Operation Margarine

She’s now in Iraq, where the quest for Jamil Hussein has morphed into a search for “pockets of success and signs of hope amid utter despair.” Examining her photos and maudlin captions, one would think Malkin is unaware of the fact that the United States has been in Iraq — handing out soccer balls and blankets and “meeting” with displaced families — for nearly four goddamned years now. For Malkin, the “slums of Baghdad” are useful only as a squalid prop, summoned front and center in a narrative that depicts the United States and its armed forces as if it were in a state of eternal arrival, bearing absolutely no responsibility for the conditions they’re alleviating with stuffed animals and candy corns and tiny American flags.

Not to dignify Malkin’s work in any way, but all of this reminds me of Roland Bathes’ essay on margarine:

One can trace in advertising a narrative pattern which clearly shows the working of this new vaccine. It is found in the publicity of Astra magazine. The episode always begins with a cry of indignation against margarine: “A mousse? Made with margarine? Unthinkable!” “Margarine? Your uncle will be furious!” And then one’s eyes are opened, one’s conscience becomes more pliable, and margarine is a delicious food, tasty, digestible, economical, useful in all circumstances. The moral at the end is well known: “Here you are, rid of a prejudice which cost you dearly!” It is in the same way that the Established Order relieves you of your progressive prejudices. The Army, and absolute value? It is unthinkable: look at its vexations, its strictness, its always possible blindness of its chiefs. The Church, infallible? Alas, it is very doubtful: look at its bigots, its powerless priests, its murderous conformism. And then “common sense” makes its reckoning: what is this trifling dross of Order, compared with its advantages? It is well worth the price of immunization. What does it matter, after all, if margarine is just fat, when it goes further than butter, and costs less? What does it matter, after all, if Order is a little brutal or a little blind, when it allows us to live cheaply? Here we are, in our turn, rid of a prejudice which cost us dearly, too dearly, which cost us too much in scruples, in revolt, in fights, and in solitude.