11/22/2011, 6:24 pm
Need I remind them that, instead of asking questions, all comrades worth their salt rations must be prepared to rationalize any phenomenon in a way that advances the cause of the Revolution? And since President Obama is a useful tool of the Revolution, one should be able instantly to misinterpret this bird sighting as the most positive development for Obama and his foreign policy initiatives - even if one must invent an alternative "translation” and adjust the truth by faking the knowledge of the Mother Tongue.
So let's use this opportunity as a training exercise. See this “bird-watching” video and show your skills in progressive truth adjustment. Remember: the issue is not the issue; the Revolution is the issue.
EMBEDDED VIDEO NO LONGER AVAILABLE
THE REALITY:
Tatiana Limanova says the following in Russian: "Dmitriy Medvedev has become the Chairman of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) today.” She stutters while pronouncing the name of the summit and continues: “Previously this position was held by Barack Obama.” That's when she flips the bird and dispassionately goes on to describe the APEC press conference in Honolulu, with Medvedev talking about Russian-American missile treaty.
All bias aside, I don't believe her middle finger is directed at Obama. It's likely that her producer, after she had stuttered in the first sentence, had said something into her earpiece that caused her to flip the bird in response, thinking she was speaking off camera over the footage of the conference. That unintentionally coincided with her reading Obama's name.
Here's why I think it wasn't intentional. Flipping the bird at another country's leader doesn't agree with the unwritten ethics of "edgy" journalism that requires attacking one's own ruling elites first. Given that REN TV has the reputation of the last bastion of free media in Russia, an "edgy" newscaster there would sooner flip a bird to her own president, Medvedev, than to the US president.
In addition, most Russians don't make the same distinction between the president and the country as we do; Obama for them personifies America. So if the “bird” were intentional, it would be directed at the United States as a whole rather than to Obama personally. And that is also unlikely considering that the rest of REN TV programming is mostly made of American shows in Russian translation:
- Formula-1 motor racing
- Family Guy (as Гриффины)
- The Simpsons (as Симпсоны)
- Friends (as Друзья)
- The X-Files (as Секретные материалы)
- M*A*S*H (as МЭШ)
- My Name Is Earl (as Меня зовут Эрл)
- Top Gear Russia (Russian: Top Gear: Русская версия)
- Prison Break (as Побег)
- The 4400 (as 4400) - a science fiction TV series produced by CBS Paramount Network
- Supernatural (as Сверхъестественное)
- Jetix, children's adventure programming from Disney
The traditional Russian equivalent to the middle finger used to be “the fig” – a fist with a thumb placed between the index and the middle fingers. Since there is no significance to this gesture in the American culture, it's easy to imagine a US official, e.g., Hillary Clinton, accidentally placing her fingers in that manner over the table while dining with a Russian counterpart. That would be rather impolite because every Russian knows that polite people show “the fig” only with the hand hidden deep in the pocket.
Thus, instead of being a hostile gesture, the middle finger on Russian TV symbolizes the new spirit of Russian-American friendship, cultural exchange, and deepened mutual understanding.
The lesson we can all learn from this TV blooper is, how a random silly gesture, in the absence of cultural and linguistic context, can become a politically charged international phenomenon. Fortunately, Americans aren't prone to taking into the streets rioting and breaking things due to a perceived insult. So let's be grateful that the newscaster's finger went up as she pronounced “Barack Obama” and not some other combination of words and sounds that might sound as “Prophet Mohammed.” Such turn of events would have been much worse, causing serious material damage and loss of innocent lives – as it already has in many other cases.
