Rich Man Joins Social Network! Fails to Engage the Lower Classes!

As of about 8.15am, on Wednesday 20h March 2013, Gideon 'George' Osbourne joined the quagmire of nonsense that is Twitter. Not that anyone will really care after about 5 minutes of realising and once they've sent one tweet expressing their opinion of him. His first foray into the muddy waters was a brief, not overly insightful and rather self-indulgent:

'Today I'll present a Budget that tackles the economy's problems head on helping those who want to work hard & get on'

It was made worse by the use of this picture as an accompaniment:

                                       
I won't spend any time attempting to present some form of analysis of the picture, how it's structured or what it says about Gideon's PR people. I'll just settle for stating the obvious; it's clearly faked as no one can actually write with a suitcase on their desk. He's also holding his pen next to a typed section - with no sign of wet ink in sight - but I'm going to leave the analysis to the experts/ obsessives/ people who have nothing better to do than write sprawling blog entries about politicians vague attempts to engage with the public.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of the decision taken by Gideon's team to introduce him to Twitter, or what effect they think it'll have on his non-existent popularity. If anything it'll just give people an easy avenue through which they can vent their fury at the 'verified' account of one of the many incompetent people charged with the job of running the country.

Not that Gideon's team would ever let him actually look at the replies for fear of him feeling bullied and wondering 'why the peasants don't like what I'm doing'.

So as to not disregard all analysis, I should point out that what I can skim from the phrasing of this introduction, notably the reference to 'work hard and get on' aside from opening up possibilities for cheap innuendo, is that it's a phrase which will please the right-wing press as it'll mean they can say 'OSBOURNE ATTACKS BENEFIT SCROUNGERS IN BUDGET'. This is somewhat ironic given the stereotypical demographic of such newspapers.

I am also glad that he is hoping to present a budget which will 'tackle the economy's problems' as if there was another option; 'a budget which won't really help anyone except those who are too rich to care, like me'.  It is after all, the job of the Government to make sure that things don't go all Greek over here. Or Spanish, Portuguese, Icelandic...

Ultimately though, I do rather wish that politicians would spend less time attempting to interact with people via social networks and spend more time getting on with the job which they are paid to do. A shocking and controversial opinion I know. If this latest foray into the 21st Century is being thought of as an attempt to 'digitalise' those in power and 'engage with the big web of chatter' that is the internet. Then I must once again ask you this; do you really think that anyone who doesn't already follow the news either online, television, radio or print will somehow be introduced to Gideon now that he's come down to their level? I doubt it.

I like to have some insight and analysis with my news, and I don't always like it to come straight from the horses mouth, as by the time it's reached it there have already been numerous meetings to finalise each and every syllable which he will then say to the press such that it needs an interpreter to actually work out what was 'not' being said. There's going to be hundreds of blogs about Gideon, Twitter and the Budget today.

Isn't the internet fun.

In Defense of Utopia, or why reality hurts

                         

I've always been queasy about eyes, this only compounded the horror

I got into a discussion this morning, via Twitter, with one-man comedy band Mitch Benn. It began after I responded to his query about continuing with Channel 4's Utopia beyond the first two episodes, because of the unrelenting cruelty implied, if not actually portrayed, on screen. Although this discussion was more about the actual merits of the show (story, characters etc) rather than simply about the violence, it feels impossible to separate the two.

Utopia is one of the darkest, and most disturbing tv shows to be made in Britain in a long while, it is also incredibly violent - but more in the vein of Funny Games rather than Saw. There is nothing remotely entertaining about the violence depicted in the show, and it really does hurt. The most shocking aspect of this being the violence towards/ in front of, children. An issue which, itself, is deeply unsettling. Irrelevant of context or timing.

I don't want to give anything away about Utopia as the less you know the better, and the most controversial scenes have been well-documented elsewhere. There has been a handful of complaints to Ofcom about the show's use of violent imagery, and whether or not it is appropriate in light of recent events (although that doesn't seem to me to be a strong enough argument - 'it would be ok, if it didn't remind us of real stuff'). Needless to say, Utopia is violent in such a way as to haunt the viewers. Neil Maskell is genuinely terrifying, but there is more to his character than meets the eye. I won't say any more, what with spoilers and all.

The news that there had been complaints about the violence in the show didn't surprise me. But then again, I don't think that the complaints were necessarily justified. Here's why: at no point, not for one single moment, does Utopia attempt to make the violence anything other than horrific. It uses it for narrative, and isn't gratuitous.

Another show currently being shown on Channel 4, an hour earlier than Utopia (10pm, Tuesday) and on a Saturday evening (when younger viewers are more likely to see it) is the latest epic adaptation of an equally 'epic' novel by Ken Follet; World Without End. A show which has it's roots in history, it's definitively more of a piece of slock entertainment. In the vein of shows such as HBO's Game of Thrones (more of which in a minute) W.W.E is just as violent as Utopia and is more explicit.

Over four hours (or three episodes) there have been brutal fights, hangings, mutilations, disembowelments, rape, gratuitous (female) nudity and a docker's load of contemporary cussing. Episode Three saw a young girl raped before one of her attackers was partially hung before being disemboweled. We saw the lot, guts and everything. As far as I am aware, there have been no complaints about this show. Despite it's use of violence as entertainment, historical context or not.

Game of Thrones is equally gratuitous, sweary, and full of more female nudity than the American Pie movies. It revels in all forms of violence and has no shame in showing a daughter be forced to watch her father get beheaded, and then forced to look at his head on a pole. There was also one scene in the second series, which implied a grotesque act of sexual violence by one prostitute against another under the duress of the vile King Joffrey. Again though, this was accompanied by some nice nudity beforehand.

Oh, and there was a horse having it's throat slit open so as to resurrect somebody.

The reason why GoT, W.W.E and much more of their ilk don't ignite such outrage is that they don't hurt. Yes, there isn't any violence against children or at least, none that we actually see, but there is a thoroughly misogynistic trait that runs through both. Particularly through the sexual violence portrayed.

The film adaptation (Original Swedish - haven't seen the American Version) of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo features horrific sexual violence, but at no point is it made too explicit, with the camera turning away at the worst moments but equally it is made to feel all too real. This is what makes us feel such a deep sense of discomfort when we watch it.

Now, I'm all for gratuitous violence, I enjoyed the heck out of Django Unchained and have a real affection for the ultra-violence of most of Tarantino's work (excluding Kill Bill and Death Proof). In Django there is a distinct contrast between the comedic violence of slave-owners getting their head's shot to pieces, and the horrendous treatment of slaves. The film contrasts both of these distinct forms of violence, and whilst it doesn't make any great political point, it doesn't revel in the forced cruelty.

Utopia was never going to be for everyone, and it may be that you found it disengaging. But, and this is an important but, as a show, Utopia is discreet in its use of violence. We see people going to do horrible things, we see indications of the consequences and worst of all we hear these things being done. At no point though, do we feel encouraged to enjoy the violence. Even an act of retribution is made to seem as horrible, despite how people might think they should feel.

Every time there is a violent act in a normally non-violent community we hear about how we are being 'desensitised to violence' and how 'accurate portrayals of violence are making it appealing'. When death and murder is accurately portrayed, it is anything but appealing. Yes, World Without End is set in a time when violent public executions were justified as a deterrent  (and still are in certain parts of the world) as well as entertainment (character at the end of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves 'I loves a good hanging, I does'),  but then did the last 600 years not happen?

Ok, so perhaps that was a little over the top. However, I still can't escape the feeling that maybe, just maybe there is something of a hypocrisy in a television audience who are fine with rape, beheading, disembowelling  etc but consider the implied murder of a child a step too far.

It's certainly not a straightforward issue, but at least Utopia showed the violence for what it is, rather than over-exaggerating it to distance it enough so that we feel comfortable in finding it entertaining.

'Violence begets violence and it's all horrible' - Mark Kermode, on the message of Wes Craven's 'The Last House on the Left'