The Only Thing I’ve Seen

How should you treat entertainers who turn out to be abusers?  I have said how hard it is when you love someone’s music to ditch them.  So many Michael Jackson fans ignore the information about him or discount it as lies.

Gary Glitter was a famous figure in 70s British music with several number ones.  After punk emerged he vanished (though his music was used as the basis for the Timelord number 1 Doctorin’ the TARDIS) in the late 80s. 

In 1996 the Spice Girls burst to fame and seemed to be following the Beatles model by making a film.  Now Spiceworld is a terrible piece of crap (admittedly I was not its target market).  In advance I saw Glitter was appearing.  Glitter was then unmasked as a paedophile, abusing underage girls in South East Asia.  At the cinema (not from choice) it reached the scene in Italy where the Spice Girls are singing I’m the Leader of the Gang (I Am), a very famous Glitter track.  Suddenly there is a cut that could not be sharper if an intern had done the edit with a pair of shears.

(Gary Glitter in Spiceworld).

Last year Joker was released and in a famous scene from the film he dances down the steps to…. Rock and Roll part 2.  No appearance from Glitter but he got the performance royalties.  The reason was that Glitter was hardly known in the USA and the people who chose the track were not aware of his history.  A case of cultural differences again.

(Joaquin Phoenix dances to success)

It works the other way too.  In the Doctor Who episode The Last of the Timelords the Master has taken over Earth and imprisoned the Doctor.  Martha Jones, the Doctor’s companion, had escaped, but her family were held by the Master and used as servants.  In particular her mother was a maid.  (This was only a few episodes after Martha had been dressed as a maid in the two part Human Nature/ Family of Blood).

In the UK this passed almost without comment.  The Master is a villain and was violently abusing his wife as well as unleashing psychopathic homicidal beings called the Toclafane across Earth.  In the USA the depiction of women of colour dressed as maids has a far more sinister resonance due to the slave owning south and the post Civil War period up to much more recent times. In the story Martha is the hero that walks the Earth for a year to beat the Master and her family’s humiliation is punishing the Doctor. I genuinely believe Russell T Davies missed the imagery but that says something in itself.

What does this mean?  It is hard to make entertainment that does not offend a foreign market.  Both of these were avoidable but in a world where Netflix now cherry picks the best TV from across the world it is likely that something will offend people elsewhere in the world.  The stunning South Korean series Crash Landing On You shows two societies very different from our own and the lead characters have far more westernised features than the supporting characters.  The Spanish series Money Heist was specifically made to be Spanish and not concede anything to foreign sensibilities.

My run in with the issue, in a professional capacity, was reviewing student videos.  We had installed screens across Monoux and the creative team wanted to show student videos on a loop.  We were wary, as a senior team, of what may be in them, so we decided that someone should vet them.  I volunteered, because I was stupid.  I spent a day watching videos and making notes.  I had to nix some as they showed violence and shooting (not because I want to censor but it was not an image the College wanted).

One really good video, showing an angsty story of teenage alienation (believe me there were loads of those) had a Chris Brown soundtrack.  Chris Brown has a history of violent behaviour against Rihanna and Karueche Tran.  I did think about rejecting it, but it was one of the best films and I was rejecting loads.  I passed it.  I think I was wrong, but it is a great song – even if he is a bastard.

Beautiful People.