The Saga of the Whales
Ah. What’s better than Nascar, the Kentucky Derby and the NHL Playoffs combined? Watching two humpback whales trapped in Sacramento, of course! I’ve never even been to Sacramento and I live an hour and a half away.
I understand the interest in this story. Two giant and endangered animals are stuck amidst the trappings of heavily industrialized river, a mother and a baby swimming upstream and in to danger. Their every move is charted by the press as the whales get sicker from injuries sustained by passing boats. Humans spring into action to save the day with recorded calls of predators and fire hoses. Eventually, cheering throngs of people watch as the whales triumphantly return to the sea. It’s like E.T. all over again, except with whales in a river instead of a creepy looking alien on a bicycle.
The troubling part about this story was that so many people found it inspirational and magical, even when the whales were trapped 70 miles inland and appeared to be headed for certain death. This story took over the local media to the extant that nothing else seems to have happened in the last ten days or so.
From SF Gate:
“What an experience,” said Ernie Ramos of Sacramento after he had wrestled his beach umbrella back into its carrying case. “How often do you get to see a whale in Sacramento?”
“Everybody out here’s having a great time,” said Pam Edwards of Rancho Cordova.
At least one person showed up wearing a “Whale Watch 2007″ cap and another poignant observer pointed out “Snakes are creepy. You have a better chance of getting bit by a snake than being eaten by a whale” after a harmless garter snake was spotted in the grass.
Aside from the questionable quality of the article itself, the most telling part of this debacle is that most of these people saw it as a spectcle to be enjoyed. I admit, a few other people are quoted in the artle that are clearly troubled by the plight of the trapped animals. For the most part though, the event was on par with watching a sporting event- complete with merchandising and food stands.
During the past week, while SF Gate (the San Francisco Chronicle’s web site) was listing a total of 15 articles about the whale saga in a prominently located location on its news site, over 600 civilians died in Iraq according to iraqbodycount.net. I couldn’t find a single easily accessible article on this topic on SF Gate at all, and I only found two articles posted today about U.S. casualties. The whales were a collective escape from the nightmarish reality we have created, one that we can feel good about because we (as a species) weren’t directly responsible and there was a feeling that we could do something to help them. At the very least, our news sources could do a better job of covering the current procedings of the International Whaling Commission- this will have far longer term and far-reaching effects on whale populations for decades to come.
In chapter 2 of The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord defines “commodity fetishism” as “the domination of society by ‘intangible as well as tangible things,’ which reaches its absolute fulfillment in the spectacle.” He goes on to say that “the tangible world is replaced by a selection of images which exist above it.” In this multi-layered, mediated scenario the most serious issues of the day (war, environmental degradation, poverty etc.) are pushed aside while thousands watch two trapped whales. All this while not even coming to terms with the fact that they are watching two endangered animals struggling for life and are probably adding to their misery. It is merely another spectacle- an extension of television and a day out in the sun drinking beer next to the river. The whales replaced all other serious news as everyone slipped into nostalgia for Humphrey, the other famous whale that got caught where he wasn’t supposed to be.
The idea that humans can save theses creatures from dying in a muddy river with helicopters, recorded sounds, and fireboats plays directly into a bigger narrative that every problem has some sort of neat (and relatively painless) solution that only takes a little bit of know-how and elbow grease (or money). Why bother driving less or buying a bike or at least getting a smaller car when you can buy that BMW SUV you’ve had your eye on and then pay off your guilt with Terrapass?
For the 600 civillians that died in Iraq this week or the 10 American soldiers that died on Memorial Day, the realities of bad decision making invaded the tangible world with a vengence. There are no neat solutions to the kind of problems our coutnry has created in Iraq, and if they are investigated too deeply most people in this country get very uneasy. It’s simpler to put a “support our troops” magnet on the back of your SUV, eat hot dogs and stare at marine mammals at the Port of Sacramento. This world of images and easy solutions makes people believe that tomorrow is going to be a better day, global warming isn’t going to be that bad, and if we just keep fighting a little bit longer we’ll win the war on “terror”.