I'm almost loath to post this as it is a media studies assignment (a module I detest), however, this is, at the end of the day, a blog about my course. So, for good or ill, here's me rambling about the Yogscast for 1508 words:
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Media in the 21st Century - Converged Media Text - Yogscast.
The Yogscast began in 2008 as a series on the video file sharing site YouTube, that provided tutorials for defeating various bosses, and completing various quests on the popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft, a game that combined vast maps and a huge amount of constantly updated missions; with the capability to play and connect with users across the world . After several months, they expanded to game reviewing in their own particular irreverent style, earning them more and more video views, and subscribers. Up until October 2010 they averaging about 10,000 views per video, then they began to play and review games that appealed to much wider audiences, achieving video views of over 75,000. It was not however until they began to upload their videos of Minecraft, an indie game made by one man that allows almost infinite levels of creativity, by making a world that can be entirely reshaped.
Their first Minecraft video received over 1.5 million views. It was Minecraft that put Yogscast into the YouTube spotlight, earning them appearances on internet radio shows, and increasing the worldwide spread of their series of podcasts: the Yogpod, which is available, for free, on iTunes, and helps to fund their projects through donations from their fan base, known affectionately as the ‘Yognauts/Yognaughts.’ These donations, as well as the revenue they accrue from YouTube for their videos, selling merchandise, and advertising, allow the Yogscast to support themselves solely by working on YouTube. As is the case with many YouTubers, once they can earn a living from their videos, the content almost invariably improves, thus earning them more status and popularity.
In the case of the Yogscast. Their Minecraft videos began as simple tutorials, and have expanded into a fully fledged narrative. Showcasing a breadth of characters, back stories, and an evolving plot. What separates their series (now known as the “Shadow of Israphel” series) from many others on the internet, is that, because it is played over the internet, they can allow people onto their servers (on which the game is based) to build the worlds, and privately script the story without the protagonists knowing what is coming next. As a result, we are given genuine reactions to developments, as well as constant improvisation from all of the characters, along with any mistakes and ineptitude from the heroes of the story as they become stuck on puzzles or accidentally destroy pieces of the scenery. The heroes of the game also voice all of the characters themselves (as Minecraft has a text-based instant messaging chat system) and has lead to one of the Yogscast getting voiceover work for a new PC game: Dwarfs.
As their popularity has grown, they have had to deal with increasing numbers of fans. Initially using emails, and telling fans to post any comments and suggestions on the MySpace page of Tina Barrett (formerly of S-Club 7); The Yogscast created Yogiverse.com as a site to make any announcements, with forums for fans to hold discussions of any current projects. As well as many other features relevant to their current events, including blogs about Minecraft, and character skins for Minecraft.
In terms of how old and new media converge on this ‘text’, there are several ways in which to look at it. Firstly, the entire concept of their series rely on video, in itself, an old media, though the manner it was captured, using FRAPS screen capture software, is relatively modern, and is almost exclusively used by people to record gameplay for sites such as Machinima, and their relevant channels on file-sharing sites such as YouTube, which is a form of new media, allowing the distribution of content to anyone with relevant interests and video files. Once again, video is at this point, the example of old media. Many videos, being converted from DVDs, camcorders and VHS tapes. Allowing anyone to publish and share their own media. The various radio shows that they have been on would act as a form of old media. Radio being one of the oldest forms of modern communication, however, internet radio acts as new media for the digital age. Once again aimed at specific audiences, and also with the ability to ‘listen again’ to streams or shows that have been converted into podcasts for iTunes, yet another example of new media that helps to bring shows such as the Yogscast to public attention through ratings systems such as Genius which collects information on the types of media you enjoy and then recommends other material that it thinks you may enjoy. This helps in the distribution of media, and in helping deliver it to their target audience without have to look directly for them. As far as social networking and the Yogscast are concerned, they use Facebook as a way of keeping up with their fans, although their website is preferred. Facebook, as with most social networking sites, shows a mix of old and new media, in this instance, it is used as a means of communication betweens the Yogscast and the Yog(naughts/nauts), which would, in earlier times, have been achieved through fan mail of some kind, social networking sites allow this to be instantaneous and much more personal.
It is worth noting that since the Yogscast uses YouTube as its media, there is very little restriction put on them in terms of political factors and indeed any restrictions they adhere to, would be put in place by themselves. YouTube as a forum, is very free with people’s ability to be expressive, and since it is worldwide (with certain exceptions that keep a reign on permitted media) there is a breadth of styles and social contexts. The principal figures of the Yogscast being English, means that they assert certain English attributes or characteristics onto their videos/ podcasts etc. for example: popular ‘in-jokes’ that may be easier for an English viewer/ listener to grasp (though not to the exclusion of other nationalities), this may include jokes about Jaffa Cakes (which are less prevalent in the USA for example) or pop-culture references such as singer, Tina Barrett, or actors Brian Blessed and Warwick Davies, who play a part in a long-running joke that they share a flat with one of the ‘Cast, Brian stealing his jam sandwiches, and Warwick getting lost down the sink. This is an excellent example of the freedom to do whatever they want in terms of limits that may normally be put on a production of any kind. Thanks to video file-sharing sites such as YouTube, people can make, and view, whatever they wish.
Concerning debates in media over the driving factors of change, I would say that, as discussed in previous paragraphs, YouTube based media, is very much based on providing viewers with what they want to see. If someone does not want to watch certain types, or genres, of videos, that have no need to in order to see anything else. Unlike, say, having to watch adverts in between television programmes. Although, some YouTube videos/channels do have some advertising that plays before the video, they can be easily skipped with the use of ad blockers. Something you cannot do with television, for example. As such, I would say that amongst video file -sharing sites such as YouTube, there is more of a ‘pull culture’, allowing users to dictate what they want to see. And perhaps in some ways, influencing how uploaders design their videos, so as to appeal to the majority of viewers. Obviously, the higher the quality of what is being produced, the more likely that it will be more appreciated, videos with a better quality production value are expected to be have better overall content. This puts forward an argument that technology can be a force for change and improvement. I would say that as far as conflict goes, there is very little between YouTubers, indeed they are their own community and more often than not, the more popular of them will collaborate in a mutually beneficial boost for both party’s number of subscribers and overall respect. One example prevalent with the Yogscast, is their collaboration with another relatively high profile gaming YouTuber known as Totalbiscuit.
Overall, The Yogscast use the freedom first provided by YouTube to produce their own media, that they enjoy, along with over 400,000 subscribers that now follow them. YouTube, and video file sharing sites in general, as a converged media, are extremely versatile, and in allowing ease of use, as well as providing a springboard for many other types of media, such as music, radio, or the use of social networking as an enhanced form of communication.
References:
Yogscast(2011)Yogscast Multiplayer Gaming [online] YouTube. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/user/BlueXephos [ accessed 31/05/2011]
Lexis, B (2011) Social Networking Sites as Converged Texts [online] Prezi. Available from: http://prezi.com/7xadmiagr7f7/social-networking-sites-as-converged-texts/ [accessed 30/05/2011]
Curran, J. Seaton, J. (2010) Power Without Responsibility. Pages 271 -273
YogPod(2011) iTunes Preview - The Yogpod [online] iTunes. Available from: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-yogpod/id304557271 [accessed 30/05 2011]
Yogscast (2011) The Yogscast [online] Yogiverse. Available from: http://yogiverse.com/cmps_index.php [accessed 30/05/2011]
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Thanks very much for bearing with me on that, hopefully some of you found it somewhat interesting. If there's anything to take from this, it s that the guys from the Yogscast are incredibly funny, and I highly recommend them.
Much love guys, and hopefully I'll make up for this with something silly, as soon as I can.
This is Dave! Yognaught, signing off.
In-jokes are fun...
Tuesday 31 May 2011
Thursday 26 May 2011
Pun in the Sun, Take 2: Alliteration Nation
Quick post today, I'm fairly knackered after my first, stressful attempt at editing a package. Maybe if you're lucky, I'll put it up at some point.
Basically (I hate that word), I want to share a headline with you. Any of you who've been stuck with me for a while (apologies) will remember a post in which I took the mickey bliss out of a Sun article that had such a high pun:word ratio, that it briefly left me speechless.
This new one was relatively recent and dealt with the Imogen Thomas and "unnamed footballer" whom she had (allegedly) had an affair with. It read:
"NITWIT HITS TWITTER WITH WRIT"
I mean, wow. I think when it comes to the Sun, that's the kind of thing promotions are made from.
'Nuff said.
And as always. Much love people.
For anyone with a healthy interest in Imogen Thomas, here's the article:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3593093/Imogen-footie-rat-in-bid-to-gag-Twitter-site.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News
Basically (I hate that word), I want to share a headline with you. Any of you who've been stuck with me for a while (apologies) will remember a post in which I took the mickey bliss out of a Sun article that had such a high pun:word ratio, that it briefly left me speechless.
This new one was relatively recent and dealt with the Imogen Thomas and "unnamed footballer" whom she had (allegedly) had an affair with. It read:
"NITWIT HITS TWITTER WITH WRIT"
I mean, wow. I think when it comes to the Sun, that's the kind of thing promotions are made from.
'Nuff said.
And as always. Much love people.
For anyone with a healthy interest in Imogen Thomas, here's the article:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3593093/Imogen-footie-rat-in-bid-to-gag-Twitter-site.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News
Wednesday 25 May 2011
Towel Day: Celebrating Douglas Adams... and Towels
Apologies for my increasingly erratic posting, my head has been in the ground and my feet in the air lately. That and I'm somewhat distracted by the end of my first year of university rapidly approaching, with all the lovely exams and assignments that come with it. Also, I decided I wanted to change the URL of this blog to something that was both vaguely relevant and did not have 'wank' hidden in the middle of it, as my coursemates gleefully pointed out to me. Little did I know that it would not update links at all, and completely erase my Alexa ranking. For anyone new to this ramblathon I like to call a blog, Alexa rankings are explained in an earlier post which you can read here.
But I digress. Today, Avid Readers, is May the 25th. Not an important day to many, but to me it is nigh on holy. May 25 is Towel Day, an international celebration of the works of Douglas Adams, Primarily his book series 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' (They are all excellent reads, and well worth checking out. Don't watch the film, it's rubbish). On this day, all Hitchikerites are required to carry a towel with them.
Why a towel, well, according to the man himself, A towel:
"Is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough"
Clearly, any person who can do all of this and still have his towel, is a man to be reckoned with. Hence this mildly bizarre celebration of a pretty bizarre man.
Happy Towel Day Avid Readers! And I leave you with some of the man's best quotes:
"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
"It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an Airport' appear."
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
And a personal favourite: "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
For more amazing, entertaining, and coma-inducing quotes, head on over here or just read the damn books!
Much Love.
But I digress. Today, Avid Readers, is May the 25th. Not an important day to many, but to me it is nigh on holy. May 25 is Towel Day, an international celebration of the works of Douglas Adams, Primarily his book series 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' (They are all excellent reads, and well worth checking out. Don't watch the film, it's rubbish). On this day, all Hitchikerites are required to carry a towel with them.
Why a towel, well, according to the man himself, A towel:
"Is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough"
Clearly, any person who can do all of this and still have his towel, is a man to be reckoned with. Hence this mildly bizarre celebration of a pretty bizarre man.
Happy Towel Day Avid Readers! And I leave you with some of the man's best quotes:
"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
"It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an Airport' appear."
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
And a personal favourite: "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
For more amazing, entertaining, and coma-inducing quotes, head on over here or just read the damn books!
Much Love.
Saturday 21 May 2011
Christwire.org: Brilliant Satire or Batshit-Crazy Fundamentalism?
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| The Face of Evil? |
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| Will You be Going to Heaven? |
Some people who comment clearly think it is an excellent joke, even playing along (unless of course, they aren't pretending, and they actually take it seriously). Some people think it's real and bash it for being so ultra-conservative, not seeing the joke (if there is one). And some people just don't seem to understand at all.
For myself, I think it is a satire on religious fundamentalism, especially because of their YouTube channel. But it is very difficult to be sure. The website is a perfect example of Poe's Law, which states that:
"Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."
I can't really think of a more suitable demonstration than Christwire.org for this law.
I would encourage all of you to visit Chritwire.org, and I'd be very interested to hear your opinions on the insanity.
As always Avid Readers, you have a good day, and I'll see you next time.
Saturday 14 May 2011
Seminar Paper : Émile Zola's "J'accuse...!" With a Grounding on the Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair took place at a time when France was in turmoil. The 'unbeatable' French army had been destroyed by the Prussian army under Bismarck. Napoleon III had been captured, and France itself had been completely humiliated. France was forced to sign an armistice that gave Germany the territory of Alsace-Lorraine, and a huge amount of money.
As an added humiliation, during the siege of Paris by the Germans, the poor (who were the majority of people left in Paris at this time, as the richer citizens had fled for the country) were brought to near starvation, forced to eat cats and dogs etc. After Versailles had relented and the siege had been lifted, the aristocrats and land owners returned to France, and demanded their rent from the poor, despite the situation they had been left in. This proved to be the final stress for the poor of Paris, who revolted and ousted the richer citizens from the city. The Paris Commune was then formed. Described by Marx as a 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat,' the Commune introduced social reform, encouraged feminism and established rights of workers to be able to take over businesses.
This made the royalists of France hugely concerned, in fact, there was worry all over Europe about this Geist of Communism that seemed to have taken over. As a result, the remains of the army were sent into Paris to utterly destroy the Commune. There was a huge amount of extreme violence targeted at the working class. Over 20 thousand people were killed, possible many more. The aim of this was to ensure that this uprising would never happen again. However, the short rule of the Commune would prove to have changed political thinking in France forever.
The media in France at this time was very influential, often being used as a way to control public opinion in France. Bismarck did exactly this to start his war with France. The resulting defeat suffered by France caused disbelief, and spawned mass conspiracy theories as to how the French could have lost. One of the most successful theories was of a Jewish syndicate, that worked in the shadows to bring down France.
It was at this point that the Dreyfus affair took place. France was attempting to gain back its pride by expanding its empire and becoming very militaristic amidst several scandals, and the higher-ups of the French military were looking for scapegoats to explain whatever failures it encountered. One such was begun when secret papers from the high in the French army were discovered in a wastepaper bin. This incriminated an officer in the French army and, wanting to make an example, they blamed the incident on a man named Alfred Dreyfus on incredibly flimsy charges. He was: Jewish, a great crime in France at this time when anti-Semitism was rife; From Alsace, this currently being controlled by Germany made him a German; and he was intelligent, another great crime, as Zola comments in J’accuse:
“he is industrious, he wants to know everything, crime”
Dreyfus was found guilty by the French council of war after his accusers, unable to provide any real evidence of his guilt, claimed they could not show the evidence as it could be damaging to France. He was disgraced, stripped of rank, and sent to Devil’s Island, a prison island that no one expected him to come back from.
It was at this point that an officer named Picquart found evidence that proved it was another man (Esterhazy) that leaked military secrets to the Germans, not Dreyfus. He took the evidence to his superiors who dismissed it, saying: “What is it to you if a Jew rots on Devil’s Island?”
The officer persisted however, and Esterhazy was put on trial. But, he was acquitted in an attempt to keep the affair quiet.
It is at this point that Emile Zola, a witness to the trial, and disgusted by the result, wrote ‘J’accuse…!’
J’accuse…!
J’accuse…! Begins with a respectful address to the President, at no point, it is worth pointing out, does Zola ever criticise the President, portraying him as something akin to a victim of circumstance. He says that “your star, so happy until now, is threatened by the most shameful and most ineffaceable of blemishes?”
(…)
“what a spot of mud on your name - I was going to say on your reign - is this abominable Dreyfus affair!”
He seems to write as though he feels he has been pushed to do so, clearly feeling that he should not have had to, and only does because justice failed:
“The truth I will say, because I promised to say it, if justice, regularly seized, did not do it, full and whole. My duty is to speak, I do not want to be an accomplice. My nights would be haunted by the spectre of innocence that suffer there, through the most dreadful of tortures, for a crime it did not commit.”
He begins his argument, with the lawsuit and judgement of Dreyfus, which he believes was almost solely carried out by the then Commandant, Du Paty de Clam, whom he calls a “Nefarious man” and describes as something of a shadowy figure, who sought to hide the truth with elaborate illusions and trickery. Most likely because he had no actual proof to use against him. De Clam was Zola’s first ‘culprit’, and he quickly moves on to others whom, he seems to suggest, are implicit, if not guilty:
“There is the Minister of War, General Mercier, whose intelligence seems poor; there are the head of the High Command, General De Boisdeffre, who appears to have yielded to his clerical passion, and the assistant manager of the High Command, General Gonse, whose conscience could put up with many things”
“Is this then true, the inexpressible things, the dangerous things, capable of plunging Europe into flames, which one must carefully bury behind these closed doors? No! There was behind this, only the romantic and lunatic imaginations of Commander Paty de Clam.”
He condemns the bill of indictment, he says that people could not read it without some kind of indignation or revolt. He lists the ‘crimes’ for which Dreyfus was charged, each absurd when read in the simple language he uses.
“Dreyfus knows several languages, crime; one found at his place no compromising papers, crime; he returns sometimes to his country of origin, crime; he is industrious, he wants to know everything, crime; he is unperturbed, crime; he is perturbed, crime.”
He lambastes the accusers of Dreyfus, all but calling them cowards, and referring indirectly to the power that the media gave to those who controlled it over the rest of France:
“no, no! It is a lie! and it is all the more odious and cynical that they lie with impunity without one being able to convince others of it. They assemble France, they hide behind its legitimate emotion, they close mouths by disturbing hearts, by perverting spirits. I do not know a greater civic crime.”
Zola moves on to what he calls the ‘Esterhazy affair.’ Three years after Dreyfus is sent to Devil’s Island, Picquart, who found the evidence against Esterhazy (a telegram from a foreign agent) is described by Zola as a man who never did anything against his superiors, as a man who (we can assume) tried to always to the right thing. Zola describes how, having been presented with this evidence, his superiors (General Gonse, General De Boisdeffre, and General Billot) were assured of Esterhazy’s guilty, and therefore of Dreyfus’ innocence. But the High command did not want any revision of his trial.
Zola scathingly writes that Billot, a new party to the entire affair, and in know way implicated, felt “only one minute of conflict between his conscience and what he believed to be the military's interest.” and once he had taken this minute, he became implicated and, in Zola’s view, became worse that the others, as he had had a chance to do the right thing, and chose not to. He comments that somehow, despite their callousness, they had loving families at home.
As Esterhazy comes to trial, Zola marvels at his dramatic change of attitude. From him being “thrown into a panic, ready for suicide or escape” to his astonishing audacity, recognised by Zola as a result of help coming to him. Most probably from Paty de Clam with his “fertile imagination.”
Zola starts his last section with a rhetorical question. He asks:
“How could one hope that a council of war would demolish what a council of war had done?”
Essentially, he is saying that the Council of War would not allow itself to contradict itself as it would completely undermine their authority. He does give some leniency to the first council of war. He says that the supreme chief giving credit to the accusations could not be simply ignored, and they were, in some fashion, forced into the sentencing. At the very least their hands were tied. But the second council, he calls criminal, as at that point, everybody knew of the innocence of Dreyfus. The problem they had, was that to proclaim Dreyfus innocent, would be to say that the high command were all guilty. As Zola sees it, he uses this as the motivation for the amount of protection given to Esterhazy.
Once more, Zola seems to find no reasoning strong enough to pardon their behaviour and ridicules the department of war. Whilst at the same time lamenting the loss of what he considers to have been a once fine institution:
“Where is the truly strong ministry of wise patriotism that will dare to reforge and to renew all? What of people I know who, faced with the possibility of war, tremble of anguish knowing in what hands lies national defence! And what a nest of base intrigues, gossips and dilapidations has this crowned asylum become, where the fate of fatherland is decided! One trembles in face of the terrible day that there has just thrown the Dreyfus affair, this human sacrifice of an unfortunate, a "dirty Jew"! Ah! all that was agitated insanity there and stupidity, imaginations insane, practices of low police force, manners of inquisition and tyranny, good pleasure of some non-commissioned officers putting their boots on the nation, returning in its throat its cry of truth and justice, under the lying pretext and sacrilege of the reason of State.”
He begins to come full circle at this point, addressing, if not directly, the President. Describing the petty and spiteful attitudes that have overtaken France. Perhaps, for the first time laying some of the blame toward the President. He praises, however, the men he sees as being innocent and good in all of this. Giving them a fairly large amount of space, perhaps in gratitude for what they had done, despite being the vast minority. “There are two victims, two good people, two simple hearts, who waited for God while the devil acted.”
Once more, Zola addresses the President directly, again calling the affair a stain for his presidency, though assuring him that he sees no collaboration on his part:
“I very much doubt that you have no capacity in this affair, that you are the prisoner of the Constitution and your entourage.”
Towards the end of the article, he accuses the guilty men: Paty de Clam, “as the diabolic workman of the miscarriage of justice”; Mercier, “of being an accomplice, if by weakness of spirit”; Billot, “of having held in his hands the unquestionable evidence of Dreyfus's innocence and of suppressing it”; De Boisdeffre and Gonse, “as accomplices of the same crime, one undoubtedly by clerical passion, the other perhaps by this spirit of body which makes offices of the war an infallible archsaint.”; De Pellieux and Ravary “of performing a rogue investigation, by which I mean an investigation of the most monstrous partiality, of which we have, in the report of the second, an imperishable monument of naive audacity.”; The three handwriting experts that let off Esterhazy, and here Zola shows a small amount of humour, though I doubt that he would have found enjoyment in it. “Belhomme, Varinard and Couard, of submitting untrue and fraudulent reports, unless a medical examination declares them to be affected by a disease of sight and judgment.”
Finally, he accuses the first council of war for condemning a man unrevealed evidence. And the second of covering this up.
He openly says that he has slandered these men, and is willing to accept it. And even now, after having scorned them and called them criminals, he makes an attempt to show that although there is undoubtedly bias. He has no personal malice against them:
“As for the people I accuse, I do not know them, I never saw them, I have against them neither resentment nor hatred. They are for me only entities, spirits of social evil.”
Once more, he addresses the president, as he did at the beginning, treating him with great respect. And clearly knowing that the repercussions of his piece will be massive. If not necessarily which way they will turn. He says:
“I am waiting”
---------------------------------------------------
Thanks very much for reading all this. At some point in the near future, at urging from my lecturer, I intend to record myself reading this and post it on the blog.
Watch this space, my avid readers.
Much love.
As an added humiliation, during the siege of Paris by the Germans, the poor (who were the majority of people left in Paris at this time, as the richer citizens had fled for the country) were brought to near starvation, forced to eat cats and dogs etc. After Versailles had relented and the siege had been lifted, the aristocrats and land owners returned to France, and demanded their rent from the poor, despite the situation they had been left in. This proved to be the final stress for the poor of Paris, who revolted and ousted the richer citizens from the city. The Paris Commune was then formed. Described by Marx as a 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat,' the Commune introduced social reform, encouraged feminism and established rights of workers to be able to take over businesses.
This made the royalists of France hugely concerned, in fact, there was worry all over Europe about this Geist of Communism that seemed to have taken over. As a result, the remains of the army were sent into Paris to utterly destroy the Commune. There was a huge amount of extreme violence targeted at the working class. Over 20 thousand people were killed, possible many more. The aim of this was to ensure that this uprising would never happen again. However, the short rule of the Commune would prove to have changed political thinking in France forever.
The media in France at this time was very influential, often being used as a way to control public opinion in France. Bismarck did exactly this to start his war with France. The resulting defeat suffered by France caused disbelief, and spawned mass conspiracy theories as to how the French could have lost. One of the most successful theories was of a Jewish syndicate, that worked in the shadows to bring down France.
It was at this point that the Dreyfus affair took place. France was attempting to gain back its pride by expanding its empire and becoming very militaristic amidst several scandals, and the higher-ups of the French military were looking for scapegoats to explain whatever failures it encountered. One such was begun when secret papers from the high in the French army were discovered in a wastepaper bin. This incriminated an officer in the French army and, wanting to make an example, they blamed the incident on a man named Alfred Dreyfus on incredibly flimsy charges. He was: Jewish, a great crime in France at this time when anti-Semitism was rife; From Alsace, this currently being controlled by Germany made him a German; and he was intelligent, another great crime, as Zola comments in J’accuse:
“he is industrious, he wants to know everything, crime”
 |
| Dreyfus disgraced as his sword is broken in two. |
It was at this point that an officer named Picquart found evidence that proved it was another man (Esterhazy) that leaked military secrets to the Germans, not Dreyfus. He took the evidence to his superiors who dismissed it, saying: “What is it to you if a Jew rots on Devil’s Island?”
The officer persisted however, and Esterhazy was put on trial. But, he was acquitted in an attempt to keep the affair quiet.
It is at this point that Emile Zola, a witness to the trial, and disgusted by the result, wrote ‘J’accuse…!’
J’accuse…!
 |
| Émile Zola himself |
(…)
“what a spot of mud on your name - I was going to say on your reign - is this abominable Dreyfus affair!”
He seems to write as though he feels he has been pushed to do so, clearly feeling that he should not have had to, and only does because justice failed:
“The truth I will say, because I promised to say it, if justice, regularly seized, did not do it, full and whole. My duty is to speak, I do not want to be an accomplice. My nights would be haunted by the spectre of innocence that suffer there, through the most dreadful of tortures, for a crime it did not commit.”
He begins his argument, with the lawsuit and judgement of Dreyfus, which he believes was almost solely carried out by the then Commandant, Du Paty de Clam, whom he calls a “Nefarious man” and describes as something of a shadowy figure, who sought to hide the truth with elaborate illusions and trickery. Most likely because he had no actual proof to use against him. De Clam was Zola’s first ‘culprit’, and he quickly moves on to others whom, he seems to suggest, are implicit, if not guilty:
“There is the Minister of War, General Mercier, whose intelligence seems poor; there are the head of the High Command, General De Boisdeffre, who appears to have yielded to his clerical passion, and the assistant manager of the High Command, General Gonse, whose conscience could put up with many things”
“Is this then true, the inexpressible things, the dangerous things, capable of plunging Europe into flames, which one must carefully bury behind these closed doors? No! There was behind this, only the romantic and lunatic imaginations of Commander Paty de Clam.”
He condemns the bill of indictment, he says that people could not read it without some kind of indignation or revolt. He lists the ‘crimes’ for which Dreyfus was charged, each absurd when read in the simple language he uses.
“Dreyfus knows several languages, crime; one found at his place no compromising papers, crime; he returns sometimes to his country of origin, crime; he is industrious, he wants to know everything, crime; he is unperturbed, crime; he is perturbed, crime.”
He lambastes the accusers of Dreyfus, all but calling them cowards, and referring indirectly to the power that the media gave to those who controlled it over the rest of France:
“no, no! It is a lie! and it is all the more odious and cynical that they lie with impunity without one being able to convince others of it. They assemble France, they hide behind its legitimate emotion, they close mouths by disturbing hearts, by perverting spirits. I do not know a greater civic crime.”
Zola moves on to what he calls the ‘Esterhazy affair.’ Three years after Dreyfus is sent to Devil’s Island, Picquart, who found the evidence against Esterhazy (a telegram from a foreign agent) is described by Zola as a man who never did anything against his superiors, as a man who (we can assume) tried to always to the right thing. Zola describes how, having been presented with this evidence, his superiors (General Gonse, General De Boisdeffre, and General Billot) were assured of Esterhazy’s guilty, and therefore of Dreyfus’ innocence. But the High command did not want any revision of his trial.
Zola scathingly writes that Billot, a new party to the entire affair, and in know way implicated, felt “only one minute of conflict between his conscience and what he believed to be the military's interest.” and once he had taken this minute, he became implicated and, in Zola’s view, became worse that the others, as he had had a chance to do the right thing, and chose not to. He comments that somehow, despite their callousness, they had loving families at home.
As Esterhazy comes to trial, Zola marvels at his dramatic change of attitude. From him being “thrown into a panic, ready for suicide or escape” to his astonishing audacity, recognised by Zola as a result of help coming to him. Most probably from Paty de Clam with his “fertile imagination.”
Zola starts his last section with a rhetorical question. He asks:
“How could one hope that a council of war would demolish what a council of war had done?”
Essentially, he is saying that the Council of War would not allow itself to contradict itself as it would completely undermine their authority. He does give some leniency to the first council of war. He says that the supreme chief giving credit to the accusations could not be simply ignored, and they were, in some fashion, forced into the sentencing. At the very least their hands were tied. But the second council, he calls criminal, as at that point, everybody knew of the innocence of Dreyfus. The problem they had, was that to proclaim Dreyfus innocent, would be to say that the high command were all guilty. As Zola sees it, he uses this as the motivation for the amount of protection given to Esterhazy.
Once more, Zola seems to find no reasoning strong enough to pardon their behaviour and ridicules the department of war. Whilst at the same time lamenting the loss of what he considers to have been a once fine institution:
“Where is the truly strong ministry of wise patriotism that will dare to reforge and to renew all? What of people I know who, faced with the possibility of war, tremble of anguish knowing in what hands lies national defence! And what a nest of base intrigues, gossips and dilapidations has this crowned asylum become, where the fate of fatherland is decided! One trembles in face of the terrible day that there has just thrown the Dreyfus affair, this human sacrifice of an unfortunate, a "dirty Jew"! Ah! all that was agitated insanity there and stupidity, imaginations insane, practices of low police force, manners of inquisition and tyranny, good pleasure of some non-commissioned officers putting their boots on the nation, returning in its throat its cry of truth and justice, under the lying pretext and sacrilege of the reason of State.”
He begins to come full circle at this point, addressing, if not directly, the President. Describing the petty and spiteful attitudes that have overtaken France. Perhaps, for the first time laying some of the blame toward the President. He praises, however, the men he sees as being innocent and good in all of this. Giving them a fairly large amount of space, perhaps in gratitude for what they had done, despite being the vast minority. “There are two victims, two good people, two simple hearts, who waited for God while the devil acted.”
Once more, Zola addresses the President directly, again calling the affair a stain for his presidency, though assuring him that he sees no collaboration on his part:
“I very much doubt that you have no capacity in this affair, that you are the prisoner of the Constitution and your entourage.”
Towards the end of the article, he accuses the guilty men: Paty de Clam, “as the diabolic workman of the miscarriage of justice”; Mercier, “of being an accomplice, if by weakness of spirit”; Billot, “of having held in his hands the unquestionable evidence of Dreyfus's innocence and of suppressing it”; De Boisdeffre and Gonse, “as accomplices of the same crime, one undoubtedly by clerical passion, the other perhaps by this spirit of body which makes offices of the war an infallible archsaint.”; De Pellieux and Ravary “of performing a rogue investigation, by which I mean an investigation of the most monstrous partiality, of which we have, in the report of the second, an imperishable monument of naive audacity.”; The three handwriting experts that let off Esterhazy, and here Zola shows a small amount of humour, though I doubt that he would have found enjoyment in it. “Belhomme, Varinard and Couard, of submitting untrue and fraudulent reports, unless a medical examination declares them to be affected by a disease of sight and judgment.”
Finally, he accuses the first council of war for condemning a man unrevealed evidence. And the second of covering this up.
He openly says that he has slandered these men, and is willing to accept it. And even now, after having scorned them and called them criminals, he makes an attempt to show that although there is undoubtedly bias. He has no personal malice against them:
“As for the people I accuse, I do not know them, I never saw them, I have against them neither resentment nor hatred. They are for me only entities, spirits of social evil.”
Once more, he addresses the president, as he did at the beginning, treating him with great respect. And clearly knowing that the repercussions of his piece will be massive. If not necessarily which way they will turn. He says:
“I am waiting”
---------------------------------------------------
Thanks very much for reading all this. At some point in the near future, at urging from my lecturer, I intend to record myself reading this and post it on the blog.
Watch this space, my avid readers.
Much love.
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