Growing up on, and still happily consuming, American popular culture, my brain’s first association when it sees the letters e, p, i and c, is to read epic failure. And I hear the bass rumble of the film trailer while I read that a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I see a shady gangster appearing in a 1950s gangster movie when I hear Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards.
An airman was downed in enemy territory. But America leaves no men behind. He survived, thanks to his faith and fighting spirit, according to the Secretary of War who compared him to Jesus. I went to CNN.
Headline: Inside the mission to rescue a downed American airman; Hiding alone in a mountain crevice in Iran, he knew exactly what to do: survive and evade.
Europe then. The Dutch national broadcaster NOS followed suit intuitively:
Verstoppen, aanvallen en misleiding; hoe de VS een vermist F-15-bemanningslid redde.
(Hiding, attacking, and deception: how the US rescued a missing F-15 crew member.)
Yet, French, German, and Spanish papers seemed to diverge.
Frankfurter Allgemeine: Zwei Tage in einem Felsspalt; Die Rettungsoperation des in Iran nach dem Abschuss eines Kampfflugzeugs vermissten Soldaten könnte aus einem Actionfilm stammen. Trump brüstet sich damit.
(Two days in a rock crevice; The rescue operation of the soldier missing in Iran after his fighter jet was shot down could have come from an action film. Trump is bragging about it.)
The German header used the same register as the Dutch, but the subheader created distance, even naming the action-film genre whose language was just deployed. France did the same.
Le Monde: Les détails donnés par Trump sur le sauvetage des pilotes américains en Iran: plus de 150 appareils mobilisés, des forces spéciales au sol et un succès tactique.
(The details given by Trump on the rescue of the American pilots in Iran: more than 150 aircraft mobilized, special forces on the ground, and a tactical success.)
And Spain, unwilling Spain, of which Trump had just said: « We could use their base if we want. We could just fly in and use it. Nobody’s going to tell us not to use it. »
El País: Trump anuncia el rescate del segundo piloto del caza derribado por Irán el Viernes. « Las Fuerzas Armadas han llevado a cabo una de las operaciones de búsqueda y rescate más audaces de la historia del país, » celebra el republicano.
(Trump announces the rescue of the second pilot of the fighter jet shot down by Iran on Friday. « The Armed Forces have carried out one of the boldest search-and-rescue operations in the country’s history, » the Republican celebrates.)
See the distance? That celebra, and identifying Trump not as the US president but as el republicano — a party man, not a head of state. Yet, my methodology collapsed at Italy.
Corriere della Sera: Le 36 ore del colonnello pilota in fuga dagli iraniani: la pistola, il nascondiglio in una fessura tra le montagne, la paura di una imboscata (e un messaggio criptato)
(The 36 hours of the colonel-pilot fleeing the Iranians: the pistol, the hiding place in a mountain crevice, the fear of an ambush — and an encrypted message.)
So much for my counterweight. We’re all stuck in popular culture together, forever.
