Originally published in The Bubble Columns, available here.
I’ve heard plenty of suggested ways to protect the environment. We’ve all been told to ‘reduce, re-use and recycle’, the search for sustainable fuel sources goes on and nanas have taken a break from making cereal to knit a cover for the hole in the ozone layer. We should be using our cars less (which is why cuts to public transport subsidies and constant fare rises are so ridiculous – another article there) and turning the heating down a few degrees, while judgment will certainly fall upon those who fail to hug trees at appropriate moments.
There’s been plenty of ‘green’ legislation and government target-setting, too, and while industrialised nations pretend they want to cut carbon emissions and Al Gore (ironically) goes nuclear over climate change, one voice which has always been critical of the half-hearted or insufficient measures taken by the developed world has been that of Bolivia. Frequently derided by the UK and USA for demanding much steeper cuts in emissions, the nation has long suffered environmental damage incurred while mining for tin, silver and other major resources, and studies have presented a worst case scenario in which much of the terrain is rendered desert by rising temperatures.
In recent years, however, the resurgence of powerful indigenous groups has been accompanied by a revival of an indigenous spiritual worldview in which the earth deity, Pachamama, and the environment as a whole are at the centre of all things. All living things, humans included, are of equal importance. The state’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, sits in power with a comfortable majority, and is about to take the concept of eco-friendly legislation to a new level. The Law of Mother Earth, now awaiting passage through Bolivian legislature, will grant nature equal rights to humans.
The law states that Pachamama, a living being in her own right according to indigenous thought, “is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation.” According to one website, eleven rights will be codified: they will include the right to life and existence; to continue vital cycles and processes without human alteration; to pure water and clean air; to balance; to be free from pollution; to not have cell structure modified or genetically altered; and most controversially, “to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities”. The government is even expected to establish a ‘ministry of mother earth’, appoint an ombudsman and empower local communities to scrutinise industrial activity.
There’s a balancing act here for Morales. On the one hand, there is clearly a powerful social movement which has a firm foothold in Bolivian politics, and there’s a lot to be said for giving the people what they want (British politicians take note): on the other, the overregulation of industry could prove an economic minefield; over a third of the country’s foreign currency comes from mining companies, for example, and it could well prove an obstacle on the country’s road to development. It probably won’t bring industry to a halt (it hasn’t in Ecuador, where nature has some legal rights but where industrial processes have still damaged substantial regions of the Amazon basin), but it will make it harder to exploit the country’s rich and valuable natural resources.
But maybe, just maybe, that’s not a bad thing. Every global climate change conference seems to involve developed countries like the US and UK, safe in their own positions, hypocritically telling developing countries such as India or even China to stop trying to become developed countries in the same way that they did – by pillaging their resources and developing along a trajectory that is as unsustainable as it is destructive. The fact that we are so protective of the remaining countryside that we have, especially in the UK, belies our underlying guilt. Ideas which could form part of a programme of sustainable development may be the subjects of one of our rather good columns on this site, but are proving difficult to sell to many economies and are still far from becoming the norm. Perhaps it’s quite refreshing that there is at least one willingly underdeveloped country in the world, which will not jeopardise its environment for the sake of capitalism.
Then again, it’s fair to wonder exactly how this law will be interpreted and enforced; the law is by its own nature abstract and complex, but add in an earth spirit who can’t speak for herself and the chances are there will be more problems to come. With poverty rife, lack of healthcare and wide regional disparities in both wealth and literacy, the argument for economic development is also powerful and should not be ignored. I’d like to think that equality means that Pachamama’s rights won’t come at the expense of those of humans; even better, that they will encourage a process of sustainable development to which the rest of the world can look for an example.
I’m inspired. I may set my grandmother back to work on that ozone-hole cover.
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Palatinate Comment: Speaker's Corner - Absurd JCR Decisions
Originally published in Palatinate Comment, 8/3/11 and available online here.
It can often almost feel childish to comment on college politics. Especially in Durham, it’s easy to be as involved or uninvolved in a college or society as you want to be, and our interest can dwindle at the same rate as our remaining time as students. Still, it’s also worth remembering that our JCRs do more than just offer free STI tests and a room with sofas, as recent events during the Josephine Butler executive elections show.
I still have to wonder, though, how slow a day it must have been when the executive summoned a student to a hearing with the threat of suspension over a Facebook status.
The finalist had posted a status which read “Hmm, dull, dull, and, oh look, dull. Must be Butler’s JCR election season again!” The following day, he received an email from the JCR Secretary asking him to remove the status. Refusing, he posted an excerpt from the email as a comment on the original status, prompting some comments about freedom of speech.
Later, he was contacted by the JCR Chair who insisted that the constitution had been breached and that the student had shown “alarming contempt for the conciliatory manner” in which they had originally tried to resolve the matter, while threatening a request for his suspension from the JCR unless he acquiesced. Still refusing to remove the status, the student attended a hearing the following day at an Executive Committee meeting – to which he was not informed he could take a witness – at which he was given an ultimatum: remove the status, or be suspended. The situation was resolved when he resigned his membership of the JCR. The section of the constitution thought to have been breached is article 7.2.14, which reads:
“Candidates are not allowed to ask others to campaign on their behalf. If candidates become aware of any individuals campaigning for them, it is the candidate’s responsibility to notify steering immediately. If someone does canvas on behalf of a candidate even without having been asked to, it may reflect negatively on the candidate”.
The claim of the steering committee, headed by the JCR chair, is that the status campaigned on behalf of RON – Re-Open Nominations, the option which voters select if they are unhappy with all of the available candidates.
The most glaring problem with this argument is that RON is never afforded the status of a candidate. RON is a course of action taken when none of the candidates are felt to be suitable; it is not a candidate, and as such cannot be subject to any rules governing an electoral campaign. More ridiculous, perhaps, is the visible misinterpretation of the remark. I find it bizarre that a statement which says nothing except that JCR elections are boring can be interpreted as a suggestion that none of the candidates are suitable for the roles for which they are standing.
It’s obvious that such a statement is an endorsement for no-one, including RON. Instead, it makes the perfectly reasonable and valid point that college politics – and, I would argue, student politics as a whole – fails to engage much of the student body. That fact has been long accepted in Durham. While there is ample scope for debate over why this is so, it is part of a separate discussion. Freed from its unfairly attributed associations, the student’s comment becomes a valid and legitimate statement which cannot rightfully be censored by anyone.
In fact, it is that censorship which has proved to be self-defeating for the JCR executive. Had they not felt the need to take such action, the status would have been ignored by most of those who could see it, and forgotten quickly by the rest. A Facebook status is hardly inscribed on a stone tablet and displayed in a museum. It was quite clearly a throwaway remark without any serious intention behind it, but the controversy created by the executive has ensured it will have an effect, by casting the executive in an extremely bad light. I have the utmost respect for the JCR and the executive, who do work extremely hard, but at the same time I find it difficult to accept that seventeen people could not collectively come to a less absurd decision – and it is as a collective that the constitution insists they must be responsible. Even in the localised sphere of Durham college politics, it holds true that some rules, even when misapplied and misinterpreted, should sometimes be quietly ignored.
It can often almost feel childish to comment on college politics. Especially in Durham, it’s easy to be as involved or uninvolved in a college or society as you want to be, and our interest can dwindle at the same rate as our remaining time as students. Still, it’s also worth remembering that our JCRs do more than just offer free STI tests and a room with sofas, as recent events during the Josephine Butler executive elections show.
I still have to wonder, though, how slow a day it must have been when the executive summoned a student to a hearing with the threat of suspension over a Facebook status.
The finalist had posted a status which read “Hmm, dull, dull, and, oh look, dull. Must be Butler’s JCR election season again!” The following day, he received an email from the JCR Secretary asking him to remove the status. Refusing, he posted an excerpt from the email as a comment on the original status, prompting some comments about freedom of speech.
Later, he was contacted by the JCR Chair who insisted that the constitution had been breached and that the student had shown “alarming contempt for the conciliatory manner” in which they had originally tried to resolve the matter, while threatening a request for his suspension from the JCR unless he acquiesced. Still refusing to remove the status, the student attended a hearing the following day at an Executive Committee meeting – to which he was not informed he could take a witness – at which he was given an ultimatum: remove the status, or be suspended. The situation was resolved when he resigned his membership of the JCR. The section of the constitution thought to have been breached is article 7.2.14, which reads:
“Candidates are not allowed to ask others to campaign on their behalf. If candidates become aware of any individuals campaigning for them, it is the candidate’s responsibility to notify steering immediately. If someone does canvas on behalf of a candidate even without having been asked to, it may reflect negatively on the candidate”.
The claim of the steering committee, headed by the JCR chair, is that the status campaigned on behalf of RON – Re-Open Nominations, the option which voters select if they are unhappy with all of the available candidates.
The most glaring problem with this argument is that RON is never afforded the status of a candidate. RON is a course of action taken when none of the candidates are felt to be suitable; it is not a candidate, and as such cannot be subject to any rules governing an electoral campaign. More ridiculous, perhaps, is the visible misinterpretation of the remark. I find it bizarre that a statement which says nothing except that JCR elections are boring can be interpreted as a suggestion that none of the candidates are suitable for the roles for which they are standing.
It’s obvious that such a statement is an endorsement for no-one, including RON. Instead, it makes the perfectly reasonable and valid point that college politics – and, I would argue, student politics as a whole – fails to engage much of the student body. That fact has been long accepted in Durham. While there is ample scope for debate over why this is so, it is part of a separate discussion. Freed from its unfairly attributed associations, the student’s comment becomes a valid and legitimate statement which cannot rightfully be censored by anyone.
In fact, it is that censorship which has proved to be self-defeating for the JCR executive. Had they not felt the need to take such action, the status would have been ignored by most of those who could see it, and forgotten quickly by the rest. A Facebook status is hardly inscribed on a stone tablet and displayed in a museum. It was quite clearly a throwaway remark without any serious intention behind it, but the controversy created by the executive has ensured it will have an effect, by casting the executive in an extremely bad light. I have the utmost respect for the JCR and the executive, who do work extremely hard, but at the same time I find it difficult to accept that seventeen people could not collectively come to a less absurd decision – and it is as a collective that the constitution insists they must be responsible. Even in the localised sphere of Durham college politics, it holds true that some rules, even when misapplied and misinterpreted, should sometimes be quietly ignored.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
The Bubble Columns: Baby Gaga and The Yummy Mummy
Originally published in The Bubble Columns, available here.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten? There must be as many answers to that question as there are people. When it comes to food, The Bubble has some pretty cracking articles on the subject, but for all the impressive variety you’ll find here, I guarantee that there’s at least one thing that at some point all of us will have lived on. And no, I’m not referring to the classic student (read: my) dependence on pasta as a staple diet. I mean milk. Breast, bottle or both, it’s the universal source of nutrition for every infant around the world.
But the thing is, it’s also the one thing we tend to leave in infancy. Once we move on to solid food and eventually discover the variety of tea and biscuits available to us, we don’t ever imagine going back. Like Yorkies aren’t for girls and knitting is for your grandmother, breast milk is just for babies, right?
Well, not everyone seems to think so. In fact, until yesterday (March 1st) when it was confiscated by the local council, a London restaurant was charging £14 for a serving of Baby Gaga ice cream – and yes, it’s made from breast milk.
Baby Gaga, which came with a rusk and an optional shot of Calpol or Bonjela (and I’d hope so for £14), was available for about a week from Icecreamists in Covent Garden until complaints from two customers and concerns raised by the Food Standards Agency and Health Protection Agency led Westminster Council to remove it until it can be confirmed as fit for human consumption. Icecreamist founder Matt O’Connor insists that the donor is medically screened and the mixture pasteurised prior to being churned with Madagascan vanilla pods and lemon zest, and described the response as “amazing”: several women have come forward and offered to donate milk, in addition to the sole original donor. London mother Victoria Hiley, who was paid £15 for every 10 ounces of milk donated, has undergone all the same screening procedures as are used on blood donations, and has no qualms about her new sideline; as she told the BBC, "What's the harm in using my assets for a bit of extra cash? I teach women how to get started on breastfeeding their babies. There's very little support for women and every little helps."
Let’s be honest. We all remember pretending to be ill so we could have that spoonful of Calpol. If, like myself, your mother never believed you because you were such a terrible actress, it was one of those things that made being ill occasionally that little bit better. If, however, you have no idea what I’m talking about, you should try some so that you don’t think I’m stuck on some form of Freudian fixation. What’s more, most mothers will freely admit to buying rusks for their own consumption as well as their child’s. But breast milk?
O’Connor insists that ”if it’s good enough for our children then it’s good enough for us… it’s pure organic, free range and totally natural”. It’s also ridiculously nutritious – after all, it keeps babies going through the most rapid and crucial stages of their development – and there’s no arguing with the fact that almost everyone will have already tried it. Hiley even suggests that, if more people were alerted to how good the milk tastes, more women will be encouraged to attempt breastfeeding. All of the above is well and good, but for many of us, I think it’s fair to say it would be difficult to get past that immediate reaction of “urgh!” “yuk!” or whatever sound of revulsion takes your fancy. Humans move on to alternative food sources as they grow for a reason; and isn’t it instinct that we should find imbibing liquid taken from a random woman’s body just a bit disquieting? When I think about it, there are no logical grounds for objection, but my gut reaction is to cringe.
Still, with the ice cream doing the rounds of food safety screening at the time of writing, perhaps upon its return many people will be less squeamish than I. In the meantime, I’ll go for the single shot of Calpol.
Thursday, 17 February 2011
The Bubble Columns: Cameraman
Originally published in The Bubble Columns, available here.
‘Art’. It’s a nebulous term at the best of times. Nobody can agree on what it actually means, never mind what it does – or, for that matter, if it does (or should do) anything at all. Sticking with visual art (in itself quite a slippery concept) and leaving literature, music, film and the rest aside, there’s no better example than that thing we call ‘contemporary art’ – the realm of unmade beds, formaldehyde-treated sharks and everything on the Turner Prize shortlist which makes older members of my family repeatedly shout “What is that!?!” In a sphere where a blank canvas can be considered a finished article rather than a resource, it’s harder than ever to agree exactly what constitutes ‘art’.
Well, consider this: Wafaa Bilal, a professor of photography at New York University’s Tisch School of Arts, is taking one photo a minute for the space of a year to be relayed back to an exhibition in Doha, Qatar, with his position tracked by GPS. This week, however, the project has encountered problems – because his body rejected one of the metal posts keeping the camera bolted into the back of his skull.
Bolted. Into the back of his skull.
When interviewed about the thinking behind 3rdi at the end of last year, Iraqi-born Bilal recounts his escape from the war-torn country in 1991 (how times change). Fleeing his home in Najaf as bombs fell around, he had no way of recording what he was leaving and no connection to his former life: at least this is one year of which he has a full and permanent record. However, he also intends to make a quite serious comment on the “surveillance society” in which we live, forever followed and recorded by CCTV to the point where our lives can barely be considered private any longer.
After doctors refused to perform the procedure on the grounds of excessive risk, Bilal had the camera attached at a body-piercing studio in Los Angeles. Despite treatment with steroids and anti-biotics, he was still experiencing pain and, as the risk of infection grew, it became necessary to remove the device. Hoping that the wound heals quickly so that the camera can be restored, he is maintaining the flow of images by leaving the camera attached by a strap around his neck.
I don’t think I really need to state that I think this man is insane, but I just did. We’ve all heard of people who have done extreme things in the name of art, but this goes a long way beyond Method acting or, for that matter, everything else I can think of.
One of the many, many embarrassing anecdotes that my friends pull out on occasion was directly instigated by contemporary art. During my second year, my housemates and I visited Yoko Ono’s exhibition at the Baltic in Newcastle, and amongst the exhibits was a large, transparent plastic maze. Like many other visitors, I filed in through the narrow gap in the wall – but promptly got lost. This was not helped by the fact that, the maze being transparent, it had not occurred to me that there may actually be a wall in the place where I was about to walk. Needless to say, when the whole gallery resounded with a crash, I shouted “OW!” and the couple of hundred serious art fans in the building all turned to stare at me in outrage as I desperately tried to escape, I learned my lesson. Cringe as I might, and laugh as I know you will (it’s fine – my housemates are still giggling over a year later), this basically sums up my relationship with art: getting drawn in is easy, but I can’t negotiate it with any dignity whatsoever.
Bilal’s current work must be problematic even to people far more artistically aware than I. On the one hand, he does raise some serious questions about the world in which we live; the importance of memory as well as the ways in which Big Brother watches us every second of the day. The dominance of CCTV everywhere we go is a form of socially mandated stalking, to be used to our cost as well as our benefit, endemic to the point where we may as well carry our own camera around with us. Still, the extent to which Bilal has gone is quite disturbing – the extent of the danger and the pain he has put himself through may liken him to many great artists, but they were all somehow mad too. Moreover, it’s difficult to reconcile his ideas about privacy and observation with the fact that, though his girlfriend hasn’t yet imposed any limits, his institution has. To protect the rights of students at the Tisch School of Arts, while Bilal is at work he has agreed to keep the lens cap on. It may be art, but it would seem that it isn’t above compromise.
‘Art’. It’s a nebulous term at the best of times. Nobody can agree on what it actually means, never mind what it does – or, for that matter, if it does (or should do) anything at all. Sticking with visual art (in itself quite a slippery concept) and leaving literature, music, film and the rest aside, there’s no better example than that thing we call ‘contemporary art’ – the realm of unmade beds, formaldehyde-treated sharks and everything on the Turner Prize shortlist which makes older members of my family repeatedly shout “What is that!?!” In a sphere where a blank canvas can be considered a finished article rather than a resource, it’s harder than ever to agree exactly what constitutes ‘art’.
Well, consider this: Wafaa Bilal, a professor of photography at New York University’s Tisch School of Arts, is taking one photo a minute for the space of a year to be relayed back to an exhibition in Doha, Qatar, with his position tracked by GPS. This week, however, the project has encountered problems – because his body rejected one of the metal posts keeping the camera bolted into the back of his skull.
Bolted. Into the back of his skull.
When interviewed about the thinking behind 3rdi at the end of last year, Iraqi-born Bilal recounts his escape from the war-torn country in 1991 (how times change). Fleeing his home in Najaf as bombs fell around, he had no way of recording what he was leaving and no connection to his former life: at least this is one year of which he has a full and permanent record. However, he also intends to make a quite serious comment on the “surveillance society” in which we live, forever followed and recorded by CCTV to the point where our lives can barely be considered private any longer.
After doctors refused to perform the procedure on the grounds of excessive risk, Bilal had the camera attached at a body-piercing studio in Los Angeles. Despite treatment with steroids and anti-biotics, he was still experiencing pain and, as the risk of infection grew, it became necessary to remove the device. Hoping that the wound heals quickly so that the camera can be restored, he is maintaining the flow of images by leaving the camera attached by a strap around his neck.
I don’t think I really need to state that I think this man is insane, but I just did. We’ve all heard of people who have done extreme things in the name of art, but this goes a long way beyond Method acting or, for that matter, everything else I can think of.
One of the many, many embarrassing anecdotes that my friends pull out on occasion was directly instigated by contemporary art. During my second year, my housemates and I visited Yoko Ono’s exhibition at the Baltic in Newcastle, and amongst the exhibits was a large, transparent plastic maze. Like many other visitors, I filed in through the narrow gap in the wall – but promptly got lost. This was not helped by the fact that, the maze being transparent, it had not occurred to me that there may actually be a wall in the place where I was about to walk. Needless to say, when the whole gallery resounded with a crash, I shouted “OW!” and the couple of hundred serious art fans in the building all turned to stare at me in outrage as I desperately tried to escape, I learned my lesson. Cringe as I might, and laugh as I know you will (it’s fine – my housemates are still giggling over a year later), this basically sums up my relationship with art: getting drawn in is easy, but I can’t negotiate it with any dignity whatsoever.
Bilal’s current work must be problematic even to people far more artistically aware than I. On the one hand, he does raise some serious questions about the world in which we live; the importance of memory as well as the ways in which Big Brother watches us every second of the day. The dominance of CCTV everywhere we go is a form of socially mandated stalking, to be used to our cost as well as our benefit, endemic to the point where we may as well carry our own camera around with us. Still, the extent to which Bilal has gone is quite disturbing – the extent of the danger and the pain he has put himself through may liken him to many great artists, but they were all somehow mad too. Moreover, it’s difficult to reconcile his ideas about privacy and observation with the fact that, though his girlfriend hasn’t yet imposed any limits, his institution has. To protect the rights of students at the Tisch School of Arts, while Bilal is at work he has agreed to keep the lens cap on. It may be art, but it would seem that it isn’t above compromise.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
The Bubble Columns: Blue-rovision?
Originally published in The Bubble Columns, available here.
I should start with a confession. I’m sure you have mental images of me as the highly refined, serious intellectual who slaves to entertain the masses with her astute and serious observations. Alas, these are illusions of which I must rob you. Ladies and gentlemen, I love the Eurovision Song Contest.
It might be the cheesiest, tackiest, and generally most pathetic arena in which our great nation has ever allowed, and in fact paid for, its own humiliation. It may be the site of some of the most disturbing and confusing scenes you’ll ever witness. It is certainly the most ludicrous way the people of Europe have devised to tell Britain that it has no friends (except for Ireland, and sometimes Cyprus or Portugal if we’re lucky) and reinforce trade links between neighbouring countries. But for all that, it’s obscenely entertaining, and those who watch every year admit it with a mixture of pride and shame.
As a nation, though, we approach the Eurovision with the most cynical of attitudes, chiefly because we always know that we will lose. Britain being isolated from Europe in both geographic and figurative terms, we have nobody to give us those all-important points out of a sense of regional camaraderie (which is why so many obscure Baltic and Balkan countries have done well in recent years). Less important, but more easily changed, is the fact that we keep entering diabolical songs. Last year’s entry was written by Pete Waterman – a man who hasn’t been cool since the late 1980s when he worked with Kylie Minogue – though before that, Andrew Lloyd Webber had written a ballad that came fifth. The woman who sang said ballad is now a Sugababe. Everyone lost.
Luckily, however, it seems our Eurovision despair may well be coming to an end. We have an entry for this year. The news that made my week: the United Kingdom’s Eurovision 2011 entry is entitled ‘I Can’, and it’s by a little boy band called Blue. Yes, Blue. Just in case you haven’t had your fill of reformed boy bands in the past few years, the early 2000s group consisting of Duncan James, Lee Ryan, Antony Costa and Simon Webbe, who reunited in 2009, intend to stage a comeback with the performance of the song, penned by Duncan and Lee (the blonde ones), in Dusseldorf in May.
BBC One will be airing an hour-long documentary in April following the band recording and promoting the single, as well as getting advice from fellow musicians (who I desperately hope will include these former Eurovision winners), as part of the run-up to the contest. Head of entertainment and events Katie Taylor said of the announcement “We’re enormously pleased to have found an act that not only meets but exceeds all the criteria for a great entry… Blue are the perfect choice”. Duncan claims that this will be “a great way to mark the occasion” of their tenth year together, while Simon has said that he has “always wanted to represent my country, so this is a truly exciting experience for Blue”.
They do have a better resume than most entrants – 13 million album sales, three number one singles, and insanely catchy tunes like All Rise, Fly By, and One Love, all of which could stand us in very good stead come May 14th. That said, they are also responsible for some pretty terrible covers; they even managed to enlist both Elton John and Stevie Wonder to help them mutilate Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word and Signed, Sealed, Delivered respectively. Either way, though, Britain at least is in the grip of a mania for returning old-school boy bands; if Europe shares this nostalgic sentiment then we could be on to a – well, not a winner, but maybe a little less of a loser.
Still, it does beg the question of how successful this comeback will be. Entry into the Eurovision is widely acknowledged as career suicide- the vast majority of UK entrants are neither seen nor heard from again. Former Blue manager Daniel Glatman has described the decision as “reckless insanity”, insisting that “they will have to win. Anything less and their reputation would be in tatters”. I disagree- Blue are a cheesy boy band whose fan base now regard them with nostalgia rather than genuine adulation, and since nobody ever expects a UK entrant to win, they have little to lose if they don’t win. If anything, the damage will come from the stigma of being a Eurovision contestant, which basically means that they will never be taken seriously again. Still, they’re Blue. Who would take them seriously anyway?
Maybe it will just add to the cheesy kitsch we associate with reformed boy bands like them. Take That may have managed to break out of that category, but they did so by producing some genuinely brilliant new music- and coming from someone who would rather listen to Led Zeppelin or Nirvana, that’s saying something. Maybe Blue can do the same. Either way, we’ll find out along with the rest of Europe on May 14th.
I should start with a confession. I’m sure you have mental images of me as the highly refined, serious intellectual who slaves to entertain the masses with her astute and serious observations. Alas, these are illusions of which I must rob you. Ladies and gentlemen, I love the Eurovision Song Contest.
It might be the cheesiest, tackiest, and generally most pathetic arena in which our great nation has ever allowed, and in fact paid for, its own humiliation. It may be the site of some of the most disturbing and confusing scenes you’ll ever witness. It is certainly the most ludicrous way the people of Europe have devised to tell Britain that it has no friends (except for Ireland, and sometimes Cyprus or Portugal if we’re lucky) and reinforce trade links between neighbouring countries. But for all that, it’s obscenely entertaining, and those who watch every year admit it with a mixture of pride and shame.
As a nation, though, we approach the Eurovision with the most cynical of attitudes, chiefly because we always know that we will lose. Britain being isolated from Europe in both geographic and figurative terms, we have nobody to give us those all-important points out of a sense of regional camaraderie (which is why so many obscure Baltic and Balkan countries have done well in recent years). Less important, but more easily changed, is the fact that we keep entering diabolical songs. Last year’s entry was written by Pete Waterman – a man who hasn’t been cool since the late 1980s when he worked with Kylie Minogue – though before that, Andrew Lloyd Webber had written a ballad that came fifth. The woman who sang said ballad is now a Sugababe. Everyone lost.
Luckily, however, it seems our Eurovision despair may well be coming to an end. We have an entry for this year. The news that made my week: the United Kingdom’s Eurovision 2011 entry is entitled ‘I Can’, and it’s by a little boy band called Blue. Yes, Blue. Just in case you haven’t had your fill of reformed boy bands in the past few years, the early 2000s group consisting of Duncan James, Lee Ryan, Antony Costa and Simon Webbe, who reunited in 2009, intend to stage a comeback with the performance of the song, penned by Duncan and Lee (the blonde ones), in Dusseldorf in May.
BBC One will be airing an hour-long documentary in April following the band recording and promoting the single, as well as getting advice from fellow musicians (who I desperately hope will include these former Eurovision winners), as part of the run-up to the contest. Head of entertainment and events Katie Taylor said of the announcement “We’re enormously pleased to have found an act that not only meets but exceeds all the criteria for a great entry… Blue are the perfect choice”. Duncan claims that this will be “a great way to mark the occasion” of their tenth year together, while Simon has said that he has “always wanted to represent my country, so this is a truly exciting experience for Blue”.
They do have a better resume than most entrants – 13 million album sales, three number one singles, and insanely catchy tunes like All Rise, Fly By, and One Love, all of which could stand us in very good stead come May 14th. That said, they are also responsible for some pretty terrible covers; they even managed to enlist both Elton John and Stevie Wonder to help them mutilate Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word and Signed, Sealed, Delivered respectively. Either way, though, Britain at least is in the grip of a mania for returning old-school boy bands; if Europe shares this nostalgic sentiment then we could be on to a – well, not a winner, but maybe a little less of a loser.
Still, it does beg the question of how successful this comeback will be. Entry into the Eurovision is widely acknowledged as career suicide- the vast majority of UK entrants are neither seen nor heard from again. Former Blue manager Daniel Glatman has described the decision as “reckless insanity”, insisting that “they will have to win. Anything less and their reputation would be in tatters”. I disagree- Blue are a cheesy boy band whose fan base now regard them with nostalgia rather than genuine adulation, and since nobody ever expects a UK entrant to win, they have little to lose if they don’t win. If anything, the damage will come from the stigma of being a Eurovision contestant, which basically means that they will never be taken seriously again. Still, they’re Blue. Who would take them seriously anyway?
Maybe it will just add to the cheesy kitsch we associate with reformed boy bands like them. Take That may have managed to break out of that category, but they did so by producing some genuinely brilliant new music- and coming from someone who would rather listen to Led Zeppelin or Nirvana, that’s saying something. Maybe Blue can do the same. Either way, we’ll find out along with the rest of Europe on May 14th.
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
The Bubble Columns: The Man Who Would Be Kick-Ass
Originally published on The Bubble Columns, available here.
Gentle readers, I crave your pardon. It’s been a while. No doubt you’ve all been sitting at your computers every Wednesday since my last column in the desperate hope of further strange news-based musings. Your disappointment must have been, I am sure, too great for words, but you may rest assured that the hiatus is officially over. I return with the kind of news that could only come from the USA – a man acting like Batman.
Phoenix Jones – a name which bizarrely isn’t actually his pseudonym – claims to be making the streets of Seattle safer since taking up his unconventional hobby about nine months ago. He disappears into the back room of a comic-book store (yes, really), dons tights, black and gold Lycra and a mask, and emerges as a crime-fighting force to be reckoned with. Bearing a bullet-proof vest, stab protection, tear gas and a taser for aid in his all-but-caped crusade, he has already prevented car thefts among other crimes. He’s not alone: apparently there are eight other members of his Rain City Superhero group doing the exact same thing in Seattle, though less is known about them. Presumably this is because they actually understand the nature of a secret identity.
Speaking to CBS, he claimed that “When I walk into a neighbourhood, criminals leave because they see the suit. I symbolise that the average person doesn't have to walk around and see bad things and do nothing”. For all his protective gear, though, there has been a physical cost- he has been stabbed, repeatedly threatened with guns, and was recently kicked in the face while trying to break up a fight, resulting in a broken nose. Still, as you can probably guess, this hasn’t put him off- he told one news website that “I endanger my life with a reason and purpose”. As you might expect, local police have publicly encouraged Jones to hang up his mask before he is seriously injured, and insisted that citizens do not put themselves into violent situations unnecessarily but contact the police instead. The fashion police said something similar, but they were more upset about the Lycra.
Many of us by now will have seen Kick-Ass, and if you haven’t, you should. A comic-book adaptation itself, its central character is a teenage boy who wonders why nobody has ever tried to dress up and fight crime like the superheroes they admire so much; seeing plenty of opportunities to protect and serve where the police can’t or don’t, he dons a bright green wetsuit and does exactly that. It’s a brilliant action-comedy, but it also raises plenty of questions about justice, apathy and vigilantism: in what will one day become a classic scene, Kick-Ass picks himself up from the ground after being beaten by a gang, looks around at the circle of people filming him and pants “Three assholes, laying into one guy while everybody else watches? And you wanna know what's wrong with me?”
That scene, for me, hits the nail on the head. Vigilantism, for me, is intrinsically wrong. Breaking the law in the name of preventing others from breaking the law – using the threat of violence to prevent violence – is not only paradoxical but risks reducing the perpetrators to the same level as the criminals they supposedly suppress; it’s impossible to claim any moral high ground. Moreover, it undermines the authorities who have been entrusted with responsibility for law and order and do work extremely hard to enforce it. Of course, it’s also extremely dangerous.
Still, it’s hard not to see where people like Jones are coming from. When citizens are surrounded and intimidated by crime everywhere they go, and the police are so overstretched and mismanaged that they can’t possibly deal with the number of incidents coming their way every day, it makes sense that individuals move in and attempt to fill the void in their own way. People who are genuinely angry enough will inevitably want to intervene. But beyond that, Kick-Ass summed it up nicely: when so many of us allow injustice and cruelty to carry on under our noses and do nothing to change it, do we really have the right to judge the odd person who does something about it?
I’d still maintain that vigilantism is born of a revenge instinct. Coming out of anger rather than respect for the rule of law, it’s understandable but never commendable- and unless you happen to have been bitten by a mutant spider, turned green and angry by radiation or sent to Earth from a dying planet called Krypton, it’s highly dangerous. But then, there’s a reason that Batman has been so successful in recent years relative to other superheroes, and I’d argue that it’s the fact that he has no actual powers. He may be intelligent and rich, but ultimately he’s an ordinary man who is moved to act against the huge crime problem his community faces – deep down, a lot of us can relate to that.
Well, apart from that time when he fought Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mean, Batman and Robin, honestly…
Friday, 26 November 2010
The Bubble Film: The Rise and Fall of John Landis and the 80s Cult Classic
Originally published (in an edited form!) on The Bubble Film, available here.
What do you think of when you think of film in the 1980s? Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, Top Gun? They’re all classics, of course. But the truth is that some of the most definitive and influential 80s movies didn’t bust quite as many blocks. There are, in fact, two directors without whom the 80s would not have been what they were. One was John Hughes, the late auteur of The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off among others, who perfectly summed up teenage life for a generation. The other, much less well-known today, was John Landis.
Landis might not be the most renowned compared to the Spielbergs and Burtons of Hollywood, but he comes with a pedigree of his own. After various minor jobs on films such as One Upon a Time in the West he was offered his first directing job for Universal, the supremely immature, bad taste and yet hilarious campus comedy National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978). From there began an impressive run of Hollywood success.
The 1980s were easily the peak of Landis’ career. The Blues Brothers (1980), which he co-wrote with Dan Aykroyd, features classic soul artists including Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles in acting roles in which they perform their own hits. It’s endlessly quotable: "It's 200 miles to Chicago; we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's night time, and we're wearing sunglasses.” “Hit it.” Part road movie, part buddy movie, part musical, it boasts a mixture of seemingly disparate elements held together by flawed but endearing characters- and Carrie Fisher trying to kill James Belushi by some of the most ridiculous means you’ve ever seen.
More than this, however, he redefined a genre with arguably his best film, comedy-horror An American Werewolf in London (1981), which boasted groundbreaking special effects- makeup impresario Rick Baker created some of his finest work in the transformation of David Naughton’s hapless tourist into a terrifying hound of hell. What often marks out Landis’ films is music: Landis’ sense of humour shines through. This particular soundtrack includes ‘Moondance’, ‘Blue Moon’, and ‘Bad Moon Rising’, which may raise a laugh with their all-too-appropriate titles but also fit perfectly in their context in the film. Gloriously bad geography aside (apparently you can pass out in the Yorkshire Dales and wake up in a London hospital), there are few films that have better exemplified the term “cult classic”. Just try to forget the fact that anyone made a sequel set in Paris: that’s frightening for all the wrong reasons.
There may have been misfires in the same period- you can probably guess from the title of Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) - but his star remained in the ascendancy with numerous more popular comedies throughout the decade. His impressive résumé as a director of adverts and TV continued to grow, American Werewolf having inspired Michael Jackson to hire him to write and direct the most famous music video ever, Thriller, in 1983. The 80s zeitgeist, however, eventually faded away, and so did Landis’ film career. The same is true of the kind of film which defined him.
Landis’ greatest films belong to that unique category of the cult classic. In this instance ‘cult’ doesn’t have to mean ‘low budget’- The Blues Brothers was the most expensive film Universal had ever made at the time- or even ‘unpopular’- though it could be argued that American Werewolf fits that profile better. It’s ultimately a title reserved for those slightly quirky, unconventional films which don’t perfectly fit into the mainstream of the industry. ‘Classic’, of course, is a matter of taste and the test of time, but I would argue that neither of these films has dated badly: they are clearly of their time, but not to an alienating extent. In fact, for modern audiences that’s part of their appeal. Many films popular at the time have since fallen into this category, such as John Hughes’ oeuvre, as times and the industry have changed.
That change has been demonstrated in the type of films being produced for the same market. Hughes’ teen comedies have been replaced with the gross-out humour of American Pie and Superbad, films which borrow more from Landis’ Animal House; but it’s hard to think of another film which occupies similar territory to The Blues Brothers and American Werewolf on the margins of the cinematic canon.
It may be this unique but limited success that Landis will hope to build on with his return to the big screen in Burke & Hare. For inspiration it takes the true story of the eponymous grave robbers in Victorian Edinburgh whose business is booming - until they start running out of fresh bodies to sell to the medical profession. Then they turn their hands to murder to meet demand. The production has been taken on by the new incarnation of Ealing Studios: its earlier form was responsible for The Ladykillers (1955) and Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), which Landis has always claimed as major influences (and significantly, both of which are comic expositions of murderers). The tone of Burke and Hare is intended to recapture the none-more-black humour of these films which also comes through in American Werewolf: the shocking things the protagonists do are always offset by snappy dialogue and an abiding affection which wants them to get away with it.
The impressive cast list should help him perfect this affection- Burke and Hare are played by Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis respectively (Serkis stepped in after David Tennant had to pull out), who must be among the most lovable actors Britain has produced. Hardly the Anthony Hopkins school of serial killers. The interesting thing is that although the subject matter is more reminiscent of American Werewolf, the endearing, hapless double act at the plot’s core ensures that the film plays more like The Blues Brothers, with moments of genuine farce into the bargain. See, for example, a scene where they break the back of a dead body to force it into a barrel and then roll, drop and chase it down the street until it crashes into a shop window. Perhaps this hybrid’s lack of success (gross to date is less than £2 million) is proof that the appetite for new films of this nature has faded; or maybe that the public objected to Isla Fisher’s Scottish (?) accent. Still the enduring appeal of its ancestors shows that there will always be a lasting nostalgia for the great 1980s cult classic- just so long as it isn’t Amazon Women on the Moon.
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