Unarmed But Dangerous [2009]

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Ah yes, the daughter. Well, two things. First, there is no explanation of, or reason for, the daughter’s kidnap. More to the point, Xavier Leret cast his own daughter in the role and, sorry to say this, but she can’t act. And that’s a big problem for the film. Lola isn’t called on to do very much, she barely has any dialogue, but she does feature quite a bit - let’s face it, she’s the McGuffin - and the film will only work if we see how much danger she is in and how much she could suffer, especially at the hands of Cristol who is understandably bitter about losing (part of) her own child. Although even scholars like Schell (2020) suggest that particularly the rise of Xi Jinping renders the traditional “framework of engagement” of US China policy obsolete and creates the need for a paradigm shift, Trump overshoots the mark by denying common interests and reducing the relations between the two countries to one single dimension: an economic zero-sum game. Trump turns inward, redefining China as an adversary in the name of the people. He leaves the missionary project of supporting China to build prosperity by fostering democracy and a free market. The US ceases to be a “freedom-fighter and purveyor of enlightenment and universal human values.” ( Vukovich, 2012) The narrative of “becoming the same” seems obsolete. From the viewpoint of past approaches to China, it might appear that China’s recent development made these adjustments necessary. The inside views of China, however, may suggest that China had been misunderstood in the past as assimilating, as being on the way to becoming like the West (ibid.). In this sense, Trump’s approach appears to be less colonialist and assertive regarding cultural differences. Expressed positively, Trump promotes an external politics of recognition ( Taylor, 1994). Suddenly there is a banging on the door downstairs. When Jimmy answers it, two men burst in and there is a scuffle which leaves Lu shot in the stomach and one of the intruders extremely badly injured. In fact we subsequently learn that Jimmy, in wrestling the bloke’s gun away, shot him in the balls. Dichotomizations like the one referred to here as the defining criterion of populism are no strangers to politics as suggested by Carl Schmitt’s concept of the political. Unlike economics with its leading difference of profitable and non-profitable and aesthetics with the difference of beautiful and ugly, to Schmitt (1963) political action is governed by the difference of friend and enemy. Likewise, the theme of emotions and politics accompanies the occidental history since the Sophists as a practical concern and has first been developed to a morally restrained psychagogy by Aristotle (1995).

The news media are very likely to report and comment on such transgressions of norms, which provides Trump with additional attention. Clips of Trump’s behavior are repeatedly shown on television and shared on the Internet. News media may criticize what Trump does, but this does not determine how different audiences perceive and evaluate his actions, since media content is necessarily polysemic ( Barker 2001). The process of meaning making takes place on the listeners’ side ( Schmitz, 1994, Schmitz, 1998) and depends, among other things, on their characteristics, the reception context, and simultaneous and subsequent interactions. Some audiences may find a confirmation of Trump’s narrative that the media is “brutalizing” him when they see he is repeatedly criticized. Consequently, news media unwillingly provide Trump with a podium and facilitate his victimization. Provocations act as valuable tools of populist communication. Parallels to the criticism from the Democratic party may blur boundaries between journalists and Democrats in the eye of the beholder. Shared outrage about Trump’s use of “Kung flu,”“China virus,” etc. may lead some audiences to merge China, the “fake news,” and the “far-left” Democrats into one single category of enmity that threatens one’s standard of living, social prestige, and recognition. These considerations can be condensed to the following assumptions. 1) Political communication in general is guided by the distinction of friend and enemy. 2) In populist communication this distinction appears as the difference of the people and allegedly corrupt elites, including news media. 3) Angst enhances social cohesion among the audiences of populist speakers either directly or mediated by fear. 4) Populist communication is more likely to produce a type of fear that populists benefit from when it depicts the elite as a diffuse category composed of various interlinked enemies. Kung Fu Flid’ may get the Daily Mail crowd up on their podiums but with a host of the UK’s best acting and fight talent both in front and behind the cameras, a knowing, referential script and some hardcore action, it will be a film that will get people talking for all the right reasons. Eight expressions were identified that Trump uses to relate COVID-19 to China: China flu, China plague, ChinaVirus/China virus, Chinese plague, Chinese flu, Chinese virus, Wuhan virus, and Kung flu. All of Trump’s public references to COVID-19 with these terms between March 13 and September 15, 2020, were identified with the help of transcripts from the database factba.se. None of the terms had been used prior to this time period. The broader contexts of these references were examined in the transcripts as well as the corresponding video and audio recordings. The data were organized in a table for each of the terms where the date and the type of communication event were specified. The tables helped to asses and graphically depict the frequencies of use for each term.

Introduction

The author thanks the reviewers for their valuable comments and the Institute of Communication Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, particularly Jens Loenhoff, for the inspiring intellectual exchanges and the fabulous working conditions. Supplementary Material Discourse analytical considerations also provided guidance to conduct the analyses of communication sequences. Unlike some adherents of conversation analysis seem to suggest (see Flader and Trotha, 1988), sequences of communication do not emerge from the data. Their discovery rather depends on preconceptions. Without the knowledge of the workings of discourses of political correctness, e.g., some of Trump’s utterances could not adequately be set in relation with neither comments and publications of news media nor their communicative environments in general.

US China policies served Trump as a vehicle of distinction from the Democratic Party long before the pandemic came into play. According to Trump, China stole employment, especially blue-collar jobs with the support of the Democratic Party. In Trump’s narrative, his protectionist implementation of tariffs on Chinese goods and the trade deal with China benefitted the domestic production sector, especially the workers. The antagonism between Trump’s discourse and the Democratic Party’s approach can hardly be described with classic distinctions such as neoliberalism/socialism. In Trump’s depictions, the Democratic Party pursues neoliberal policies, i.e. free trade, internationally and a bureaucratic state domestically while Trump aims at internal neoliberal policies and external protectionist policies or, put differently, internal deregulation and external regulation. Trump prides himself on deregulating domestic markets for the benefit of “the people” and rebukes Democrats for overregulating the domestic economy to the disadvantage of US Americans. On the other hand, Jimmy seems to know who he’s dealing with, where to find people and so on - so maybe he does know these gangsters. But then again, they don’t seem to know him. Nobody recognises him, but nor do they express any surprise at seeing him. And let’s face it, he’s a pretty surprising character, both when you first meet him and when you see what he’s capable of doing to protect his wife and rescue his daughter. Institute of Communication Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany uses the term “anxiety” obtained from Macquarrie and Robinson’s translation of Being and Time. This translation seems inadequate and will be substituted by Heidegger’s (1967) original term “Angst.” But that’s not what we get. Kung Fu Flid actually turns out to be a fairly straightforward low-budget indie British gangster picture. Starring that short-armed bloke who was on the telly. It’s got a few fights, yes, but it’s not by any stretch of the imagination a martial arts film. It’s about as far from Zatoichi as you could get.The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.624643/full#supplementary-material Footnotes I will admit, I am intrigued by physically unusual actors. Not just those who are missing part or all of one or more limbs, but actors who are particularly short or tall or skinny or fat or visually unique in some other way. How you look is such an integral part of the whole acting profession. I don’t mean just in terms of beauty: you can only play such and such a part if you’re Anna Paquin or Jude Law. That’s star quality. I mean the rest of the acting profession, the bit part players and character actors. It’s a job which depends on looks where you must look interesting and distinctive but not too interesting or distinctive. If you have a group of minor characters and one of them is a dwarf or has only one arm or whatever, the audience will start to wonder - or at least, film-makers seem to believe that the audience will start to wonder - well, why is he like that? What relevance does it have? TS: Basically not having enough money to do what we wanted to and being let down a couple of times due to budget restrictions on locations etc. But having said all that we did have some amazing cast and crew who really put in a massive effort and without their help and dedication, this film would never have happened. In the context of societal polarization, the term “populism” receives increasing attention—as a political battle cry and an analytical instrument in academic discourses. The term denotes a rather fuzzy concept that, however, is organized around a core meaning. Populists are considered persons, groups, and organizations that present themselves as advocates of the imagined community ( Anderson, 2006) of the people who they contrast with allegedly corrupt elites. I stood next to Mat Fraser at a bar once. I’m pretty sure it was him. He’s quite distinctive, with the little arms and everything. There are of course other people in the world who were born with similar Thalidomide-induced disabilities but he’s the only one I know who acts, and this was the bar at Nottingham Playhouse.