http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/23/television-nudity-recession-credit-crunch
When things are tough, the proles need distracting. Sorry, entertaining. Originally, this took the form of bread and circuses, an idea that was updated to glitzy cinema in the Great Depression and titillating telly now, because in a modern context there is nothing entertaining about watching a poppy seed topped artisan baked granary bloomer being fought over by a couple of clowns. Although if the recession keeps up and ticket sales continue to fall at Boppo’s Circus, we may well end up being confronted with this spectacle, after they’ve eaten all the circus animals, and the weaker of the acrobats.
Entertainment keeps the proles in their seats cheering (or out of their seats cheering if they are watching ‘Clown Fight’, a new show I have just invented) when they might usefully be doing something else, like turning into an angry, jeering mob and marching on some seat of power. Removing your undies might be empowering, but I bet it’s not a patch on lynching a Fat Cat.
Television is certainly doing a very good job of tacking the various issues that cause, and stem from, a global economic downturn with programmes that are about as substantial as the froth from a fwapachino sold by a coffee chain who’s business model is predicated on people not wanting change from a fiver for a paper cup full of warm milk. This includes the news, where efforts to kick-start the economy have been made by the graphics department submitting their overtime forms. No item about the current economic conditions is complete without a graphic featuring more arrows than were seen at Little Big Horn.
And just what is the correct term for the slowdown that turned into a downturn that turned into a credit crunch that turned into a recession that is turning into a depression that will eventually end up as…what? We need a new term, a term for the catastrophic financial situation we find ourselves in. It has to be a new term you see because, like everything else that has happened before but is happening again now, it’s more important this time round because it’s happening to us!
That’s where television is failing us. On the news, the current economic climate could be better summed up by a correspondent crying and screaming while he soils himself and then sets himself on fire than a computer generated arrow. As for entertainment, surely what we need now is one of those shows that used to be so popular in the seventies, where society has collapsed and people live a grim existence in an isolated farmhouse fending off feral neighbours an worrying about the reappearance of the Plague. I remember this sort of thing fondly because it used to be on on a Sunday tea-time because it was considered appropriate kiddies’ programming. This was because it raised themes of subverting authority which caused kids to consider how they might fare in a world that was 99% depopulated but also because it was incredibly cheap to make, because by way of props all you needed was a land rover and a shotgun. Well, it certainly prepared me for the dystopian present, I know that all you need to survive when civilization implodes is access to a farm house, flares (trousers, not distress) and an ill tempered old fellow who, nevertheless, is the only bloke left who knows how to make petrol from stoats.
This is probably the format of the next Big Brother.
We don’t need nudity. We need a programme called ‘who’s to blame’ where every week an angry mob of clowns try, convict and lynch somebody who may have had something to do with the recession (‘Clown Court’?) because, let’s stop being distracted by the pink wrinkly bits on show after the watershed, somebody out there is responsible for making the high street resemble a post apocalyptic scene where a finance smart bomb has destroyed all the shops with a poor business model. Mind you, I see that a bag of pick ‘n’ mix went for twelve grand at action last week; maybe if Woolies had managed to sustain that sort of business, they’d still be trading.
Entertainment keeps the proles in their seats cheering (or out of their seats cheering if they are watching ‘Clown Fight’, a new show I have just invented) when they might usefully be doing something else, like turning into an angry, jeering mob and marching on some seat of power. Removing your undies might be empowering, but I bet it’s not a patch on lynching a Fat Cat.
Television is certainly doing a very good job of tacking the various issues that cause, and stem from, a global economic downturn with programmes that are about as substantial as the froth from a fwapachino sold by a coffee chain who’s business model is predicated on people not wanting change from a fiver for a paper cup full of warm milk. This includes the news, where efforts to kick-start the economy have been made by the graphics department submitting their overtime forms. No item about the current economic conditions is complete without a graphic featuring more arrows than were seen at Little Big Horn.
And just what is the correct term for the slowdown that turned into a downturn that turned into a credit crunch that turned into a recession that is turning into a depression that will eventually end up as…what? We need a new term, a term for the catastrophic financial situation we find ourselves in. It has to be a new term you see because, like everything else that has happened before but is happening again now, it’s more important this time round because it’s happening to us!
That’s where television is failing us. On the news, the current economic climate could be better summed up by a correspondent crying and screaming while he soils himself and then sets himself on fire than a computer generated arrow. As for entertainment, surely what we need now is one of those shows that used to be so popular in the seventies, where society has collapsed and people live a grim existence in an isolated farmhouse fending off feral neighbours an worrying about the reappearance of the Plague. I remember this sort of thing fondly because it used to be on on a Sunday tea-time because it was considered appropriate kiddies’ programming. This was because it raised themes of subverting authority which caused kids to consider how they might fare in a world that was 99% depopulated but also because it was incredibly cheap to make, because by way of props all you needed was a land rover and a shotgun. Well, it certainly prepared me for the dystopian present, I know that all you need to survive when civilization implodes is access to a farm house, flares (trousers, not distress) and an ill tempered old fellow who, nevertheless, is the only bloke left who knows how to make petrol from stoats.
This is probably the format of the next Big Brother.
We don’t need nudity. We need a programme called ‘who’s to blame’ where every week an angry mob of clowns try, convict and lynch somebody who may have had something to do with the recession (‘Clown Court’?) because, let’s stop being distracted by the pink wrinkly bits on show after the watershed, somebody out there is responsible for making the high street resemble a post apocalyptic scene where a finance smart bomb has destroyed all the shops with a poor business model. Mind you, I see that a bag of pick ‘n’ mix went for twelve grand at action last week; maybe if Woolies had managed to sustain that sort of business, they’d still be trading.
Labels: Charlie Booker, Guardian
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