Missing persons reportage in the traditional press and social media outlets

The following is a reply I sent to Rachel MacPherson, a journalism student from University of the West of Scotland.  She was writing her dissertation on the media’s representation of victims of crime, in particular missing person cases, and read my post about Serena Beakhurst and wanted my opinion.  I provided answers to her questions, as shown below.  The topic is an interesting one, as for me it highlights differences in emphasis and approach between traditional journalism outputs and online social media platforms. 

Unlike a lot of community media/alternative media researchers and activists, I still believe there is a place for traditional media platforms such as the already established newspapers and tv news.   The Serena Beakhurst story however highlighted the limitations of traditional media in what it covers and considers to be of interest to their audiences, and online social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs allows for an additional layer of ‘news’ that would not reach the mainstream, and now also informs the editorial decisions of the mainstream press  if/when those stories eventually reach their headlines.  Although I don’t personally believe in media hierarchies in relation to quality and validity, the Serena Beakhurst case still shows that such hierarchies still exist in relation to power, value and representation.  No one was complaining that certain blogs hadn’t covered the story, the complaints were levelled at the mainstream press and their evident lack of interest.  It can only be a matter of time before the social/alternative media outputs get confident enough to ignore what the mainstream are or are not covering, and see themselves as the media itself, with inherent quality, validity, power, value and considered representation.  Hence the strap-line of this blog – Don’t hate the Media/Become the Media.

Anyway, enough of my preamble, here are my responses to Rachel.

What do you feel are the responsibilities of the press, if any, to report on missing person cases in the UK?

The word ‘responsibilities’ is an interesting one.  It brings to mind the title of James Curran and Jean Seaton’s book ‘Power without Responsibility’.  In the introduction, justifying the title, they say “that something which daily intrudes in our lives in ever more sophisticated ways needs to be, itself, the subject of continual public surveillance.  That the media interferes with us; therefore we have a right and duty to interfere with the media.”  (Curran, J. and Seaton, J. (2003), Power Without Responsibility: The Press and Broadcasting in Britain, Routledge, London, UK, page 4)

That is what I see going on at the moment with regards missing persons.  To answer your question directly, no I don’t think the national press have an automatic responsibility to report on missing person’s cases.  The cold fact is they are private commercial companies in the business of selling news to audiences – and selling audiences to advertisers.  Though I would say local news have more of a responsibility to report missing person stories, as they are directly serving close geographic communities, but the national press have no such obligation to their audiences.  The nationals are interested in what missing person stories can resonate further than the immediate geographic area? (How that is judged is highly debatable/controversial).  They have a responsibility to practice ethical methodologies, and to report fact not fiction, but regardless of what we the public think, the press do not have a responsibility to have to cover a certain type of story.  The agitation and accusation that is happening now however (though the agitation and accusation is far from new), is that the press should be reporting certain stories, especially now when certain stories become big in the blogosphere/twitter, but nowhere to be seen in the mainstream press.

Missing persons is a good case study for this.  When a person goes missing it is a deeply personal and emotional event.  We call friends, friends of friends, family, tenuous links, anybody who might have seen or know something, and of course the police when we know it’s serious.  Now in the internet age we get onto Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, etc.  In these cases social networking will invariably carry this news before any mainstream press may pick up the ‘story’, as the ‘event’ and momentum has happened from the ground up.   So in the case of Serena Beakhurst, it became a huge story online, but wasn’t at all picked up by the mainstreams.  So the online communities (myself included) eager to spread the word to get Serena found started to provide a “public surveillance” on the mainstream press and tried to “interfere” with the editorial decisions.   In the heat of an emotional frustration, accusations started to fly.  So a key question is what did the online agitators, strangers to Serena, (myself included), see in the Serena story, that wasn’t seen or appreciated by the mainstream editors?

What factors of a missing person case make it newsworthy? 

The simple answer is; a good story.  Some hypothetical questions journalists will be asking are; is it out of character?, is it suspicious?, are there any clues?, can the audience relate and sympathize, even if it ends tragically or happily?, what could be the motives of disappearance?, what visual material have we got access to show?, is it unique?, and other questions to judge whether it will be a worthwhile story. 

I’m not in a position to know, but I can only assume that Serena’s story did not answer enough of these questions favorably enough to satisfy the journalists.  This is where the journalists will also be listening to the signals coming from the police and friends they get access to.  Possibly Serena had run away before.  Possibly she had threatened running away in the days leading up to her disappearance, so it wasn’t a surprise.  The headline of Serena, a 14 year old girl goes missing over Christmas – made a startling ‘story’ to us strangers, and we hit the blogs, etc, and it exposed a chasm between the “news values” of the mainstream press and the citizen journalists.  Most citizen journalists (myself included) aren’t journalists at all, they are polemicists.  If I lived in London I MIGHT have gone to interview her mum and friends, but the fact is I didn’t and instead recycled news with my own opinion. 

It’s a harsh judge for an editor to declare what is or is not worthy of being “news”, especially when a missing 14 year old girl get subsequently classed as “not news worthy”, and that is what fuelled the anger and frustration from us online agitators.  I tried to use my blog post first and foremost to help find Serena, with some side digs and the press in the process.  Some other bloggers went on a full-out assault on the press about race bias, etc, with hardly any information about Serena herself, which I did not feel was the appropriate emphasis to be having whilst she was still missing. 

So the Serena case exposed some of the differences in what are considered news values between mainstream press and social media.  It would be the logical prediction that these cases will affect mainstream press more, as they are in a dire need to retain audiences – so they will invariably find new ways of doing what they do, and if that means reporting more missing persons stories (even if only online), then so be it.  It was interesting to note that when the mainstream press did pick up the Serena story, the main emphasis was on how the story grew via Twitter, Facebook, etc, not the fact that she was still missing.

The contrast with Milly Dowler’s disappearance in 2002 I guess is down to the answers to those hypothetical questions and the signals coming from police and friends.  I think it’s also down to the forcefulness of the parents and organizing press conferences, etc.  Serena’s mum in her writing after her daughter was found seemed happy with the police approach and not overly forceful or frustrated, but in the Dowler case the sense of urgency was from the very beginning.  Of course Serena’s mum was still highly worried, but probably the journalists and police respond to different types of urgency reactions in different ways.  The same goes with missing girls that go out with guys they have met on the internet.  The reason they are story classed as stories is due to the still novel nature of the circumstance – the internet as a new cause of crime.  Those stories contain timely modern morality tales of caution for the readers, and allows a bit of awareness raising without looking too preachy.  Many other girls who run away will also be with guys, but if it’s a local lad and not a stranger from the internet then it’s deemed as having less news value, and remains absent from the press.

Do you believe the news media is capable of influencing the public opinion on certain criminal matters?

Most definitely.  Even though public opinion should not matter in a court of law, it invariably will have some influence.  If a jury have down their job well they will return a verdict they ‘know’ is right, even if that flies in the face of public opinion.  Of course this is an idealistic position, as I know there have been tragedies of miscarriages of justice in court that have been influenced the media, public opinion, politics, racism, sexism, etc.  It’s interesting with the Joanna Yeates case how Chris Jefferies the first suspect was absolutely hounded by the press with all his private life exposed, but since this new guy has been charged, it’s all gone very quiet.  I may be naive, but it almost feels like they realized they went too far.  If Jefferies was guilty, it could have been near impossible for him to have had a fair trial.  “Power without Responsibility.”

Does the media select only certain missing persons cases for publication and, if so, why?

Good vs weaker stories, (in the minds of news editors).

Do you believe that by only selecting certain missing person cases to represent, the news media are simply giving the public what they want?

Not really.  I think audiences of news media take what they are given.  It is only the well referenced and media literate amongst the audiences that agitate and say what they are not being told.  Otherwise, people don’t really know what they are not being told.  The majority of audiences don’t question the news.  They may occasionally ask, “Why is that on the news?” (e.g. Take That releasing a new single).  But it is a small minority that will ask, “why was that not on the news?”  That’s the interesting tension now between the mainstream press and social media, bloggers etc. – the online documenters are picking up things the mainstream press don’t know about yet.  If they do get ‘picked up’, that’s fine, if they don’t, there can be claims of a conspiracy of silence.  It’s not really that simple.

Why do you believe there was such widespread media interest in the Joanna Yeates case but a lack of interest in the Serena Beakhurst case?

Professor David Wilson, author of ‘Looking for Laura: Public Criminology and Hot News’, (which you’ll find interesting), was interviewed on the Jeremy Vine Show yesterday on BBC Radio 2 (Mon 18^th April) about these issues.  He said at the same time as the Stephen Lawrence murder a white boy was murdered by an Asian boy, but that didn’t hit any of the headlines or cause any of the ramifications of the public eye.  This to me shows how there’s not a news media rulebook that is cast in stone. 

I said at the time Serena was found that I believed had she been a white girl the mainstream press would have picked it up.  Of course I can’t prove that.  With time passing and reading what her mum had to say, I still believe race played a part, but I think the behind the scenes factors (those hypothetical questions) are also significant.  I now believe it would never have been a front page big news story, but still believe that it would have at least got a mention in more press had she been a white 14 year old from a conventional family, but saying that I have also to recognise that the answers to those hypothetical questions would change, so it would be unfair to compare them as like for like.  And this is the problem with the notion of ‘news values’ – as when all said and done a 14 year old girl was missing – regardless of socioeconomic background, class, race, etc.  But those backgrounds builds the story, and that’s where/when mere facts are not enough for the judgment of news values.  Yes a 14 year old girl is missing, but what type of 14 year old girl?

Joanna Yeates was older, steady job, steady relationship, keys left in flat, missing pizza, it had mystery all over it from the start.  News stories, like drama, needs tension to hook the audience.  It was weighed up with Serena and the 14 year old lost out.  At Christmas there will only be so many missing persons stories the press are going to want to deal with, so the editors took the gamble, and in a depressing gruesome macabre way it paid off.  It obviously sounds cold to discuss such tragic events in this detached commercial way, but that is the commodity that is being dealt with in this business of news journalism.  The mainstream press being silent on the Serena story was not racist, but it did expose a bias – which was a bias of what makes a good story.  I’m sure Serena would have provided a good story, but one seemingly not good enough for the news demographic for audience/readers to care.  The online agitators rightly questioned that logic of judgement. Thankfully it also had a happy ending.  It is depressing to think that only a tragic ending to the Serena story would have vindicated that questioning of the news values status quo.  That is one battle I am so glad to have lost.        

Dr Shawn Sobers – University of the West of England
20^th April 2011

Keep ‘Midsomer Murders’ a white only drama

“Midsomer Murders producer suspended over race row

The producer of ITV1′s Midsomer Murders has been suspended after saying the drama “wouldn’t work” if there was racial diversity in the show.  Brian True-May, who co-created the series, told the Radio Times the long-running drama was a “last bastion of Englishness” and should stay that way.”

Quote from BBC news story – see full story here.

Well I have to say I agree with Brian True-May, but for different reasons.  If there were black people in the show  they’d more often be portrayed as the murderers.  It is actually refreshing change in media representation to see so many murders portrayed in white only affluent rural communities, and not only poor ‘gritty urban settings’, where baseball cap wearing youth say ‘innit’ – as commonly seen in other more stereotypical dramas.

So I agree with Brian True-May,  keep Midsomer Murders white only.  It works better that way.  Contrary to popular belief, this actually makes the drama more radical as a result.

[Image: ITV - original copyright remains]

Lenny Henry: from being Black representation to researching Black representation

I read with interest that Lenny Henry is to embark on a PhD researching into the representation of Black people in the media (see BBC article here).  25/30 years ago Lenny WAS the representation of Black people on UK television, so a big part of his thesis could aptly employ the methodology of vulnerable anthropology and autoethnography, which sees the researcher transparently including their own story into the research data and interpretive narrative. 

Lenny is the best placed person to take on this task as long as he can disassociate himself from his younger self, and critique his own role in the history as well as others.  The danger is that he will overcompensate, and over criticize his own role and be less critical of others, (as he’s such a nice guy!).  But this assumes he’ll be analyzing individual artists at all, and may instead be critiquing the media machine and market forces for the prevalence of certain types of representation.  This begs the question, where does the representation start and finish – at the commissioning stage, in the writing process, at the point of acting, in the edit suit, or at the point of transmission?  Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding analogy suggests representation is an ongoing process with the viewer employing their agency to create their own meanings in the work.  I agree with that, but drill back further, and ask what is the motivations of the actors themselves who need to pay their mortgages and feed their children.  Where do their motivations lie in the process of representation?

During the 80s Lenny Henry was a comedian that I presume had a team of writers behind him, but he was his own talent vehicle and his skill was portraying characters.  On television he was more of a sketch show comedic character actor than straight up comedian.  (I say ‘on television’, as I watched him do a stand-up routine in person at the Bath Theatre Royal and he was hilarious, and much more raw and edgy than his comedy was on television).  For his television work he was praised and vilified in equal measure for his representations of black people – from the (in my opinion) funny over-sexed Theophilus P. Wildebeest, to his (in my opinion) embarrassing “OOOOOOKKKKAAAAYYYYYY” chanting Rastafarian character that made me want to curl up and die every time I had it shouted to me on the way to school. 

So who were the audiences for that work when Henry formed those characters, as that would then arguably inform the basis of the subsequent representation?  Black people watched his shows, as that is what black people did in those days – we watched anyone who looked vaguely like us as the novelty was so rare.  His show was also funny, so we watched it for that as well.

In many ways his PhD is already in his own back catalogue of sketches, as the majority of his work was a parody of the representation of black people in popular culture.  But that is where the analysis of Henry’s back catalogue gets tricky in relation to representation, as his parodies were of the individuals themselves, and not the media machines that projected them.  Were we laughing at ourselves, or were we being laughed at?  The representation of black people according to who?  Was Henry’s portrayal of these characters ahead of its time, or a product of its time?  Likewise all the black drug dealers who acted on The Bill and other cops shows.  In this supposed post-racial post-modern world we all now live in, is the unapologetic sight of a black drug dealer on television progress, or is it just a sign that nothing has changed?  Mortgages are getting paid, but as I keep telling every black actor I know, “write your own scripts!”  Actors are ciphers of the characters they are given, so whose representations are being presented? Who wrote The Bill, Eastenders, and the other shows notorious for badly written and suspect black characters?  Looking at today’s television, I watch Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives and other shows, and as much as I may like them, I can’t help but notice their black characters are problematic.   (Ugly Betty is really bad for this, I’m not sure if any of their black characters over the years has ever been a good person!)

In much of what I written here I’m assuming Henry will be analyzing television from when he was in his mainstream prime up to today, but he may be concentrating more on contemporary representations.  I can’t help but feel it would be more honest if he looked at his own era rather than avoid it, but of course that is up to him.  It’s his PhD and I should keep my nose out, I already have mine!

Back in 1994 I defended Lenny Henry in the (now extinct) Weekly Journal newspaper, after their ‘culture columnist’ criticized a documentary Henry presented about black comedians.  (You can see the full letter here.)  As I said back then, and as I say now, I feel he is the perfect person to write about the representation of black people in the media as he informed so much of it, but he needs to be mindful that he’ll need broad shoulders if he’s going to tackle this subject honestly and transparently, as much of it will read like an analysis of his own career.  In some cases that was argued of pitching black representation as two steps forward and one pace back, (or even one pace forward and two paces back, though I don’t agree with that harsh judgement).

On the flip side, I feel the service Lenny Henry (and others like him) have given to the black community is the ability to laugh at ourselves.  As a Rasta I would say this is a serious time and the situation of education of black young men is no joke, or the high percentages in prison, etc.  But at the same time humor is a part of humanity and the ability to laugh actually breaks down more barriers than it builds up, and is a survival instinct.  One has only to look at the horror of the Danish cartoonist who was threatened with death and other artists who have been murdered for their portrayals of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Islam, to see how a deficit of humor in a community is an unhealthy and self-destructive thing.

I don’t know how Henry’s PhD supervisors will be suggesting he measure notions of representation, but if I was his supervisor I would be saying “autoethnography all the way baby!”

I would say it exactly like that, just to see his reaction, and hopefully make him laugh.  I’ll forgive him the awful Rastafarian character.  What didn’t kill me made me stronger. I wish Lenny all the best with his studies.

 

The award for Unexpected Activism goes to…..’OK!’ magazine!

Flicking through my wife’s current issue of OK! magazine, I surprisingly found an article on page 33 that I would have been proud to write myself.  I congratulate whoever wrote it for their social commentary in what is (let’s face it) an otherwise superficial celebfest.  Print media are having to look for new business models in order to survive in a saturated market now online magazines are their competitors, so social engaged commentary could be a good angle for OK! – subtly giving their readers something they weren’t expecting.  (Of course I will now have to read every issue of OK! from now on for research purposes, to see if this was an isolated, or increasing, phenomenon.)

I have reprinted the article in full below for prosperity, and to show my support for whichever writer & editor put this in.  (I wonder if it was Betty Soires???).  I know this story was in other newspapers, magazines and blogs before it reached OK!’s pages, but the fact they ran it in their magazine regardless of originality is impressive enough.

 Here it is in full then.  (Below it, if you’re interested,  I give a bit of my analysis on the article.)

 Original copyright remains.

[start of quote]

GABOUREY’S NOT PRECIOUS – Oscar nominee shrugs off cover controversy

Gabourey Sidibe has shrugged of the controversy surrounding the Vanity Fair cover which features nine of Hollywood’s hottest young actresses – although not one of them is black or ethnic.  The cover, which features Brit sensation Carey Mulligan, caused uproar with observers asking why Mullighan was included but her black, overweight fellow Oscar nominee Sidibe wasn’t.

‘At first I thought, hmm, should I be there?’ admits Sidibe, who has been nominated for her star turn in Precious.  ‘Then I very quickly got over it.  I think if I were a part of the shoots, I would have felt left out anyway.  I mean, I come from a world where I’m not on covers and I’m not in magazines at all, so I was happy to get a mention inside.’

Vanity Fair says the cover  shot was part of a long process dependent ‘on availability and schedules’.  A bit odd that every single young black actress in Hollywood was busy that day.

[end of quote]

A different version of the article is on the OK! magazine website here.

Even though Gabourey says she’s not bothered about it, it breaks my heart when I read her saying, “I think if I were a part of the shoots, I would have felt left out anyway.  I mean, I come from a world where I’m not on covers and I’m not in magazines at all, so I was happy to get a mention inside.”

The reason why she sees the world she comes from as separate from the Vanity Fair world, is precisely because she has grown up realising that the ‘normal’ look of the fashion world does not look like her.  This Vanity Fair photo shoot simply vindicated her sense of being an outsider, even when she’s worked herself ‘in’.  It reminded me of the depressing child psychology experiment ‘A Girl Like Me’ that I spoke about in a previous article, see here.  Basically, black children stating that all the white dolls were “good”, and the black dolls “bad”.

I won’t go on a rant about all of this,  as like Gabourey, I just can’t be bothered.   It still breaks my heart.

In 2010, this still breaks my heart.

Disconnected colonial landscapes in a pre-photographic era

Before the invention of photography and film, we got to know the world beyond our personal experience through the oral, drawn, painted and written descriptions of the explorers that went forth, and came back.  The communication between what was experienced via the explorer’s senses, and what was subsequently represented to the people, did not always match up.

See below the (bad quality) photograph I took at a British stately home, of a 17th Century colonial ink etching.

It looks as if the etching was produced informed by an oral or drawn description.  Modern viewers of this 17th Century image understand the intention of what was represented, though are able to see how the memory of a palm tree and perspectives in the landscape does not quite relate to the actual.    It shows the slight disconnection between the representation and the real; the sign and the signified – creating a visual poetry rather than textual essay.  The broken link between the lived experience and the reproduction has rendered inaccuracies, inconsistencies, myths, assumptions, and an imagined ideal.  A (literally) captured land presented as an imaginary captured landscape.  The viewer thinks they know what type of land this is and approximately where it might  be, but if they went looking for it themselves they will never find it.  Not exactly.

The advent of photography added a seemingly comforting layer of visual truth, which satisfied the viewer as it spoke directly to the senses.  Arguably it comforted our most trusted sense; our eyes. 

http://www.oceania-ethnographica.com/archiveB001.htm
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Photography brought with it a perceived visual truth which made etchings (and other such crafts representation approaches) largely redundant as a source of news and events.    Photography brought a different type of myth into the world; an assumed instant (visual) knowledge that had to be proven false rather than proven true – thus images were accepted as true as a default, largely remaining unquestioned.  

Photography created myths that were easily accepted as ready packaged nuggets of truth.  Images presented alongside a single caption – a statement of ‘fact’ that tried to summarize and represent an entire anthropological monograph.

Image + caption = TRUTH

“The experts say it is so, so of course it is true.  Why question it?”

What photography gained in visual recognition it lost in textual nuance.  It gained scientific respectability but lost the creative poetry (of an etching) - lost only because viewers were not looking for it or even expected it.  When faced with a bold fact, there is little motivation to look for anything else, least of all visual poetry.  One has become instantly satisfied.  Comforted with a perceived stable knowledge.  The viewer thinks they know what is meant by ‘ancestor worship’ and approximately what it might entail, but if they went looking for it themselves they will never find it exactly.  Not what they imagined. 

Life is more complex and layered than a single photograph and a supporting caption.  The viewer of an etching knows that it is a mere representation of a real phenomena, thus trusts the gap between what is assumed, and what further needs to be known (by education and experience).  The viewer of early photography (and arguably even now) collapses the disconnection between representation and reality.  We can see it with our own eyes, the caption providing the common sense clue.  The photograph + caption acts as an extension of our memory – we were never there yet still we have seen it with our own eyes.  

We trust it in a way we would never trust an etching.  The irony is that the etching is more truthful, as it pretends to be nothing other than a mere representation.  The photograph presented as fact denies its true nature – that of a captured scene – a voiceless glimpse, full of poetry.

An exercise in the lines of cultural sensitivity (on ‘An Education’ and ‘Six degrees of Separation’)

Went to see Lone Scherfig‘s film ‘An Education’, based on an autobiographical article by the English journalist Lynn Barber, (in the film her name in Jenny, not Lynn), about her 16-year-old self’s inappropriate relationship with David a much older man, based in 1961.  I really enjoyed the film and afterwards went online and read some reviews.  (Call me strange, but I never read film reviews before I see a movie, only afterwards.  Film is the only medium I do that with.  I’ll happily read reviews about books, exhibitions, music and tv shows before I consume them, but never film.)

As well as glowing reviews, I also began to read how the film was criticised by some as being antisemitic, due to the emphasis in the script of how two characters in particular (the dad and headmistress), with the former viewing Jews as being “wandering” (a euphemism for being aimless in life), and the latter as “Jesus killers”.  Both say these things in seeming protection of Jenny against being involved with boys they think would hinder her chances of entering Oxford University.  The message of the characters was that Jews could not be trusted, and apparently the narrative seems to vindicate this prejudice by the eventual trajectory of the plot. (I won’t spoil the film by giving away the what happens.)

I admit I did not think of the film as being antisemitic until I read the review, and then I thought, yes, the film could easily have existed just as strongly without those references to perceived Jewishness, as such ideas were not at all central to the storyline and therefore were varnish rather than necessary substance that could easily have been edited out.  But then it begs the question, why were those references left in, which encourages a more rounded interpretation.

David, the older man in Jenny’s life, is Jewish, and he is different to everyone else in the film in stark ways.  He is rich, handsome, mysterious, cultured, spontaneous, humorous, and takes risks.  In Jenny’s life he is different from anyone else she has ever met.  The father is a bumbling vague anti-Semitic who quickly puts his prejudices to one side when he realises the benefits  David could offer his young daughter, (a rich comfortable life and connections at Oxford uni).  The headmistress in contrast is much harsher, consistent and confident in her  bigotry and is portrayed as cold and heartless by the end of the film, in opposition to the father’s clumsy ignorance which is portrayed in a sympathetic way, rather than sinister.

This film deals with race in much the same way as John Guare’s ’Six degrees of separation’, which is also based on a true story.  That is a play/film I have been slightly uneasy about in race terms, due to one interpretation of the film simply being “don’t trust black people“.  The script though is obviously more complex than that, as it also exposes the hypocrisy of the white middle class American family, who embrace this black young man into their lives when they think they will get a lot of cultural kudos in return, (they are falsely led to believe the young man is Sidney Poitier’s son).  ‘An Education’ is very similar; it exposes the hypocrisy of the English middle class family in being tolerant of someone and encouraging an inappropriate liason, just because they (falsely) think they will eventually get financial reward (by David marrying their daughter). 

Whilst at the same time both films do comment on the “ethnic” con-artist as an individual (Jewish David in ‘An Education‘ and Black Paul in ‘Six degrees of separation‘), and both films actively play on the relationship between the races, both films also (in complex ways) comment on the hypocrisy of the aspirations of the white (wasp) middle classes.  It is at this point that both films can not be critiqued as one dimensionally antisemitic or racist, as they are both also judging the white (wasp) families that get seduced by the  idea of success, even though it is just a partial success by association of who they (think they) know.  The father sums this up in ‘An Education’ when he says to his daughter Jenny, “Being a famous author is not as good as knowing a famous author.  It shows you’ve got influence, that you have connections.” 

Whilst I would not put ‘Six degrees of separation’ anywhere near a list of films that empowered the notion of black representation as it reinforces a negative stereotype, (white folk become victims of a black male perpetrator), it also asks the audience to consider the responsibility of the white ‘victims’ and their patronising cynical liberalism.

In the same way, whilst ‘An Education’ will never be used as an example of positive Jewish representation (English Christians become victims of a Jewish man’s manipulation), the film similarly also asks the audience to consider the responsibility of the ‘victims’ and their hypocritical behaviour (and their exploitation of their own daughter), and the characters (Jenny and her family) do eventually admit that and ask it of themselves.

It is not up to me to say whether ‘An Education‘ is antisemitic or not, but I would say it is more complex than the one-dimensional judgment that the accusation implies.  This is the same conclusion I draw from ‘Six degrees of separation‘.  When watching that play/film, at the back of my mind I am always thinking, “this is just saying that white people should not trust black people“, and I wonder how much other audiences take notice of the narrative complexity at work.  Of course I need to give the audiences some credit of intelligence, but when one’s cultural reputation is at stake, admittedly that is much easier said than done.

“Suspect Racism:Racism Suspect” – The Movie (draft script proposal)

The Plot:

An internationally respected African American Professor (Denzel Washington) returns home from holiday and finds the door to his plush suburban home is jammed.  The taxi driver (Benicio Del Toro) helps him “break” in to his own house.

The neighbors (played by the full cast of Desperate Housewives) get nervous seeing these events, and call the police, who promptly arrive within seconds. [Backstory - the reason the police arrive so quickly is because this is a "good" neighborhood.]

The policeman (Nicholas Cage) confronts the professor, and after a verbal altercation between the two, the professor is arrested. [Note - the Director Ron Howard must be careful here not to show either party is to blame.]  Later the professor is released without charge.

The president of the United States (Will Smith) gets tangled up in these events and calls the policeman “stupid”.  After the cast of West Wing get in a panic and make the president backtrack in the glare of the world’s press, they come up with the bright idea of inviting the hot headed pair to the White House for a ‘beer summit’, with the vice-president (played by John Travolta), for all the world’s press to witness.

 

Feedback on draft proposal Studio Executives:

1 -Whilst the plot line is generally good, and the narrative is generally believable, and only a little far fetched.  It is fitting with the zeitgeist so will find an audience.  It might actually be more interesting though to see the narrative unveil from the perspective of the world media.  To see the effect the media have on how the “real live” events are handled would be more interesting for the audience, as research shows that is how audiences suspect how things happen in the real world anyway.  (See Stephen Frears’ film ’The Queen’ for reference, on how the media affected the Royal response to the death of Princess Diana.) 

2 - Whilst audience always love a happy ending, the studio is pained to admit that this might be too much of a happy ending, even for us.  It is important that a fantasy film such as this still keeps touch with reality.  The director needs to remember that if this fantasy event were to ever happen in the real world, that it is VERY unlikely that the ‘beer summit’ would happen in full view of the media.  It would 99% be more likely to happen behind closed private doors.  Even in this media saturated world we studio execs are so proud of, no one would ever be fooled by a  beer summit happening in the open air in full view, would they? 

If however the Director Ron Howard was so convinced that the beer summit had to be outdoors in full view of media cameras, then please make sure that the actor playing the president doesn’t over-act with mock exaggerated laughter, as that would just be painfully embarrassing, and quite frankly unnecessary.

3.  Re-cast the role of  the professor for Halle Berry to play it instead of Washington, and have her fall in love with either the policeman, the president or the vice-president (it doesn’t really matter which one!).  If you can make that happen, then this movie will definitely be financed!!

Ends.

Big Brother 8: Not me, not this time. Pt.2

Another deviation from Community Media, just for another second…..

I turn my back for a minute and see what happens!

This is a transcript of the conversation between Emily, Charley and Nicky that led to Emily’s departure from the house in the midst of another race row for the show.

EMILY: (referring to Charley dancing/pushing her hips forward) You pushing it out, you n****r.

NICKY: (shocked laughter) Erm, I can’t believe you said that.

CHARLEY: You are in trouble.

EMILY: Don’t make a big thing out of it then. I was joking.

CHARLEY: I know you were… but that’s some serious s**t, sorry.

EMILY: Why?

CHARLEY: Oh, my God. I’m not even saying it.

NICKY: Just don’t talk about it.

EMILY: I was joking.

CHARLEY: Do you know how many viewers would watch that?

NICKY: Okay, don’t make a big deal out of it.

CHARLEY: Fancy you saying that. I can’t believe you said that.

EMILY: Somebody has already used that word in this house.CHARLEY: No way. (Pause) Yeah, me. I’m a n****r.

NICKY laughs.

CHARLEY: I am one. Fancy you saying it. I know maybe you see it in a rap song. Maybe you and your friends sit there saying it.

EMILY: I’m friendly with plenty of black people.

NICKY: You call them n****rs?

EMILY: Yeah and they call me n****rs. They call me wiggers as well.

NICKY: I’m quite shocked.

CHARLEY: I’m in shock.EMILY: It’s not a big deal though, is it?

CHARLEY: Not for us it ain’t.

—-

Shawn’s note: Just to clarify, even if you don’t think it’s a big deal, it is for us. Ignorwe the ignorant rappers! The n-word is not a term of affection so don’t use it! It isn’t funny.

PEACE

To read BBC News article about this story click here.

MEDIA IN THE HANDS OF EVERYDAY PEOPLE!!!!

I don’t really need to say anything, do I? 2006.

Remember this? 1991.