Russell Brand and Irritating Mediacracy

Russell Brand Shows His Irritation With Mediacracy

by Jonathan Cook  - ICH

 

'I don't trust politicians & corporations in this country' 

Brand is getting plenty of exposure in the British media at the moment as he plugs his new book, Revolution (and there’s no shame in that!).

It is worth noting the differences between the Brand who was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight last year and the Brand who now faces off with Paxman’s dull successor, Evan Davis (see the interview below), as well as the differences in the reception of the two interviews.

On my reading, the media’s patience with Brand is running out. He was supposed to entertain us with whacky political ideas above his station as he played the loveable, roguish clown. But over time Brand has honed his skills, especially on his show The Trews, and is increasingly resistant to being pushed down intellectual cul-de-sacs in these supposedly heavyweight interviews.

Equally he is seemingly finding it harder to hide his irritation at the constant trivialisation of the issues he raises. After all Newsnight is the most serious political affairs show on British TV. Whereas Brand kept his confrontation with Paxman largely friendly and humorous, here his impatience makes Davis look like the real buffoon. That’s not good TV, at least from the BBC’s perspective.

A nasty backlash is already brewing, with the liberal media – of course! – leading the assault. The Guardian has brought out its big guns over recent days: its main columnist Polly Toynbee, with Toynbee then recruiting John Lydon (of Sex Pistols fame), followed, most depressingly of all, by the usually astute comic Stewart Lee.

Now the Independent is rushing to get in on the act (see here and here). It trivialises Newsnight’s already trivial interview by focusing on anything but the serious issues Brand tried to address. This kind of subtle character assassination works – just look at the feedback comments below from readers.

After that, if you can stomach it, try the FT’s interview with Brand. This part of their exchange had me howling in mental anguish at the sheer obtuseness of Lucy Kellaway:

When I ask how lucrative [acting] is, he shrugs.

“It makes me scared if I think about money too much, then it makes me feel guilty. The only thing I tell the people who look after my money is, ‘Make sure my fucking taxes are 100 per cent legitimately paid,’ and then I do my own shit.”

But isn’t he against taxes? “Only as part of a mass movement, not as tax evasion,” he says.

When I ask how lucrative [acting] is, he shrugs.

 “It makes me scared if I think about money too much, then it makes me feel guilty. The only thing I tell the people who look after my money is, ‘Make sure my fucking taxes are 100 per cent legitimately paid,’ and then I do my own shit.”

But isn’t he against taxes? “Only as part of a mass movement, not as tax evasion,” he says.

It’s a funny line but one provoked by the refusal of our pundit-gatekeepers to move out of the intellectual playground that is supposedly the media “conversation”.

 

Brand’s critics are asking the wrong question

by Jonathan Cook

I am staying on the Brand theme a little longer.

As I mentioned yesterday, the liberal media backlash against Brand has begun in force. Below is a prime example of the vacuous responses to Brand that pose (and, sadly, are widely accepted) as sophisticated analysis. Sunny Hundal over at Liberal Conspiracy makes this preposterous criticism of Brand’s interview with Evan Davis on Newsnight I posted last night:

But Davis has a more profound question that Brand clearly doesn’t want to answer. My version of that question goes like this: If you want to replace the current system of capitalism with something else, who is going to make your jeans, iPhones and run Twitter?

Here, in a nutshell, is what the liberal’s concern amounts to: I am doing fine in the current system. I like my privileges. How can you promise me that in a fairer society I will not lose any of those privileges?

One has to credit Hundal for his honesty. When I speak of gatekeepers, this is exactly what I mean. If Brand wants to get a fair hearing in the media, he needs first to reassure people like Hundal that they will not lose their iPhones. If Brand doesn’t think such reassurances are a priority as we try to address climate meltdown and social collapse, he will be dismissed as a simpleton or court jester.

I have no doubt Brand can answer this question, as can I. But not in a way Hundal or anyone in his blinkered generation of coopted liberals could understand. That is why Brand is talking about a revolution: not in the facile sense of cutting off our rulers’ heads, but in consciousness – consciousness about who we are and where we live. In short, to drop our God-complexes and learn a little humility and humanity before it is too late. That revolution is coming whether we like it or not because our consciousnesses are going to be forced to understand the answers by far superior forces – those of the natural world. Mankind in a fist-fight with the planet is going to lose.

So I recommend to those like Hundal for whom the most pressing question right now is where their next iPhone is coming from to read the article below. It answers the question. It is long. It is thoughtful. It is sensitive. It is worldly, in the deepest sense of the word. And its sensibility most certainly can’t be expressed in soundbite interviews on our most serious TV shows, like Newsnight. And hardest of all, it is only an answer if you know what the real question is.

http://itsvivid.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/could-do-better-why-we-must-let-young-minds-free/

(h/t Media Lens)