Originally published on Thought Catalog: http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/ha-air-travel/
My
good faith unscientific analysis suggests there’s been a shift in air travel
humor from seatbelt use demonstration and re-circulated air material toward
looking mass violence in the face, acknowledging hidden (entertaining) racial
prejudices and coping with first-world guilt and new security technology, all
of which make average civilians feel a little like criminals. And everybody
knows criminals, like blondes, have more fun.
Acknowledging
its unqualified awfulness, are we, the not-Homeland-Carrie-Mathison’s-or-Dark-Thirty-Maya’s, really afraid of
terrorism? Statistics indicate a large-scale attack is unlikely to happen again
any time soon and experts (who actually understand what’s happened in
Afghanistan and Iraq in the last dozen years) largely agree that al-Qaeda is,
at present, almost certainly incapable of organizing one. Psychologically, by
default, we’re protected by denial, deflection and a natural, generally
speaking, underwhelming facility with large number calculation, necessary to do
the math on this horrific and complicated data set.
One
of the star tweets under the hashtag #MuslimRage – an appropriation of a Newsweek gaff following the Innocence of Muslims video fiasco –
according to NPR, retweeted 1,000 times, was, from Leila:
Lost
your kid Jihad at the airport. Can’t
yell for him. #MuslimRage.
Can’t
yell “jihad” if you’re a brown person in an airport.
If
there’s a better (funnier) nod to racial/cultural/religious anxiety than that
tweet, I haven’t seen one, and if the targets of profiling are laughing, the
whole thing seems slightly more manageable.
Are
we afraid? Maybe. What we are, what we’ve got, as a people, is a topical miasma
of suspicion of Middle-Easterners and Muslims, even if we know better.
Admitting that prejudices of this kind exist everywhere as part of
historical-cultural narratives, the door opens for comedy and other forms of
public discussion.
A
question regarding terrorism-inspired air travel security occurred to me on a
recent transatlantic flight: are retinal scanners concealed in seatback
monitors?
Watching
an inferior NBC comedy, history anthology resting on the tray table, for
reference, jacketless, because it’d been used as a daytime coaster/nighttime
sleep aid and marked by embarrassing cup rings of various sizes, mid program,
the word: AMERICAN appeared on the screen in official-looking white text.
It
formed at the exact speed a learning program would use to gently tell a human
being that: it’s watching, has scanned and retrieved personal information
(nationality, gender, passport number, origin of departing flight, city of
final destination) which it was then reading back from the beginning.
I
was flying from Heathrow to JFK, so I’d read: AMERICAN, female, P#: xxxxxxxxx,
London, Heathrow and New York. I waited. Eventually, AMERICAN appeared again,
several times. Was the program confused? Was I extra American?
No, I remembered, you’re on American Airlines. This wasn’t intelligent software it
was tonally nationalistic brand-driven communication. Overly possessive, in my
opinion; do partners, like NBCUniversal, know that American is plastering their
brand name (and my nationality) all over entertainment content?
In
Jesus is Magic, Sarah ‘Big S’
Silverman suggests American Airlines use the slogan: “first through the towers”
— because it is something in which they came first. Personally, if AA combined
this line with a cross-cultural program for storytelling and sharing between
individuals interested and/or affected by religious or racial conflict,
connecting participants with constructive ways to channel frustration and
grief, I’d develop a bad case of brand loyalty. It’s certainly preferable to
seeing: AMERICAN across a TV actor’s forehead.
By
the way, I haven’t rejected the possibility of in-flight retinal ID tech.
Strangers wearing latex gloves touch us in public, we partially disrobe and
stand in full-body scanning machines and there are RFID computer chips in our
passports.
However
we may feel about living in these dog days of privacy v. protection, the
important message, I think, is one of fraternity: we’re all criminals, all of
us together, let’s beat (laugh at) this together.
First
world guilt is, as a rule, funny. In the throes of our great environmental
awakening, issue-driven politicking has an apocalyptic bend, we recycle
applesauce jars, rescue furniture from city streets, buy Cooper Minis and
circulate TED talks we hope vindicate our fervor.
Still
we fly. Terrorism and deleterious effects of oil consumption and trade be damned.
The unseemly cognitive dissonance we face when we book a flight: sustainability
mantras (suppressed or indulged) opposite an almost obligatory transportation
custom of our time – baring eccentric and elevated stature and forgiving
friends and family – has an easy turn-off switch: go anti-green.
Popular
narratives of planetary responsibility direct us to admire and possibly emulate
some pretty ridiculous groups: hippies, luddites, yuppies with self-sufficient
micro farms or desert gardens, sustainable third-world growers, etc. The
do-good / live-normal conflict is a heavy one. What we need is an equally
weighted counterbalancing voice: a disgusting, wasteful (honest) and funny one,
bringing regular folk into the search for a practical solution. #EnvironmentalMisconduct.
Comedy = the new activism.
Not
having listened to Big S, American Airlines tells customers: “We Know Why You
Fly.” Which is absurd and kind-of touching. Flying hasn’t always been an
equalizer, but, for many of us, it now is. Air travel humor too is for
everyone, as personal and as rich in flavor as humanity is in character. So, in
a manner inspired by the officious, gleefully judgmental voice of David
Sedaris, a true man of all people, please enjoy journal entries I wrote during
my latest travels.
Ex1. Travel Journal Entry: There Will Be Blood
There’s
either red wine or blood on my tray table hook. You know, that sliding
rectangular knob that restrains your in-flight, reading, writing, eating and
sleeping surface? I hope it’s blood. It’s not a sufficient amount of wine/blood
to indicate serious injury and I’m always a fan of the spread and amplification
of filth. Also, with all the irrational fear of flying and annoying security
precautions, somebody better be getting hurt.
Ex2. Travel Journal Entry: Soup Suspicion + Pizza
Exposé
The
mushroom ravioli* may be filled with onion soup, a ruse concealed by
basil-flavored fishflakes in a sunflower oil and cornstarch liquid and a
tablespoon of lumpy red paste tasting of salt. *Conspiratorially, transatlantic
flights seem to favor ravioli as a vegetarian option for religious and other
butt-hurt objectors and those intimidated by airline meats.
Part
B: Pizza comes in a box. It has “traces of eggs.” It is named: La Pizza Quattro
Formaggi and produced by a company called Incanto. It is made in Italy and the
directions for how to open and consume the pizza are in Italian and English
and, though I’m able to understand both, I read neither, and ate two-thirds of
the pizza incorrectly, messily – in a way my mother, grandmother or any
civilized person would consider improper.
Thanks
for reading.
