Disturbing Images

Remember Kozjak, the most popular mountain in Croatia I had used to test image-uploading abilities?

Those who want to know why Kozjak became the most popular mountain in Croatia could have seen the brief glimpse of it one week ago in Nightmare Stage, legendary talk show hosted by Željko Malnar (Zeljko Malnar) at OTV, local TV station in Zagreb. Nightmare Stage owed a lot of its popularity to the picturesque and colourful guests, as well as content usually not seen on regular TV stations.

One week ago Malnar used clips from Kozjak, an amateur DV film that had used to be the biggest underground attraction in Croatian history. The film chronicles misadventures of young lady who answers a modelling ad in Split only to discover that she would have to do more than merely posing during the photo shoot at nearby Mt. Kozjak. The film was immensely popular but also very controversial. Many observers wondered whether it was documentary or work of fiction or whether its author – who would later come under criminal investigation for allegedly running teenage prostitution ring – committed what amounted to rape.

In any case, Malnar decided to use clips from Kozjak as a warning to all Croatian would-be supermodels. Unfortunately, some of the clips included very explicit images of activity which isn’t supposed to be shown on Croatian public airwaves. That was enough for anonymous complaint to be sent to Electronic Media Council. That body reacted with threats to revoke the broadcasting license to OTV.

OTV brass, of course, tried to pin the blame on Malnar with whom they would “deal internally”.

While that kind of images threaten OTV or (more likely) Malnar, editorial board of Globus weekly doesn’t think of them as particularly damaging to the psychological and moral health of the nation. On its pages Croatian readers – including minors – were able to see Suzana Mančić (Suzana Mancic) and her former husband Nebojša Kunić (Nebojsa Kunic) engaging in the aforementioned activity. The picture was taken from the infamous home video.

However, there was another, even more interesting image in Globus. On two pages they published photography of justice minister Vesna Škare-Ožbolt (Vesna Skare-Ozbolt) accompanied with short hagiographic text titled “Arm of Justice”. The text suggests that Ms. Škare-Ožbolt might become Croatian President one day.

I’m slightly doubtful towards that because Ms. Škare-Ožbolt lacks one important requirement for becoming Croatian President. Unlike her predecessors, she didn’t spend a day in jail. And, thanks to the action of her Ministry, thousands of people in Croatia were deprived of that experience, including those who were given that experience at the court of law. That also included Stanko Bubić (Stanko Bubic), 31-year citizen of Split who gathered some 30 felony convictions before permanently preventing himself from getting anymore in the most spectacular fashion imaginable.

I guess I don’t have to explain which of the aforementioned images is more likely to make me puke.