IT’S WHAT WE WATCH TV FOR
since the “GG leaves BB” story even got onto NEWSNIGHT fr god’s sake, I’m not gnna expand on it too tough => so hence some stuff off the top of my head
i. interesting that it took an actual real 60s radical – and echt feminist moreover – to realise the potential latent in the form, that is, to take the potential-for-platform in the unscored open-form play (IT’S A COLLECTIVE IMPROVISATION PEOPLE) and MAKE IT INTO A three-day-wonder (and counting) CROSS-MEDIA “POLITICAL” PLATFORM. To me it’s kinda like: AT *LAST* SOMEONE GOT THE JOKE of BB!! The nature of the politics is improvised also, of course, so may well fizzle out (i haven’t read anything she’s said today or written abt it yet).
ii. Terrestrial news of her walkout (and her debrief-w.-davina) coincided w.paul merton presenting 25 Years of the Comedy Store, which wz a punch of foax reminsicing abt how radical they were – and how wide open the world – back in the day, so monumental self-congratulation combined w.large scads of unexamined aspects (ie the degree to which political right-on-ness acted as an Indie Brake on potential for outreach and barrier-breaking; contrasted w.the degree to which out-group cultural solidarity and shared disgust and impatience actually allowed a monumental breach in the status quo to be achieved, forwever) (bob mills got a tiny slot on tarby: the next time he layed the CS, jeremy hardy and mark steel WALKED OUT in protest!!) (is such protest admirable or goofy? discuss, criticise and self-accuse, citizen=comrade
iii. revolution vs recuperation: they’re NOT dichotomous opposites (it emerged that some v.v.early Committee for Public Safety of the alter-comedy established included both Keith “chucked it away” Allen and Pauline “used it plus = actually funny on TV” Quirke, and the prog’s makers had smugly to slip in a little tic of fake astonishment that someone as “naff” as PQ shd be part of this, y’know, like they werent MAKING A we-love-the-80s-type DOCUMENTARY FOR THE BRITISH BROADCASTING SOCIETY grrrr)
iv. the hole that the (zzz) pistols and the alt.comedians (and janet street-porter and others) blew in media containment wz interestingly double-edged – back in the 70s, you couldn’t graduate to TV w/o being able to demonstrate that you understood and had attained certain “professional standards”, which were in the main deployed to ensure that the torrent of new ideas and stances unleached by the cataclysmic 50s-60s expansion of media formats *didn’t* all flood through; well, gradually TV has been opened up – in the interests of “punky” and “amateur” and “neighbour-from-hell” democracy – but has at the same time been countered by the establishment of incredibly sophisticated genre protocols and etiquettes (through which the jerry springer opera bust, also, apparently: the rules it apparently broke don’t eg apply to movies broadcast EVERY FKN WEEK on BBC2, ITV, C4, C5 etc etc, if the lack of protest at same is anything to judge by…
v. anyway, these protocols – which are what allow us to turn on the TV at random and know, immediately, what SPECIES of programme we’re watching (news, drama, comedy, advert) are – pretty much SELF-policed, in this sense. Since BB and Popstars debuted four(?) years ago, NO ONE from the rock/indie/counterculture/avant-garde (so-called) margins – except some lone animal-rights activist on TOUCH THE TRUCK!! – has thought, “Hey, look, they left the door wide open.” Instead it’s been all been formalist-moralising tantrums: “American Idol is Killing Our Youth” blah blah blah. Until Germaine, kinda sorta, bless her. Not that she had a plan even: but more like she had the memory of habits evolved back in days when spontaneity wz something WE cultivated to respond/command the same thing in events round us
vi. Peter Bazalgette‘s great great grandfather designed and built London’s sewer system HURRAH