Whiteface Clowns Like Pierrot and Columbine... that’s a whole other deal.
The Heath Ledger Joker and Jaquin Phoenix Joker are actually the iterations of The Joker to wear Whiteface; when Lt. Commander Data is accidentally transported to 19th Century San Francisco, he is mistaken for a Frenchman in pyjamas — because everyone thinks he is wearing whiteface.
It’s actually impossible to BE a WhiteFaced clown, as the origins Renaissance-Shakespearean meaning of ‘clown’ meant ‘rustic; unsophisticated, rude, rough-mannered and un-courtly peasant..... with a tan.’ Having a tan or having sun-damaged skin meant you worked in The Fields; when French Petty-nobility began paling-up their skin, it was intended to serve as a signal and convey the message that
“I am more sophisticated than you. (Peasant.)”
so keep that in mind when Artie Fleck paints his face.
clown (n.)
1560s, clowne, also cloyne, "man of rustic or coarse manners, boor, peasant," a word of obscure origin; the original form and pronunciation are uncertain. Perhaps it is from Scandinavian dialect (compare Icelandic klunni "clumsy, boorish fellow;" Swedish kluns "a hard knob; a clumsy fellow," Danish klunt "log, block"), or from Low German (compare North Frisian klönne "clumsy person," Dutch kloen). OED describes it as "a word meaning originally 'clod, clot, lump', which like those words themselves ..., has been applied in various langs. to a clumsy boor, a lout."
The theory that it is from Latin colonus "colonist, farmer" is less likely, but awareness of the Latin word might have influenced the sense development in English.
Meaning "professional fool, professional or habitual jester" is c. 1600. "The pantomime clown represents a blend of the Shakes[pearean] rustic with one of the stock types of the It[alian] comedy" [Weekley]. Meaning "contemptible person" is from 1920s. Fem. form clowness attested from 1801.
clown (v.)
c. 1600, "to play the clown onstage," from clown (n.); colloquial sense of "to behave inappropriately" (as in clown around, 1932) is attested by 1928, perhaps from the theatrical slang sense of "play a (non-comical) part farcically or comically" (1891). Related: Clowned; clowning.
People with Borderline Personalities tend to project their own emotional needs onto other people.
And then feel incredibly betrayed when the people near to them fail to behave accordingly.
It’s actually, now I come to think about it, very similar to a royal character on a playing card —
It’s not Narcissism exactly, in fact it can be understood perhaps better as being the functional opposite of Narcissism.
The Narcissist looks to see echoes and reverberations of themselves in both their surroundings and derive value, meaning and significance from the degree of resonance that they find;
A Borderline Personality however, projects the fulfillment of their own lack and need onto other people, and then chases around after them (in every sense), hoping to obtain some tiny meaningful morsel as a treat, which they can overinflate into a banquet of human connection - all of it totally (or largely) illusory and inauthentic in some completely subjective and non-self aware distortion of reality.
This is going to be about That.
Then again, maybe I am just projecting.
Rupert Pupkin:
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Let me introduce myself.
My name is Rupert Pupkin.
I was born in Clifton, New Jersey... which was not at that time a federal offence.
Is there anyone here from Clifton?
Oh, good. We can all relax now.
I'd like to begin by saying... my parents were too poor to afford me a childhood.
But the fact is that... no one is allowed to be too poor in Clifton.
Once you fall below a certain level... they exile you to Passaic.
My parents did put the first two down payments on my childhood.
Don't get me wrong, but they did also return me to the hospital as defective.
But, like everyone else I grew up in large part thanks to my mother.
If she were only here today... I'd say,
"Hey, ma, what are you doing here? You've been dead for nine years!"
But seriously, you should've seen my mother. She was wonderful.
Blonde, beautiful, intelligent, alcoholic.
We used to drink milk together after school.
Mine was homogenized. Hers was loaded.
Once they picked her up for speeding.
They clocked her doing 55.
All right, but in our garage?
And when they tested her...
they found out that her alcohol had 2% blood.
Ah, but we used to joke together, mom and me...
until the tears would stroll down her face...
and she would throw up!
Yeah, and who would clean it up? Not dad.
He was too busy down at O'Grady's... throwing up on his own.
Yeah. In fact, until I was 13 I thought throwing up was a sign of maturity.
While the other kids were off in the woods sneaking cigarettes... I was hiding behind the house with my fingers down my throat.
The only problem was I never got anywhere... until one day my father caught me.
Just as he was giving me a final kick in the stomach for luck... I managed to heave all over his new shoes!
"That's it", I thought. "I've made it. I'm finally a man!"
But as it turned out, I was wrong.
That was the only attention my father ever gave me.
Yeah, he was usually too busy out in the park playing ball with my sister Rose.
But today, I must say thanks to those many hours of practice my sister Rose has grown into a fine man.
Me, I wasn't especially interested in athletics.
The only exercise I ever got was when the other kids picked on me.
Yeah, they used to beat me up once a week... usually Tuesday.
And after a while the school worked it into the curriculum.
And if you knocked me out, you got extra credit.
There was this one kid, poor kid... he was afraid of me.
I used to tell him...
"Hit me, hit me. What's the matter with you?
Don't you want to graduate?"
Hey, I was the youngest kid in the history of the school to graduate in traction.
But, you know, my only real interest right from the beginning, was show business.
Even as a young man, I began at the very top collecting autographs.
Now, a lot of you are probably wondering... why Jerry isn't with us tonight.
Well, I'll tell you. The fact is he's tied up. I'm the one who tied him.
Well, I know you think I'm joking... but, believe me, that's the only way...
I could break into show business... by hijacking Jerry Langford.
Right now, Jerry is strapped to a chair... somewhere in the middle of the city.
Go ahead, laugh.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
But the fact is, I'm here.
Now, tomorrow you'll know I wasn't kidding...
and you'll think I was crazy.
But, look, I figure it this way.
Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You know, Sweets, I like what I've heard about you,
especially the name.
‘Harley Quinzelle.’
Rework it a bit, and you get ‘Harley Quinn.’
Like the clown character Harlequin.
I know.
I've heard it before.
It's a name that puts a smile on my face.
It makes me feel there's someone here I can relate to.
Someone who might like to hear my secrets.
It took me nearly three months to set up a session.
I studied all his tricks and gimmicks, and felt I was ready for anything.
You know, my father used to beat me up pretty badly.
Anything except that.
Every time I got out of line:
Oh, sometimes I'd be just sitting there, doing nothing.
Pops tended to favor the grape, you see.
There was only one time I ever saw Dad really happy.
He took me to the circus when I was 7.
Oh, I still remember clowns running around, dropping their pants.
My old man laughed so hard, I thought he'd bust a gut.
So the next night, I ran out to meet him with his Sunday pants around my ankles.
"Hi, Dad. Look at me."
I took a big pratfall and tore the crotch clean out of his pants.
And then he broke my nose.
But, hey, that's the downside of Comedy.
You're always taking shots from folks who just don't get The Joke.
Like My Dad.
Or Batman.
Harley :
Yeah, yeah, I can tell you're less than thrilled.
You know, for what it's worth, I actually enjoyed some of our romps.
But there comes a time when a gal wants more.
And now all this gal wants is to settle down with her loving sweetheart.
The Batman :
You and the Joker?
Harley :
Right-a-roony.
HA-HA! HA-HA! HA-HA!
Harley :
I've never seen you laugh before.
I don't think I like it.
Cut it out.
You're giving me the creeps.
The Batman :
You little fool.
The Joker doesn't love anything except himself.
Wake up, Harlene.
He had you pegged for hired help the minute you walked into Arkham.
Harley :
That's not — No.
No! He told me things, secret things, he never told anyone.
The Batman :
Was it his line about the abusive father?
Or the one about the runaway mom?
He's gained a lot of sympathy with that one.
Harley :
Stop it! You're making me confused!
The Batman :
What was it he told that one parole officer?
Oh, yes.
"There was only one time I ever saw Dad really happy.
He took me to the ice show when I was 7."
Harley :
Circus.
He said it was The Circus.
The Batman :
He's got a million of them, Harley.
Harley :
You're wrong.
My Pudding does love me! He does!
You're The Problem.
And now you're gonna die and make everything right.
"Equality" is reprinted from The Spectator, vol. CLXXI (27 August 1943), p. 192
I am a democrat (1) because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're not true. Whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. I find that they're not true without looking further than myself. I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people — all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumors. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.
This introduces a view of equality rather different from that in which we have been trained. I do not think that equality is one of those things (like wisdom or happiness) which are good simply in themselves and for their own sakes. I think it is in the same class as medicine, which is good because we are ill, or clothes which are good because we are no longer innocent. I don't think the old authority in kings, priests, husbands, or fathers, and the old obedience in subjects, laymen, wives, and sons, was in itself a degrading or evil thing at all. I think it was intrinsically as good and beautiful as the nakedness of Adam and Eve. It was rightly taken away because men became bad and abused it. To attempt to restore it now would be the same error as that of the Nudists. Legal and economic equality are absolutely necessary remedies for the Fall, and protection against cruelty.
But medicine is not good. There is no spiritual sustenance in flat equality. It is a dim recognition of this fact which makes much of our political propaganda sound so thin. We are trying to be enraptured by something which is merely the negative condition of the good life. That is why the imagination of people is so easily captured by appeals to the craving for inequality, whether in a romantic form of films about loyal courtiers or in the brutal form of Nazi ideology. The tempter always works on some real weakness in our own system of values -- offers food to some need which we have starved.
When equality is treated not as a medicine or a safety-gadget, but as an ideal, we begin to breed that stunted and envious sort of mind which hates all superiority.
That mind is the special disease of democracy, as cruelty and servility are the special diseases of privileged societies. It will kill us all if it grows unchecked.
The man who cannot conceive a joyful and loyal obedience on the one hand, nor an unembarrassed and noble acceptance of that obedience on the other - the man who has never even wanted to kneel or to bow - is a prosaic barbarian.
But it would be wicked folly to restore these old inequalities on the legal or external plane. Their proper place is elsewhere.
We must wear clothes since the Fall. Yes, but inside, under what Milton called "these troublesome disguises" (2). We want the naked body, that is, the real body, to be alive. We want it, on proper occasions, to appear -- in the marriage-chamber, in the public privacy of a men's bathing-place, and (of course) when any medical or other emergency demands. In the same way, under the necessary outer covering of legal equality, the whole hierarchical dance and harmony of our deep and joyously accepted spiritual inequalities should be alive. It is there, of course, in our life as Christians -- there, as laymen, we can obey – all the more because the priest has no authority over us on the political level. It is there in our relation to parents and teachers – all the more because it is now a willed and wholly spiritual reverence. It should be there also in marriage.
This last point needs a little plain speaking. Men have so horribly abused their power over women in the past that to wives, of all people, equality is in danger of appearing as an ideal.
But Mrs. Naomi Mitchison has laid her finger on the real point.
Have as much equality as you please – the more the better – in our marriage laws, but at some level consent to inequality, nay, delight in inequality, is an erotic necessity.
Mrs. Mitchison speaks of women so fostered on a defiant idea of equality that the mere sensation of the male embrace rouses an undercurrent of resentment. Marriages are thus shipwrecked (3). This is the tragi-comedy of the modem woman -- taught by Freud to consider the act of love the most important thing in life, and then inhibited by feminism from that internal surrender which alone can make it a complete emotional success. Merely for the sake of her own erotic pleasure, to go no further, some degree of obedience and humility seems to be (normally) necessary on the woman's part.
The error here has been to assimilate all forms of affection to that special form we call friendship. It indeed does imply equality. But it is quite different from the various loves within the same household. Friends are not primarily absorbed in each other. It is when we are doing things together that friendship springs up – painting, sailing ships, praying, philosophizing, fighting shoulder to shoulder. Friends look in the same direction. Lovers look at each other -- that is, in opposite directions. To transfer bodily all that belongs to one relationship into the other is blundering.
We Britons should rejoice that we have contrived to reach much legal democracy (we still need more of the economic) without losing our ceremonial Monarchy. For there, right in the midst of our lives, is that which satisfies the craving for inequality, and acts as a permanent reminder that medicine is not food. Hence a man's reaction to Monarchy is a kind of test. Monarchy can easily be "debunked", but watch the faces, mark well the accents of the debunkers. These are the men whose taproot in Eden has been cut -- whom no rumor of the polyphony, the dance, can reach – men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead -- even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served -- deny it food and it will gobble poison.
That is why this whole question is of practical importance. Every intrusion of the spirit that says, "I'm as good as you" into our personal and spiritual life is to be resisted just as jealously as every intrusion of bureaucracy or privilege into our politics. Hierarchy within can alone preserve egalitarianism without. Romantic attacks on democracy will come again. We shall never be safe unless we already understand in our hearts all that the anti-democrats can say, and have provided for it better than they. Human nature will not permanently endure flat equality if it is extended from its proper political field into the more real, more concrete fields within. Let us wear equality; but let us undress every night.
(1) C.S. Lewis lived and wrote in England. Hence, his reference to "being a Democrat" had nothing to do with our (USA) "Democratic Party".
(2) John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), Book IV, line 740. 18
(3) Naomi Mitchison, The Home and a Changing Civilization (London, 1934), Chapter I, pp. 49-50.
"Matt, Danny, we have this opportunity to do this thing at FOX. Will you help us out?"
That's how a Man talks.
Do you care that we didn't do a very good show tonight?
CAL Excuse me. Sorry about the timing.
MATT What happened?
CAL It was my fault.
MATT What happened?!
CAL It was my fault.
MATT I'm about to go to a party where 17 people will ask me what happened.
CAL Tell them it was my fault.
MATT I can't blame other people for the same reason you can't blame other people so I need to blame him. What happened?
CAL Ricky and Ron didn't switch the format back to 40-second page.
MATT Why didn't you say so? I'm never so happy as when it's Ricky and Ron.
CAL That's why I didn't say so.
DANNY Switch back from what?
CAL What?
DANNY Why were they off 40-second page?
CAL They were working in half-hour format.
DANNY Why?
MATT They're writing a pilot script.
DANNY Do you know anything about this?
MATT No, do you?
DANNY No. Do you?
CAL No.
DANNY Do you?
MATT Are they allowed to shop a pilot?
JORDAN What do you care?
MATT Aren't they exclusive?
JORDAN I'm sure they can write whatever they want on spec.
DANNY Not if they're banking good material instead of giving it to him.
MATT I don't think Ricky and Ron have a secret treasure trove of good material they've been saving for an occasion.
JORDAN Then why do you care?
MATT I don't; I just want to screw with them? How can we find out if they're allowed to do this?
JORDAN All right. My assistant Kevin is still at the office. If I have him pull the contract and read it, will you two have a serious conversation with me about product placement?
DANNY What's serious?
JORDAN You have to listen while I speak.
DANNY Hmm. No, this I cannot do.
MATT Call your assistant.
JORDAN What was it you wanted to talk to me about?
DANNY Just something Jack said on the way to Nevada.
JORDAN What?
DANNY We'll do this first.
JORDAN I won't be able to concentrate! [on phone] Kevin, it's me. Can you pull the contracts on Richard Tahoe and Ron Oswald? I'm going to hang on. [to Matt and Danny] While I'm thinking of it, are either of you particularly attached to Peripheral Vision Man?
DANNY AND MATT No.
DANNY Why?
JORDAN There's an option on underlying material that expires today. I can renew it for about a hundred dollars if you want.
MATT Save the money.
DANNY And now I don't have to fire anybody.
JORDAN [on phone] Thank you. [to Danny] If 15 people are willing to split 100 dollars. [on phone] Can you search for language about exclusivity and call me back? I'll be on my cell. Thanks. [hangs up]
MATT Do we have an answer on "Can Ricky and Ron be writing a pilot?"
JORDAN Kevin hasn't answered my call back yet. It should be any minute.
MATT All right, watch this. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrring! [He points, and her phone rings.] There it is!
DANNY Whoa, check it out!
MATT That is mojo, baby!
DANNY My boy's got skills!
MATT Mad skills.
DANNY That was sick!
MATT That was some Vulcan mindmeld mojo and I was right in the kitchen!
DANNY I think you're a prophet.
MATT How do we find out something like that?
DANNY Things like this.
MATT Where was that mojo when I needed it?
DANNY You had it when you needed it.
MATT Get the audience back, let me do it again!
JORDAN Would you shut up?! [on phone] Yeah.
DANNY I'm going to take you on tour with that phone thing you can do.
MATT Once the show gets out there you cannot get it back. You cannot unring a bell.
DANNY It was a good sh --
MATT Stop saying it was a good show!
JORDAN Shhh!
DANNY We're talking quietly.
JORDAN They're exclusive.
MATT Well, I don't know what that was about, then.
JORDAN Wait. They have an exception.
MATT For what?
JORDAN You're kidding.
DANNY For what?
JORDAN They have an option for Peripheral Vision Man. Thanks, Kevin.
DANNY When's the option up?
JORDAN In about an hour and a half.
CAL It's tied again.
MATT Are Ricky and Ron still here?
CAL They're supervising the as-aired script. What's going on?
DANNY We're pretty sure the co-execs are going to quit tonight.
CAL Huh, well.
MATT Guys --
RICKY You haven't gone to the party yet?
MATT No. Lucy, Darius, can you give us the room a second? [They leave.] What's going on with Peripheral Vision Man?
RICKY You know, maybe it'd be better if we let the agents do their jobs at this point.
MATT Okay. [He goes to leave.]
RON No, wait. Hold on. Ricky --
RICKY We set Peripheral Vision Man up at FOX. They ordered six half-hours for midseason, Ron and I are going to run it, we weren't allowed to say anything because --
MATT You weren't allowed?
RICKY You know how it is.
MATT I don't, actually.
RICKY NBS Studios has the option until midnight, so --
MATT You left final draft in half hour format instead of 40-second page! That's why we got a plea for peace in Indiana from Jessica Simpson!
RON We know, we're sorry about that.
RICKY I'll tell you what, we thought you'd be thrilled.
MATT Yeah?
RICKY You get us out of here without having to eat our contracts!
MATT Peripheral Vision Man isn't any good, Ricky. And Studio 60 is a brand, and so am I, and people are going to assume that I had something to do with it!
RICKY Why isn't it good, Matt? Because you didn't write it?
MATT It isn't good because it isn't good.
RICKY Then have McDeere tie up the option again; she'll do whatever the cool guys tell her to do.
MATT That's the first time anyone's accused me of being cool.
And I don't think you know Jordan McDeere very well, because she has yet to do anything that anyone has told her to do.
"Matt, Danny, we have this opportunity to do this thing at FOX. Will you help us out?"
That's how a Man talks.
Do you care that we didn't do a very good show tonight?
RICKY I thought it was fine, Matt. But I'm sorry if your ego can't sustain a week of not being called a genius.
MATT [looking at script] Descent is spelled with a "s".
RON Are you going to let us have it?
MATT I don't know. Without the "s" it's "decent."
MATT Yeah, it's all true.
JORDAN What?
MATT They've got a set-up at FOX for midseason. It's a put pilot with six on the air. You didn't know about any of this?
JORDAN Business affairs asked me if I wanted to hold on to the option and I asked you.
MATT With an hour and a half left.
JORDAN I really didn't anticipate anyone wanting to do Peripheral Vision Man as a series.
MATT Nether did I, but I also didn't anticipate FOX airing a contest of strength between an Elephant and a Group of Dwarves.
JORDAN That one caught us all by surprise. Hey, lighten up, Matt. You've been wanting to get rid of these guys since you got here.
MATT It's going to cut into work time if I have to go door-to-door to everyone in America and explain to them that I didn't write Peripheral Vision Man.
The show is making a massive comeback. This is the world's stupidest time to have an ugly stepchild out there!
JORDAN You want me to pick up the option?
MATT Yes, please. Lock up the option and shut the thing down.
JORDAN What was I doing?
DANNY Jordan.
JORDAN What was I doing?
MATT You were calling to tie up the option.
JORDAN Yeah.
MATT Wait.
JORDAN What?
MATT This just doesn't feel right. How much time can you give me?
JORDAN The option's up in an hour and 13 minutes, so I can give you about an hour.
MATT All right, I'll be back in a few minutes.
DANNY Where are you going?
MATT Just walking around.
DANNY Listen --
JORDAN No.
[Writers' room.] LUCY I am finished.
RICKY It's done.
LUCY I meant my career.
RICKY That is just not true. Plus, if things don't work out for you here, you can always go back and write Benny Hill.
LUCY Bite me.
RICKY Give me a kiss.
LUCY Don't think so.
MATT Hi. [Lucy stand up and snogs him.]
LUCY [to Ricky] That was to be mean to you. Goodbye.
MATT [to Darius] You just keep on walking.
DARIUS Yes, sir.
MATT I think you both put up with a lot of crap and humiliation from me, and I'm going to let you go.
RON Really?
MATT Yeah, but I don't think you should.
RICKY Why not?
MATT Because Peripheral Vision Man isn't going to be good. It'll get canceled, you'll be out of work, and I won't be able to hire you back here.
RICKY I knew it. You couldn't let us out of the door without a handshake.
MATT Rick, I'm not talking... I'm not talking about old stuff. I'm telling you this writer to writer. You're going to get killed and you're taking him with you.
RICKY He is a grown man who makes up his own mind. And he's not the only one I'm taking with me.
MATT Who else?
RICKY Everybody.
MATT Yeah?
RICKY You get Lucy and the new guy.
MATT Darius.
RICKY Yeah.
RON Guys, let's not end it like this.
RICKY I don't care how we end it, as long as we end it.
MATT Rick --
RICKY Listen --
MATT Rick! The primetime landscape isn't the same as when we were coming up. There are maybe half as many jobs for comedy writers now as there were then. Stop being mad at me.
RICKY We should stop being mad at you? We could write the greatest sketch in the world, we could write the damn 2000 year old man, and you wouldn't recognize it because it came from us!
MATT Maybe, but that's not why I'm telling you this. You're two of our guys, you have a history here, and I'm looking out for you.
RICKY I'm moved. That is so typically --
RON Ricky --
RICKY -- condescending of you, you narcissistic horse's ass! When Harry realizes she's already found the man of her dreams, I hope she screws him right in front of you.
RON Rick! Enough!
RICKY The writers all have options to come work with me on this. You can keep them here with a salary and title bump. The show sucked tonight, and no, I don't care.
RON I've been his partner my whole career. You know, it's like you and Danny.
MATT Ron --
RON And nobody noticed he got dropped on his head when you guys came here. In the press, in the network... in this building, Matt. Nobody noticed in this building. I'll see you.
MATT Ronny?
RON Yeah?
MATT You're using voiceover?
RON We need it for the exposition.
MATT Voiceover's going to kill you. Use a sidekick, a character you introduce in the beginning of the first episode. Colorblind Boy, Cataract Kid... give him somebody to talk to.
RON That's a good note. I appreciate it.
MATT Don't tell him it came from me.
LUCY Are we going to be fired?
MATT Nope, you're just going to wish you'd been.
DANNY Room in the budget, words I love.
MATT Actually, there's going to be a lot more room in the budget than you think for a while.
JORDAN Why?
MATT Let the rights go. Let Ricky and Ron go, too.
DANNY You sure?
MATT Yeah. And we're going to be letting most of the writing staff go with them.
DANNY How many is most?
MATT Everyone except Lucy and Darius.
DANNY Lucy's never had a sketch on and Darius has been working here 5 days.
MATT We'll staff back up.
DANNY Until we do it'll just be you and two freshman writers.
MATT That's two more than I had before. It's going to be fine.
I felt an immense affinity with comedian and would-be revolutionary vanguardist Russell Brand as I watched his BBC Newsnight interview with dismissive interlocutor Jeremy Paxman. In a highly public forum, Brand ran the frustrating gauntlet of explaining the very basic tenets of radical politics to a defender of the status quo. It’s a maddening position to occupy — as Brand’s intensifying eyes and harried stares at Paxman evidenced — and it’s a position all too familiar for those of us who have ever identified with anarchism or a radical politics that refuses a predefined program.
Like Brand, I don’t vote (I’m British, but even if I were American, I wouldn’t). Like Brand, I will not give my mandate to this festering quagmire of a corporate political system (any more than living in it already demands, that is). A thorough anti-voting argument is beyond the remit of these paragraphs; suffice to say there are other ways and hows to enact politics. And, like Brand, I refuse to say what I propose instead when badgered by staunch defenders of capitalism. Brand patiently explained to his pompous interviewer that, no, we can’t offer you a pragmatic alternative program — we’re too entrenched in the ideology of the current one. We have to live, act, think differently, dissentfully, for new politics to emerge. I’m simplifying, of course. But the point is, I’ve learned to leave conversations when the “what do you propose instead?” question is posed to me qua anti-capitalist. If you had a blood-sucking monster on your face, I wouldn’t ask you what I should put there instead. I’d vanquish the blood-sucking monster. And it seems Brand is committed to do the same.
I have no interest in a detailed discourse on the comedian’s radical politics as expounded in his editorial essay this week in British left-leaning news magazine the New Statesman. He’s not a theorist, he’s a well-intentioned, wildly famous performer with a “fuck this” attitude and some really nice thoughts; he’s self-aware and self-deprecating. He’d probably even be there on the barricades pushing off riot cops. And that means something to me and a number of my comrades (yes, comrades; deal with it). But, no, I’m not jumping wholeheartedly on this Brand-wagon. The reasons are two-fold:
Firstly, if we want to challenge an inherently hierarchical political framework, we probably don’t want to start by jumping on the (likely purple velvet) coattails of a mega-celeb with fountains of charisma and something all too messianic in his swagger. “No gods, No masters,” after all. Brand is navigating the well-worn conflict facing those with a public platform in the current epoch (myself among them): We have to be willing to obliterate our own elevated platforms, our own spaces of celebrity; this grotesque politico-socio-economic situation that vagariously elevates a few voices and silences many millions is what Brand is posturing against. Would he be willing to destroy himself — as celebrity, as leader, as “Russell Brand”? I think he’d struggle, but I don’t really know the guy.
But beyond this — the general furor and excitement around famous-person Russell Brand saying not-dumb political things on TV should give us pause for thought. If we’re so damn excited to hear these ideas in (in their slightly haphazard form) from a boisterous celebrity, then clearly we have some idolatry and “Great Man” hangups to address (lest we reinstate a monarchy with Brand as sovereign, Kanye as chief advisor). Everything Brand has said, I’ve heard before, especially since Occupy’s 2011 heyday; the radical suggestion that, yes, “Shit is fucked up, and bullshit,” was not first uttered by Brand and should not be more exciting nor appealing by virtue of emerging from his cheeky smile. As has often been pointed out, there is a constant conflict at play when radical or militant ideas or images enter the popular imaginary under capitalism (I’ve noted the example here before of a riot scene in a Jay-Z/Kanye music video): At the same time radical ideas might spread and resonate across mainstream and pop media platforms (and thus provide the potential for rupture), these ideas and images are recuperated immediately into capital. Brand calls for revolution, and online media traffic bounces, magazines sell, bloggers like me respond, advertisers smile, Brand’s popularity/notoriety surges, the rich, as ever, get richer.
Secondly, and more immediately worthy of attention given current Brand fever: His framing of women is nothing short of the most archetypal misogyny. I’m not asking Brand to be perfect, but I am asking that we temper celebrations of him according to his very pronounced flaws. Writer Musa Okwonga, responding to Brand and possibly coining the term “Brandwagon” was swift to elevate feminist concerns, too often ignored in the excitement around a celebrity appearing to have good politics. Okwonga noted:
… what the writer Sarah Ditum has identified as [Brand's] “lazy sexism,” evident both in his celebrated MSNBC appearance and in the opening line of his New Statesman guest editorial. Right there, beneath a sub-heading which states that “before the world, we need to change the way we think,” Brand writes that “When I was asked to edit an issue of the New Statesman I said yes because it was a beautiful woman asking me.”
See, here’s the thing. I and others will run the risk of sounding like killjoys for pointing this out, but if you’re advocating a revolution of the way that things are being done, then it’s best not to risk alienating your feminist allies with a piece of flippant objectification in your opening sentence. It’s just not a good look.
Brand, admirably, is not proposing a program. But Okwonga is right: In our excitement for even a hint of revolutionary fervor ostensibly permeating mainstream debate, we’ve enabled misogyny and Great Man narratives to go unchecked. This is troubling ground to build if we want to fight from it. And, of course, it’s not only through this week’s Brand hagiographies that “lazy sexism” has been troublingly permitted in the name of radical politics — it’s pervasive. Take, for well-worn example, the ongoing yet baffling difficulty many supporters of WikiLeaks and pro-transparency projects seem to have with any criticism of Julian Assange; the willingness with which thousands of Assange acolytes outright rejected sexual assault claims against him. To avoid another maelstrom myself, I simply posit: It is at least logically possible for a man to both be a sexist creepbag and espouse some good political ideas and projects. I don’t mean to draw any strict equivalences between Brand and Assange. I could list a whole host of examples: Recall the viral spread of the “Stand with Rand” sentiment, when Sen. Rand Paul mounted an epic filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination to CIA director. I too stood with Rand’s critique of the Obama administration’s unchecked executive power when it comes to drone kill lists. But I don’t stand in any solidarity with the racist Kentucky Republican.
But the point of rethinking new political and social spaces together — as was felt profoundly by many of us engaged in Occupy’s headiest, fiercest days — was that we don’t need to align with, elevate, celebrate (nor indeed wholly reject or detest) any one person. Yes, we will continue to struggle against vanguardism and sexism and so many co-constitutive problems within ourselves and each other. We will fail and fail better and fail. We will struggle to know and reconstitute what “we” even really means. And I take Russell Brand at his word that he wants to fight too. This is no referendum on the comedian or his intentions. But this is no time to forgo feminism in the celebration of that which we truly don’t need — another god, or another master.
