So, war has been declared.
Murmurings have become outright angry venting of spleens.
The battle lines are being drawn - Class War is news again;
albeit in a slightly different form - it seems that the world of music and media are being swamped by 'poor little rich kids' and their ilk. The current view is that they are the only ones who can ride out the stormy sea of unpaid internships which have arisen as a result of austerity.
I wouldn't be surprised - although film has a long tradition of actors (and crew) working for just a cut of royalties based on a possible box office smash.
This theoretically allows bright new stars to shine and hopefully breakthrough into the unforgiving, endless hustle of media.
In a recent article in the New Statesman , Stuart Maconie bemoans the resultant lack of 'grit' in the music world - and it's true to a degree, but then was it not always thus ?
That Joe Strummer downplayed his middle class roots - as did many 'punk rockers' and going back in time - the Rolling Stones ?
Those examples aside, the Class War in England is very much a media construct.
So why is it coming out of the woodwork now ?
Election time is drawing near - perhaps the old 'divide and rule' angle ?
A new scapegoat for national tensions, deflecting public view from the real issues ?
It could be an attempt to remind us that there is a system in which we all have a role to play, and we should know our place in the scheme of things - it's true that Downton Abbey etc hark back to a rose tinted view of an England that (certainly for most people) never was - but is it any moreso than say Brideshead Revisited , Upstairs Downstairs, or, cinematically, anything by Merchant Ivory ?
I have personal issues with the new Sherlock , mainly due to its pop video style flash, which to me does a great disservice to the original stories.
It's not that I'm a purist - I just think it shows a sense of superiority which is creeping into things - the sense that the original was somehow flawed, and now that we have superior technical toys in the 21st century, we can improve on it.
This dull, unoriginal mindset first became apparent in the endless parade of sequels and now remakes of films in Hollywood.
Far from celebrating the new, creativity has been stifled across the board, in favour of dumbing down and playing safe.
This may be a result of the Global Recession (hence the fear of taking risks), but there seems to be a lack of originality in media .
Does this stem from a fear of the unknown, or the new ? It is generally true that familiarity has a strong allure in times of recession.
Did we shoot our collective bolts in the Twentieth Century when all this stuff came to the fore ?
Or are we just jaded by the glut of everything available online?
The debate is endless - and I didn't even mention reality t.v...
Murmurings have become outright angry venting of spleens.
The battle lines are being drawn - Class War is news again;
albeit in a slightly different form - it seems that the world of music and media are being swamped by 'poor little rich kids' and their ilk. The current view is that they are the only ones who can ride out the stormy sea of unpaid internships which have arisen as a result of austerity.
I wouldn't be surprised - although film has a long tradition of actors (and crew) working for just a cut of royalties based on a possible box office smash.
This theoretically allows bright new stars to shine and hopefully breakthrough into the unforgiving, endless hustle of media.
 |
| Kes |
In a recent article in the New Statesman , Stuart Maconie bemoans the resultant lack of 'grit' in the music world - and it's true to a degree, but then was it not always thus ?
That Joe Strummer downplayed his middle class roots - as did many 'punk rockers' and going back in time - the Rolling Stones ?
Those examples aside, the Class War in England is very much a media construct.
So why is it coming out of the woodwork now ?
Election time is drawing near - perhaps the old 'divide and rule' angle ?
A new scapegoat for national tensions, deflecting public view from the real issues ?
It could be an attempt to remind us that there is a system in which we all have a role to play, and we should know our place in the scheme of things - it's true that Downton Abbey etc hark back to a rose tinted view of an England that (certainly for most people) never was - but is it any moreso than say Brideshead Revisited , Upstairs Downstairs, or, cinematically, anything by Merchant Ivory ?
I have personal issues with the new Sherlock , mainly due to its pop video style flash, which to me does a great disservice to the original stories.
It's not that I'm a purist - I just think it shows a sense of superiority which is creeping into things - the sense that the original was somehow flawed, and now that we have superior technical toys in the 21st century, we can improve on it.
This dull, unoriginal mindset first became apparent in the endless parade of sequels and now remakes of films in Hollywood.
Far from celebrating the new, creativity has been stifled across the board, in favour of dumbing down and playing safe.
This may be a result of the Global Recession (hence the fear of taking risks), but there seems to be a lack of originality in media .
Does this stem from a fear of the unknown, or the new ? It is generally true that familiarity has a strong allure in times of recession.
Did we shoot our collective bolts in the Twentieth Century when all this stuff came to the fore ?
Or are we just jaded by the glut of everything available online?
The debate is endless - and I didn't even mention reality t.v...
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