The tale of a repetitive image maker

Shadow Puppet Theatre,  made in collaboration with Katharina Göppert

Length: 6min:16Sec., 2020

 

The tale of a repetitive image maker

The socio-semantic earthquake produced by Covid-19 compels us to yet again think about the dangerously consistent pattern of an Islamophobic and racist rhetoric in our media outlets orbiting around the translation of “facts” into media language; furthermore, it highlights the instrumentality of images/ news narratives passed off as objectivity regarding those alleged “facts”. The Shadow Puppet Theatre “The tale of a repetitive image maker” grapples with the stereotypical narratives and images surrounding the mythology of Muslims, refugees, immigrants and Arabs (which mostly have been used by the media as synonymous words) and how these images/narratives have had a psychological, political and cultural effect on our society. What does it do to a people to be constantly negatively portrayed in all aspects of media? And how do you navigate through this narrative as a young person, because this is how our attitudes are formed long before we become adults and those attitudes of course are carried into not only adulthood, but in our behaviour with people who are racially or culturally or ethnically different. What we try to do is to make this juxtaposition of power visible. We try to make visible what too many of us decide not to see: a propaganda that robs an entire people of their humanity. It was Plato who recognised in his Republic that:”Those who tell the stories rule society.” We are inviting the viewer to be part of our reflective musing, as to how these narratives and images have an impact on the hearts and minds of people and what the effects of this constant usage of the cultural other is doing to our collective identity. 

Spoken Text

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught from year to year
Its got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid of people
Who have a different faith
And people who’s skin is a different shade
You’ve got to be carefully taught
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people the media hates
You’ve got to be carefully taught
You’ve got to be carefully taught
You’ve got to be taught to have rigid ideas
And not to question the mythology surrounding muslims, refugees and immigrants
You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught from year to year
You’ve got to be taught to look away
When you realise that politics and media are linked in many ways You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught from year to year
Its got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught
You’ve got to be taught to appreciate these fabricated ideas
Which have been around for many a years
You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught from year to year
Its got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught 

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