I discovered Vice Magazine's YouTube channel just recently. The travel series and the fashion week series are pretty good too. Its a fun channel where super random cultural topics are presented by twenty-something hipsters who are just as euro-centric as I am, so are just as shocked on assignment. There were a lot of interesting documentaries on the Vice channel, particularly the conversation with a cannibal and donkey sex in Colombia, but for the sake of maintaining taste level, I decided to exclude them from my blog. But check them out anyway! Their videos inspire me to expose myself to issues that might alter my perception of the way I see the world, and to be more open, the rawness of the content is quite confronting but engrossing at the same time. It's like a train wreck - the shouldn't stare, but can't seem to turn away kinda deal. Unfortunately, you do get stuck with some naff reporters, who ruin an otherwise grossly entertaining doco, but hey, at least the content is out there.
Suicide Forest in Japan
This doco really struck a chord with me. It follows this man, whose work it is to monitor suicide through the forest at the foothills of Mt Fuji, nothing explicit or gruesome, just melancholy and introspective. So beautiful. This man has the most beautiful soul. He has such a sense of empathy and humanity, it's just a pleasure to watch him go about his work - such a noble vocation. So inspirational. Seriously worth a watch. Oddly calming and disconcerting in equal measure.
Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan
Ok, this was one of the more disturbing of the vice videos. Harrowing and violent as this act my be, it's a core part of their traditional and has been and looks like it will continue to be common practice in Kyrgyzstan for generations to come, considering the normalization of this behaviour by national media. Its super interesting, if not menacing. But I dread to say, my western POV makes me think that it's only just slightly backward? I mean, regardless of culture, its pretty radical to violently kidnap a girl on the street unsuspectingly against her will and essentially force her to get married to often times a virtual stranger, or a man she does not want to marry, within hours of the violent act. Regardless of the 'rightness' of it or not, it's interesting how strongly rooted in this the country is because of tradition, the saddest part of this is that she will unwillingly become the servent of her forced husbands family. Eventually having to drop out of school and often, giving up her career totally, for a future she never planned and cannot fight against. She is left powerless to her own kidnapper husband. The openness and normalcy of this kind of act in the Kyrgyz culture, is baffling and is widely accepted, even encouraged.
No comments:
Post a Comment