(Glasgow, Scotland)
Early last month Chuck Norris wrote an article for conservative news website WorldNetDaily in which he mentioned the possibility of Texas seceding from the union and his readiness to be its first president in independence. How many votes would he obtain? The result would probably be a landslide, taking into account his popularity among extreme conservative, pro-Second Amendment, anti-abortionist and anti-gay marriage voters.
However, any other candidate with identical political views would be beaten not on policy but on the advantage of exposure and the influence of modern popular culture.
In 1981, former Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan was voted in as president in the US, and he kept his Alzheimer’s-ridden finger hovering over the nuclear button for two full terms. In 2003, another former Hollywood actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was voted in as Governor of California and the politically uncertain muscleman is currently serving his second full term in office.
These are two high-profile entertainment-politics crossovers, but there have been many more people in the history if the US who have used their popularity in film and television as a springboard into politics, from Helen Gahagan Douglas to Shirley Temple Black to Clint Eastwood. From the records it would appear as if screen exposure translated easily into votes, even if it does seem to be a little frivolous to vote in an entertainer residing in an ivory tower as a high-ranking public official.
This is one of the many interesting aspects of modern culture – the faces that entertain us are much more influential in our lives than the politicians who really do have a great deal of control over us, which of course makes it easier for people to cross the divide between the two supposedly separate fields. It is something not too dissimilar from preferring to watch soap operas than the news as an antidote to the working day.
On this side of the water we have seen another fascinating aspect of modern culture at work as the internet helped create another legend. The people voted with their clicks by making an anonymous Scottish woman more relevant to popular culture than Barack Obama’s inauguration speech. Obama was only voted in a few short months ago, but in this frantically-paced modern world we need and create heroes at a staggering rate, and Susan Boyle is our new hero.
Is it frivolous to prefer an audition from a talent show to the speech of a modern statesman? Perhaps, but it is also shows that popular culture is a manifestation of the freedom that the people feel is their inherent right – in spite of the politicians, we still choose who and what we want. And in this case, the people have their priorities exactly right – the little person in the flowery dress over the big person in the suit, the power of a beautiful voice over the banality of political rhetoric (however well-intentioned), the simplicity of the solo singer over the spin of the speech-writer.
I don’t care if Chuck Norris wins an election and becomes President, but I would love to see Susan Boyle win that talent show, not just because she deserves to but also in order to see the people exercise their right to choose their own heroes.
Friday, April 24, 2009
The camera never lies
(London, England)
Norfolk conjures up images of a traditional, rural lifestyle played out in small market towns, of a place unspoilt by the more pernicious aspects of the industrial revolution and certainly far removed from the post-industrial information holocaust. Here you can find Norwich, the greenest city in the UK and one of the most polite, or Sandringham, the beautiful royal estate set in 8,000 acres of stunning English countryside.
As it happens, Norwich has the highest number of internet users in the country, and shows itself to be a modern, cultured city. And nearby King’s Lynn also offers an ambiguous image, for this quiet rural haven was the first town in the country to have CCTV cameras installed, suggesting a population of thuggish ne’er-do-wells and an absence of law and order.
However, Norfolk is not alone in being tainted by the connotations of modern technology. Bournemouth, the sedate retirement town on the south coast and home to the Winter Gardens and The Royal Bath Hotel, suffered a similar fate in 1985 when it became the first town in the country to have these cameras installed on the streets, evoking images of wild lawlessness.
It is estimated that a generation later there are between four and five million public and private surveillance cameras (the government being by far the biggest operator), which in a population of approximately sixty million translates as one camera for every twelve to fifteen people. Not 12,000 to 15,000 or even 1,200 to 1,500 – one camera for every 12 to 15 people.
Norfolk is certainly a county which matches England’s view of itself and indeed for many years the view that the rest of the world had about the English – polite and calm, a fair-minded people with their emotions under control and a strong sense of right and wrong.
However, the visitor to the modern UK will surely be overwhelmed by a sense of panic on seeing the number of security cameras. And they are everywhere, on all forms of transport including taxis, all town centre buildings including shops and restaurants, and on every street corner be it city centre, urban outskirts or rural idyll. And now they are to be accompanied with Orwellian loudspeakers which utter anonymous, monotone instructions to the citizens as they go about their daily business.
How ironic, therefore, that those same cameras betrayed the forces of government oppression when they attempted to cover up their brutal murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. And how appropriate now that the people should use their camera-phones and video cameras to capture more examples of police brutality during the G20 protests, namely the manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson and the assault on another young woman.
However, perhaps the greatest irony of all is the fact that the conservative population of middle England – whose representatives in blue have been found out in such an unequivocal way – will eventually suffer the consequences of ‘getting what they wished for’. An unsurprisingly high number of English people are in favour of the presence of constant surveillance to back up the popular ASBO court orders – it is part of the typically English desire to control every last movement of their neighbours and to be able to have that all-important last word by proving that their neighbours are indeed indulging in such anti-social behaviour as not putting their bins out in the correct way or parking on the kerb.
Having loudspeakers tell people what to do is the ultimate asexual fantasy of those who lurk behind net curtains and in the corner of bay windows, squinting at those awful people from across the road (or indeed across the seas). Barked orders and short, sharp shocks is what middle Englanders have always threatened to impose if they were ever made Prime Minister.
I have every sympathy for that young woman in London and for the family of Ian Tomlinson, people who tried to exercise the supposedly traditional English rights of free speech and freedom of movement but who became victims of the age-old English desire to oppress. I have no sympathy whatsoever for the conservative middle class who are hanging themselves with the electrical cables of their own CCTV.
Norfolk conjures up images of a traditional, rural lifestyle played out in small market towns, of a place unspoilt by the more pernicious aspects of the industrial revolution and certainly far removed from the post-industrial information holocaust. Here you can find Norwich, the greenest city in the UK and one of the most polite, or Sandringham, the beautiful royal estate set in 8,000 acres of stunning English countryside.
As it happens, Norwich has the highest number of internet users in the country, and shows itself to be a modern, cultured city. And nearby King’s Lynn also offers an ambiguous image, for this quiet rural haven was the first town in the country to have CCTV cameras installed, suggesting a population of thuggish ne’er-do-wells and an absence of law and order.
However, Norfolk is not alone in being tainted by the connotations of modern technology. Bournemouth, the sedate retirement town on the south coast and home to the Winter Gardens and The Royal Bath Hotel, suffered a similar fate in 1985 when it became the first town in the country to have these cameras installed on the streets, evoking images of wild lawlessness.
It is estimated that a generation later there are between four and five million public and private surveillance cameras (the government being by far the biggest operator), which in a population of approximately sixty million translates as one camera for every twelve to fifteen people. Not 12,000 to 15,000 or even 1,200 to 1,500 – one camera for every 12 to 15 people.
Norfolk is certainly a county which matches England’s view of itself and indeed for many years the view that the rest of the world had about the English – polite and calm, a fair-minded people with their emotions under control and a strong sense of right and wrong.
However, the visitor to the modern UK will surely be overwhelmed by a sense of panic on seeing the number of security cameras. And they are everywhere, on all forms of transport including taxis, all town centre buildings including shops and restaurants, and on every street corner be it city centre, urban outskirts or rural idyll. And now they are to be accompanied with Orwellian loudspeakers which utter anonymous, monotone instructions to the citizens as they go about their daily business.
How ironic, therefore, that those same cameras betrayed the forces of government oppression when they attempted to cover up their brutal murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. And how appropriate now that the people should use their camera-phones and video cameras to capture more examples of police brutality during the G20 protests, namely the manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson and the assault on another young woman.
However, perhaps the greatest irony of all is the fact that the conservative population of middle England – whose representatives in blue have been found out in such an unequivocal way – will eventually suffer the consequences of ‘getting what they wished for’. An unsurprisingly high number of English people are in favour of the presence of constant surveillance to back up the popular ASBO court orders – it is part of the typically English desire to control every last movement of their neighbours and to be able to have that all-important last word by proving that their neighbours are indeed indulging in such anti-social behaviour as not putting their bins out in the correct way or parking on the kerb.
Having loudspeakers tell people what to do is the ultimate asexual fantasy of those who lurk behind net curtains and in the corner of bay windows, squinting at those awful people from across the road (or indeed across the seas). Barked orders and short, sharp shocks is what middle Englanders have always threatened to impose if they were ever made Prime Minister.
I have every sympathy for that young woman in London and for the family of Ian Tomlinson, people who tried to exercise the supposedly traditional English rights of free speech and freedom of movement but who became victims of the age-old English desire to oppress. I have no sympathy whatsoever for the conservative middle class who are hanging themselves with the electrical cables of their own CCTV.
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