Of media scandals and regimes of forgetting: Strauss-Kahn, Public History, and Memory Studies

Abstract

Do you remember Dominique Strauss-Kahn? In 2010, at the height of his career, Strauss-Kahn earned the distinction of being the sixth most influential Jewish person in the world. In a ranking list assembled by The Jerusalem Post, Strauss-Kahn outperformed Jewish luminaries such as Shimon Peres, Alan Dershowitz, and Michael Bloomberg. At the time, The Jerusalem Post announced that it would forthwith publish the list each year although we are still waiting for a sequel. Most likely, the editors at the Post realized that they were inadvertently feeding “the antiSemitic stereotype that Jews control the world” (Linde, 2010). If The Jerusalem Post had continued its ranking efforts, Strauss-Kahn would have dropped off the list like a stone in 2011 when he resigned from his post as director of the International Monetary Fund after having been indicted in New York City (NYC) for sexually assaulting a hotel maid. In a dramatic turn of events, NYC authorities arrested Strauss-Kahn at John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport moments before he was boarding a Europe-bound plane and held him without bail at Riker’s Island for several days. However, in the course of a lengthy investigation, NYC authorities developed serious doubts about the accuser’s credibility. The criminal case collapsed while the media frenzy continued. The drama in NYC prompted other women to come forward with rape allegations against or passionate defenses of Strauss-Kahn. And the story continued in Europe. Strauss-Kahn appears to have been involved in a prostitution ring in France and has been standing trial for the alleged crime of aggravated pimping in Lille. As a result of these multiple scandals, Strauss-Kahn’s career lies in shambles. The erstwhile leading contender for the Socialist candidacy for the French Presidency has been forced to peddle his financial expertise to such dubious employers as Russia, Serbia, and Sudan. The lurid mix of sex, politics, and money, further spiced up with great conspiracy theory potential and an action movie airport chase, turned the Strauss-Kahn affair into an instant media event. Strauss-Kahn, who has yet to be convicted of any crime, set a new record as he found himself prominently displayed on the front pages of over 150,000 newspapers around the world (Marlowe, 2011). Inevitably, the affair has been addressed in a Law & Order episode and been turned into a movie featuring embattled and scandal-prone French actor Gerard Depardieu in the role of StraussKahn (Scorched Earth 2011; Welcome to New York 2014). The film in question, Welcome to New York, received severe criticism as well as some stellar reviews but never made it into theatrical