The accelerating commodification of irishness
- Thread starter shiels
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Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
Yeah in Chicago they dye the river green, and the streets are full of drunk people in the early afternoon. At least, that was what it was like when I was last in Chicago for St. Pats.
Murphy
cat malogen
The master copy of Banshees should be deleted, burned, whatever it takes to remove all trace of it from planet Earth
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If you liked the scenery it’s much more thrilling living it in person
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I didn’t know this was a thing again, to be honest – I remember when Irishness became cool around the mid-'90s, and Caffrey’s suddenly became really popular and was on tap everywhere (I haven’t seen it since…). Plus Father Ted, Cranberries, Sean Hughes, Roddy Doyle, The Butcher Boy, rise of The Swan in Stockwell, the Michael Collins film, etc etc.
Not sure what drove it – maybe people adopting the Ireland team during USA ’94 because England didn’t qualify? Or like you said, maybe the winding-down of the Troubles?
It’s easy to laugh and cringe at now, but it made a refreshing change from attitudes in the ‘80s, when seriously hateful anti-Irish shit was more common. Stuff like Americans wearing floppy leprechaun hats and dying the river green don’t really bother me (actually, I always wanted to go to the NYC St Paddy’s parade), though it’s quite odd so many of them hit the roof after Sinead ripped up the pic of the Pope – like, if you’re only after cosy fetishisation of a culture, might as well binge-watch Ballykissarsehole...it's just Fantasyland at that point.
shakahislop
Well-known member
there's something quite amazing about everyone in US polite society being so careful in what they say, so careful to avoid racial stereotypes, dancing around the subject, afraid to say what they see and think because matters of ethnicity are so sensitive, and then seeing a van drive past painted green called something like 'Irish Removals' with a massive leprechaun on the side. it's an interesting blind spot.
shakahislop
Well-known member
the english conflation of ireland and irish people with authenticity and warmth was a surprising emergence. i never liked it actually. it made me jealous.
seems a parallel to that southern english thing of projecting positive qualities onto people from the rest of the UK. the majority and their ideas about the minority (i mean it really is the majority, so much of the UK population is in the south and the midlands). the people in charge of media representation too. it's like an inverted projection of what southern people don't like about themselves and their culture
seems a parallel to that southern english thing of projecting positive qualities onto people from the rest of the UK. the majority and their ideas about the minority (i mean it really is the majority, so much of the UK population is in the south and the midlands). the people in charge of media representation too. it's like an inverted projection of what southern people don't like about themselves and their culture
shakahislop
Well-known member
one group or another being represented in media, without people from that group being involved in generating those representations, is basically always a problem i think
which is probably, i am guessing, what happens a lot with ireland, probably most of the people who produce media about it are american or from the UK
the second most recent series of always sunny being a good example of how america sees ireland
which is probably, i am guessing, what happens a lot with ireland, probably most of the people who produce media about it are american or from the UK
the second most recent series of always sunny being a good example of how america sees ireland
IdleRich
IdleRich
Like an inverted uncanny valley
william kent
Well-known member
Some Americans seem to have this monolithic conception of 'whiteness' that doesn't account for things like the English treatment of people from Ireland or Poland or even general cultural differences among white people.
Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
Yeah thats one of the leading criticisms I have with university social justice culture, this monolithic vision of whiteness. There was a James Baldwin essay where he got into how whiteness, in this sense, only really has meaning vis a vis non-whiteness (especially blackness), specifically in America. Here whiteness doesn't really have any definitive cultural history or identity, beyond simply its caste/position in the American slave economy, and this helps explain why Americans (and those of other nations, to varying degrees) struggle to identity with whiteness in a socially acceptable way. Whereas, a white person in America would usually be met with much less cultural friction if they celebrated their specific ethnic heritage, EG Irishness, rather than whiteness as such.
william kent
Well-known member
There was a bloke called Theodore Allen who argued 'whiteness' in America was invented by the ownership class as a weapon against class solidarity across racial lines.
Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
That sounds like an effective strategy, even though I do have doubts about how coherently these system-wise stratagems can be ideated and executed by a well-coordinated group of elites. That said, this could also be something that doesn't need much coordination to perpetuate - arguably the best of such plans can be organically perpetuated by natural cultural dynamics. Anyway, culture war profiteering has seemingly long been lucrative, perhaps the primary business model of some major news outlets today, aside from advertising maybe.
shakahislop
Well-known member
there's something going on with the american harking back to and association with their european roots which is also about people identifying with the world of their grandparents and great-grandparents i think. something like biden's irishness i think is more about identifying with irish-americans and that community in like 1930, more than with people in ireland now. might be different elsewhere in the country but like nyc / new jersey italian-americans are still a distinct 'thing', still have some distinctive cultural traits that carry down in these long echoes to people with those backgrounds today.
shakahislop
Well-known member
some of it is also about an association with a working class identity as well i think, for peope with italian, irish, maybe polish roots. placing yourself as coming from this hard-knock life