Monday, December 21, 2009
There be no shelter here - Simon Cowell is everywhere
Well that was smashing. 'Killing in the Name' tops the chart and Simon Cowell recedes for the time being. Mind you, I personally would have preferred a campaign in support of ‘Guerrilla Radio’. While less iconic, it’s a more dynamic song, its theme sits better with an attempt to sabotage the latest manufactured pop coronation, it contains the necessary expletives and it doesn’t come with lines that make you slap your forehead because they are fuel for ill-informed and lazy critics. Lines like ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me’, for example. The naughty words are also more deeply integrated into the song – for performance purposes you can always chop the end of ‘Killing in the Name off’, with ‘Guerrilla Radio’ they’re in the chorus, so a bit of creativity is needed. ‘Lights out, Guerrilla Radio – do some sit-ups’, or perhaps, ‘Lights out, Guerrilla Radio – burn that witch up’..?
At least all involved avoided that gaping great pitfall that would have come with another great RATM song, ‘No Shelter’, which not only would have undermined the impressive charity donations the record sales generated for Shelter, but also contains the lyrics ‘Empty your pockets son; they got you thinking that. What you need is what they selling. Make you think that buying is rebelling’. Phew…
But (and how about this for a segueway...) from Simon Cowell there really seems to be no shelter. For while I savour this landmark musical victory, my twitchy mind senses new threats beyond the horizon. The worry is that if someone as slow as I can latch on to a grassroots Facebook campaign to combine entertainment with people power to effect change then it’s safe to say that the likes of Cowell are a million steps ahead, seeking ways to harness it from above. These last few weeks he has been pitching his latest grim vision in various interviews: a political version of The X Factor. In what is probably indicative of how ITV television is thrown together now, all we know about this proposed monstrosity is that it would be a political voting show with debates on hot issues like the war in Afghanistan and that the studio “would have a red telephone in the middle so that at any time someone from Number 10 could phone in.” Not, a black telephone, not a purple telephone, a RED telephone. That’s what we know so far: political show, red telephone. The faceless TV drones that work behind the scenes can erect the whole stupid marquee with these two poles, right? No doubt ITV could help prop it up with some silly money, while Cowell, in order to guarantee that he gets full credit for this new idea, could flesh out his vision with some other X Factor ingredients, such as importing its audience, whose impenetrable wall of ignorant, noisy, unbearable booing, cheering and shrieking in reaction to the comments from the judges’ panel actually made the moments where the contestants had to sing proportionately among the quietest of the show.
Of course, there’s no evidence Cowell cares about politics any more than he cares about music. He simply wants to coast his way through, rake in the money and form a lovely nest with it, atop his superior vantage point, while down below tabloid hype and reflex hysteria turn everything to shit. My paranoia is projecting horrid future visions of the damage this TV show would inflict if it ever came into existence. Debating, discussing and clarifying ideas, and interacting with MPs are not only useful processes, but vital for developing democracy and expanding the maximum level of freedom within the confines of strong protective safeguards. But that’s not what Simon Cowell is about – if given the chance he would auction those safeguards off to the highest bidder. It’s not what the tabloids are about either - we already know how the tabloids would get their foot in the door and drive us far away from human decency and rational discussion if, say, a debate were held on executing paedophiles. Nor prime time television – logical, considered exchanges of ideas don’t pull decent-sized audiences and can’t be tarted up without the content suffering. Ultimately this show would set us up for some shrill agenda setting from some of the most privileged and irresponsible people in Britain working outside of banking. And lurking in wait to answer the call of this agenda setting would be our new PM, David Cameron, the embodiment of uninspired emptiness, who in one of his typical vacuous soundbites, recently mused that there was “probably something we can learn” from his new friend Simon Cowell. He didn’t say what we could learn. But, you know, it’s a popular show, we can learn something. Probably. It really makes you think. About something or other. From the outset this ambitious man has latched onto the latest celebrity fads with the most fawning obsequiousness, devoting a section in his very first party conference speech as Tory leader in 2006 to an irrelevant set of platitudes aimed at reality TV heroes such as school dinner crusader Jamie Oliver and Jo 'Supernanny' Frost. “We need more of Supernanny, less of the nanny state”, he weasled, failing to notice what a contradictory statement this was and employing a cultural reference so out of place that I'm amazed it wasn't part of a 'Family Guy' flashback. There will be no engaging the public in this reality TV Armageddon, just the addition of politicians who think with greater clarity than they speak to the list of people Cowell can have us humiliate for entertainment purposes. Got bad eyesight and shit handwriting? Run and hide you losers.
This won’t happen; it can’t be allowed to happen. No matter how badly politics in this country stink, they cannot possibly be reinvigorated through armchair opinions and anyone even close to Number 10 being goaded into spitting out reflex answers to satisfy a mob that barely reaches Clarksonian levels of nuance and intellect. I’m being jittery at the moment, maybe unjustifiably so, but the rickety chain from populist politics on ITV to post apocalyptic dystopia now at least seems logical, if not inevitable. If there is one man you can trust to get his way in Britain today it’s Simon Cowell. Most of the time.
At least all involved avoided that gaping great pitfall that would have come with another great RATM song, ‘No Shelter’, which not only would have undermined the impressive charity donations the record sales generated for Shelter, but also contains the lyrics ‘Empty your pockets son; they got you thinking that. What you need is what they selling. Make you think that buying is rebelling’. Phew…
But (and how about this for a segueway...) from Simon Cowell there really seems to be no shelter. For while I savour this landmark musical victory, my twitchy mind senses new threats beyond the horizon. The worry is that if someone as slow as I can latch on to a grassroots Facebook campaign to combine entertainment with people power to effect change then it’s safe to say that the likes of Cowell are a million steps ahead, seeking ways to harness it from above. These last few weeks he has been pitching his latest grim vision in various interviews: a political version of The X Factor. In what is probably indicative of how ITV television is thrown together now, all we know about this proposed monstrosity is that it would be a political voting show with debates on hot issues like the war in Afghanistan and that the studio “would have a red telephone in the middle so that at any time someone from Number 10 could phone in.” Not, a black telephone, not a purple telephone, a RED telephone. That’s what we know so far: political show, red telephone. The faceless TV drones that work behind the scenes can erect the whole stupid marquee with these two poles, right? No doubt ITV could help prop it up with some silly money, while Cowell, in order to guarantee that he gets full credit for this new idea, could flesh out his vision with some other X Factor ingredients, such as importing its audience, whose impenetrable wall of ignorant, noisy, unbearable booing, cheering and shrieking in reaction to the comments from the judges’ panel actually made the moments where the contestants had to sing proportionately among the quietest of the show.
Of course, there’s no evidence Cowell cares about politics any more than he cares about music. He simply wants to coast his way through, rake in the money and form a lovely nest with it, atop his superior vantage point, while down below tabloid hype and reflex hysteria turn everything to shit. My paranoia is projecting horrid future visions of the damage this TV show would inflict if it ever came into existence. Debating, discussing and clarifying ideas, and interacting with MPs are not only useful processes, but vital for developing democracy and expanding the maximum level of freedom within the confines of strong protective safeguards. But that’s not what Simon Cowell is about – if given the chance he would auction those safeguards off to the highest bidder. It’s not what the tabloids are about either - we already know how the tabloids would get their foot in the door and drive us far away from human decency and rational discussion if, say, a debate were held on executing paedophiles. Nor prime time television – logical, considered exchanges of ideas don’t pull decent-sized audiences and can’t be tarted up without the content suffering. Ultimately this show would set us up for some shrill agenda setting from some of the most privileged and irresponsible people in Britain working outside of banking. And lurking in wait to answer the call of this agenda setting would be our new PM, David Cameron, the embodiment of uninspired emptiness, who in one of his typical vacuous soundbites, recently mused that there was “probably something we can learn” from his new friend Simon Cowell. He didn’t say what we could learn. But, you know, it’s a popular show, we can learn something. Probably. It really makes you think. About something or other. From the outset this ambitious man has latched onto the latest celebrity fads with the most fawning obsequiousness, devoting a section in his very first party conference speech as Tory leader in 2006 to an irrelevant set of platitudes aimed at reality TV heroes such as school dinner crusader Jamie Oliver and Jo 'Supernanny' Frost. “We need more of Supernanny, less of the nanny state”, he weasled, failing to notice what a contradictory statement this was and employing a cultural reference so out of place that I'm amazed it wasn't part of a 'Family Guy' flashback. There will be no engaging the public in this reality TV Armageddon, just the addition of politicians who think with greater clarity than they speak to the list of people Cowell can have us humiliate for entertainment purposes. Got bad eyesight and shit handwriting? Run and hide you losers.
This won’t happen; it can’t be allowed to happen. No matter how badly politics in this country stink, they cannot possibly be reinvigorated through armchair opinions and anyone even close to Number 10 being goaded into spitting out reflex answers to satisfy a mob that barely reaches Clarksonian levels of nuance and intellect. I’m being jittery at the moment, maybe unjustifiably so, but the rickety chain from populist politics on ITV to post apocalyptic dystopia now at least seems logical, if not inevitable. If there is one man you can trust to get his way in Britain today it’s Simon Cowell. Most of the time.
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