Power and Possibility in Representations of Piracy

SSStttooonnnyyy BBBrrrooooookkk UUUnnniiivvveeerrrsssiiitttyyy The official electronic file of this thesis or dissertation is maintained by the University Libraries on behalf of The Graduate School at Stony Brook University. ©©© AAAllllll RRRiiiggghhhtttsss RRReeessseeerrrvvveeeddd bbbyyy AAAuuuttthhhooorrr... Piratical Designations: Power and Possibility in Representations of Piracy A Dissertation Presented by Michael High to The Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature Stony Brook University August 2014 Stony Brook University The Graduate School Michael High We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. Jacqueline Reich, Professor and Chair, Communication & Media Studies, Fordham University, Dissertation Co-Advisor Krin Gabbard, Professor, Cultural Analysis & Theory, Dissertation Co-Advisor Patrice Nganang, Associate Professor, Cultural Analysis & Theory, Chairperson of Defense Raiford Guins, Associate Professor, Cultural Analysis & Theory Peter Decherney, Professor, University of Pennsylvania, English & Cinema Studies, Outside Member This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School Charles Taber Dean of the Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation Piratical Designations: Power and Possibility in Representations of Piracy by Michael High Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature Stony Brook University 2014 This dissertation analyzes how designations and representations of piracy define, police, and challenge legitimate production and circulation. From antiquity through the present, the labeling of others as pirates has excluded the less powerful from the authorized distribution of tangible and intangible property. Such discursive exclusion not only defines piracy but also creates it, distinguishing it from other, sanctioned forms of appropriation. This exclusion generates political, legal, and cultural subjectivity, thereby allowing so-called pirates to affect the very discourses and processes from which they are excluded. The first chapter traces the term piracy from its linguistic origin in Ancient Greece to its extension to literary property in 17th century and its current use as a rhetorical weapon in the global information society. Isolating five necessary conditions, this chapter reads piracy across its maritime, intellectual, and digital manifestations, elucidating the success and failure of designations of piracy. The second chapter focuses on the destabilization of these conditions in Hollywood’s representations of Caribbean piracy. Due to gaps in the historical record, historians have conflictingly interpreted Golden Age (1650-1720) pirates as criminals, rebels, and anarcho-libertarians. Following these interpretations, but adapting them to its own institutional and hegemonic needs, Hollywood has developed three types of pirates: an actively piratical villain, a reluctantly piratical hero, and a gender shifting temporary pirate. The third chapter develops a genealogy of the anti-piracy media and educational campaigns of the film and recording industries, locating in the 1980’s “Home Taping is Killing Music” campaign the appeals that have dominated later campaigns. Recreating the reception of the campaigns of the early 2000’s, this chapter combines humanities scholarship on copyright industry rhetoric with social science research on the efficacy of the campaigns to understand why these campaigns have failed to affect the copying norms and practices of iii millennials. The final chapter analyzes the history and interventions of the groups leading the Swedish Pirate Movement, examining how the Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay, the Missionerande Kopimistsamfundet, and the Piratpartiet humorously appropriate the labels and rhetoric of copyright industry representatives to define themselves and challenge anti-piracy campaigns and legislation. iv Table of Contents Chapter 1 – Introduction: Piracy, Globalization, and Media Convergence 1 Chapter 2 - Defining Piracy: Designations and Necessary Conditions 12 Chapter 3 - Pirates Without Piracy: Criminality, Rebellion, and Anarcho- 92 Libertarianism in the Pirate Film Chapter 4 - The History and Reception of Anti-Piracy Media Campaigns 130 Chapter 5 - Dialogic Piracy: Parody, Irony, and Comedy in Pirate Self- 187 Presentation Chapter 6 – Conclusion: Pirates and Piracy 247 References 250 v Acknowledgments First and foremost I would like to thank my dissertation committee. It is impossible for me to imagine finishing my course work, let alone this dissertation, without the continuous guidance, support, and friendship of Jacqueline Reich and Patrice Nganang. They have been amazingly generous, treating me like family as they shared their time, insights, and food. The other committee members, Krin Gabbard, Raiford Guins, and Peter Decherney, provided invaluable criticism and encouragement throughout the process. Although not on my committee, E.K. Tan was always available to listen and give advice, even though he was much busier than I. My gratitude also goes to the department of Cultural Analysis and Theory staff members Mary Moran-Luba and Alinda Askew for their help, humor, and patience. Several of my professors at San Diego State also deserve recognition. William Nericcio and Gerald J. Butler introduced me to the study of media and cultural theory, which prompted my application to Stony Brook. Glover Davis and Marilyn Chin were instrumental in my entry into and graduation from SDSU’s Masters program in Creative Writing. Outside of academia, I would like to thank my parents, Richard and Shelly High, for all of their love and support, as well as my brother, Sam. Finally, I am grateful to Rosie Coppiano, whose encouragement and threats motivated me throughout the research and writing. I would like to recognize the academic journals that have accepted versions of these chapters. The third chapter, “Pirates Without Piracy: Criminality, Rebellion, and Anarcho- Libertarianism in the Pirate Film,” is forthcoming in Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, and a version of the fifth chapter, “Dialogic Comedy in Pirate Rhetoric,” is in the revision process for The Journal of Popular Communication. vi Chapter 1 Introduction: Piracy, Globalization, and Media Convergence On Saturday, October 12th, 2013, Belgian authorities arrested wanted “pirate kingpin” Mohamed Abdi Hassan and an accomplice after they landed at the Brussels airport (United Nations “Report” 20). Wanted since 2009 for financing an attack on the Pompeii, a Belgian construction ship, Hassan travelled from Somalia to Belgium believing he would consult on a film about his life as a pirate. That he was arrested for piracy while trying to promote himself in a pirate film was an irony journalists pointed out in headline after headline (Higgins and Kulish). Authorities set up the operation to capture the former civil servant, known as Afweyne (Big Mouth), as the financier of a pirate group based in the Harardheere region of Somalia. Allegedly, Hassan financed the group through venture funds similar to a “Wall Street IPO” (Bahadur 69). Although wanted by Interpol, Hassan had “retired” from piracy early in the year. At a press conference announcing his retirement, he declared, “After being in piracy for eight years, I have decided to renounce and quit, and from today on I will not be involved in this gang activity… I have also been encouraging many of my colleagues to renounce piracy too, and they have done it" (“Somali Pirate”). Though analysts attributed his retirement to the declining profits from Somali piracy, he was responsible for starting the Somali Anti-Piracy Agency in Mogadishu and 1 negotiating (a failed) nationwide amnesty and rehabilitation program for pirates, for which he received a pardon from the autonomous Somali state of Himan and Heeb and a diplomatic passport from the Somalian Transitional Federal Government (Bridger). As the weekend of Hassan's arrest ended, the Tom Hanks Somali pirate film, Captain Phillips, was the #2 film in the U.S. box-office and hundreds rallied in Somalia to protest Hassan’s arrest and demand his release (Bridger; “Captain Philips”; Jawaabood). The confluence of cinema and piracy in Mohamed Abdi Hassan’s capture initiates several of the issues at the core of this dissertation: the power and distance determining Hassan’s governmental and juridical status, the sanctity of national sovereignty, the force of international law, and the ambiguous morality of piracy. All these issues hint at the complicated nature of designations of piracy. Hassan’s career, retirement, arrest, and celebration prompt several questions: Was he a rehabilitated and crucial reformer or a media savvy criminal? Was the Somalian government’s failure to extradite Hassan a testimony to the corruption within the fractured state or its rejection of mandates from the former colonial system? Were the Somalis protesting his arrest simply enamored with the mythos and success of a gangster or was their protest indicative of a rejection of the global order that makes piracy a lucrative and admirable industry in some countries and entertainment in others? Hassan’s disastrous desire to see himself in film indicates not only the size of his ego (one does not earn the sobriquet Big Mouth for humility) but also the allure of cinematic representations of piracy. Was Hassan's capture the demonstration of a naïve belief that his life would become

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