the great diffuser

It has been a long time since I’ve quoted one of my favorite idea-mongers, Charles Paul Freund, about the positive effects of commercial (pop) culture.

The effect of commercial culture, however, is to dissipate conflict by lowering the stakes. Modernist identities (drawing on such influences as fandom) are fluid and changeable; the resulting communities of interest are numerous and temporary.

I thought of Freund today when I read this news on—of all places—Gawker:

The Arabic news network Al Jazeera has signed a five-year distribution deal with Munich-based Studio100 Media to broadcast the live-action children’s series “Bumba the Clown.” Bumba is a moon-faced circus harlequin who plays the drums and imparts pearls of wisdom to the pre-K set …

Gawker notes that this is a marked improvement for children in

Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros Islands, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen

over the kids’ TV from Hamas:

The last big name the region had was Hamas TV’s Islamist mouse Farfour, an obvious Mickey rip-off, whose voice sounded like a Kate Bush orgasm and whose mission was to drive the Jews into the sea. Once Farfour was “martyred“ at the hands of a Mossad agent (see below), his cousin Nahoul the Bee buzzed in to replace him as the cuddliest little jihadist that could.

For the record, this German export to the Arab world sounds really lame:

Targeted at 2-to-3-year-olds, the interactive and educational show follows “Bumba,” a clown who lives in a circus with his human and animal friends.