friends .
But while that world seems to represent freedom , it comes with its own kind of constriction and danger .
In the weeks and days leading up to its release @ @ @ @ @ @ @ internet backlash over claims that it was sexualizing young girls .
The cries to “ # CancelNetflix ” because of the film have even emerged offline : On Friday , Sen. Josh Hawley ( R-MO ) sent a letter to Netflix that voiced concerns about the film ’ s content and production and asked the company to “ please immediately remove this film from your platform , ” following a long string of tweets and articles criticizing it .
But much of the criticism against Cuties spawned from inaccurate or incomplete characterizations of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was that Netflix had produced a film aimed at enticing pedophiles .
The story of how this thoughtful , ambitious indie film became mired in controversy is a complex one , one that says something about how we talk about things on the internet today .
To untangle these knots , Vox reporters Alissa Wilkinson ( who covers film ) and Aja Romano ( who covers web culture ) sat down to talk about it .
What is Cuties actually about ?
Alissa : Aja , I guess we should start out by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first saw the movie in January , prior to its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival , where it was well-received and landed filmmaker Maïmouna Doucouré the festival ’ s directing award .
Before the fest , Netflix ’ s acquisitions people saw it and bought the rights to distribute it on their platform .
When I saw it , I had a couple of reactions — both about the movie ’ s story and how it would be received .
The first was that Cuties is a pretty impressive debut film from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ woman born and raised in Paris as the daughter of Senegalese immigrants , and so is her protagonist .
While it ’ s not explicitly about her own experience growing up — Doucouré was born in 1985 , so she wouldn ’ t have had access to a cellphone or the internet as a preteen , and those both factor heavily into the story — the movie is obviously rooted in a place of deep understanding .
Cuties is about an 11-year-old Senegalese Muslim girl named Amy ( played by the excellent Fathia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worlds .
In one , there ’ s her strict religious family , with whom she lives in one of Paris ’ s poorest neighborhoods ; they want to limit her Western cultural experiences while urging her to behave properly and follow their religious customs and traditions .
In the other lies an experience that feels pretty familiar to Western viewers : Amy is fascinated by her classmate Angelica ( Médina El Aidi-Azouni ) , who is the ringleader of a group of girls who dance and wear provocative outfits and call themselves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call themselves “ Mignonnes , ” the French title of the film , which means something like “ cute and petite.
” ) It ’ s also a challenging film to watch .
Cuties often takes the girls ’ perspective in order to illustrate and dissect a broader issue : the hypersexualization of young girls , often tied to images they are fed by advertising and entertainment which they turn around and recreate .
I ’ m not always sure it is entirely successful in that aim — trying to depict something in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t always successful — but it ’ s going for something gutsy and raising an important concern about young women ’ s lives in an internet age , wrapped up in an engaging coming-of-age story .
We are meant to be uncomfortable because the movie wants to shake us out of complacency and make us think about how the images that young people see profoundly mold and shape their view of themselves .
That ’ s certainly not a theme or an approach that started with Cuties — a range of movies from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , another French film about Black preteen girls , to Mean Girls has taken a similar tack for similar reasons .
But even back in January , before Netflix acquired the film , I remembered thinking that it would be interesting to see how people responded to this particular film in this particular moment , banked on the one side by the Me Too movement and on the other by a divided political moment that sometimes seeks to weaponize films .
But given it was a directorial debut , in French , about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of movie that normally generates a lot of buzz in the American press — I thought the resulting conversation would be relatively limited , probably just the purview of people who habitually frequent art-house theaters .
Perhaps I should have seen this uproar coming , given all that ’ s happened in the world since January .
But I didn ’ t anticipate Cuties kicking up a firestorm quite the way it has .
You recently watched the film for the first time , now that it ’ s on Netflix .
What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ watched it with the controversy already in mind , so I ’ m sure that colored my reception of it significantly .
But even so , I thought it was a very well done film and really enjoyable — which is not an easy feat to manage , given that it ’ s also , as you said , intensely uncomfortable at specific moments .
Cuties feels like many films of its type , where we see the world through the eyes of an adolescent main character navigating a fraught and complicated world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reach their pressure point .
I kept thinking of Diouana , the main character of another French-Senegalese film , Ousmane Sembène ’ s Black Girl .
Although she ’ s a young woman in a very different social situation , both Diouana and Amy often move without comment through the restrictive roles being imposed on them as young Black women .
We are left to interpret their responses through their expressions , not their words .
Amy is sometimes able to break out of these restrictions — the ones linked to her Muslim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dance , but where another preteen drama would probably frame dance as a form of empowerment and freedom , Cuties uses it as an agent of confusion .
Here , dancing forces Amy and her band of friends to sexualize themselves before they ’ re really able to comprehend what that means .
Doucouré confronts and discomfits you with that reality , and then perpetually reminds you that these girls are still children , playing with fantasy sexual tropes while still being far too young to handle any serious confrontation with sex itself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more complicated this type of coming-of-age film is when it ’ s framed through a young girl ’ s point of view than through that of a preteen boy .
There ’ s nothing here of the overly romanticized view of boys ’ sexual experimentation that we get from , for example , Fellini ’ s Amarcord , where adolescence is a ridiculous wonderland of big-breasted women waiting to usher innocent boys into maturity .
Without ever actually presenting sexual content , Cuties presents sexuality and adulthood as looming , largely inescapable threats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we do see young girls twerking , the film frames dance as an insidious corrupting tool that could rob the dancers of their innocence .
It ’ s actually quite a conservative viewpoint , despite what its detractors seem to think .
How did Cuties become a target of this kind of outrage ?
Alissa : I totally agree .
Cuties basically makes the case that both the traditional rules of Amy ’ s family and the “ freedom ” afforded by the internet to children who are too young to quite comprehend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ways of controlling girls ’ bodies .
There ’ s good in both the beauty of chosen devotion and dearly held tradition on the one hand and the joy of dance and performance on the other hand .
But they can be twisted in ways that oppress both girls and grown women , and that ’ s what Cuties confronts .
So all that said , how did this movie , of all movies — one that seems bent on getting across a message that its detractors would agree with — end up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Part of it certainly did have to do with the first poster that Netflix released for Cuties ’ s international debut , which involved an essentially contextless image of the girls as they ’ re dancing for the camera they ’ ve set up .
The poster made it look like they ’ re dancing for us , the audience , rather than performing inside a narrative that helps direct us to see what they ’ re doing in a particular way .
( An interesting thought experiment is to consider how many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if you just chose some image at random from the movie to put on the poster . )
Aja : Right !
My understanding is that the film generated zero controversy through its French production and Sundance debut .
But then Netflix , a high-powered US company , picked up the film and unfortunately marketed it using one of its most provocative shots as its first movie poster .
On the left below is the original French poster ( which I believe Netflix is now using ) , and on the right is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : I ’ ve also seen some buzz about the film ’ s trailer being similarly misleading , but honestly , the trailer to me seems perfectly benign : To be fair to all of the people who are angry : There ’ s a lot of reason , objectively , to criticize Netflix ’ s marketing decisions , and even the film itself .
Is it challenging ?
Absolutely .
Does it contain frequent shots that are intentionally provocative ?
Absolutely .
There ’ s one scene in the movie — when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Alade ’ s “ Bum Bum ” — that you can definitely at least argue is indefensibly eroticized .
This scene is designed to make you feel gross and uneasy , but there is at least an ethical conversation to be had around Doucouré ’ s approach to filming this scene , as well as others where there are close-up shots on the dancer ’ s anatomy and skin-tight clothing .
However , whether or not the film succeeds in its portrayal of child agency , restrictive religion , gender roles and sexuality @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in raising and grooming children is not the conversation that ’ s being had .
Instead , hysteria over the film ’ s marketing and the out-of-context shots of girls dancing has spread across the internet .
Alissa : Another factor is this very specific proclivity to spark outrage over movies that most people haven ’ t seen , based on what one loud-enough voice claims is in the movie .
I think of , for instance , the wholly invented First Man controversy of 2018 ( which reached its nadir when a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American flags in the movie were replaced by Chinese flags in the Chinese market ) , or last year ’ s alarmist blow-up over The Hunt and its perceived anti-conservative content ( which turned out not to be anti-conservative at all ) .
Both times , politicians got involved to voice their dissenting opinion ( and looked ridiculous as a result ) .
But the backlashes were based mostly on hearsay rather than on reasoned arguments that take into account the film ’ s text ( or even subtext ) .
The politicized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ continuation of what is becoming an unfortunate American tradition — and it makes it almost impossible to have a conversation about whether the movie is actually successful in its aims .
But this talk of Cuties ’ s supposed sexual exploitation of minors also seems to have come out of left field , especially if you aren ’ t aware of the way that some corners of the internet obsessively track and accuse prominent people of child sex trafficking and pedophilia , something that ’ s spilled into the open with the # @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as much as I can about the various groups that have been pushing the pedophilia narrative , often with racist and anti-Semitic undertones , but it ’ s still very hard to wrap my head around .
What ’ s going on ?
Who did Cuties ’ s perceived content provoke , and why ?
Aja : A couple of things seem to be fueling a narrative that Cuties is an exploitative film made to entice pedophiles .
You have grassroots activists who do earnest work to raise awareness on the internet about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and other victims — these are the types of campaigns focused on promoting legal efforts like FOSTA-SESTA , which is intended to curb internet sex trafficking , for example .
But then you also have things like the hashtag # SaveTheChildren ( that has no connection to the children ’ s welfare nonprofit Save The Children ) , which may seem related to legitimate activist movements but is at least partly fueled by QAnon , a niche but growing internet community of conspiracy theorists who believe Trump ’ s main presidential goal is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the name of the internet community and the name of the convoluted conspiracy they ascribe to .
The QAnon conspiracy combines several long-standing conspiracy elements ( murky government pedophile rings , anti-Semitism , cover-ups ) with a new Trump-fandom twist , wherein Trump ’ s White House is supposedly devoted to ferreting out the pedophiles in government .
So the QAnon community , perhaps by way of aiding Trump in his alleged mission , has become a systematic internet crusade whereby people call out perceived examples of pedophiles among us .
Along comes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a foreign production team , which the director says is explicitly based on her own childhood experimentation with the image of adult sexuality .
This movie ’ s production seems to have been entirely divorced from conversations around whether high-powered US leaders are engaged in sex trafficking .
When it debuted and received a warm response at Sundance , it was still divorced from that conversation .
Now , however , the Netflix marketing has attracted a horde of QAnon supporters to rally around this film as a specific example of some kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you have people who are bystanders seeing the film ’ s images and getting understandably upset , but you also have their emotions being manipulated by people who have a vested interest in portraying this film as somehow sinister .
Instead of discussing the content of the film , people who don ’ t seem to have watched it are spreading the message that the whole thing is “ child porn , ” created for and now being marketed directly to pedophiles .
If you ’ ve seen Cuties , you know how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s not helping that people are also spreading around clips of the film divorced from their context , similar to what happened with the initial Netflix poster .
For example , there ’ s one scene that ’ s representative of the way the girls are learning to weaponize their sexuality — when they falsely accuse an arcade security officer of molesting them in order to get out of trouble .
A clip of it has been making the rounds on Twitter with the first half of the exchange removed , basically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looks like the children are being wrangled by a child trafficker and that the film itself is about the subject of child molestation .
This is the kind of tactic that QAnon proponents use to stoke the emotions of bystanders and spread the conspiracy .
And in the middle of that disinformation campaign , you still have the random , weird anti-Semitic accusations that Netflix and the film ’ s production team are a part of a vast Jewish conspiracy .
( Ironic , given that the film is about Senegalese Muslims !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and critics from having a meaningful conversation about this film , including its provocations and even its true flaws .
Which is a shame , because I think , again , many opponents of child exploitation would side completely with the film ’ s takeaways .
What should we do when we encounter this kind of outrage in the future ?
Alissa : I agree , and the twisty way this film ’ s portrayal of sexuality has become a topic on Tucker Carlson ’ s show is all the more confounding because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that most people never would have heard of — if it wasn ’ t for the fact it was being distributed on Netflix .
( And even then , there are thousands of foreign films on Netflix that Americans don ’ t talk about because , as a nation , we tend not to watch foreign films unless they ’ re very highly acclaimed . )
It ’ s hard to respond well to controversies like this .
A great deal of this controversy was essentially manufactured and trumped up by bad-faith actors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a regular basis .
But truly well-meaning people got swept into it because they see that children seem to be sexualized in a movie , and they have legitimate concerns about that .
What gets left out is the actual movie , and a greater issue : that we seem very willing to judge movies ( and to an extent , people ) based on truncated snippets of things we saw on the internet .
That ’ s not going to get better anytime soon .
So I ’ ve been thinking about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t get swept up in situations like this .
One good way , which I already practice , is to withhold my judgment on a movie until I , or at least a number of reasonable critics , have seen it and had a chance to evaluate it .
( Critics do not hesitate to criticize movies , that ’ s for sure . )
Another way is to investigate the source of a rumor , particularly about a movie that nobody or almost nobody has seen .
Does this account , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of bad-faith claims ?
Are they also pushing racist , anti-Semitic , or otherwise dehumanizing ideas with their claim ?
Then let ’ s hit pause before freaking out , and think about what might be behind this .
And I always am interested to hear your perspective on this , since your beat is web culture , and this is a facet of web culture .
How would you advise someone to protect themselves from falling for a bad-faith moral panic , or at least to have a more grounded perspective on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ written a lot about conspiracy theories and bad-faith actors in my time covering the internet .
Often there ’ s so much content and disinformation flooding the public sphere that disinformation or a de-contextualized campaign spearheaded by bad actors becomes the only thing people see .
But I ’ m also not sure we even have a consensus any more on what is and isn ’ t “ bad faith ” and a “ bad actor , ” which is part of what makes this conversation really difficult .
I think one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not just to be skeptical of sources , but to be skeptical of our own emotional reactions .
If we learn about something on the internet that seems almost over-the-top in its ability to draw our outrage , maybe that ’ s a cue to think critically about how this information is being presented .
It ’ s especially important to understand what agenda people have for pushing the claims that they do .
Increasingly on the internet , things that seem purely sincere or benign on the surface are used to prop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or obscure or divert our attention away from a different problem altogether .
That doesn ’ t just apply to debates and situations that seem to have an ideological bent .
For example , I think we can all agree that animal cruelty is a very bad thing and that animal abuse is outrageous .
But if we let , say , Tiger King ’ s Carole Baskin control the narrative about Joe Exotic , we end up with a story where he ’ s an abusive animal cult leader — and miss @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her husband , which is arguably the much greater crime !
So it ’ s always , always good to hear and understand all perspectives about an issue before we make up our minds and form opinions .
The quick , emotive tenor of modern social media doesn ’ t really lend itself to that slow information-gathering process .
But I think in cases like these — where a director , a film , its crew and critics and supporters , all get caught in the crossfire of a totally unrelated political agenda @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time to think and absorb before we lash out .
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Sometimes, a movie is just a movie. And sometimes, a movie becomes an unexpected flashpoint in the ever-escalating culture wars.
That’s what has happened with Cuties, a French movie released this week on Netflix. The film is about a young girl in a devoutly religious family who chafes against her upbringing and wants to join the secular world of her friends. But while that world seems to represent freedom, it comes with its own kind of constriction and danger.
In the weeks and days leading up to its release, Cuties became the subject of intense internet backlash over claims that it was sexualizing young girls. The cries to “#CancelNetflix” because of the film have even emerged offline: On Friday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) sent a letter to Netflix that voiced concerns about the film’s content and production and asked the company to “please immediately remove this film from your platform,” following a long string of tweets and articles criticizing it. But much of the criticism against Cuties spawned from inaccurate or incomplete characterizations of the film — and the resulting narrative was that Netflix had produced a film aimed at enticing pedophiles.
(Despite what Hawley implies in his letter, Netflix did not produce Cuties; it’s an independent French production that was acquired by the streaming platform before the Sundance Film Festival in January. It’s also worth noting that Barack Obama, who does have a production deal with Netflix, is in no way associated with the film, despite what some of the backlash on Twitter has suggested.)
The story of how this thoughtful, ambitious indie film became mired in controversy is a complex one, one that says something about how we talk about things on the internet today. To untangle these knots, Vox reporters Alissa Wilkinson (who covers film) and Aja Romano (who covers web culture) sat down to talk about it.
What is Cuties actually about?
Alissa: Aja, I guess we should start out by actually talking about Cuties itself. I first saw the movie in January, prior to its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was well-received and landed filmmaker Maïmouna Doucouré the festival’s directing award. Before the fest, Netflix’s acquisitions people saw it and bought the rights to distribute it on their platform.
When I saw it, I had a couple of reactions — both about the movie’s story and how it would be received.
The first was that Cuties is a pretty impressive debut film from Doucouré. The director is a French woman born and raised in Paris as the daughter of Senegalese immigrants, and so is her protagonist. While it’s not explicitly about her own experience growing up — Doucouré was born in 1985, so she wouldn’t have had access to a cellphone or the internet as a preteen, and those both factor heavily into the story — the movie is obviously rooted in a place of deep understanding.
Cuties is about an 11-year-old Senegalese Muslim girl named Amy (played by the excellent Fathia Youssouf) who is caught between two worlds. In one, there’s her strict religious family, with whom she lives in one of Paris’s poorest neighborhoods; they want to limit her Western cultural experiences while urging her to behave properly and follow their religious customs and traditions. In the other lies an experience that feels pretty familiar to Western viewers: Amy is fascinated by her classmate Angelica (Médina El Aidi-Azouni), who is the ringleader of a group of girls who dance and wear provocative outfits and call themselves “Cuties.” (Actually, they call themselves “Mignonnes,” the French title of the film, which means something like “cute and petite.”)
It’s also a challenging film to watch. Cuties often takes the girls’ perspective in order to illustrate and dissect a broader issue: the hypersexualization of young girls, often tied to images they are fed by advertising and entertainment which they turn around and recreate. I’m not always sure it is entirely successful in that aim — trying to depict something in the context of critiquing it isn’t always successful — but it’s going for something gutsy and raising an important concern about young women’s lives in an internet age, wrapped up in an engaging coming-of-age story. We are meant to be uncomfortable because the movie wants to shake us out of complacency and make us think about how the images that young people see profoundly mold and shape their view of themselves.
That’s certainly not a theme or an approach that started with Cuties — a range of movies from Celine Sciamma’s 2014 film Girlhood, another French film about Black preteen girls, to Mean Girls has taken a similar tack for similar reasons. But even back in January, before Netflix acquired the film, I remembered thinking that it would be interesting to see how people responded to this particular film in this particular moment, banked on the one side by the Me Too movement and on the other by a divided political moment that sometimes seeks to weaponize films.
But given it was a directorial debut, in French, about Senegalese Muslim girls — not the kind of movie that normally generates a lot of buzz in the American press — I thought the resulting conversation would be relatively limited, probably just the purview of people who habitually frequent art-house theaters.
Perhaps I should have seen this uproar coming, given all that’s happened in the world since January. But I didn’t anticipate Cuties kicking up a firestorm quite the way it has.
You recently watched the film for the first time, now that it’s on Netflix. What did you think?
Aja: I watched it with the controversy already in mind, so I’m sure that colored my reception of it significantly. But even so, I thought it was a very well done film and really enjoyable — which is not an easy feat to manage, given that it’s also, as you said, intensely uncomfortable at specific moments.
Cuties feels like many films of its type, where we see the world through the eyes of an adolescent main character navigating a fraught and complicated world, largely by keeping silent until they reach their pressure point. I kept thinking of Diouana, the main character of another French-Senegalese film, Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl. Although she’s a young woman in a very different social situation, both Diouana and Amy often move without comment through the restrictive roles being imposed on them as young Black women. We are left to interpret their responses through their expressions, not their words.
Amy is sometimes able to break out of these restrictions — the ones linked to her Muslim, immigrant background — by turning to dance, but where another preteen drama would probably frame dance as a form of empowerment and freedom, Cuties uses it as an agent of confusion. Here, dancing forces Amy and her band of friends to sexualize themselves before they’re really able to comprehend what that means. Doucouré confronts and discomfits you with that reality, and then perpetually reminds you that these girls are still children, playing with fantasy sexual tropes while still being far too young to handle any serious confrontation with sex itself.
I also kept thinking how vastly more complicated this type of coming-of-age film is when it’s framed through a young girl’s point of view than through that of a preteen boy. There’s nothing here of the overly romanticized view of boys’ sexual experimentation that we get from, for example, Fellini’s Amarcord, where adolescence is a ridiculous wonderland of big-breasted women waiting to usher innocent boys into maturity. Without ever actually presenting sexual content, Cuties presents sexuality and adulthood as looming, largely inescapable threats for its female characters.
So while we do see young girls twerking, the film frames dance as an insidious corrupting tool that could rob the dancers of their innocence. It’s actually quite a conservative viewpoint, despite what its detractors seem to think.
How did Cuties become a target of this kind of outrage?
Alissa: I totally agree. Cuties basically makes the case that both the traditional rules of Amy’s family and the “freedom” afforded by the internet to children who are too young to quite comprehend what they’re doing are different ways of controlling girls’ bodies. There’s good in both the beauty of chosen devotion and dearly held tradition on the one hand and the joy of dance and performance on the other hand. But they can be twisted in ways that oppress both girls and grown women, and that’s what Cuties confronts.
So all that said, how did this movie, of all movies — one that seems bent on getting across a message that its detractors would agree with — end up being such a target of outrage? Part of it certainly did have to do with the first poster that Netflix released for Cuties’s international debut, which involved an essentially contextless image of the girls as they’re dancing for the camera they’ve set up. The poster made it look like they’re dancing for us, the audience, rather than performing inside a narrative that helps direct us to see what they’re doing in a particular way. (An interesting thought experiment is to consider how many movies featuring teenagers would seem the same if you just chose some image at random from the movie to put on the poster.)
Aja: Right! My understanding is that the film generated zero controversy through its French production and Sundance debut. But then Netflix, a high-powered US company, picked up the film and unfortunately marketed it using one of its most provocative shots as its first movie poster. On the left below is the original French poster (which I believe Netflix is now using), and on the right is the Netflix poster that first generated backlash:
I’ve also seen some buzz about the film’s trailer being similarly misleading, but honestly, the trailer to me seems perfectly benign:
To be fair to all of the people who are angry: There’s a lot of reason, objectively, to criticize Netflix’s marketing decisions, and even the film itself. Is it challenging? Absolutely. Does it contain frequent shots that are intentionally provocative? Absolutely. There’s one scene in the movie — when the girls film themselves dancing to Yemi Alade’s “Bum Bum” — that you can definitely at least argue is indefensibly eroticized. This scene is designed to make you feel gross and uneasy, but there is at least an ethical conversation to be had around Doucouré’s approach to filming this scene, as well as others where there are close-up shots on the dancer’s anatomy and skin-tight clothing.
However, whether or not the film succeeds in its portrayal of child agency, restrictive religion, gender roles and sexuality, and the internet’s role in raising and grooming children is not the conversation that’s being had. Instead, hysteria over the film’s marketing and the out-of-context shots of girls dancing has spread across the internet.
What’s actually driving the Cuties backlash?
Alissa: Another factor is this very specific proclivity to spark outrage over movies that most people haven’t seen, based on what one loud-enough voice claims is in the movie. I think of, for instance, the wholly invented First Man controversy of 2018 (which reached its nadir when a rumor started circulating that all of the American flags in the movie were replaced by Chinese flags in the Chinese market), or last year’s alarmist blow-up over The Hunt and its perceived anti-conservative content (which turned out not to be anti-conservative at all).
Both times, politicians got involved to voice their dissenting opinion (and looked ridiculous as a result). But the backlashes were based mostly on hearsay rather than on reasoned arguments that take into account the film’s text (or even subtext). The politicized flare-up surrounding Cuties feels like the natural continuation of what is becoming an unfortunate American tradition — and it makes it almost impossible to have a conversation about whether the movie is actually successful in its aims.
But this talk of Cuties’s supposed sexual exploitation of minors also seems to have come out of left field, especially if you aren’t aware of the way that some corners of the internet obsessively track and accuse prominent people of child sex trafficking and pedophilia, something that’s spilled into the open with the #SaveTheChildren campaign. I have been reading as much as I can about the various groups that have been pushing the pedophilia narrative, often with racist and anti-Semitic undertones, but it’s still very hard to wrap my head around. What’s going on? Who did Cuties’s perceived content provoke, and why?
Aja: A couple of things seem to be fueling a narrative that Cuties is an exploitative film made to entice pedophiles. You have grassroots activists who do earnest work to raise awareness on the internet about things like exploitation and trafficking of children and other victims — these are the types of campaigns focused on promoting legal efforts like FOSTA-SESTA, which is intended to curb internet sex trafficking, for example.
But then you also have things like the hashtag #SaveTheChildren (that has no connection to the children’s welfare nonprofit Save The Children), which may seem related to legitimate activist movements but is at least partly fueled by QAnon, a niche but growing internet community of conspiracy theorists who believe Trump’s main presidential goal is rooting out pedophiles.
QAnon is both the name of the internet community and the name of the convoluted conspiracy they ascribe to. The QAnon conspiracy combines several long-standing conspiracy elements (murky government pedophile rings, anti-Semitism, cover-ups) with a new Trump-fandom twist, wherein Trump’s White House is supposedly devoted to ferreting out the pedophiles in government. So the QAnon community, perhaps by way of aiding Trump in his alleged mission, has become a systematic internet crusade whereby people call out perceived examples of pedophiles among us.
Along comes a film like Cuties, made by a foreign production team, which the director says is explicitly based on her own childhood experimentation with the image of adult sexuality. This movie’s production seems to have been entirely divorced from conversations around whether high-powered US leaders are engaged in sex trafficking. When it debuted and received a warm response at Sundance, it was still divorced from that conversation.
Now, however, the Netflix marketing has attracted a horde of QAnon supporters to rally around this film as a specific example of some kind of higher-echelon promotion of pedophilia. So you have people who are bystanders seeing the film’s images and getting understandably upset, but you also have their emotions being manipulated by people who have a vested interest in portraying this film as somehow sinister.
Instead of discussing the content of the film, people who don’t seem to have watched it are spreading the message that the whole thing is “child porn,” created for and now being marketed directly to pedophiles. If you’ve seen Cuties, you know how absurd that supposition is — but it’s not helping that people are also spreading around clips of the film divorced from their context, similar to what happened with the initial Netflix poster.
For example, there’s one scene that’s representative of the way the girls are learning to weaponize their sexuality — when they falsely accuse an arcade security officer of molesting them in order to get out of trouble. A clip of it has been making the rounds on Twitter with the first half of the exchange removed, basically to present the scene so that it looks like the children are being wrangled by a child trafficker and that the film itself is about the subject of child molestation.
This is the kind of tactic that QAnon proponents use to stoke the emotions of bystanders and spread the conspiracy. And in the middle of that disinformation campaign, you still have the random, weird anti-Semitic accusations that Netflix and the film’s production team are a part of a vast Jewish conspiracy. (Ironic, given that the film is about Senegalese Muslims!)
All of this is preventing viewers and critics from having a meaningful conversation about this film, including its provocations and even its true flaws. Which is a shame, because I think, again, many opponents of child exploitation would side completely with the film’s takeaways.
What should we do when we encounter this kind of outrage in the future?
Alissa: I agree, and the twisty way this film’s portrayal of sexuality has become a topic on Tucker Carlson’s show is all the more confounding because, again, this is a movie that most people never would have heard of — if it wasn’t for the fact it was being distributed on Netflix. (And even then, there are thousands of foreign films on Netflix that Americans don’t talk about because, as a nation, we tend not to watch foreign films unless they’re very highly acclaimed.)
It’s hard to respond well to controversies like this. A great deal of this controversy was essentially manufactured and trumped up by bad-faith actors who do this sort of thing on a regular basis. But truly well-meaning people got swept into it because they see that children seem to be sexualized in a movie, and they have legitimate concerns about that.
What gets left out is the actual movie, and a greater issue: that we seem very willing to judge movies (and to an extent, people) based on truncated snippets of things we saw on the internet. That’s not going to get better anytime soon.
So I’ve been thinking about ways to make sure that I don’t get swept up in situations like this. One good way, which I already practice, is to withhold my judgment on a movie until I, or at least a number of reasonable critics, have seen it and had a chance to evaluate it. (Critics do not hesitate to criticize movies, that’s for sure.) Another way is to investigate the source of a rumor, particularly about a movie that nobody or almost nobody has seen. Does this account, publication, or person have a history of bad-faith claims? Are they also pushing racist, anti-Semitic, or otherwise dehumanizing ideas with their claim? Then let’s hit pause before freaking out, and think about what might be behind this.
And I always am interested to hear your perspective on this, since your beat is web culture, and this is a facet of web culture. How would you advise someone to protect themselves from falling for a bad-faith moral panic, or at least to have a more grounded perspective on it?
Aja: I have certainly written a lot about conspiracy theories and bad-faith actors in my time covering the internet. Often there’s so much content and disinformation flooding the public sphere that disinformation or a de-contextualized campaign spearheaded by bad actors becomes the only thing people see. But I’m also not sure we even have a consensus any more on what is and isn’t “bad faith” and a “bad actor,” which is part of what makes this conversation really difficult.
I think one of the best things we can do is not just to be skeptical of sources, but to be skeptical of our own emotional reactions. If we learn about something on the internet that seems almost over-the-top in its ability to draw our outrage, maybe that’s a cue to think critically about how this information is being presented. It’s especially important to understand what agenda people have for pushing the claims that they do. Increasingly on the internet, things that seem purely sincere or benign on the surface are used to prop up harmful and sinister hidden messaging, or obscure or divert our attention away from a different problem altogether.
That doesn’t just apply to debates and situations that seem to have an ideological bent. For example, I think we can all agree that animal cruelty is a very bad thing and that animal abuse is outrageous. But if we let, say, Tiger King’s Carole Baskin control the narrative about Joe Exotic, we end up with a story where he’s an abusive animal cult leader — and miss the part where she may have killed her husband, which is arguably the much greater crime!
So it’s always, always good to hear and understand all perspectives about an issue before we make up our minds and form opinions. The quick, emotive tenor of modern social media doesn’t really lend itself to that slow information-gathering process. But I think in cases like these — where a director, a film, its crew and critics and supporters, all get caught in the crossfire of a totally unrelated political agenda — it’s worth taking the time to think and absorb before we lash out.


vox--2020-09-11--The true love story in Elif Batuman’s The Idiot is a love affair with language

The Vox Book Club is linking to Bookshop.org to support local and independent booksellers .
Elif Batuman ’ s The Idiot , the Vox Book Club ’ s September pick , is a story about first love and first disillusionment with love .
But the love affair that the book is most deeply concerned with isn ’ t our protagonist Selin ’ s flirtation with Ivan , a withholding fellow college student who already has a girlfriend .
It ’ s her relationship with language .
Selin is an 18-year-old Harvard freshman in 1996 , and she keeps signing up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about words .
“ I like words , ” she tells a professor during a screening interview for a seminar on academic writing .
“ They don ’ t bore me at all.
” The professor won ’ t let her into the class .
Every time Selin turns to the academy to help her understand language , she finds herself trapped , undermined , rejected .
Her English classes keep forcing her to talk about a book ’ s historical context instead of focusing on the words and the characters ’ motivations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ philosophy of language class is all tangled up in trying to explain English sentences to Martians with elaborate use of logical notations .
And in her linguistics class , Selin learns about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis , which argues that the language you speak influences how you process reality .
She also learns immediately that this theory is “ not just incorrect but hateful , like saying that different races had different IQs ” — and yet , “ in my heart , I knew that Whorf was right , ” that language does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believes in Whorf because she ’ s bilingual , and she knows that when she thinks in Turkish , her parents ’ native language , she thinks differently than she does in English .
Turkish has an inferential tense marked by the suffix -miş , which you have to add to verbs whenever you are talking about something you did not personally see or something that you doubt .
What that means , Selin tells us , is that “ you were always stating your degree of subjectivity .
You were always thinking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your mouth.
” That subjectivity tortures Selin .
She wants language to mean something very clear and straightforward , something beyond ambiguity : When someone asks you to stop for a drink , Selin thinks , that should mean one drink , singular .
But she keeps tripping over all these instances where words and meaning don ’ t quite line up .
As Batuman put it to the Rumpus in 2017 , “ Language is all convention , and that ’ s something that Selin doesn ’ t understand ; she wants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a word is called a signifier , and what it means or describes is the signified .
The two of them together form a sign .
The classic explanation for how that works goes like this .
The tree is the signified .
Now picture the word : tree .
The word tree is the signifier .
An actual tree is a thing in and of itself .
It is only connected to the collection of shapes and sounds that make up the word tree because we have all agreed that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that collection of shapes and sounds , the word tree , in order to have complex thoughts and ideas about the tree itself .
That ’ s why we have signs — those combinations of signifier and signified .
So the question semiotics asks is , how do the signifier and the signified join together to create the sign ?
Words and their meanings aren ’ t the only signs that exist .
A sign is anything that produces meaning outside of the signifier itself , any form of communication where one thing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or behavior — means something more than itself .
The Einstein poster Hannah wants Selin to buy for their dorm room to demonstrate a sense of whimsy and playfulness is a sign , and when Selin buys a different poster that instead makes it look like she ’ s a big Einstein fan , she ’ s getting the sign wrong .
She ’ s trapped in the gap between signifier and signified , and that vast and enormous space tortures her .
And even when Selin understands what a sign means , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ signified/signifier gap .
When she buys chocolates as a gift for her Hungarian host family , she has to consciously remember to pretend to be unable to resist chocolate , because liking chocolate is a sign of normalcy , and Selin wants to be considered normal and likable .
But she knows she ’ s pretending , that she actually will have no problem at all saving the chocolate for her host .
She knows that the signifier has an arbitrary relationship with the signified .
Selin forms her closest relationships with other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t mean they understand her semiotic questions .
As Lili Loofbourow wrote for the Week in 2017 , part of the reason Selin has problems with cultural tropes — with the semiotics of cosmopolitan American college students — is that she ’ s bicultural .
Selin ’ s semiotic confusion stems from what Loofbourow writes is “ a bicultural upbringing that , by exposing you to multiple sets of social norms , immunizes you to their universality .
It ’ s a form of wordliness that makes you less certain.
” Selin can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a poster of Einstein means to every American college student because she knows the same poster means something different in Turkey .
She knows that a signified can have multiple signifiers , which means she can ’ t pretend that the signified and the signifier are just self-evidently the same thing .
It ’ s perhaps for this reason that Selin is drawn to other bicultural students .
She forms her closest friendship with Svetlana , who “ sounded really different when she spoke Serbo-Croatian , ” and she pursues Ivan , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ language of pure mathematics .
But Selin and Ivan ’ s relationship turns out to be fraught precisely because of the math thing .
Selin is at first excited by math when she has the idea that it ’ s a language of pure signs , where there is no space at all between signifier and signified because they ’ re the same thing .
But math , too , turns out to be a dead end on her quest to understand language : Everything is so abstracted away from the rest of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her .
For Ivan , though , the idea of pure math or pure language is exciting .
Ivan follows Derrida , who argued that the only part of reality we can ever truly access is the signifier .
( I apologize for the vast oversimplification of Derridean theory that ’ s about to follow , but we only have so much space here . )
For Derrida , it ’ s not just that there ’ s a space between signifier and signified , like Selin thinks : It ’ s that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Derrida argues , since all we have access to is the signifier , for all intents and purposes , the signified does not really exist .
It ’ s just not there .
That ’ s why Ivan tells Selin that his love for her is “ for the person writing your letters.
” He has feelings for the letters , for the signifiers of Selin , but he doesn ’ t think he can actually access Selin herself .
As far as he ’ s concerned , that means she doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s fine for him to string her along even though he has a girlfriend and never actually try to kiss her .
For Selin , that ’ s nonsense .
She obviously exists , whatever semiotic theory says , and she ’ s obviously the one writing the emails that Ivan ’ s so into , so what ’ s his problem ?
“ I don ’ t understand why it will trivialize these letters to say hi , or to actually talk to each other , ” she tells him .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ different ideas about how language functions , so when they finally force themselves to sit down and have a straightforward conversation , it ’ s an incredibly painful process .
The only person Selin builds true and untroubled intimacy with is Svetlana , who thinks about language the same way she does .
Svetlana , like Selin , is interested in language as a tool for building narratives , and in the idea of constantly telling a story about oneself .
But their respective stories have wildly different contents because Svetlana is interested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is interested in the idea of aesthetics .
They are talking the same language about different things , and that means they never run out of things to talk about .
So when Selin concludes her school year and determines that all her courses on the philosophy and psychology of language have “ let me down , ” and that “ I hadn ’ t learned what I had wanted to about how language worked .
I hadn ’ t learned anything at all , ” there ’ s still a sense that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her experience .
She now has Svetlana and the friendship they built together .
Here ’ s a series of questions to start a conversation about The Idiot .
You can use them as a guide for conversation in the comments section , or in your own community , or start off with your own questions .
• Selin concludes that academic language games don ’ t help her learn what she really wants to know about language .
What do you think that elusive knowledge is ?
• As I understand it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ partially correct and that language does influence the way we see the world in non-trivial ways , but that language doesn ’ t full-on construct our reality .
How do you feel about that idea ?
• Selin is really frustrated with historicist literary criticism and just wants to talk about the stuff happening in books , not the historical context around them .
Talk to me about The Idiot the way Selin wants to talk about Anna Karenina .
• What Einstein poster do you think Hannah wanted Selin to get ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , right ?
Why is that one so ubiquitous on freshman dorm room walls ?
• The Idiot is so funny !
But it ’ s tricky to talk about the humor because most of the jokes aren ’ t one-liners , they just sort of build .
What was the funniest part for you ?
• This book takes place right as email is first taking off .
Do you remember the first email you ever sent , or what it was like back when email was a fun way to correspond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been doing more emails during the pandemic ?
( I haven ’ t , I ’ ve been doing mostly DMs and group chats and video calls , with the occasional snail mail note thrown in for the romance of it . )
• Whenever I talk about The Idiot with someone in person , half the time the person thinks Ivan is extremely appealing and half the time the person thinks he is an utter waste of Selin ’ s time and energy .
( I thought he was beneath her the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the second time I saw the attraction more . )
Where do you stand ?
Sound off in the comments below , or wherever you ’ d like to talk , and meet us back here in two weeks on September 25 for our next discussion post .
After that , on September 30 we ’ ll have our live discussion event with Elif Batuman herself , and you can RSVP here .
And to make sure you don ’ t miss anything in the meantime , sign up for our newsletter !
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work , and helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world .
Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

The Vox Book Club is linking to Bookshop.org to support local and independent booksellers.
Elif Batuman’s The Idiot, the Vox Book Club’s September pick, is a story about first love and first disillusionment with love. But the love affair that the book is most deeply concerned with isn’t our protagonist Selin’s flirtation with Ivan, a withholding fellow college student who already has a girlfriend. It’s her relationship with language.
Selin is an 18-year-old Harvard freshman in 1996, and she keeps signing up for classes that will help her think about words. “I like words,” she tells a professor during a screening interview for a seminar on academic writing. “They don’t bore me at all.” The professor won’t let her into the class.
Every time Selin turns to the academy to help her understand language, she finds herself trapped, undermined, rejected. Her English classes keep forcing her to talk about a book’s historical context instead of focusing on the words and the characters’ motivations as she would like to. Her philosophy of language class is all tangled up in trying to explain English sentences to Martians with elaborate use of logical notations.
And in her linguistics class, Selin learns about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which argues that the language you speak influences how you process reality. She also learns immediately that this theory is “not just incorrect but hateful, like saying that different races had different IQs” — and yet, “in my heart, I knew that Whorf was right,” that language does change the way you think.
Selin believes in Whorf because she’s bilingual, and she knows that when she thinks in Turkish, her parents’ native language, she thinks differently than she does in English. Turkish has an inferential tense marked by the suffix -miş, which you have to add to verbs whenever you are talking about something you did not personally see or something that you doubt. What that means, Selin tells us, is that “you were always stating your degree of subjectivity. You were always thinking about it, every time you opened your mouth.”
That subjectivity tortures Selin. She wants language to mean something very clear and straightforward, something beyond ambiguity: When someone asks you to stop for a drink, Selin thinks, that should mean one drink, singular. But she keeps tripping over all these instances where words and meaning don’t quite line up. As Batuman put it to the Rumpus in 2017, “Language is all convention, and that’s something that Selin doesn’t understand; she wants it to be direct.”
It’s time for some semiotic theory
In semiotics, a word is called a signifier, and what it means or describes is the signified. The two of them together form a sign. The classic explanation for how that works goes like this.
Picture a tree:
The tree is the signified.
Now picture the word: tree. The word tree is the signifier.
An actual tree is a thing in and of itself. It is only connected to the collection of shapes and sounds that make up the word tree because we have all agreed that it is. But we seem to need that collection of shapes and sounds, the word tree, in order to have complex thoughts and ideas about the tree itself. That’s why we have signs — those combinations of signifier and signified. So the question semiotics asks is, how do the signifier and the signified join together to create the sign?
Words and their meanings aren’t the only signs that exist. A sign is anything that produces meaning outside of the signifier itself, any form of communication where one thing — a word or symbol or gesture or behavior — means something more than itself. The Einstein poster Hannah wants Selin to buy for their dorm room to demonstrate a sense of whimsy and playfulness is a sign, and when Selin buys a different poster that instead makes it look like she’s a big Einstein fan, she’s getting the sign wrong. She’s trapped in the gap between signifier and signified, and that vast and enormous space tortures her.
And even when Selin understands what a sign means, she’s always aware of that signified/signifier gap. When she buys chocolates as a gift for her Hungarian host family, she has to consciously remember to pretend to be unable to resist chocolate, because liking chocolate is a sign of normalcy, and Selin wants to be considered normal and likable. But she knows she’s pretending, that she actually will have no problem at all saving the chocolate for her host. She knows that the signifier has an arbitrary relationship with the signified.
Selin forms her closest relationships with other bicultural students. But that doesn’t mean they understand her semiotic questions.
As Lili Loofbourow wrote for the Week in 2017, part of the reason Selin has problems with cultural tropes — with the semiotics of cosmopolitan American college students — is that she’s bicultural. Selin’s semiotic confusion stems from what Loofbourow writes is “a bicultural upbringing that, by exposing you to multiple sets of social norms, immunizes you to their universality. It’s a form of wordliness that makes you less certain.” Selin can’t pretend that she knows what a poster of Einstein means to every American college student because she knows the same poster means something different in Turkey. She knows that a signified can have multiple signifiers, which means she can’t pretend that the signified and the signifier are just self-evidently the same thing.
It’s perhaps for this reason that Selin is drawn to other bicultural students. She forms her closest friendship with Svetlana, who “sounded really different when she spoke Serbo-Croatian,” and she pursues Ivan, who speaks Hungarian and who also speaks the language of pure mathematics. But Selin and Ivan’s relationship turns out to be fraught precisely because of the math thing.
Selin is at first excited by math when she has the idea that it’s a language of pure signs, where there is no space at all between signifier and signified because they’re the same thing. But math, too, turns out to be a dead end on her quest to understand language: Everything is so abstracted away from the rest of the world that it becomes meaningless to her.
For Ivan, though, the idea of pure math or pure language is exciting. Ivan follows Derrida, who argued that the only part of reality we can ever truly access is the signifier. (I apologize for the vast oversimplification of Derridean theory that’s about to follow, but we only have so much space here.) For Derrida, it’s not just that there’s a space between signifier and signified, like Selin thinks: It’s that the signifier is unreachable. Moreover, Derrida argues, since all we have access to is the signifier, for all intents and purposes, the signified does not really exist. It’s just not there.
That’s why Ivan tells Selin that his love for her is “for the person writing your letters.” He has feelings for the letters, for the signifiers of Selin, but he doesn’t think he can actually access Selin herself. As far as he’s concerned, that means she doesn’t really exist — which means it’s fine for him to string her along even though he has a girlfriend and never actually try to kiss her.
For Selin, that’s nonsense. She obviously exists, whatever semiotic theory says, and she’s obviously the one writing the emails that Ivan’s so into, so what’s his problem? “I don’t understand why it will trivialize these letters to say hi, or to actually talk to each other,” she tells him. But they’re working with two different ideas about how language functions, so when they finally force themselves to sit down and have a straightforward conversation, it’s an incredibly painful process.
The only person Selin builds true and untroubled intimacy with is Svetlana, who thinks about language the same way she does. Svetlana, like Selin, is interested in language as a tool for building narratives, and in the idea of constantly telling a story about oneself. But their respective stories have wildly different contents because Svetlana is interested in the idea of ethics and Selin is interested in the idea of aesthetics. They are talking the same language about different things, and that means they never run out of things to talk about.
So when Selin concludes her school year and determines that all her courses on the philosophy and psychology of language have “let me down,” and that “I hadn’t learned what I had wanted to about how language worked. I hadn’t learned anything at all,” there’s still a sense that she gained something valuable and constructive from her experience. She now has Svetlana and the friendship they built together.
Let’s talk
Here’s a series of questions to start a conversation about The Idiot. You can use them as a guide for conversation in the comments section, or in your own community, or start off with your own questions.
Selin concludes that academic language games don’t help her learn what she really wants to know about language. What do you think that elusive knowledge is? As I understand it, linguists currently hold that Sapir-Whorf is partially correct and that language does influence the way we see the world in non-trivial ways, but that language doesn’t full-on construct our reality. How do you feel about that idea? Selin is really frustrated with historicist literary criticism and just wants to talk about the stuff happening in books, not the historical context around them. Talk to me about The Idiot the way Selin wants to talk about Anna Karenina. What Einstein poster do you think Hannah wanted Selin to get? The one with his tongue sticking out, right? Why is that one so ubiquitous on freshman dorm room walls? The Idiot is so funny! But it’s tricky to talk about the humor because most of the jokes aren’t one-liners, they just sort of build. What was the funniest part for you? This book takes place right as email is first taking off. Do you remember the first email you ever sent, or what it was like back when email was a fun way to correspond and not another chore? Have you been doing more emails during the pandemic? (I haven’t, I’ve been doing mostly DMs and group chats and video calls, with the occasional snail mail note thrown in for the romance of it.) Whenever I talk about The Idiot with someone in person, half the time the person thinks Ivan is extremely appealing and half the time the person thinks he is an utter waste of Selin’s time and energy. (I thought he was beneath her the first time I read it and then the second time I saw the attraction more.) Where do you stand?
Sound off in the comments below, or wherever you’d like to talk, and meet us back here in two weeks on September 25 for our next discussion post. After that, on September 30 we’ll have our live discussion event with Elif Batuman herself, and you can RSVP here. And to make sure you don’t miss anything in the meantime, sign up for our newsletter!


vox--2020-09-11--One Good Thing: A Danish drama perfect for political devotees, now on Netflix

One Good Thing is Vox ’ s recommendations feature .
In each edition , find one more thing from the world of culture that we highly recommend .
One of the most significant trends in global television in the 2010s was one that almost no Americans noticed : the rise of Danish dramas .
For a time , some of the most acclaimed hour-long TV series in the world were coming out of Copenhagen , with many of them remade by American TV networks .
The storytelling tropes of these series soon spread to basically every other country in Scandinavia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because creating a series in the vein of Danish drama was an easy way to become prestige-adjacent .
The first Danish series to gain international renown was the 2007 show Forbrydelsen , which followed the investigation of a single crime , with each episode chronicling a day in the investigation .
If this sounds at all familiar , that ’ s because it was remade in the US as the AMC ( and , later , Netflix ) series The Killing .
When the series debuted in the UK in 2011 and became @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way for it to become an international sensation and therefore create many copycats .
The original Forbrydelsen has still not been made available in the US , despite having been remade here .
( I watched the first several episodes to prepare for The Killing ’ s launch in 2011 . )
Forbrydelsen typified the Danish drama : It was full of plot twists , hints at character motivations , and wild coincidences .
The typical Danish hit is one that takes wild swings when it comes to telling stories , then is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of its high production values and European veneer .
Not all of these series are good — some are quite bad , actually — but you can feel smart for watching them all the same .
Nevertheless , if you ’ re only going to watch one Danish drama , it should be the political series Borgen , which ran for three seasons from 2010 to 2013 and is sort of like The West Wing with more shady dealings and coincidences .
And lucky for you , Borgen has just been added to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Netflix has also commissioned a fourth season to debut in 2022 , so now is the perfect time to get caught up with the 30 episodes that already exist .
( Netflix also claims to have a “ new English dub , ” but please just watch with subtitles , if possible . )
The center of Borgen is Birgitte Nyborg Christensen ( the marvelously steely Sidse Babett Knudsen ) , a minor politician in the Danish parliament who , through a series of unlikely circumstances , becomes Denmark ’ s first female @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a country that has several powerful factions representing diverse constituencies across both left and right , and her attempts to hang on to her power while not abandoning what principles she has make for an oft-riveting series .
That may be especially true if you ’ re not particularly familiar with the ins and outs of parliamentary democracy ( as I am not ) .
The word “ centrist ” probably makes this series sound like an Aaron Sorkin fantasia , and at times , it can be .
But Borgen is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and how attempting to appease everybody often means accomplishing nothing of note .
Birgitte ’ s prime ministership is certainly historic , but when it comes time for her to actually accomplish anything of note , she struggles to get things done .
She ’ s helped in her task by Kasper ( Pilou Asbæk , a.k.a .
Euron from Game of Thrones ) , a winningly unscrupulous “ spin doctor ” who works for Birgitte but seems constantly like he might wander off and help some other highest bidder .
She ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ journalist Katrine ( Birgitte Hjort Sørensen ) , who completes the show ’ s central trio .
( All three of these actors have gone on to play mostly minor roles on English-language HBO prestige dramas , which feels about right . )
Borgen does continue a depressing Danish drama trend , however : Its first season is its best , with each subsequent season getting a little bit worse , as though the story just ran out of steam too early on .
There are also occasional uncomfortable undertones of “ But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they be mothers ?
!
” sprinkled throughout the series , but you do have to admit that running a whole country gets in the way of being home for your kids ’ extracurricular activities .
At its heart , though , Borgen is interested in the ways that Birgitte has to navigate some of these social pressures in a way a man just wouldn ’ t .
As she struggles to hold her marriage together or spend enough time with her kids , the show is keenly aware of how this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can ’ t escape no matter how hard she tries .
That the show catches her in that very double standard itself might well be part of its design .
The core audience for Borgen is likely political devotees .
The system that Birgitte presides over could not be more different from the American system , but as dissected by creator Adam Price and his collaborators , Danish politics is a complicated , Rube Goldberg contraption where the only reason anything gets done is because somebody sets exactly the right course of events @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the right ear .
It ’ s got the idealism of The West Wing married to the cynicism of House of Cards , and it somehow works .
There have been attempts to make an American version of Borgen , but what ’ s entertaining about the show is so tied to its setting in the halls of parliamentary power that it would feel weird to suddenly have it be about , say , a powerful female senator .
Borgen has one of the chief hallmarks of a really good , really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ try to imagine it being about anything else , the more it starts to fall apart before your very eyes .
But we have this version of Borgen , and it ’ s very good indeed .
Borgen is streaming on Netflix , where its fourth season will be available in 2022 .
Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work .
If you have already contributed , thank you .
If you haven ’ t , please consider helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world : Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

One Good Thing is Vox’s recommendations feature. In each edition, find one more thing from the world of culture that we highly recommend.
One of the most significant trends in global television in the 2010s was one that almost no Americans noticed: the rise of Danish dramas. For a time, some of the most acclaimed hour-long TV series in the world were coming out of Copenhagen, with many of them remade by American TV networks. The storytelling tropes of these series soon spread to basically every other country in Scandinavia and, later, Western Europe, because creating a series in the vein of Danish drama was an easy way to become prestige-adjacent.
The first Danish series to gain international renown was the 2007 show Forbrydelsen, which followed the investigation of a single crime, with each episode chronicling a day in the investigation. If this sounds at all familiar, that’s because it was remade in the US as the AMC (and, later, Netflix) series The Killing. When the series debuted in the UK in 2011 and became a smash hit, it paved the way for it to become an international sensation and therefore create many copycats. The original Forbrydelsen has still not been made available in the US, despite having been remade here. (I watched the first several episodes to prepare for The Killing’s launch in 2011.)
Forbrydelsen typified the Danish drama: It was full of plot twists, hints at character motivations, and wild coincidences. The typical Danish hit is one that takes wild swings when it comes to telling stories, then is given the patina of prestige by virtue of its high production values and European veneer. Not all of these series are good — some are quite bad, actually — but you can feel smart for watching them all the same.
Nevertheless, if you’re only going to watch one Danish drama, it should be the political series Borgen, which ran for three seasons from 2010 to 2013 and is sort of like The West Wing with more shady dealings and coincidences. And lucky for you, Borgen has just been added to Netflix globally for the first time. Netflix has also commissioned a fourth season to debut in 2022, so now is the perfect time to get caught up with the 30 episodes that already exist. (Netflix also claims to have a “new English dub,” but please just watch with subtitles, if possible.)
The center of Borgen is Birgitte Nyborg Christensen (the marvelously steely Sidse Babett Knudsen), a minor politician in the Danish parliament who, through a series of unlikely circumstances, becomes Denmark’s first female prime minister. Birgitte is a centrist in a country that has several powerful factions representing diverse constituencies across both left and right, and her attempts to hang on to her power while not abandoning what principles she has make for an oft-riveting series. That may be especially true if you’re not particularly familiar with the ins and outs of parliamentary democracy (as I am not).
The word “centrist” probably makes this series sound like an Aaron Sorkin fantasia, and at times, it can be. But Borgen is refreshingly clear-eyed about the ways power corrupts and how attempting to appease everybody often means accomplishing nothing of note. Birgitte’s prime ministership is certainly historic, but when it comes time for her to actually accomplish anything of note, she struggles to get things done.
She’s helped in her task by Kasper (Pilou Asbæk, a.k.a. Euron from Game of Thrones), a winningly unscrupulous “spin doctor” who works for Birgitte but seems constantly like he might wander off and help some other highest bidder. She’s also constantly having to deal with journalist Katrine (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen), who completes the show’s central trio. (All three of these actors have gone on to play mostly minor roles on English-language HBO prestige dramas, which feels about right.)
Borgen does continue a depressing Danish drama trend, however: Its first season is its best, with each subsequent season getting a little bit worse, as though the story just ran out of steam too early on. There are also occasional uncomfortable undertones of “But women in power?! How will they be mothers?!” sprinkled throughout the series, but you do have to admit that running a whole country gets in the way of being home for your kids’ extracurricular activities.
At its heart, though, Borgen is interested in the ways that Birgitte has to navigate some of these social pressures in a way a man just wouldn’t. As she struggles to hold her marriage together or spend enough time with her kids, the show is keenly aware of how this is a double standard, one that she can’t escape no matter how hard she tries. That the show catches her in that very double standard itself might well be part of its design.
The core audience for Borgen is likely political devotees. The system that Birgitte presides over could not be more different from the American system, but as dissected by creator Adam Price and his collaborators, Danish politics is a complicated, Rube Goldberg contraption where the only reason anything gets done is because somebody sets exactly the right course of events in motion by whispering a few words into the right ear. It’s got the idealism of The West Wing married to the cynicism of House of Cards, and it somehow works.
There have been attempts to make an American version of Borgen, but what’s entertaining about the show is so tied to its setting in the halls of parliamentary power that it would feel weird to suddenly have it be about, say, a powerful female senator. Borgen has one of the chief hallmarks of a really good, really idiosyncratic TV show: The second you try to imagine it being about anything else, the more it starts to fall apart before your very eyes. But we have this version of Borgen, and it’s very good indeed.
Borgen is streaming on Netflix, where its fourth season will be available in 2022.


vox--2020-09-11--Trump announced that Bahrain will normalize relations with Israel

President Donald Trump just announced another historic normalization deal between an Arab country and Israel , notching another victory for his Middle East peace strategy .
On Friday afternoon , Trump tweeted that the leaders of Bahrain , a small kingdom in the Persian Gulf , and Israel had “ agreed to the establishment of full diplomatic relations.
” The announcement comes less than a month after the United Arab Emirates took the same step with Jerusalem .
The joint statement from all three parties doesn ’ t include specifics as to what , exactly , the deal entails , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ establishment of embassies in each other ’ s countries and more open diplomatic , economic , and security engagement .
Some details may still need to be worked out , and it ’ s possible the agreement could fall through .
The statement says Bahrain ’ s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani will join Israel and the UAE for a signing ceremony at the White House on Monday , where the UAE and Bahrain will each sign their respective agreements with Israel .
Trump is already calling the pact a success .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after announcing the agreement .
“ So interesting that it ’ s on 9/11 , ” he added .
Friday is the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11 , 2001 .
But not everyone is happy with the deal : The Palestinian Liberation Organization , the official national representatives of the Palestinian people , reportedly condemned the decision as a “ betrayal of the Palestinian cause.
” That ’ s not so surprising , as Arab countries have long supported the Palestinians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least rhetorically if not always in practice .
With more and more Arab nations like Bahrain making nice with Israel , though , the Palestinians may lose some of that backing .
Before the UAE-Israel agreement was announced in August , the last peace deal Israel struck with an Arab country was with Jordan in 1994 ( it signed one with Egypt in 1979 ) .
Now Israel can claim it has more friends in the region , possibly reducing the pressure on it regarding its relations with Palestinians .
But based on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America ’ s own relationship with Bahrain , it was always a top contender for normalization .
Bahrain ’ s leadership surely considered many reasons before joining in on the US-led effort to improve Israel ’ s ties with its Arab neighbors , but two key ones stick out .
First , regional politics in the Middle East have changed dramatically in recent years .
Whereas the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once served as a major axis around which Middle East politics rotated , with nearly every country in the region , from Iran to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Palestinians against Israel , that ’ s now changed .
What animates the foreign policies of Middle Eastern countries these days is the Arab-Israel standoff with Iran — which some have dubbed a “ cold war.
” As Iran has increased its efforts to establish itself as the regional hegemon , including by developing a robust nuclear program ( but , so far at least , not an actual nuclear weapon ) , rival Gulf countries have found their security interests far more closely aligned with Israel .
Bahrain is on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ good reason to be .
As Phillip Smyth , a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy , noted , Bahrain suffered an Iran-inspired coup in 1981 and an Iran-backed insurgency threat in the 1990s .
“ The government in Bahrain fully understands what the Iranians can bring to the table , ” Smyth told me .
If given the chance , Bahrain will “ find unique and novel ways to respond to Iran ’ s actions .
And why not try to undercut [ Iran ] diplomatically with the ideological @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a Satanic entity that needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth ?
” Second , Bahrain and the US have a close relationship , especially during the Trump administration .
The US Navy ’ s Fifth Fleet is based in the small kingdom , and so they each have military and economic reasons to remain friendly .
But Jared Kushner , Trump ’ s leading Middle East peace negotiator , has also turned Bahrain into a central player in his efforts .
In June 2019 , Kushner hosted his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meant to get ideas ahead of unveiling his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan — in Bahrain .
When looking for a country to follow the UAE in normalizing relations with Israel , it was likely he and his team would turn to Bahrain .
The question now is if more countries — like Oman and Sudan — will follow suit .
If so , it may prove the Trump administration ’ s Middle East strategy has had some success , and prove dire for Palestinian hopes of having any real power in future negotiations with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , thank you .
If you haven ’ t , please consider helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world : Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

President Donald Trump just announced another historic normalization deal between an Arab country and Israel, notching another victory for his Middle East peace strategy.
On Friday afternoon, Trump tweeted that the leaders of Bahrain, a small kingdom in the Persian Gulf, and Israel had “agreed to the establishment of full diplomatic relations.” The announcement comes less than a month after the United Arab Emirates took the same step with Jerusalem.
The joint statement from all three parties doesn’t include specifics as to what, exactly, the deal entails, but it presumably will mean the eventual establishment of embassies in each other’s countries and more open diplomatic, economic, and security engagement.
Some details may still need to be worked out, and it’s possible the agreement could fall through. The statement says Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani will join Israel and the UAE for a signing ceremony at the White House on Monday, where the UAE and Bahrain will each sign their respective agreements with Israel.
Trump is already calling the pact a success.
“This is a truly historic day,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after announcing the agreement. “So interesting that it’s on 9/11,” he added. Friday is the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
But not everyone is happy with the deal: The Palestinian Liberation Organization, the official national representatives of the Palestinian people, reportedly condemned the decision as a “betrayal of the Palestinian cause.”
That’s not so surprising, as Arab countries have long supported the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel, at least rhetorically if not always in practice. With more and more Arab nations like Bahrain making nice with Israel, though, the Palestinians may lose some of that backing.
Joint Statement of the United States, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the State of Israel pic.twitter.com/xMquRkGtpM — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 11, 2020
Before the UAE-Israel agreement was announced in August, the last peace deal Israel struck with an Arab country was with Jordan in 1994 (it signed one with Egypt in 1979). Now Israel can claim it has more friends in the region, possibly reducing the pressure on it regarding its relations with Palestinians.
But based on changing dynamics in the Middle East and America’s own relationship with Bahrain, it was always a top contender for normalization.
Why Bahrain normalized ties with Israel
Bahrain’s leadership surely considered many reasons before joining in on the US-led effort to improve Israel’s ties with its Arab neighbors, but two key ones stick out.
First, regional politics in the Middle East have changed dramatically in recent years.
Whereas the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once served as a major axis around which Middle East politics rotated, with nearly every country in the region, from Iran to Saudi Arabia to Bahrain, aligned with the Palestinians against Israel, that’s now changed. What animates the foreign policies of Middle Eastern countries these days is the Arab-Israel standoff with Iran — which some have dubbed a “cold war.”
As Iran has increased its efforts to establish itself as the regional hegemon, including by developing a robust nuclear program (but, so far at least, not an actual nuclear weapon), rival Gulf countries have found their security interests far more closely aligned with Israel.
Bahrain is on the anti-Iran side, and it arguably has good reason to be. As Phillip Smyth, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, noted, Bahrain suffered an Iran-inspired coup in 1981 and an Iran-backed insurgency threat in the 1990s.
“The government in Bahrain fully understands what the Iranians can bring to the table,” Smyth told me. If given the chance, Bahrain will “find unique and novel ways to respond to Iran’s actions. And why not try to undercut [Iran] diplomatically with the ideological belief that it has: that Israel is a Satanic entity that needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth?”
Second, Bahrain and the US have a close relationship, especially during the Trump administration. The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based in the small kingdom, and so they each have military and economic reasons to remain friendly.
But Jared Kushner, Trump’s leading Middle East peace negotiator, has also turned Bahrain into a central player in his efforts. In June 2019, Kushner hosted his “Peace to Prosperity” workshop — meant to get ideas ahead of unveiling his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan — in Bahrain. When looking for a country to follow the UAE in normalizing relations with Israel, it was likely he and his team would turn to Bahrain.
The question now is if more countries — like Oman and Sudan — will follow suit. If so, it may prove the Trump administration’s Middle East strategy has had some success, and prove dire for Palestinian hopes of having any real power in future negotiations with Jerusalem.


vox--2020-09-11--What’s causing climate change, in 10 charts

With heat waves , wildfires , intense hurricanes , and other extreme weather events in the headlines , the ravages of climate change have become undeniable and unavoidable .
Who or what is responsible for this ?
It seems like a simple enough question , but like so many things about climate change , it gets more complicated the more you look into it .
It turns out there are a number of ways of divvying up the blame .
To illustrate the point , I ’ ve borrowed some charts from a recent research note by the investment firm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They help distinguish who is emitting now from who emitted in the past , who ’ s emitting more and less over time , and which fuels and activities are driving the change .
None of this data is original — it ’ s all public — but putting these charts in one place can help us wrap our minds around the many different ways that questions about responsibility for climate change can be phrased .
What question do we ask when we ask who ’ s to blame for climate change ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ emits the most greenhouse gas emissions , the answer is China .
If the question is which country or region emits the most greenhouse gases , the answer is ... still China , but “ Other Asia ” is coming up fast ( even as Europe declines ) .
If the question is which country ’ s people emit the most greenhouse gases on a per-capita basis , the answer is Americans , by a fairly wide margin .
( Canada and Australia also have high per-capita emissions , as do a few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chart . )
If the question is which region or country is responsible for the biggest portion of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere , for a long time , the answer was Europe ... ... but these days , it ’ s a tie between North America and Asia , with Europe in third , according to Our World in Data .
If the question is which individual country is responsible for the most emissions , it ’ s the US , at almost double its nearest competitor , China .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ region is heading fastest in the right direction , the answer is Europe .
( Look at China — is that a peak or a pause ? )
If the question is which fuel has contributed most to climate change , the answer , as of the 21st century , is coal , followed by oil and natural gas .
If the question is which economic sector contributes the most greenhouse gases , the answer is electricity and heat .
This chart from Our World in Data makes it even clearer that , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and heating is the main driver of emissions , with transport rising at a distant second .
The story told by the data The story told by these charts is familiar to people who have followed climate change for a while .
Fossil-fueled industrial development came to the EU , then it came to North America , and just as it was getting underway in China , the world found out that , oops , this development is going to destabilize the atmosphere and potentially devastate the biosphere .
And what ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already in the atmosphere means that humanity ’ s remaining carbon budget is perilously low .
The model of development with a proven record of success has been revealed as extremely dangerous if it continues as it has in the past .
That ’ s a raw deal for China , as well as India , Vietnam , and other countries trying to raise their citizens to the level of affluence and comfort afforded those in the West .
At the same time , it is mostly emerging economies that face the greatest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simply must change course , at their own peril .
In this mess of a situation , the answer to the question of responsibility for climate change is always yes , and .
Yes , North America and the EU ought to acknowledge their historical responsibility for emissions .
They ate up most of the carbon budget , developing in a way that is now off limits to the world ’ s billions of poor people .
In exchange for this good fortune , they have an obligation to help the emerging economies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and increase their resilience to the climate damages .
And China , India , and other developing nations have a responsibility to see that , for better or worse , they are in the climate driver ’ s seat in the coming century and that every bit of fossil-fueled development bakes in more suffering later in the century .
North America and the EU owe the world some room ( and some help ) to raise their standard of living ; the rest of the world owes it to itself to try to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In the end , the conversation about responsibility leads where all climate conversations lead : The only hope of avoiding catastrophic damage is most every country decarbonizing as rapidly as they are capable , regardless of their histories and rivalries .
Electricity must be rapidly decarbonized to get rid of coal ; heating and transportation must be rapidly electrified to get rid of oil and natural gas .
Wealthy countries should mobilize to drive down the costs of clean-energy technologies through research and large-scale deployment ; developing nations should work as hard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long-term industrial policy and infrastructure decisions are being made .
And those with resources should help those with fewer prepare for the turbulent century to come .
Whoever ’ s fault it is , we either all chip in to solve it or we all suffer .
Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work .
If you have already contributed , thank you .
If you haven ’ t , please consider helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world : Contribute today from as little as $ 3 .

With heat waves, wildfires, intense hurricanes, and other extreme weather events in the headlines, the ravages of climate change have become undeniable and unavoidable. Who or what is responsible for this?
It seems like a simple enough question, but like so many things about climate change, it gets more complicated the more you look into it. It turns out there are a number of ways of divvying up the blame.
To illustrate the point, I’ve borrowed some charts from a recent research note by the investment firm Morgan Stanley (with permission). They help distinguish who is emitting in the present from who emitted in the past, who’s emitting more and less over time, and which fuels and activities are driving the change.
None of this data is original — it’s all public — but putting these charts in one place can help us wrap our minds around the many different ways that questions about responsibility for climate change can be phrased.
What question do we ask when we ask who’s to blame for climate change?
If the question is which country currently emits the most greenhouse gas emissions, the answer is China.
If the question is which country or region emits the most greenhouse gases, the answer is ... still China, but “Other Asia” is coming up fast (even as Europe declines).
If the question is which country’s people emit the most greenhouse gases on a per-capita basis, the answer is Americans, by a fairly wide margin. (Canada and Australia also have high per-capita emissions, as do a few Middle Eastern countries, not on this chart.)
If the question is which region or country is responsible for the biggest portion of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, for a long time, the answer was Europe ...
... and today it still is (with Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe included), with North America and Asia tied for second, according to Our World in Data.
If the question is which individual country is responsible for the most emissions, it’s the US, at almost double its nearest competitor, China.
Animation: The countries with the largest cumulative CO2 emissions since 1750
Ranking as of the start of 2019:
1) US – 397GtCO2
2) CN – 214Gt
3) fmr USSR – 180
4) DE – 90
5) UK – 77
6) JP – 58
7) IN – 51
8) FR – 37
9) CA – 32
10) PL – 27 pic.twitter.com/cKRNKO4O0b — Carbon Brief (@CarbonBrief) April 23, 2019
If the question is which country or region is heading fastest in the right direction, the answer is Europe. (Look at China — is that a peak or a pause?)
If the question is which fuel has contributed most to climate change, the answer, as of the 21st century, is coal, followed by oil and natural gas.
If the question is which economic sector contributes the most greenhouse gases, the answer is electricity and heat.
This chart from Our World in Data makes it even clearer that, globally, the rising demand for electricity and heating is the main driver of emissions, with transport rising at a distant second.
(Note that in the US, the situation is somewhat different — transportation emissions are rising and electricity sector emissions are falling. The lines recently crossed.)
The story told by the data
The story told by these charts is familiar to people who have followed climate change for a while. Fossil-fueled industrial development came to the EU, then it came to North America, and just as it was getting underway in China, the world found out that, oops, this development is going to destabilize the atmosphere and potentially devastate the biosphere. And what’s more, the amount of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere means that humanity’s remaining carbon budget is perilously low. The model of development with a proven record of success has been revealed as extremely dangerous if it continues as it has in the past.
That’s a raw deal for China, as well as India, Vietnam, and other countries trying to raise their citizens to the level of affluence and comfort afforded those in the West. At the same time, it is mostly emerging economies that face the greatest risks from climate change, so they simply must change course, at their own peril.
In this mess of a situation, the answer to the question of responsibility for climate change is always yes, and. Yes, North America and the EU ought to acknowledge their historical responsibility for emissions. They ate up most of the carbon budget, developing in a way that is now off limits to the world’s billions of poor people. In exchange for this good fortune, they have an obligation to help the emerging economies of the world shift to sustainable development and increase their resilience to the climate damages.
And China, India, and other developing nations have a responsibility to see that, for better or worse, they are in the climate driver’s seat in the coming century and that every bit of fossil-fueled development bakes in more suffering later in the century.
North America and the EU owe the world some room (and some help) to raise their standard of living; the rest of the world owes it to itself to try to decouple welfare from material consumption and waste.
In the end, the conversation about responsibility leads where all climate conversations lead: The only hope of avoiding catastrophic damage is most every country decarbonizing as rapidly as they are capable, regardless of their histories and rivalries.
Related How affluent people can end their mindless overconsumption
Electricity must be rapidly decarbonized to get rid of coal; heating and transportation must be rapidly electrified to get rid of oil and natural gas. Wealthy countries should mobilize to drive down the costs of clean-energy technologies through research and large-scale deployment; developing nations should work as hard as possible to substitute clean technologies when long-term industrial policy and infrastructure decisions are being made. And those with resources should help those with fewer prepare for the turbulent century to come.
Whoever’s fault it is, we either all chip in to solve it or we all suffer.