Where are the reds?
I think I’ve mentioned before that I like Will & Grace for its charmingly archaic notion of the bohemian: gay men, Jews, and rich junkies. But of course there’s something missing from this otherwise pleasingly 1930s picture: where are the communists? I wonder what form of political action would best put pressure on NBC to ensure the introduction of a humorously and inoffensively stereotypical commie in the next season?
In other news, I have a song on my computer by Fefe Dobson, who appears to be the black, goth Avril, and as good as that sounds. I haven’t really interrogated why I’m so well-disposed to this recent trend in pop-soft-rock. I mean, objectively, Fefe Dobson sounds a great deal like the fucking Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but somehow recontextualizing that within a pop context sounds great. I wonder where I got the MP3 from? I suspect Dirrrty Pop should take the credit. It’s a great blog, anyway, recently combining Girls Aloud and the Spice Girls with questionable readings of Nietzsche.
Channel 4 launches TV’s first interactive drama
Wow, how futuristic. And only 17 years after Children’s BBC did it, too.
Call for papers
Is the purpose of US television news solely to induce a state of abject terror? It certainly looked like it the other day. Hurricanes, exploding manhole covers, black people shooting one another: the whole natural world is attacking Americans! I was also watching an amazing documentary about Fidel Castro on PBS. It turns out he was marked for evil from an early age.
Which brings me to the new Thesis You Should Write. Prison Break (torrents) is an odd program. It’s structured at all points to be as reassuring as possible: at one point, a flashback was inserted _in the middle of a speech_ so that the flashback ended with the character saying a line he then immediately repeated in the present day. As Geo pointed out, the contemporary practice of revealing the plot in the ‘next week on…’ section of the show likewise has the effect of avoiding any possible uncertainty; the cliffhanger has been replaced with the teaser so that you know what you are getting and will be comforted when it arrives. But _at the same time_ as being Foucauldian in it’s form, its content is also as Foucauldian as fuck: the main character _has tattooed a map of the prison on to himself_.
“So I phoned up Nasa and said, ‘We want to put Mick Jagger on a rocket’”
There was a terrible programme on the BBC yesterday about Live Aid; terrible in an instructive way, quite apart from being absurdly long. You might have imagined in advance that hearing about how such an enormous event was organised would be at least somewhat interesting. But no — except for the Spinal Tap style plan to have Bowie and Jagger do a duet from two different rockets. The talking heads had clearly been coached to make sure any trace of interest had been expunged, and what we got was a programme which explained that organising Live Aid was exactly like organising any other event. Probably a bit more interesting than organising a party, a bit less interesting than organising a trip.
Also, are George Orwell and Freddie Mercury related? I think we should be told.
Big Brother
I don’t think I’ve seen the Big Brother psychologists since the first series; did they not, back then, make at least some pretense at professionalism? Well, those days are long gone, it seems.
God, Craig is a whiny bitch, isn’t he? A useful illustration of bad faith. I like that Sam appears to be bored all the time. Is Science a 5%-er? Saskia is quite charming, I think; she shows great poise in dealing with the attacks of the arsehole faction (Craig, Derrek, Roberto), and in politely shrugging off Maxwell’s over-affectionate behaviour (though I did like his attempt to pay her a compliment: “for a bird with such a small head, she’s got a very pretty face”). She also looks great dressed as a pirate.
Meanwhile, more Big Brother news from San Francisco.
And it started so well
Opening with The Faders is obviously a good thing, shame the adaptation of Julie Burchill’s Sugar Rush kind of got worse from there. Well, that’s not entirely fair. It did have all the ticks of annoying Channel 4 dramas (I guess it saves having to pay a composer, but soundtracking TV shows entirely from pop music collapses the emotional palette of a programme to familiar cliches), but parts of the underlying structure were interesting, I thought. It’s good to be reminded that my affection for Julie Burchill isn’t just Cornishness, but is based on her having real talent which she does, ocassionally, display. Her hope that the show would outrage middle-England does seem charmingly naive, but I suspect she had intended the programme to be shown in the As If/Hollyoaks slot, where it might have been a little more controversial (it was, in fact, made by the same people as As If). Still, ten episodes? Checking Amazon, that works out at one episode for every 25 pages of the book; seems a little unnecessary.
Hyperreality TV
I was watching Miss Universe on TV the other day, which featured a minute’s silence for victims of the Tsunami in Asia. The network took this to be an opportunity for an ad break. Incredible.
Anyway, I hope a British TV channel picks up Britney and Kevin: Chaotic. It’s a great example of why I like Britney Spears, making it clearer than ever that she’s an entirely virtual entity. By adopting the tropes of the most invasive reality TV (rambling personal conversation complete with uncomfortable pauses, Big Brother style; point-of-view camera shots) and even going beyond that (green night-vision video, a la the Paris Hilton sex tapes), while at the same time being manifestly scripted and ruthlessly edited, the show is a precise articulation of the idea that the ‘reality’ disclosed is simply nothing; that before socialisation and articulation (ie, before ideology), _all there is_ is a void. The fact that, in this instance, its a lovely Britney-shaped void, of course, is no bad thing either.
What the hell has happened to Matthew Collings?
He appears to have aged about 20 years. Looking for those pictures, I came across what looks to be an interesting interview with him.
Talking of crazy appearences, I hadn’t realised that Foucault looked so much like Grant Morrison. I do know a bald anarchist called Micheal who looks almost exactly like Foucault, which I do find a little disturbing.
The leftist BBC
Scheduling Boys don’t cry and Mulan on consecutive days. Coincidence, or pro-transvestite propoganda?
For old times’ sake
That really is Suggs on that ‘Full house’ women’s magazine advert, isn’t it? You know, if his crack habit is really that severe, I’m sure I’m not the only one who would have chipped in a few quid.