Stars Like Us
Last month a black woman was ‘crowned’ Miss Universe Great Britain,
a first
in the beauty contest’s 66-year history, and called it ‘a great
achievement’. Somehow, apparently, being selected as the country’s
showpiece exhibit in an annual sexist meat parade is to be considered a
success for black women everywhere.
Recently there have been a lot of stories about female and minority
representation in ‘the arts’ (meaning TV and cinema). Huge excitement
came earlier this year with the first all-black superhero film, which
proved that you can make money out of utter bollocks regardless of
ethnic considerations. This followed the success of a female-led
superhero film, and UK viewers can soon look forward to the first female
Doctor Who and the first lesbian Batgirl TV series, all of which prove
that… anyway, you get the picture.
Where this gets a bit weird is the ongoing discussion about ‘representation’ in the arts. The broadcasting watchdog Ofcom reported last year that "lots of people feel there are not enough programmes on TV that "authentically portray their lives and communities"’ (bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41265644).
Why is this weird? Because in expecting, nay demanding, that made-up
stories should be ‘authentic’ people seem to have lost sight of the
essential difference between fiction and reality. This is not to
belittle the genuine human need for social affirmation. We all crave a
sense that we are not some lonely isolated freak in a hostile and
indifferent world, and that others like us exist. Socialists know that
feeling too, indeed it’s behind a lot of the things that we do as an
organisation. If you’re reading this magazine, you probably feel the
same way at times. But one thing we definitely don’t do is go round
complaining about our ‘under-representation’ in the arts and demanding
our own superhero. It would never occur to us that the ‘arts’ were
anything other than a fictional construct owned and controlled by the
capitalist class and used mainly for the oppression and psychological
manipulation of the working class. If it ever tried to ‘represent’ a
socialist character it would not be as a superhero but more likely a
stoned 1970s hippy or else an unhinged Bond villain. Much as we all love
artistic creativity, we should not lose sight of the fact that
capitalist art is generally a weapon used against us, even when it’s
just for entertainment.
So, not only is this question of ‘representation’ a fundamental
illusion – as if the success of some black beauty queen can ever be an
achievement for you - it is also a hopeless expression of passivity, a
kind of Stockholm Syndrome where we love the thing that enslaves us so
much that we want it to look like us too.
This is what the capitalists want – a population of brainwashed
automatons who don’t know what’s real anymore. They want us to sit
indoors and let the capitalist TV construct our world for us, removing
every jarring trace of cognitive dissonance that might alert us to the
fact that we are in dream-mode.
Entertainment is supposed to be escapist, to give us a break from
reality. By dressing our entertainment in faux-liberal credentials we’re
not affirming our ‘liberty’ or ‘diversity’, we’re fusing reality with
fantasy and locking ourselves more inextricably into a prison of our own
making. Better to get out there and construct our own world, for real,
and with the TV off.
Voting for the Electric Chair
Here’s a work-place experience not unfamiliar to many. The meeting
grinds on, chaired by a boss too clueless to be any use but too senior
to be challenged, while the air is filled by the drone of tedious
gobshites who love to hear themselves talk. The agenda lies forgotten,
the plot lost, the will to live gone, and still another hour before
anyone can go home. Not surprisingly, a recent informal BBC study
discovered that many people doodle during such meetings, or write haiku,
or play ‘meeting bingo’, a secret competition to throw in as many
pre-agreed random words as possible (BBC Online, 29 June - news/business-44642167).
Imagine, the article goes on to suggest, if all this were not so, the
meeting made effective, and the bores told to shut up. What would it
take to effect such a miracle? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if an
artificially intelligent meeting bot could take over?
Wait. What? An AI bot? An electric chair? Yes indeed, says a computer
scientist quoted in the article, ‘if no new points are made after a
while, the AI could suggest to wrap it up’. Apparently this is an
ability which humans don’t have, according to a meetings consultant:
‘while it’s a lovely idea to think everybody will be fabulous at running
meetings, everybody is not’.
This will be news to socialists, who have been running their own
meetings, fabulous or otherwise, for over a hundred years, and have
never yet felt the compulsion to introduce an artificial robot to chair
any of them. How is this miracle possible? Because, despite what the
‘experts’ think, humans are perfectly capable of learning how to do
things like running meetings, even, dare we say it, whole democratic
societies. We do these things with the help of what are known as ‘rules’
and then by following these ‘rules’, more or less strictly according to
circumstance and preference, we manage to get through a whole list of
‘decisions’ that need making. Really, it works surprisingly well. These
AI enthusiasts ought to try it some time. They might be amazed what
humans are capable of, especially when the useless boss is removed from
the picture.
PJS
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