LET ME (remember to) ENTERTAIN YOU ...

I started this blog first and foremost because I'm passionate about storytelling, in any form. I appreciate the simple joy of experiencing a work of art for the first time, and that's what entertainment really is when you get right down to it. 

From the humble to extravagant, the derivative to the inspired, whether we love them or hate them. And when they're at their best, they're quite simply remarkable. They have the power to tell stories that uplift our spirits, captivate our imaginations, stir the sense of adventure, or test the limits of our fears. They give us glimpses of fantastical worlds beyond our own existence, presenting ideas that question our assumptions or broaden our horizons.

They give us mighty heroes who inspire us to try harder than we thought necessary, reach further than we thought possible, or risk more than we thought possible. And they give us antagonists and villains who explore our deepest fears, challenge our insecurities, and question our deepest held convictions. 

Stories can do all these things and more. They explore the universal experiences of our lives, they stir emotions regardless of our race, colour or creed, they help to bring us together through our shared experiences, and passions, and fears, and help remind us that we have more in common with each other than we think.

In short, they represent the best of what it means to be human.

But all is not well. Like a lot of you, I've noticed a change in recent years. Our entertainment industries have been under attack, our stories are being sanitized and twisted to serve political agendas, our heroes are being neutered and marginalized, as Hollywood studios try in vain to dance to the everchanging tune of social media activists and perpetually offended serial complainers. 

Old classics are being remade and repackaged by creatively bankrupt studios trying in vain to cash in on nostalgia and name recognition. Our childhood heroes are being wheeled out only to be humiliated and downtrodden to elevate the success of cheap, inferior copies. And everything from the past is being prefaced with idiotic 'warnings' about cultural appropriation, our beloved characters are retooled into being vehicles for present day woke agendas. As a result, the stories themselves are often terribly written even on a fundamental level.

All this does is hurt the value of entertainment itself, and cause a divide where they would previously unite. Stories of the past featured timeless and universal themes and had applicability to everyone, yet today's stories will inevitably become dated to the period that it's in.

And this change has only been accelerated by a dying mainstream media, desperate for views and attention at any cost, to jump on any bandwagon it can find, to delay their inevitable collapse.

It is currently being reported that 550 households a day are cancelling their TV licence, and despite the increase in the number of UK households, this is not being matched by take-up of the licence.  

People no longer need to synchronise their viewing with broadcast times and will watch programmes on catch-up services. They are also making greater use of commercial streaming services and ditching terrestrial broadcasters completely. The TV licence is increasingly redundant, because people can get all the media they want without watching broadcasts or using the BBC’s increasingly uncompetitive woke-polluted iPlayer service. 

The result of all of this is a gradual erosion of narrative quality, thematic depth, artistic meaning, and, well, actual fun in entertainment. The stories we tell are no longer universal and timeless. They've become vapid and shallow, mired in present day cultural angst, and weighed down by clumsy attempts to pander to politics embraced only by an uncessecarily vocal few whose views are not shared by the majority of people. The stories which used to unite us now serve to stoke the fires to division, resentment and petty bickering.

In short, every facet of entertainment we consume today is under threat.

And this worries me, because I'm old enough to remember when things were different. I can appreciate the quality of the stories we used to tell, and I can see what damage we're doing to our artists of today. 

The next generation of moviegoers and filmmakers, such as my eager-eyed 10 year old nephew, is going to grow up in a world where this ridiculous state of affairs is the norm. They won't have that experience needed to strive for something better, and I think we'll all suffer as a result.

But I don't think it has to be this way.

We don't have to lie down and accept the gradual erosion of our art, entertainment and culture. The decline can be reversed through the most fundamental mechanism of all: Money. 

You can have all the political ideology you want, but ultimately if enough people refuse to support products like this, and instead give their money to studios and developers and artists who's only goal is to tell good stories, then the entertainment industry will have a simple choice: Listen to your market, or go out of business.

So I guess that's what this blog is really about. In my own small, heavily cynical way, it's about calling out these failings when I see them. It's about encouraging people to see through the fancy special effects and big budgets to understand the flawed, derivative, meaningless stories that lie beneath, and to resist the checkboxes and just let their imaginations run wild without worrying about who gets mildly offended or not. 

To get back to understanding the real mechanics of storytelling. And where possible, it's about recognizing movies, TV shows and video games, that buck this trend and dare to focus on what's actually important.

Entertainment.

MODERN LIFE IS (still) RUBBISH

In 64 days time, I'm turning 40. Yep I know, it's supposed to be "when life begins", but for the most it's a reminder that not only are you no longer able to call yourself 'young', you find yourself slipping into the inexorable habit of finding the latest culture, trends and music to be 'not as good as it was in my day'.

Growing up in the era of 90's Britpop, the last true, pre-social media people's cultural movement, I never used to understand why my Dad couldn't stand Pulp or Oasis, but would happy drop what he was doing whenever a Pink Floyd concert came on TV. Now I'm doing the exact same thing, only with The 1975 and Blur respectively. 

There's no point either trying to escape the tedium by wading through the multiple channels that MTV serve up these days. R&B videos are the worst, hulking men with tattoos and gold teeth surrounded by scantily-clad twerkers energetically throwing themselves over the bonnets and boots of expensive cars, expensive booze, diamond-encrusted everything's, bits of weaponry and silicone-pumped body parts. It's the sort of thing that would have Run DMC and Public Enemy sobbing into their cornflakes that something that was such a genuine, original and authentic subcultural movement that had such powerful message behind it, has given way to something so ostentatiously shallow.

Sadly it isn’t just the rappers. Were that the case I wouldn’t mind so much, that kind of thing is easy enough to avoid. But the signs of the reverse of standards – of the idolisation of the superficial – are everywhere. Open a magazine, turn on TV, it’s all there for you to see. I was especially reminded of this the other day when I found out apparently 8.2 million simple-minded gullible morons watched the final of "The Masked Singer".

Which is a) more people than watched the New Year's day special of Doctor Who and therefore conclusive proof that being stuck in lockdown has made us all much thicker, b) made even worse by the undeniable fact that The Masked Singer is the most stupid, idiotic, dumb, brainless, childish, unintelligent and painfully lowbrow programme in the history of television. It's like the outcome of the “make a TV show” challenge on The Apprentice if it was still going.

Sadly and predictably, my mum loves it. But for me there is nothing more utterly tragic an example of how far we have fallen than seeing Sir Lenny Henry, a bona-fide national treasure, a man who has appeared on stage as Othello, a man who has raised billions for the poorest people in the world, reduced to pratting around singing glorified karaoke in a glitter-covered blob suit.

The Masked Singer shouldn’t exist, and I wish it didn't. Television has never been more highbrow and far-reaching these days thanks in no small part to Netflix and Amazon Prime, ironically, churning out tremendous amounts of original content. And yet so many of us are choosing to watch a pleb in a hedgehog suit attempt to sing. This is for the same reason Channel 5 still dedicates serious prime-time to celebrities ranking various chocolate bars and biscuits, and why ITV once aired a one-off show celebrating 20 years of the Black Eyed Peas presented by “their friend” Joanna Lumley. This is not an accident, it's by design. 

The thing is, Art, including music, doesn’t impart morality. Art reflects the philosophy of a society. There is a sense in this article that art changes the mind of the viewer, but this is wrong. Art concretises someone else’s philosophy and presents it for judgement. We can be surrounded by ugly art and know it for what it is. Those that endorse, or turn a blind eye, knowing something is ugly are guilty of evasion. It’s like the story of the Kings new clothes. Evaders fear what others will think if they are honest. Hence, they choose dishonesty for themselves.

It IS possible to watch something bad from the past knowingly and to actually take legitimate pleasure out of it. The old Godzilla movies, Carry On, the original Battlestar Galactica and even 80's goofball movies such as 'Weird Science', 'Cherry 2000' and 'Howard the Duck' may have been corny and cheesy, but they still had an undeniably authentic charm to them that they wore on their sleeves which made them enjoyable to watch because of their kitsch-ness. 

But it's not just the ugly vulgarity and banality of modern culture that's the problem. Art reflects life and the shallow, trite modern reflections which exist today are a stark reminder of the new politically correct enlightened establishment that seek to erase what has gone before.

We are told constantly that nothing of worth or value in life existed before year zero (20's, 60's, 90's, take your pick) because we hadn't yet woken up to the New Enlightenment of woke equality and diversity of the masses. Yet the art of the past; music, literature, painting and architecture was full of beauty and aesthetic interest and hard earned craft which reflected a different era of lasting values and ideas. 

But is today's life, reduced to the lowest common denominator of mediocrity, really so much better?

At least, I have the option of going to BBC iPlayer and binge-watching Jenna Coleman in The Serpent again.

Now that's class.

ANNUAL BITTER MISANTHROPIC RANT ABOUT BEING A SINGLE BLOKE ON VALENTINE'S DAY

For years now I've been using this blog to whinge, moan, grumble, and bitterly complain that Valentine’s Day is a bullshit, vastly profitable holiday marketed by Hallmark to give you an excuse to stuff your face with chocolate and spend all your money on useless flowers and shitty jewellery. It’s the worst day of the year and pedestrians eat that shit up.

Whereas on New Year’s Eve or Santa Con you can man tequila to the face to get through the occasion, Valentine’s Day is all about moderation. It’s a romantic glass of red wine and slow, weak and emotional rodgering - because that’s love, of course - and you may have realized by now that I give zero f*cks.

There are a lot of good reasons to give Valentine’s Day the side-eye. It’s a holiday, as many people dutifully point out every year, that’s more about selling candies, cards and jewellery than it is about love.

You might have figured this was coming your way, since we like to boycott all pedestrian holidays, but this one is at the top of our hit lists for a variety of reasons. Firstly, if you are “lucky” enough to be sustaining an enjoyable relationship, you shouldn’t subscribe to an arbitrary occasion in order to display your love and passion. Valentine’s Day is an excuse for a terrible boyfriend or girlfriend to act extra nice one day of the year to make up for all the bits on the side.

There’s a wild misconception that these lovers, because they went above and beyond on Valentine’s Day, are actually perfect. Even if the next day they’re still the same assholes. Heading into any old drug store and picking up a generic teddy bear or an atrocious frilly heart filled with chocolates isn’t an expression of genuine love. If you truly care about someone, then one god-awful day of the year isn’t the only time you show it.

Alas, the holiday is only worsened because the expectation falls on the guy’s side. This is our time to impress our girlfriends, lovers or steady booty calls. It’s a girl’s second birthday as they are lavished with presents, fancy dinners and flowers, and even the occasional eat out. Christmas just came early. It transforms us into Prince Charming for the day because society pressures us into believing this is the only right thing to do.

Why is it that we don’t get chocolates? Why can’t our girl impress us? It’s not as if she’s girlfriend of the year either. Sorry, but I’m an alpha male, if this holiday means I have to be a bitch for a day just because love is in the air - I ain’t about that kind of life.

Because the one insurmountable problem of all these plans is that they depend on women actually giving a shit about what these guys do. And as most of these guys in their hearts probably realize, no one really cares if they eat a nice steak dinner (go for it, dudes) or waste their evening giving “chick flicks” one-star ratings on Netflix (knock yourselves out).

If they were decent human beings, being ignored by them actually would hurt. Of course, if they were decent human beings, they wouldn’t be giddily fantasizing about ostracizing the women of the world for being women.

Aside from the fact that this “holiday” forces people to mime a feeling they probably don’t have, it’s derived from a materialist effort to symbolize hackneyed displays of love. Even Jennifer Lopez herself once said love shouldn’t cost a thing, this world is expensive enough as it is, but this occasion has become a gold digger’s wet dream; the quality of her man and his feelings is dependent on how much he spent on her. We’ve prefaced love with a dollar sign.

We carried around your flowers all day, dealt with your endless chocolate binge, and thoughtfully ripped some R-Kelly lyrics for a heartfelt card. Guys only pretend to care on Valentine’s Day in the hope of an uninspiring blowjob or a rhythm-less hump at the day’s end.  Other than that we could care less when the next day we wake up and everything is the same – aside from the dent in our bank accounts.

It’s an artificial, rootless holiday with a backbone it pretends is love, but is really money. Just like love in itself, it’s all feigned. The truth is that we’re all cursed with the binding construct of monogamy. Sure we’ve all felt love early on, but we soon realized the façade doesn’t last. Valentine's Day is a holiday of negative space, something we wish we could spend with someone else or no one at all. Fidelity is impossible, we don’t know love, so it’s just easier to pretend the one day of the year.

Valentine’s Day is a confusing mess for most people. We live in a deconstructed society filled with diluted boundaries and no labels. We don’t have titles and we fear calling anyone our girlfriend’s because of the walls we build around ourselves. Valentine’s Day is that roadblock, the day that begs us to define to the steady booty what we think of them.

Either a steady realizes it’s nothing real, because we’re spending the day with another girl; or she looks at it as an opportunity to bump up the status from just casual sex and complicates things; or the girl assumes any effort makes her your girlfriend. It’s a nightmare any way you look at it. It makes everyone reconsider what they want from the arrangement: more or less. And there’s nothing worse than seeing an ex you hate enjoy the occasion more than you.

It’s a day that causes stress for a lot of couples and resentment amongst the single. And those little chalky heart candies with the words on them, whatever their kitschy charm, are really kind of crappy as candy.

If you do really love someone, and are lucky enough to be with someone you enjoy beyond sex, then you should do nice things for him or her all the time and show that you care - not just one day out of the year. Failing that, dig out your copy of Hot Fuzz, grab yourself a Cornetto and celebrate Simon Pegg's birthday instead.

At least it's cheaper.