I’ve really tried not to say anything about the recent re-branding of a certain verbose celebrity hair-raiser. But I’m sorry, I can’t help it, Brand new revolutionary rhetoric is everywhere and it’s stirring something that makes me feel conflicted, like I might be betraying myself or the sisterhood or something.
He was
right, what he said about social injustice and the disenfranchisement of anyone
outside of the spam-head political classes. That’s all true, and the way he
said it, it has a charm: the multisyllabic clackety clack of that Essex jaw,
has a certain je ne sais pourquoi vous utilisez tous ces grands mots quand un
‘bonmot’ ferait le travail, mais vous aller, Monsieur. Is he casually sexist?
Yes. And what follows is not an apologist ‘but I like him anyway’ whine, so if
it feels that way please stick with it, until it doesn’t.
We don’t
get to pick our heroes. They choose themselves first, and thrust themselves into
greatness (with all of their inadequacies) by being brave or arrogant enough to
stick their coiffed heads above the parapet.
Am I
surprised and appalled that a man of the media said something sexist as a flippant
joke? You’re having a laugh aren’t you? Sexism is endemic in our culture; it is
simply part of the fabric of life: like tea drinking, and oppression of the
poor. Spend ten minutes on the @EverydaySexism feed if you need further
convincing. Do I think that’s ok? Of. Course. Not.
But, we’ve
got to stop reducing everything to a Hollywood binary of goodies or baddies, or
we’re never going to get anywhere. It’s pretty tricky to march on the
opposition when you’ve shot yourself in the foot, twice.
People do
good things, and people do bad things, most of us dabble in both. Welcome to
the complexity of human endeavor. We need to get used to this so we don’t throw
out the baby with the bathwater – or the revolution with the personal
transgressions. It is possible for someone to do something great, like, found
Wikileaks, and also be accused of forcing non-consensual sex. Does that make
him any less heroic for taking the risks he did to expose one of the world’s
superpowers? No, I don’t think it does. Does it also make him (if the
accusations are proven) an abusive shit? I think so, yes, but for some people
it just makes him a ‘player’. And come the revolution, it’s that mentality I
want up against the wall.
Russell
Brand demeans women with cheap gags because he can, because he is rewarded for
doing so. Contract after contract, column inch after column inch, because our
culture thinks it’s ok for women to be objectified. So who is he, a mere dandy,
to oppose time held tradition? Except that’s what he was on Newsnight to do,
right? Oppose the order of things? That’s what his guest editorship is about,
surely? A call to arms, a time for change, enough is enough…
Russell,
babe, I couldn’t agree more.
1 in 3
women will be raped in her lifetime. 85,000 women reported rape in the UK last
year. The rapists I know of have never been reported on. Oh, we all know
rapists. Let’s get used to that idea as well. If 1 in 5 women (aged
16 - 59) in the UK have reported experiencing some form of sexual violence
since the age of 16 it follows that there are enough abusers to go round. Like
I said, fabric of society, like the banks and honest coppers on every corner.
So I
suppose what I’m saying is this. If we’re going to have a revolution, can we
start again on an equal playing field?
And in the
meantime let’s drop the ‘oh well, that would’ve been nice but he’s not perfect
(despite the self-styled Messiah complex) we best ignore everything he says’. Make like magpies people, take the shiny-shiny
and leave the congealing old shit for the likes of UKIP to feather their nests
with. Reward the good behavior: yes Russell, social change: good idea.
And educate
on the bad stuff: because of an attractive woman Russell? That wasn’t very
funny, call yourself a comedian? In fact, come to think of it chevalier, it’s
pretty fucking ironic – there you are, doing your best schpiel on oppression of
the powerless and you’ve kicked the whole thing off with a joke to the
detriment of – HANG ON A MINUTE. Could that be the pungent tang of irony I detect? Sharp on the nose, but a
complex floral bouquet wafting about in the background. Could you have been
playing up to your own well-documented relationship with sex, and the expected
perception of you – to ‘make like capitalism’ and absorb the expected criticism
before it becomes a real threat. Huh. To answer the inevitable question ‘what
are you, Clown, doing speaking of serious things?’ before they’d even asked it.
Ok, that might be a bit funny, clever, even. I note the BBC saw fit to caption
him ‘Russell Brand – Comedian’ and not ‘Russell Brand – Guest Editor of the New
Statesmen’ when that was the capacity within which he was being interviewed.
Am I giving
him too much credit? Very probably.
Does it
matter? If we’re going to have a revolution, we need symbols, icons, something
to attach the ideas to - and here we have a presumptuous court jester reeled
out to speak of kings and things on a national platform. Someone who stands on
the outside of the current system – he doesn’t even vote – but looks in from
under his coxcomb and allows the rest of us to see the madness in our method.
This is not altogether fool, my lord.
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