The Reality of the Word

The transcript released earlier today by C4 certainly didn’t contain the whole story.

A most important aspect to emerge from the highlights is the obviousness and the extent of the negative reaction to Emily’s remarks of Charley and Nicky. It was very clear that the former was offended and disturbed and perhaps more so than she could really grasp at that point. Emily on the other hand clearly could not grasp how her own words exceeded her intentions even though she knew she had done something wrong. It would seem that Emily certainly did not remotely intend to cause upset or offence and Charley was aware of this, even to some degree concerned as to what the effect might be upon her friend. In a sense Emily did not intend to be offensive but was; Charley did not intend to be offended but was. We are in a context which far exceeds intentions.

Interestingly, and importantly, Emily’s use of the ‘N-Word’ derived from a particular kind of cultural appropriation and from her own very specific cultural background. One might even say that in using it Emily was behaving towards Charley in a way she might behave around her friends. But the word opens up an actually existing cultural history and a cultural structure that imposes and has effects regardless of the intentions of the parties who draw upon it when thinking and acting. Charley was at some level aware of this, even to the extent of herself feeling guilty as if she had caused the offence.

The facts of difference in our historical experiences cannot be wished away merely through good will or good intention.

In this case things are of course complicated by the intervening presence of Big Brother and the entertainment complex behind it. It intervenes perhaps partly on behalf of ‘us’ and partly on behalf of the symbolic order of the socially acceptable. but of course mostly on behalf of itself and the institutions of public communication. And in that sense it intervenes so as to attach the responsibility for the opening of a breach in propriety to an individual rather than to itself, to us or to the symbolic order.

There will of course be much public debate and discussion and this will no doubt in some cases be imagined to be evidence of our sophistication. But the reality exposed by this moment of reality TV, a reality moment that exists whether or not any individual wants it to, will remain. A viewpoint currently dominant in newspaper comment culture is that multiculturalism was and is flawed and that it draws attention to differences and conflicts rather than letting us transcend them and 'just all get along'. But in this case we can see how the facts of difference persist beyond our desire for them. And we have to start from there, acknowledging and exploring the reality, if we are going to get anywhere.

Emily to have love child with Don Imus

Emily has been fired by Alan Sugar for momentarily channelling Ron Atkinson. She needs to let go of the Indie music and subscribe to The New Humanist.

You can find the transcript here.

Obviously Big Brother's big theory thinks it excellent news. And this despite hoping that in Week 5 Emily would get strangled by Alice bands in an act of class war redolent of the great unwritten novel Ladette of the Flies.

But now we can hardly wait to see what this provokes in the wider culture. This time some sections of the press can't so easily load all the blame on stupid lower class people.

It seems hard to argue that Emily was setting out to be racist towards Charley and Nicky. It looks more like an instance of ignorance mixed with the general conviction of a certain kind of (white) English bourgeois that you can appropriate any aspect of any culture you want and there can't possibly ever be any kind of problem.

But as we know the cultural politics of this thing consist in the subsequent use of an event by wider media already exploiting 'outrage' in order to advance their own agendas. It is unlikely that the Daily Mail will run a story on the debilitating insularity of English upper-middle class kids. But I bet they get in a reference to self-hating liberals somewhere.

More likely though, is that it will feed into wider 'debate' about Channel 4 all of which is a prelude to getting it sold off to a private corporation. That is how the Daily Telegraph has already spun it, following on from stories suggesting that Brown might flog C4 off in an attempt to avoid a budget screw up before the next election. The Tories are of course also keen.

But in these Cameroonie times who can be sure? The Tory leader will no doubt discuss it all sincerely on WebCameron. Perhaps a cultural singularity is on its way faster than expected.

Big Brother's Big Theory