rafael behr on the politics of strictly come dancing

Rafael Behr has written a great post on how the dynamics the experts and the popular vote in reality TV competitions illustrates the inherent tensions within representative democracies. I’m becoming quite a fan – he was also one of the few people in the press to really investigate what the Cameron/Johnson oligarchy means for British society.

 I have a particular interest in the John Sergeant case because his wife attempted to teach me Latin at school (it was a valiant effort, but I’m no linguist). I say this to defend the Sergeant name against Behr’s accusations of brute popularism! Anyway, check it out, it illustrates exactly how I believe that popular culture and democratic politcs can illuminate one another, despite Behr’s contradictory disavowal of this in his concluding words (‘Well, I don’t care that much. It’s only TV.’)

Tags: democracy, guardian, john sergeant, politics, rafael behr, reality tv, strictly come dancing

two steps backwards with prop 8, an inch forward with boyzone

 November hasn’t been the greatest month for gay rights. The passing of Proposition 8 in California took the shine off Obama’s election victory for me and many others.

 However watching the new Boyzone video today made me smile, and not just because I’m a recovering boyzone fan (they were the primary focus of my teenage years). Because their video for ‘Better’ features a boyband member in a gay coupling for the first time:

The video seems to be getting a good reaction from fans and critics alike.

This is the second major First for Stephen Gately. He was the first openly gay boyband member in the UK in the 90s. Since then others have followed, but the sexuality of their sexuality (as it were), has always been discretely brushed to one side, much in the way that gay TV characters have often been sidekicks rather than romantic leads. Even in Will Young’s video for ‘Switch it On’, his gayness was only referenced with jokey innuendo. But in ‘Better’ two gay men are put side-by-side, seriously, and without comment, with straight couples.

 Against the backdrop of the crushing constitutional entrenchment of Prop 8, it is easy to feel that a Boyzone video is a drop in the ocean (and I admit that I have been known to overestimate the cultural significance of boyzone!). Nevertheless, it is the cultural drip drip of acceptance and inclusion that can end up eroding away even the biggest mountains of prejudice.

 So let’s celebrate every time anyone sends out the message ‘some people are gay. get over it’.

Tags: better, boyzone, equality, gay, politics, pop music, proposition 8, stephen gately, video

youtube politics: why gordon brown just doesn’t get it

When Gordon Brown swept into office on a tide of popular relief at the exit of Tony Blair last year, he took the predictably trendy step of setting up a 10 Downing Street youtube channel.

This move was sold as a sign of a new politics, where politicians would reach out and engage with voters, particularly those hard-to-reach 18-30 year olds. Unfortunately it seems as though the same old top-down politics has been replicated in a new medium.

My friend Anita, in her role as an Amnesty International intern, posted a question for Gordon on the issue of detention without charge (the limit was recently raised to a staggering 6 weeks in the UK).

So far, so good. A young voter gets the chance to talk directly to the Prime Minister about an issue of great national importance. Unfortunately that’s where this promising example of open democracy ends. Take a look at Brown’s response, and tell me how it is different to any standard press-conference spiel:

Worst of all, Gordon commits the ultimate web-2.0 crime: the comments facility on the video is disabled. The Prime Minister speaks, we listen, and that’s the end of it. All of the potential of the youtube as an accessible forum for debate has been ignored.

I’m don’t expect Gordon to spend all day engaging in video flame-wars, but he should at least let the youtube community comment on his video!

Of course, Brown’s censorship of his own channel won’t stop anyone posting videos in response, or prevent debate elsewhere on the net about his civil liberties record, but it does demonstrate his fundamental misunderstanding of the structure and appeal of the internet.

I’m quite a fan of Gordon Brown, but given recent speculation about his position in the party, and the Labour party’s standing in the country it is interesting to note that both David Miliband and David Cameron do have comments enabled on their personal blogs. Their sites are hardly hot-beds of a new democratic order, but they do suggest that it is too early to discount the potential of the internet to have a significant impact on political life. The real question is whether a truly interactive web-relationship with our democratic representatives is possible, how long it will take, and what impact it will have. That’s something no-one has the answer to yet.