JO

Cameron Jamie’s anthropological interest in the role of primitive rituals and initiations in our contemporary culture took him from Los Angeles to Europe. In France he also found evidence of the human tendency to put historic events in a contemporary context. JO shows two ceremonies in which the independence of France and the United States still feeds the nationalistic and patriotic emotions of parts of the population. In Orléans and Paris, people remember in May Joan of Arc, the young woman who led the French army in 1429 and chased the English out of Orléans before she was accused of witchcraft and burnt at the stake. Since Pope Benedict XV rehabilitated her in 1920, she has become a favourite person for historic parades and serves as a female role model for Le Pen’s right-wing France. In the United States, in Coney Island on 4 July, Independence Day, every year Nathan’s Famous International July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest is held. The National commemoration of the start of the modern United States is shaped here by men consume the maximum possible number of hotdogs in the minimum possible time. American pride is translated here into a generally accepted eating ritual that reflects power and perseverance. A salient detail is that for years the contest has been won by a Japanese man.