Comments on: The Queen Of East Angular

By: Vicky

Vicky — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:41:55 +0000

The difference between chimpanzees and humans is that we have the luxury of some semblance of ‘being civil’ That means that we can choose to let someone’s foibles go over our head, by reasoning that we all have something about us that is unpleasant or discomforting to our fellow humans and so we ‘give a little’
Calling someone a ‘thick munter’ is probably pushing that a bit.

By: Lyle

Lyle — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:00:46 +0000

I’d agree, I hate that kind of bigotry or unthinking loathing of anyone/class/thing
However, I don’t have an issue with it *IF* there’s at least some reason for that dislike.
Now personally, with Jade’s PR/TV appearances etc., I found her to be an unpleasant person, whether for the racism issues, the lack of intelligence etc. I don’t have an issue with her bootstrapping herself up from Big Brother [whatever] to fame/celebrity/money etc. – that’s understandable, and she made use of what had been handed to her.

By: Hg

Hg — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:51:49 +0000

Vicky – yeah, I’m not particularly interested in celebrity culture – except in an anthropological sense, in terms of how we relate to each other as individuals within a larger collective grouping – but the fact is that it exists and she appears to be one of the relatively small number of people whose life it genuinely transformed for the better. On the odd occasion that I saw her on TV, I warmed to her. I had far more interest in what she was doing than I ever did in which particular pair of sunglasses Victoria Beckham might have been wearing on any given day.
AUW – I posted a quote on my Tumblr blog recently about consumerism not having been a problem until the “lower classes” started consuming. It’s that snobbery that I can’t stand, that implication that a certain section of society ought to just accept its lot, hide away and not aspire to too much. And when it can’t articulate itself with quite the right set of vowels, when it talks about serviettes rather than napkins, when it can’t pass a somewhat arbitrary set of exams – due to either nature or nurture – it’s fair game for a bit of communal ridicule and bullying. It’s a fucking appalling mentality and those who perpeutate it ought to be ashamed.
Lyle – this post was considerably longer and more ranting in its first draft and I removed the section about the shift to picking on the less attractive or gifted since political correctness came into play. You’re right, people always seem to need someone to bully or feel superior to. Two literary ghosts haunt my thoughts and this piece of writing in particular: Golding’s Lord Of The Flies (which I’ve quoted without attribution in the sixth paragraph) and Orwell’s 1984 (from which, of course, the phrase “Big Brother” comes in the first place). Both vividly stress the dangers of dehumanising sections of society. For me, the treatment of Goody is just a specific example of a wider sneering mentality – amongst those who should know better – towards “chavs”, “pikeys” and so on. I might come across as some kind of bleeding-heart liberal, but I suspect that this actually goes back to the playground, when friends of mine were picked on for no reason other than the fact that their low-income parents couldn’t afford a similar lifestyle to that of their more affluent peers. I hated that then and I hate it now.

By: Lyle

Lyle — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:37:34 +0000

“A society that feels the need to turn so compulsively and viciously on a particular section of its members is a sick, inhuman system.”
I think humanity in general always needs something to look down on, a sub-sect to blame the problems on.
In non-PC times/types, it was a different nation (or subset of a nation) – The UK had it in for the Irish, for Americans it was Poles who were the brunt, for Aussies it’s Kiwis, etc. etc.
In politics it’s always a sub-set of the populace – be it single mums, people on benefits, immigrants, etc. etc.
In media, it’s a different sub-set that’s always up for vilification – it’s been rapists, paedophiles, etc. and now it’s bankers and finance people.
I suspect that it’s actually “just” humanity in general – that we need something to hate, something to focus on, something to blame.
And in that context, I guess it’s no different from chimpanzee tribes fighting each other, or herds of [insert animal type here] don’t mix/match. But I don’t know, I’m no anthropologist.

By: An Unreliable Witness

An Unreliable Witness — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:19:03 +0000

Not being a Big Brother fan – or even viewer – Jade Goody meant very little to me, but the tittle-tattle about her was obviously unavoidable. It seemed to me that the reason the press – and across the board, from the highbrow to the gutter – was so hard on her was because she made us stare ourselves in the face of what part of our society is really like. And we didn’t like it. They’re always very keen to report on the ill-educated, ill-informed, breadline underclass who live for nothing else but to be famous for the sake of being famous, as long as that same underclass isn’t actually present in the argument. Just an unspoken part of society, rather, that we can shake our heads wearily over and wonder what to do about them. Then suddenly Jade was there, making them and us stare it in the face. For that, I’m rather thankful to her.
Then, of course, she goes and gets cancer and they even have to shut up about that.