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Urban v's the Commentariat

YouSir said:
It's just so, so fucking pointless. It hurts to think of just how pointless it is. How much time and energy and money are wasted on such absolutely fucking pointless pointlessness.
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I disagree, I don't think that articles like these are pointless. Or at least their very pointlessness serves a useful function. The New $cabsman, and the Guardian, put stuff like this out about pop culture at a pretty consistent rate and for good reason. This sort of 'radical' pop culture commentary gives the appearance of challenging structural issues while doing nothing of the sort. The legitimacy provided by this faux-radicalism can then be used to give the impression that their critiques of anything to the left of Blairism come from a radical position rather than the same position of entrenched privilege as the editorial position of the Daily Mail or the Telegraph. You can talk about Tories mansplaining to fellow Oxbridge women or Lady Gaga's racist hair or whatever till the cows come home, great, just don't elect a politician that threatens private profits because that's going too far.
 
J Ed said:
I disagree, I don't think that articles like these are pointless. Or at least their very pointlessness serves a useful function. The New $cabsman, and the Guardian, put stuff like this out about pop culture at a pretty consistent rate and for good reason. This sort of 'radical' pop culture commentary gives the appearance of challenging structural issues while doing nothing of the sort. The legitimacy provided by this faux-radicalism can then be used to give the impression that their critiques of anything to the left of Blairism come from a radical position rather than the same position of entrenched privilege as the editorial position of the Daily Mail or the Telegraph. You can talk about Tories mansplaining to fellow Oxbridge women or Lady Gaga's racist hair or whatever till the cows come home, great, just don't elect a politician that threatens private profits because that's going too far.
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I can't argue with that. It's like the woman with the world on a turtle's back, pointlessness all the way.
 
Incidentally, in a spirit of more constructive criticism, Bastani and Butler have said previously that it's been difficult to find women willing to go on Novara shows. Maybe they should think about the format they use, which requires a huge amount of 'front', not to say ego, in order not to appear silly in front of the mike/camera. Maybe they could try and think about formats that aren't authoratative talking heads staring down the camera, then maybe they could get a greater variety of people on....
 
I really like the content (mostly) and politics (errr...mostly) of Novara and do appreciate projects like that are a huge commitment to keep going, but.... I do increasingly find some of the ego that comes across in some of the presentations a bit annoying and it's starting to detract from an otherwise excellent project.
 
J Ed said:
Watching Eleanor Penny is freaking me out, it's like Laurie Penny has inhabited multiple bodies. I wonder who's going to grow up to be Christopher and who will be Peter?
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It is a little uncanny. I don't want to have a go at EP particularly though. It's more that Novara, after a long, hard search for women presenter talent, have finally settled on....the sister of an Oxford mate who already has a media profile. It's a bit Guardian isn't it?
 
easiest target in the world tbf, Bond. Anyone who's given it a moments thought realises they are cheering for an upper class sociopathic remorseles state killer. Turn the lense on somthing else- GoT, Who, Gaimans twee heroines- well thats harder.

a copy of the Patriot Act: savage and silly and just a little bit pathetic.
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Civil Contingencies Bill. Bond is not Bourne
 
Come to think of it, I'd expect a well-paid, supposedly professional and radical journalist to come up with news about issues that actually matter. Syria, refugees, welfare reform, the persecution of the sick and disabled, that sort of thing. Not turn in copy on irrelevant prattle that reads like a third-rate 'A' level cultural or media studies essay.

There's a whole raft of social, national and international issues that matter to which anybody with a public profile might devote an entire page. And perhaps might have any radical position they claim to espouse be better illustrated by actually doing so.
 
Bakunin said:
Come to think of it, I'd expect a well-paid, supposedly professional and radical journalist to come up with news about issues that actually matter. Syria, refugees, welfare reform, the persecution of the sick and disabled, that sort of thing. Not turn in copy on irrelevant prattle that reads like a third-rate 'A' level cultural or media studies essay.

There's a whole raft of social, national and international issues that matter to which anybody with a public profile might devote an entire page. And perhaps might have any radical position they claim to espouse be better illustrated by actually doing so.
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Yes, apart from her piece about living in a LBGQT collective in East London everything she wrote since she returned from the US is not even hinting at anything substantial or interesting (and even that article was pointing out how radical she was from the safety of her middle class lifestyle). where are her articles about the junior doctors contracts, foodbanks in hospitals, the jack the ripper museum masquerading as women's history?
 
equationgirl said:
Yes, apart from her piece about living in a LBGQT collective in East London everything she wrote since she returned from the US is not even hinting at anything substantial or interesting (and even that article was pointing out how radical she was from the safety of her middle class lifestyle). where are her articles about the junior doctors contracts, foodbanks in hospitals, the jack the ripper museum masquerading as women's history?
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I'd have thought the Ripper museum would have caught her attention.
 
equationgirl said:
I think that's the one that surprises me the most, given her much vaunted feminist credentials.
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Much vaunted or vaulted?

pole-vaulting.jpg
 
Fucking hell she was quoted extensively in the guardian today in an article about "Generation K"
 
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