CHAMPS D'AMOURS: 100 Years of Rainbow Cinema

CHAMPS D'AMOURS 100 Ans de Cinéma Arc-en-ciel is a free exhibition at Paris' Hôtel de Ville. In collaboration with La Cinématèque Française. From June 25 to September 28, 2019 Chief curator: Alain Burosse

1919 ORIGINS. The first allusions to gay and lesbian characters and storylines to hit movie screens took the form of relatively ridiculous transvestite caricatures in playful burlesque comedies. At one time or another, every comic star of the 1910s (Buster Keaton, Stan Laurel, Fatty Arbuckle, Max Linder and Charles Chaplin) adorned themselves in the opposite gender’s finery to act out a storyline or a misunderstanding. The transvestite tradition is still very much alive today and comedy remains one of the genres that regularly welcomes LGBT characters. Other more serious work surfaced in the subsequent decades, including tragedies (The Wings, Mauritz Stiller, 1916; Michael, Cari T. Dreyer, 1923; and Pandora’s Box, Georg W. Pabst, 1928). These films created new hard-life stereotypes of gay love that was doomed by its very nature to calamity and death. These forays were quickly stifled and banned during the period that followed –a time marked by the rise of fascism in Europe and the strict censorship rules of the Hays Code, introduced in the United States in 1934. While French cinema remained an exception to the rule, gay people almost vanished from the movies. Rare portrayals were coded or hostile, and came from the fringes of an experimental, emerging form of cinema. At long last, in the 1960s in Great Britain, where homosexuality was still illegal, this situation was contested by the film Victim (Basil Dearden, 1961) and by Dirk Bogard, who played the lead role and had the original idea for the film.

1969 STONEWALL: THE TIPPING POINT

On June 28^th 1969, the same day as Judy Garland’s funeral (the singer of the gay anthem Over the Rainbow) the Stonewall riots broke out when a police raid sparked a rebellion from the regulars of a gay bar in New York City, marking the beginning of a worldwide militant gay movement. However, cinema had begun its transformation much earlier: in Hollywood, the Hays Code had slowly crumbled away, and in Germany angry young directors (Reiner Werner Fassbinder, Peter Fleishmann, and Rosa von Praunheim) had begun to use gay themes to shake up movies made by the overly-conventional middle-class Federal Republic from 1966 onwards.  This period –which coincided with the sexual liberation resulting from May 1968– led to the emergence of major works by great moviemakers who no longer feared tackling gay issuse in their films, as typified by the three masterful Italian directors: Pier Paolo Passolini (Teorema, 1968), Federico Fellini (Satyricon, 1969), Luchino Visconti (Death in Venice, 1971). The post-Stonewall period also saw the first films emerge from directors who mixed feminist and lesbian themes (eg. Chantal Akerman, Barbara Hammer and Ulrike Ottinger). In mainstream cinema, there was a rise in the number of gay and lesbian characters and they were often treated sympathetically. Famous directors also affirmed their own sexuality (eg. Patrice Chéreau with L’Homme blessé, 1983, or André Techiné, with Les roseaux sauvages, 1994) and new plots tackled hitherto unexplored themes (bisexuality, adolescence, romance and couples, etc.). New types of film-making opened up to portraying LGBT lives: in Spain with la Movida movement and Pedro Almodóvar in the 1980s, in Israel, South America, and several countries in Asia.

2019 THRIVING CONTEMPORARY SCENE

The burgeoning number of characters and LGBT themes in film has grown continually over the last twenty years. As a result, ground-breaking portrayals of gay and lesbian lives have flourished across all genres and in almost all areas thanks to new approaches, in particular those representing the queer viewpoint. The work and directors belonging to this movement have received unprecedented recognition from the general public and movie critics alike. This was clearly demonstrated in France and abroad by the popular acclaim of La vie d’Adèle (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2014), 120 battements par minute (Robin Campillo, 2017), and Una mujer fantástica, Sebastián Leili, 2017), and by the number of prestigious awards those films have collected (Palm d’Or, César awards, Oscar Award for best Foreign Film, etc.). Furthermore, a film with a gay theme –and since the young man at the heart of the story was black he had double minority status– was awarded with the Oscar for Best Picture in 2017: Moonlight, by Barry Jenkins. All this goes to show just how far we have come in terms of recognition and visibility since Different from the Others (Richard Oswald, Germany) made its own, very solitary, militant contribution a century ago.

CUT! Hollywood’s censors were not content with merely thrusting gay and lesbian characters into the closet. They also tried outright to eliminate any storylines deemed to portray same-sex desire too blatantly. Thus, an overtly lesbian dance scene was retrospectively removed from the epic The Sign of the Cross (Cecil B. DeMille, 1932), while a suggestive dialogue between a senator and his slave was cut out from Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960). All around the world, censors have clamped down in more ruthless ways, imprisoning directors they deem scandalous in some places (Sergei Paradjanov in the Soviet Union) and banning films elsewhere (Rafiki, Wanuri Kahui, 2018, in Kenya). In India, the film Fire (Deepa Metha, 1966), which tells a lesbian love story was not suppressed by State censorship, instead nationalist Hindus ransacked cinemas and forced the government to order the film to be temporarily withdrawn from cinemas. In France itself, Zero for Conduct, by Jean Vigo (1933), was banned from cinemas for twelve years because of its anarchist leanings and the ambivalent relationship between the two students. Lionel Soukaz toyed with the limits of censorship in Ixe (1982), a collage film that brings together an erect penis and the pope in a whirlwind of images. But censorship often strikes in unexpected forms: through family pressure (Mishima, a Life in Four Chapters, Paul Schrader, 1984), through the rejection of topics producers consider “too gay” (Behind the Candelabra, Steven Soderbergh, 2010), and through fear of displeasing a political regime. A very recent example of this is the American film Boy Erased (Joël Edgerton, 2018), which tackles the subject of “conversion therapies” –its producers decided not to distribute the film in president Bolsonaro’s Brazil, where such practices are encouraged!

MASK! How can you show what you are banned from portraying? Hollywood directors who wanted to include gay and lesbian characters in their storylines faced this quandary from 1934 to the beginning of the 1960s because the Hays Code that had been adopted by the major production companies banned “sexual perversion” (amongst other things) from the big screen. In 1981, Vito Russo’s seminal book and eponymous documentary The Celluloid Closet (Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, 1995) revealed the multitude of ruses that had been employed to recycle codes and stereotypes entrenched in the collective subconscious: mannered, overly-elegant characters with no sentimental attachment, double-entendres, potent friendships, lingering glances, etc. It reveals traces of comedy (the Laurel and Hardy “couple”), film noir, Western and epics. It was about making the invisible visible, but often also involved using the images to imply that these different characters, always inhabiting a shady world and rubbing shoulders with criminals, posed a potential threat to the American family and society. Alfred Hitchcock was a master of the art of blurring the lines and managed to introduce intriguing, unsettling and seductive characters to many of his plots, including Rebecca (1940), North by Northwest (1958), Rope (1948) and Strangers on a Train (1951).

EVERY KIND OF LOVE IN THE WORLD To Western cinema’s portrayal of gay, lesbian and trans people we must add portrayals from other places, where long-silenced stories are now finally emerging in increasing numbers of countries year on year: Kenya, Iran, Guatemala, Nigeria, Chile, South Africa, South Korea, Guinea, India, China, Taiwan, Cuba, Israel, Brazil, Mexico, Senegal, Japan, Argentina, the Philippines, Egypt, etc. Even in the most hostile political contexts, LGBT characters are being created and storylines with gay content are being written in all languages, all around the globe. Ambitious films made by movie makers residing at the heart of the system, such as Chinese director Chan Kaige (Farewell, my Concubine) or Israeli Eytan Fox (The Bubble), are coexisting alongside films produced secretly by activists who want their minority voices to be heard. Far from contending themselves with simple on-screen portrayals and a quest for visibility, these film directors from all corners of the world are bringing us dissident representations, making no concessions, braving bans and refusing self-censure to expand our field of vision. Is it just a coincidence that one of the few films about intersex people came out of Argentina: XXY (Lucía Puenzo, 2007)? Movies from around the world take all forms and cover all angles: the denunciation of ambient homophobia, the comic re-use of stereotypes, tragedies and, above all, romance. These love stories, which may be light or dark, and do not always have an unhappy ending, tell audiences that LGBT love is possible, even if it is difficult under regimes that discriminate against or repress gay, lesbian and trans people. Cinema offers role models, and gay and transgender people’s need to see portrayals of themselves and of their love stories and sexual adventures are key in every part of the globe. In the same way, it is still essential that we fight prejudice by showing girls kissing girls and boys making out with boys (and vice versa) on the big screen and that we broadcast these images to the broadest possible audience as a way of asserting that minority love is part of every kind of love in the world.

MADBOOTS DANCE (excerpts)

MASC (2017) from MADBOOTS DANCE on Vimeo.

El inglés impreso en el pecho

Por ÁLEX GRIJELMO

El buen tiempo atrae a las camisetas de manga corta y cuello redondo. Gente de todas las edades las compra en los mercadillos pero también en las tiendas de lujo, es de suponer que con distintos precios. Los días de sol constante arrojan a las calles españolas esas prendas desenfadadas a las que suele acompañar un atuendo más bien deportivo.

Rara vez se repiten en ellas el diseño o la combinación de colores, cuando se trata de tejidos policromados; ni las imágenes que llevan estampadas por delante o por detrás. Cada cual elige el modelo que más le gusta, así como el mensaje que desea transmitir a quienes se crucen en su camino y no circulen mirando al suelo o hablando por teléfono, o las dos cosas.

La disparidad estética de las camisetas alegra estos primeros días de calor. Pero esa variedad de tonos, dibujos, fotografías y frases que se ven sobre la prenda confluyen en una cierta homogeneidad cuando uno intenta leer lo que llevan escrito: casi todos los mensajes están expresados en inglés.

Solamente el 27,7% de los españoles sabe hablar, leer y escribir en esa lengua, si nos fiamos de las respuestas que los encuestados le dieron al Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS) a finales de 2016. Sin embargo, nos encanta simular que todos lo hacemos. La publicidad se llena de términos en inglés, las revistas de moda disfrutan con inundar sus páginas de anglicismos, los diarios se olvidan a menudo de traducir los suyos, los comercios de las ciudades eligen nombres y rótulos en aquella lengua. Y qué contentos nos quedamos.

Últimamente se han sumado las camisetas veraniegas a esa general fascinación que nos hace parecer políglotas. En ellas leemos: “All power to the people”, “Air needed”, “Better than yesterday”, “Keep calm and happy goat”, “Big smile, deep breathe”, “Good music, dark chocolate”, “Happy hour”, “Future important woman”, “Everythink I like is either expensive, illegal or won’t text me back”… La vicepresidenta del Gobierno, Carmen Calvo, lució hace poco en público este lema, más deducible: “Yes, I’m a feminist”.

Ninguno de ustedes necesita la traducción de esa selección de frases, porque todos saben inglés, igual que quienes visten esas camisetas, pero el apartado 2.23 del Libro de estilo de este periódico obliga a aclarar las citas expresadas en otras lenguas. Así que ahí van unas equivalencias: “Todo el poder para la gente”, “Se necesita aire”, “Mejor que ayer”, “Mantén la calma y feliz cabra” (yo tampoco lo entiendo), “Gran sonrisa, respira hondo”, “Buena música, chocolate negro”, “Hora feliz”, “Futura mujer importante”, “Todo lo que me gusta es caro, ilegal o no me devolverá el mensaje de texto”... y “Sí, soy feminista”.

Están en su libertad quienes portan tales carteles ambulantes, claro. Ante ello, uno apenas puede preguntarse si en realidad desearán comunicar algo, o simplemente les gustará la estética de la tipografía estampada en la camiseta. Imagino que más bien lo segundo, pues en el primer caso se toparán con que gran parte de los transeúntes con quienes se cruzan no saben qué significan las palabras impresas. Y como generalmente transmiten buen humor, se perderán el chiste y seguirán en su tristeza.

Con todo eso, lo original ahora es el español. Una vez vi a una mujer con una camiseta cuya inscripción se leía en castellano (“No hay pan para tanto chorizo”), y me entraron ganas de darle un abrazo. Me corté, por si acaso se trataba de una inglesa. (El País, 23 de junio de 2019)

George Orwell + Aldous Huxley_infographic

EU launches free Interrail tickets for 18-year-olds

This summer, 15,000 young Europeans will get free train tickets to travel within the EU. The DiscoverEU program seeks to counter populism and promote Europe by making cultural exchanges more accessible.

The EU on Thursday launched its project to grant free Interrail tickets to European youths. The initiative hopes to help deepen young people's European identity by providing accessible travel between countries. 

Read more: Young Europeans believe in the EU, fear Donald Trump

Some 30,000 European 18-year-olds will be eligible this summer to travel for up to 30 days to up to four different countries within the EU at no cost. The DiscoverEU project provides only the free rail access; young people would have to pay for accommodation, food and other expenses on their own.

The initiative was approved in March, when the EU's executive branch earmarked €12 million ($14.7 million) for the project. The idea was originally proposed the European People's Party Group (EPP) leader Manfred Weber, who introduced it in the European Parliament.

Fostering a European identity

DiscoverEU sees the free rail passes as an investment in European cultural identity. The project conceives the idea of Europe to be "above all, about people connecting and sharing emotions." By providing free rail tickets, the EU would be helping enable Europeans to connect and share with people across the Union at a very early age.

Read more: Bringing Europe closer: Erasmus exchange turns 30

The advocates at DiscoverEU also believe that the program can help "counter the current growth of populism" by helping young people experience the advantages of free movement, see the reality of neighboring countries firsthand and explore what it is that unites Europeans.

Application required

Since the earmarked funds are only able to fund 15,000 tickets, young Europeans must submit an application through theEU's website for youth programs to win. Those interested would need to apply in June during a period of two weeks.

A quota system and a quiz on EU heritage, culture and current affairs will be used to select the first 15,000 ticket recipients.

If selected, participants would have to carry out their travel between the months of July and September of 2018. The tickets would be distributed by the already-existing Interrail program, which has been providing discounted tickets to European youths since its inception in 1972. (Source: Deutsche Welle)

Related article: Los primeros del Interrail gratis vuelven a casa

ERASMUS Programme 30th Anniversary

30 Aniversario Erasmus+

De Erasmus a Erasmus+

Treinta años enriqueciendo vidas y abriendo mentes

Erasmus+ es el Programa integrado de la Unión Europea para la Educación, Formación, Juventud y Deporte.

El Programa original ERASMUS (European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) comenzó en 1987 como un programa de intercambio que ofrecía a estudiantes universitarios la posibilidad de aprender y enriquecerse estudiando en el extranjero. A lo largo de los últimos 30 años ha ampliado su alcance y envergadura. Hoy Erasmus+ ofrece un mayor número de oportunidades tanto a personas como a organizaciones, como por ejemplo ir de voluntario o aprendiz a países extranjeros y cooperar en proyectos conjuntos. El Deporte también se ha convertido en una parte importante de Erasmus+ y, además, actualmente el Programa se extiende a países de fuera de Europa.

De hecho, desde el lanzamiento del programa Erasmus+ en 2014, dos millones de personas de todos los ámbitos se han beneficiado de las oportunidades que ofrece, tales como periodos de estudios, de prácticas o voluntariado, adquiriendo experiencia en el extranjero. Y durante estos últimos 30 años ya han participado un total de cinco millones de jóvenes.

Entre 2017 y 2020, Erasmus+ brindará oportunidades a más de dos millones de personas en toda Europa y resto del mundo.

Youth Strikes For Climate

ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE. 

THE EARTH IS DYING BECAUSE OF YOU.

The young activists who are planning to shake the world. Environmental activist Greta Thunberg, 16, attends a protest next to Sweden’s parliament in Stockholm, Sweden on March 8. (Photo: Reuters/Ilze Filks)

Here’s how to argue with a Brexiter – and win

Details of a tortured Brussels deal are not crucial when the fate of both Europe and the UK is at stake

By TIMOTHY GARTON ASH

The Guardian, Saturday 20th, February 2016

A new battle of Britain has begun. On its outcome will depend the fate of two unions: the United Kingdom and the European Union. If the English vote to leave the EU, the Scots will vote to leave the UK. There will then be no Britain. Meanwhile, the shock of Brexit to a continent already staggering under many crises could spell the beginning of the end of the European Union.

So if you care about Britain or Europe, and even more if you care about Britain and Europe, please join this good fight. The final negotiation in Brussels was bruising, and certainly not the kick-off anyone would want, but there is still everything to play for. Continental Europeans often assume that England is, in its heart of oak, incorrigibly hostile to Europe. This is not true. For decades now, the best pollsters have found that on the EU there is a large undecided middle which can go either way. That was the case in the run-up to the 1975 referendum, which saw a large swing from out to in, and it’s true today: 42% of those who tell ComRes they will vote in or out also say they could still change their minds.

I know, from many hostile online comments, that the Guardian has some fiercely Eurosceptic followers, but I’m now mainly addressing the majority of our readers, whether British or not, who want Britain to stay in the EU. It’s a peculiarity of this referendum that Commonwealth citizens may vote in it, whereas French, Italians and Germans who have lived here for many years, and are much more directly affected, may not. But whether or not you have a vote, you still have a voice. Raise it, please, in the pub, in the office or in the friend’s living room.

Here are just a few of the arguments you could make. First of all, the details of the deal are not the crucial issue. Months ago, when David Cameron revealed his renegotiation agenda, it was already clear that this was not going to be a fundamental redefinition of Britain’s relationship with the EU. Nor would we suddenly find ourselves in “a reformed Europe”. On this, Eurosceptics are right: Cameron’s demands were less than he pumped them up to be, and inevitably, given that 27 other European countries had to be satisfied, what he achieved is even more modest. But it would be madness to let a decision about the economic and political future of Britain for decades ahead hinge on the detail of an “emergency brake” on in-work benefits for migrants.

The negotiation of Brexit would be long and bloody. Nigel Lawson blithely suggests that it would be easy: we just repeal the 1972 European Communities Act and with one bound John Bull is free. Our continental partners would give us generous access to the single market through a free trade agreement “that they need far more than we do”. In your dreams. Read the careful analysis by the longtime legal chief of the EU, Jean-Claude Piris, to see what a nightmare of legal unravelling it would be. Talk to continental politicians. What we just saw in Brussels was the most that they are prepared to do to keep us in. They would do us no favours if we were leaving.

Many of our European partners privately envy us the position of being outside the Schengen area and the ill-designed eurozone, but in all the parts that we want to be in. The Brussels deal shows that our European partners have accepted that for the foreseeable future Britain wishes to stop at roughly its current stage of integration. If there is a “best of both worlds”, it is this – and not Brexit.

It is cold outside. The more you look at Norway or Switzerland, the less attractive their position appears, and a clear majority of business and union leaders don’t want to take this gamble. The EU has used the attraction of its single market of 500 million consumers to secure favourable free-trade deals with much of the world. It defies logic to think that Britain would get better deals on its own. Michael B Froman, the United States trade representative, said last year that no free trade agreement would exist with Britain if it left the EU, and the US would have no interest in negotiating one.

Being in the EU helps keep us safe from terrorism and international crime. Don’t listen to me, listen to the Conservative home secretary, Theresa May. This is why she has kept Britain in the most important European networks for police and judicial cooperation, and will argue for Britain to stay in the EU.

It’s also vital to national security. Our highest-ranking soldier, Field Marshal Lord Bramall – no starry-eyed Europhile – warns that if we left, “a broken and demoralised Europe just across the Channel” would imperil our security. If we stay, we can be one of the leaders of a European foreign policy that addresses the root causes of problems such as Middle East refugee flows. Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen want us to leave. Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and all our traditional friends, in Europe, North America and the Commonwealth, want us to stay. Need I say more?

Brexit would be disastrous for Ireland. The former Irish prime minister John Bruton says it would “undo much of the work of the peace process and create huge questions over borders and labour market access”. There are more than 380,000 Irish citizens living in Britain, who do have a vote in this referendum, and millions of Brits (including me) with Irish ancestry. If you care about Ireland, vote to remain.

The EU can be changed. While the reforms Cameron has secured are modest, there’s a swelling chorus of voices in countries like Germany saying not just “We must do this, reluctantly, to keep Britain in”, but “We really do need to reform the EU”. If Britain remains, the reform lobby is strong; if it leaves, much weaker.

Most of these arguments are from prudence, not visionary optimism – and none the worse for that. Eurosceptics will decry them as “scaremongering”. Well, I suppose you might call it scaremongering if someone asks you not to jump off the deck of an ocean liner, without a lifebelt, in a force nine storm. Actually, it’s common sense.
This is the link to the Spanish translation

Phubbing: Aislados dentro de una pantalla

Por RAMIRO VAREA

El País, 26 de abril de 2019

Adultos y menores son víctimas del phubbing, una adicción tecnológica que provoca aislamiento e incomunicación tanto en quien la padece como con las personas que la rodean. ¿Qué pueden hacer los expertos, el entorno familiar y el educativo para solucionarlo?

En casa de Jorge, se han establecido desde hace tiempo una serie de normas de obligado cumplimiento en torno al móvil. “Él mismo me reconoció que era incapaz de estudiar 20 minutos seguidos. Dejaba el libro o los apuntes y volvía al teléfono. Fingía que escuchaba a sus padres, pero en el fondo no les atendía”, recuerda el profesional que le atendió, y que prefiere mantener el anonimato. Una adicción que en gran parte tenía que ver con lo que pasaba en casa: padres ausentes y pendientes demasiadas horas al día de sus respectivos teléfonos. Este caso refleja lo que es el phubbing: cuando una persona ignora a otra y se abstrae del entorno que le rodea al estar más pendiente de su teléfono móvil que de sus acompañantes humanos.

Los expertos coinciden en que la mayoría de los menores que sufren esta adicción normalizan el acto de sumergirse en la pantalla por imitación. Un ejemplo típico, explica el profesor de Psicología de la Universidad Camilo José Cela (Madrid) Mateo Pérez Wiesner, es el de los padres en las comidas o en las cenas. “En vez de prestar atención a la conversación familiar, no quitan el ojo al móvil. Y los adolescentes sufren, aprenden e interiorizan esa conducta que después replican con sus grupos de iguales”, afirma. Además de la desatención, otro de las consecuencias de quienes padecen esta adicción es que la sensación de aislamiento se extiende a los otros interlocutores.

Adultos enganchados al teléfono

En demasiadas ocasiones el origen del phubbing radica, pues, en los propios adultos. Muchos progenitores no son conscientes de que los problemas de incomunicación y de aislamiento que reprochan a sus hijos parten precisamente de ellos, de su excesiva dependencia del móvil.

“Los padres deben servir de ejemplo. Si ven que los adultos hacen un uso incorrecto del móvil, los niños entenderán que socialmente es algo aceptado y lo normalizarán”, sostiene Vega González, directora del centro de salud mental Atención e Investigación de Socioadicciones, de Barcelona, donde el año pasado atendieron a medio centenar de afectados por distintos tipos de adicciones tecnológicas.

¿Y SI ES TU HIJO EL QUE TE LLAMA LA ATENCIÓN?

Normalmente, son los progenitores los que se dan cuenta de que sus hijos sufren cualquier tipo de adicción a los teléfonos móviles. Pero, ¿qué ocurre cuando son estos los que abren los ojos a sus progenitores sobre un problema así?

Un reciente estudio de Empantallados.com –plataforma para padres y madres en la que distintos expertos ofrecen consejos prácticos para acompañar a los hijos en el mundo digital– concluye que un tercio de los padres abusa de la tecnología. Por eso es imprescindible que los progenitores aprendan a utilizar el móvil. Porque son ellos quienes deben marcar cuándo y cómo se usa el teléfono, y en qué circunstancias está bien (o mal) usarlo. La responsabilidad debe empezar, pues, en los propios adultos, que son los que deben entender qué función cumple el teléfono en sus vidas. “Han de ser conscientes del tiempo que dedican cada día a consultar el smartphone. Es esencial no tener el teléfono a mano cuando estén en una situación de interacción social. Conviene apagarlo o dejarlo en casa, en el bolso, en el bolsillo...”, recomienda González.

Controlar la ansiedad

Mateo Pérez Wiesner insiste en que es clave identificar qué pensamientos llevan a la persona a estar preocupada continuamente por el smartphone. “A partir de ahí ya podremos trabajar para conseguir que interiorice y ejecute un cambio de pensamiento”, explica el psicólogo.

La implicación de los padres es vital. “Tienen que elaborar estrategias para conseguir un equilibrio entre el uso y no uso de las pantallas. Esta estabilidad favorecerá la calidad de vida del menor, su socialización y la interacción y comunicación familiar”, señala la psicóloga Vega González.

Entre las recetas que apunta: establecer normas sobre el uso del móvil, como respetar las horas de sueño, poner límites de tiempo o pedir permiso a los adultos; no utilizar jamás el teléfono en determinadas situaciones (en la mesa, en reuniones familiares…); ofrecer a los hijos alternativas de diversión alejadas de las nuevas tecnologías; transmitirles la importancia de hacer un uso responsable de la Red y potenciar siempre la comunicación familiar cara a cara.

El papel de la escuela

Al igual que la familia, la escuela desempeña un papel fundamental en la detección y solución de esta adicción. Los profesores comparten muchas horas diarias con los menores, los conocen, ven su rendimiento y cómo se comportan tanto en el aula como en el recreo.

“Los docentes lo detectan rápidamente, es algo que notan enseguida”, admite el psicólogo infanto-juvenil Abel Domínguez, con 17 años de experiencia en este ámbito.

Existen numerosos estudios que demuestran que cuantas más horas pasan los menores pendientes del móvil, peor es su rendimiento académico. Una reciente investigación de la Universidad Camilo José Cela y la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, realizada con 4.730 adolescentes, ha identificado que, a mayor tiempo dedicado al smartphone, peores son sus notas en asignaturas científicas (como matemáticas, naturales o ciencias sociales).

Por eso, desde el colegio es clave enseñar a los niños y adolescentes a usar el smartphone con responsabilidad. Se les debe hacer ver que tantas horas ante una pantalla conlleva una serie de peligros para su salud mental y física, que puede tener consecuencias también para su aprendizaje y su manera de relacionarse con los demás. “Es necesario tener una comunicación fluida en el centro educativo con los alumnos y sus padres”, señala Domínguez.

Este psicólogo aboga por impartir talleres desde las aulas, dirigidos a padres e hijos, sobre cómo usar los dispositivos móviles. “A los niños y a los jóvenes se les ha de enseñar que los riesgos existen, y a los padres se les deben ofrecer herramientas de control. La prevención es fundamental”, resume.

Center for Humane Technology, Cal.

Technology is hijacking our minds and society.

A world-class team of deeply concerned former tech insiders and CEOs intimately understands the culture, business incentives, design techniques, and organizational structures driving how technology hijacks our minds.

Since 2013, they have raised awareness of the problem within tech companies and for millions of people through broad media attention, convened top industry executives, and advised political leaders. Building on this start, they are advancing thoughtful solutions to change the system.

Why is this problem so urgent? Technology that tears apart our common reality and truth, constantly shreds our attention, or causes us to feel isolated makes it impossible to solve the world’s other pressing problems like climate change, poverty, and polarization. 

No one wants technology like that. Which means we’re all actually on the same team: Team Humanity, to realign technology with humanity’s best interests. Learn more at the Center for Humane Technology.

+Watch the TED Talk by Tristan Harris: "How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day."

New Zealand's Nude Produce Is Flying Off The Shelves

By LUCY JONES

 New Zealand Herald,March 15th 2019

Breaking news: people are more likely to buy fruit and vegetables that aren't wrapped in plastic. It has taken several years, and a pretty huge anti-plastic movement, for supermarkets to realise that fresh produce actually sells better when you can see, smell and touch it. Since New Zealand supermarket chain New World stopped wrapping fruit and veggies in plastic as part of its 'food in the nude' campaign, sales of some vegetables have increased by 300%.

"When we first set up the new shelving our customers were blown away," Bishopdale New World supermarket owner Nigel Bond told the New Zealand Herald. "It reminded me of when I was a kid going to the fruiterer with my dad, you could smell the fresh citrus and spring onions. By wrapping products in plastic we sanitise and deprive people of this experience; it (dispensing with plastic) was a huge driver for us."

"After we introduced the concept we noticed sales of spring onions, for example, had increased by 300%," he added. "There may have been other factors at play but we noticed similar increases in other vegetable varieties like silverbeet and radishes."

Bond says that the plastic ban has generated more positive feedback than any other change that has been made during his 30-year career in the supermarket industry. New World supermarkets have replaced plastic packaging with refrigerated shelving that has a built-in vegetable mister. This system keeps vegetables far fresher than polluting plastic packaging.

"Vegetables are 90% water and studies have shown that misted produce not only looks better, retains its colour and texture, but also has higher vitamin content," Bond explained. "We've also installed a reverse osmosis system that treats the water by removing 99% of all bacteria and chlorine, so we are confident the water we're misting with remains pure."

Most New Zealand supermarkets have stopped providing customers with single-use plastic bags. The government will also be introducing a mandatory phase out of single-use plastic bags for all retailers from July 1 this year.

New World owner Foodstuffs has committed to making packaging 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025 under New Zealand's Plastic Packaging Declaration. It has already switched to recyclable food trays and is trailing a BYO container scheme for meat and seafood purchases. These initiatives have boosted vegetable sales and helped reduce plastic pollution, but Bond says the suppliers need to get on-board so that supermarkets can phase out plastic packaging completely. 

"We are like an intermediary, we sell what they give us," he said. "I think manufacturers have a much bigger part to play."

In Australia, our produce aisles are still full of single-use plastic. Hopefully the success of New Zealand's 'nude' food scheme will encourage the major Australian supermarkets to ditch unnecessary fruit and vegetable packaging too.

Boy Erased

Boy Erased, a recent Award-nominated, American drama film, tells the story of Jared (convincingly played by Lucas Hedges, who gives a stunning performance), the son of a fundamentalist Baptist pastor in a small American town, who is outed forcibly to his parents (Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe) at age 19. Jared is faced with an ultimatum: attend a church-supported gay "conversion therapy" program – or be permanently exiled and shunned by his family, friends, and faith. A must-see, heart-breaking story! 
Opening on April 5th.

TAKE ACTION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

Please, take a few minutes and listen to Greta Thunberg's articulate 

and convincing talk against climate change.

Requiem for a Falling Man

Dutch artists Harm Weistra and Eddi Bal’s collaborative installation Requiem for a Falling Man pays tribute to the unidentified gay men who were thrown off buildings by ISIS. The central focus of this daunting installation is the animation Echo of Falling Man, that can be seen as an afterimage. By mirroring Richard Drew's iconic photo of a ‘falling man’, who jumped off the World Trade Centre during the 9/11 attacks in New York City, the work refers to the relationship between the Al-Qaeda attacks in New York and the terror Daesh spreads in the Middle East. The installation Requiem for a Falling Man, shown at ARCO 2019, is meant as a ceremonious farewell, not only for this unidentified Syrian victim but also for all the gay men who did not survive the terrorism of ISIS.

Cuando ‘Black Mirror’ mató a Julio Verne

Hace falta poder volver a saber hacia dónde queremos dirigirnos y para eso estaría 

bien contar con opciones que nos muestren un porvenir algo más esperanzador

Por CRISTINA MANZANO

Hubo una época en la que la ciencia ficción pintaba un porvenir prometedor. Los padres del género, Julio Verne y H. G. Wells, nos hicieron bajar a las entrañas de la Tierra y a las profundidades del mar; nos llevaron a la Luna y nos permitieron viajar en el tiempo o volvernos invisibles. Nos hablaban de un mundo de progreso en el que la ciencia, la tecnología y la innovación, unidas a su gran imaginación, perfilaban un futuro emocionante e ilusionante.

Luego llegaron las distopías totalitarias de George Orwell y Aldous Huxley, que retrataban una humanidad dominada por “el sistema”. Pero más que mirar al futuro, narraban las metáforas de los autoritarismos de aquel presente. Algo más tarde, Isaac Asimov construyó con su abrumadora sabiduría e imaginación la gran saga de lo que la tecnología en general, y la robótica en particular, podrían suponer, alertando de sus potenciales peligros pero también vislumbrando su enorme e inevitable contribución a la evolución del ser humano.

Hoy Black Mirror dibuja un futuro en el que la tecnología, que todo lo domina, no está al servicio del ser humano, sino al de sus peores instintos. Un futuro aterrador porque lo podemos ver a la vuelta de la esquina.

Son solo algunos ejemplos en un universo muy variado —predominantemente masculino, por cierto—, que muestran cómo la ciencia ficción nos ha permitido explorar lo que otras ramas del saber nos tenían preparado. Muestran también un estado de ánimo de la sociedad, una determinada predisposición ante el porvenir. Lo que hoy vemos es un determinismo tecnológico que nos arrastra irremisiblemente a una dependencia ante la que la voluntad humana poco puede hacer. Y ahí el gran gurú del futuro no es un autor de ficción, sino un pensador y ensayista, Yuval Noah Harari.

Como es lógico, este estado de ánimo se refleja también en la política. La izquierda, aupada en un espíritu de progreso, se consideraba tradicionalmente optimista, mientras que la derecha, de natural conservadora, bastante tenía con mantener el status quo. Ese paradigma ha cambiado (ya lo contó Daniel Innerarity en El futuro y sus enemigos) y en el aire se respira un aroma de impotencia. No solo eso, sino que atrapados en sus cuitas cotidianas, los partidos políticos, viejos y nuevos, no están afrontando los múltiples y complejos desafíos que el desarrollo tecnológico plantea —en realidad, ni esos ni ningún otro que no tenga que ver con su propia supervivencia—.

Ahora no importa tanto saber cuándo Black Mirror mató a Julio Verne. Ya está hecho. Lo que hace falta es poder volver a saber hacia dónde queremos dirigirnos y para eso estaría bien contar con opciones que nos muestren un porvenir algo más esperanzador. Porque, si no somos capaces de imaginar un futuro mejor, ¿cómo vamos a ir hacia él? (El País, 8.03.19)

Anthony Hernandez, photographer

The work of photographer Anthony Hernandez (born 1947) is at once highly personal and deeply resonant. His retrospective at the Mapfre Foundation in Madrid spans his more than 45-year career, revealing an unusually varied body of of photographs united by their arresting formal beauty and subtle engagement with contemporary social issues. The Mapfre galleries chart his continual reconceptualization of his approach, tracing his deft movement from black and white to color, 35 mm to large-format cameras, ans from the human figure to landscapes to abstracted detail.

Hernandez began making pictures on the streets of his native Los Angeles in the late 1960s. Essentially self-taught, he had taken dark room classes at East Los Angeles College, but was largely unaware of the history of the medium and its formal traditions. Rather than perpetuating Hollywood's idealized image of the city, he chose instead to photograph the LA inhabited by the working class, the poor and the homeless, developing a unique style of photography attuned to the desolate beauty and sprawling expanses of his hometown. From the start, he has found visual poetry in what could be dismissed as inner city blight and has seen aesthetic potential in the abandoned and discarded. While Hernandez has also photographed in other locations in the US and Europe, Los Angeles has remained his primary subject.

Despite the many shifts in his practice over the years, Hernandez still considers himself a street photographer. Endlessly curious, he relishes the process of discovery and sees his medium as a means of understanding the world around him. He remains true to his conviction that great photography is the result of more than just a keen eye. As Hernandez once noted, "Being aware is more important than the evidence of the awareness on a piece of paper. Being sensitive to what passes in front of you is more important than what passes into the camera." Erin O'Toole, Curator

Anthony Hernandez is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in collaboration with Fundación MAPFRE, Bárbara de Braganza 12, 28004 Madrid. 
From January 31 to May 12, 2019.

In the Closet of the Vatican

A startling account of corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of the Vatican

In the Closet of the Vatican, by French journalist Frédéric Martel, exposes the rot at the heart of the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church today. This brilliant piece of investigative writing is based on four years' authoritative research, including extensive interviews with those in power. 

The celibacy of priests, the condemnation of the use of contraceptives, countless cases of sexual abuse, the resignation of Benedict XVI, misogyny among the clergy, the dramatic fall in Europe of the number of vocations to the priesthood, the plotting against Pope Francis – all these issues are clouded in mystery and secrecy.

In the Closet of the Vatican is a book that reveals these secrets and penetrates this enigma. It derives from a system founded on a clerical culture of secrecy which starts in junior seminaries and continues right up to the Vatican itself. It is based on the double lives of priests and on extreme homophobia. The resulting schizophrenia in the Church is hard to fathom. But the more a prelate is homophobic, the more likely it is that he is himself gay.

"Behind rigidity there is always something hidden, in many cases a double life." These are the words of Pope Francis himself and with them, the Pope has unlocked the Closet.

No one can claim to really understand the Catholic Church today until they have read this book. It reveals a truth that is extraordinary and disturbing.

In the Closet of the Vatican is due to be published by Bloomsbury on February 21, 2019 in the US, the UK and Canada. The title of the Italian and Spanish editions will be Sodoma. 

Knowing keeps us free.

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