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Pillage
and Plunder We
pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot. Three times a day at the Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas, pirates taunt and threaten tourists, forcing an unlucky few to "walk the plank." Three times a day since 1967, California's Disneyland Pirates of the Caribbean attraction invites youngsters to "sing along as you discover what it's like to become a Pirate of the Caribbean!" Every February since 1904 the 165-foot Jose Gasparilla, the "world's only fully rigged pirate ship," sails into the harbor of Tampa, Florida's Ybor City district. "Unruly plunderers," celebrants of Gasparilla throw caution to the wind, eat, drink and make very merry, with men occasionally throwing a woman (i.e., wench) over their shoulders in pretend games of rape and pillage as they celebrate the conquests of legendary pirate Jose Gaspar. The pirate. Fodder of lore and legend. Long John Silver, Grace O'Malley, Captain Hook, Jacques Lafitte, Bluebeard, and Jack Sparrow … all real or imagined pirates of the Caribbean. The subject of two, and soon to be three, films starring to Johnny Depp. Since the swashbuckling days of Douglas Fairbanks, pirates have been glorified, romanticized and embellished in cinema and popular culture. Instead of being portrayed as the merciless murderers they really were, pirates are emulated, imitated and adored. We encourage our children to dress like pirates, play with pretend swords and act like heroes. As adults, we emulate, imitate and condone this brash and violent behavior. I've been thinking a lot about people's passion for all things pirate lately. The premiere of the latest Depp flick, associated merchandising and unremitting parade of National Geographic, Discovery and History channels' pirate programming has American culture positively popping with piracy. We gave sports team mascots and monikers such as the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and my high school team, the Hart Pirates. Piracy is part of the popular lexicon — stolen software, music and radio programming is pirated. It's easy to see where the fantasy jolly rogue pirate comes from. We grow up reading about pirates in books such as J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan and Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, seeing them on stage in Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance, and in films from Dennis Fairbanks Jr.'s swashbucklers to Johnny Depp's evil but gorgeous Jack Sparrow. Pirates are big business. Opening weekend, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest earned a record $132 million, beating Spider-Man 2's $115 million and unseating that film for largest take in box office history over a three day weekend. Pirates took in another $47 million overseas. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is now at Captain Kirk-like levels of fan adoration. A USA Today article appeared the week before the film's premiere applauding the film's celebration of villainy. And this is a good thing? Fashion houses are celebrating a style known as "pirate chic" so fans can "look good while walking the plank," when they carry out a "fashion mutiny" and "look without going overboard." Other headlines included "Selling Skull Chic," fashion "bones to pick" and "Jewelry with a Wicked Side." In a high end Eugene doggie boutique, I saw that our four-legged friends need not be left out of the frenzy either — there was a sequined, studded skull T-shirt for Spot along with matching leash and other fashion accoutrements. Piracy passed the litmus test for bona fide popular culture acceptance when syndicated Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry promoted the first International Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19, 2004), created by Oregonians John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur and Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers. Baur and Summers' book, Well Blow Me Down! A Guy's Guide to Talking Like a Pirate, advised men that throwing an occasional "Arrr!" into a conversation with a woman would inject just the right amount of danger and romance into a relationship. I think not. The truth is, we're celebrating deeds so deplorable and dastardly that if Hollywood were to tell the truth about pirates, it would be more than many of us could handle. Walking the plank? When it happened it was one, among many, torture device pirates used to get information. Most of the time, if they wanted to get rid of someone in that way, he or she was simply thrown overboard to drown or be eaten alive by sharks. Real life pirates lived lives of fear, death, destruction, murder and revenge; they were a bloody, treacherous, hyperviolent lot. They were "cut-throats, murders, thieves, and enemies of all mankind." The pirate mystique is loaded with symbols. The sword, for example, was used to fight, but not through skilled fencing as Hollywood shows. The truth is, only the very wealthy learned the rules of swordsmanship. Pirates, who generally did not come from the upper crust, instead used the weapons to slice, stab, slash and decapitate their way through bodies to the booty. More often, the weapon of choice was a firearm, a flintlock. One model had the power of five single shot weapons at once and attacking pirates usually had two or three ready to fire pistols tied together. The rum, sometimes consumed in place of what was usually rancid drinking water, mixed with water, resulted in grog. Either way, a lot of alcohol was consumed and a lot of violence resulted. Marcus Rediker, a professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age, writes: "As your ship travels across the ocean, you notice another ship approaching, a normal occurrence as the waters are a crowded trade route. As you look closer, you notice a black flag being raised. On it is a depiction of a skeleton. In one hand, he holds an hourglass. In the other, a bloody dagger. Your heart drops, and you know that death is imminent."
When pirates were captured, particularly after British authorities cracked down on the thievery in the late 1700s, it was hardly the keystone cops romp shown in the Depp films. Instead, captured pirates were hung at a specified execution dock — long, slow, painful death. Afterward, their bodies hung in above-water cages, left to rot, with their ship's flag hanging nearby. Blackbeard was beheaded. Bartu Ddu (Black Bart) was shot in the throat. So, why do we celebrate these killers? Why do we fail to see the realties of what and who pirates were? Moreover, I wonder, if enough time passes, do people become not who they were but who we want them to be? Does the passing of time make saints out of sinners? Is historical truth telling necessary if no one remembers the context within which the story was told? Piracy was, and remains today, about acquiring stuff other people had/have by whatever means necessary. This includes gold, silver, jewels, food and ships, but also people held as captives and sometimes enslaved by the pirates, usually mercilessly tortured. What's the appeal of pirate fever today? The image of the pirate as a fearless, independent spirit appeals to America. Reidecker says, "Americans have a love for the rebel." Achievement, against all odds, pirates "transgress for us. … they live on the sea, traditionally a place of otherness … and above all they are hedonistic to a greater extent than we are." Movies, television programs and popular culture paraphernalia reinforce the pirate romance. According to Beth Stanley, in Bold in her Breeches, "the pirate in 20th century western thinking stands for someone exciting who profitably and confidently operates outside society … [who] pillages communities rather than contributes to them, disregarding laws and setting up his own. Anything is possible because nothing requires permission: no one controls the pirate's morality." Furthermore, "legendary … piracy has a similar eroticized thrill about conquering as that of Westerns, but to find it exciting we have to make ourselves blind to the brutality and sexist and racist attitudes that accompanied it." I doubt what I have written will convince anyone to take away their child's pirate costume, halt the next community pirates' ball or prevent anyone from seeing the latest Pirates film. That isn't my goal. Instead, I ask that each of us stop and consider the source of media material and ask ourselves, "What is it I'm supposed to accept?" Our culture often becomes enamored with a romanticized version of the past that erases the truth of what happened to men, women and children at that time. What I am asking for is awareness of what we consume, not taking what appears to be so everyday, so normal and natural, as "truth." Unquestionably accepting information and images based on cultural longevity is, to me, unacceptable and potentially dangerous. I argue we should approach mass media content in the same way — know whereof they speak. Then decide. Pirates were very bad people who did terrible things. Is this something we should celebrate? Debra Merskin is an associate professor in the UO School of Journalism and Communication.
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