Articles Comments

David Porter » Articles at Suite 101

Stand-Up Comedy Is Alive, Well and Flourishing in the UK

January 25th, 2012 | 2 Comments

The Lonely Stand-Up Comic's Spotlight - Kadellar
Heard the one about stand-up enjoying a rebirth in Britain? Well, it’s no joke, it’s true. In hard times, people need laughter and comics are bringing it.

2010‘s Royal Variety Show saw more stand-up comedians on the bill than anyone can remember. This, along with shows devoted to the genre on British TV, rising popularity of cruise ship entertainment and the growth of corporate comedy, confirms that solo comics working crowds with gag after gag, are ever popular.

Stand-up comedians, whether the natural clown in a classroom, at work or out for the night, or the jester who entertained the royal court in days gone by, telling people how foolish life is, are vital. Nonetheless, it’s a difficult performing art because everybody’s humour is unique.

Humour is not only personal, it varies regionally and nationally, is gender specific and dependent on numerous variables from crowd expectation to their boredom thresholds. It’s a wonder so many comics survive. Some do very well.

Advice to Stand-Ups

There are how-to books, comedy training clubs and courses to advise would-be comedians, ranging from detailed preparation, to ‘don’t do it’. They are urged to study the professionals, not to steal their jokes, of course, but to practise by reworking them, trying different build ups and punchline deliveries.

All comedians are observationalists; some adopt characters and topical issues. Others like Peter Kay and John Bishop are distinctly regional satirists; Lee Evans is a physical funster; improvisers include Paul Merton and Stephen Frost, while Ronni Ancona, Rory Bremner and Jon Culshaw are impressionists. All have found their own comic ‘voices’.

This includes the particular delivery style. Jack Dee is dead-pan, often wearing a pained expression, never cracking a smile himself. Performers are recommended to choose a persona that suits them naturally. That way, material comes from within, drawing on experience and idiosyncracies in equal measure. The ability to present oneself in a comic/ridiculous situation is almost as important as a burning desire to perform.

Things that worry people, make them angry or frightened are good sources of material. Going to the doctor or dentist, having a baby are everyday occurrences which can be funny in retrospect. Traffic wardens, estate agents and politicians are fair game as butts of humour. Everyday sufferings like traffic, shopping, animals and work are rich seams of comedy to be mined.

Relatives have traditionally been worth a laugh. Restaurants are frequently amusing; why people do things they do, often with little logic. Some think that ugliness, or even disability, are fertile grounds, too. Thalidomide, the Musical played in Britain in 2006, written by and starring Mat Fraser, himself a thalidomide victim.

Most comedy audiences have short attention spans, so build-ups must be brief. An exception is the shaggy-dog tale, as often told by Ronnie Corbett: a long-winded saga interspersed with dozens of one-liners, before a deliberately tame climax. Remembering jokes can be a challenge, so intense rehearsal is essential, like for any other performing art. Picking up on audience cues, singling individuals out often comes with experience, but is not always liked.

The Old School

Jonathan Brown, in a review in The Independent, May 2009 said: ‘Two hours into his show and Ken Dodd is taking a short break backstage. With a joke rate running at seven every 60 seconds, he has already told about 800 gags this evening – every one of which has raised a laugh or at least an indulgent groan from delighted fans’.

Brown pointed out: ‘By the time the capacity audience leaves the Palace Theatre in Mansfield shortly after midnight, five hours and 15 minutes after 80-year-old Dodd burst onto the stage banging a drum and singing Happiness, they have chuckled, sniggered or roared with laughter up to 2,000 times’. No modern performer can emulate that; ‘Doddy’ is unique.

Cornish comedian ‘Jethro’ (Geoff Rowe) was born in 1948 and worked his way up the comedy ladder from local pubs to TV to national tours with more TV, like most established comedians. His trademark is earthy, edgily ‘near the mark’ of acceptability jokes, rooted in his native area delivered in a rich accent.

Billy Connolly, Scottish observationalist; Bill Bailey, comic and musician; Harry Hill, intellectual-surrealism; Jim Davidson, London bloke into adult humour and Sean Lock, misleading ordinariness, all personify people who have made long careers out of the business of making people laugh by pointing out their absurdities.

Jo Brand used her experience working as a psychiatric nurse to launch stand-up, often of a feminist flavour. Victoria Wood is talented beyond stand-up as writer (Dinnerladies) and singer. Marcus Brigstocke is from the satirical background with a political edge.

Ben Elton, London born comic and left-wing activist is also author, playwright and TV director. He was big in 1980s’ ‘alternative comedy’, but also wrote cult TV shows like The Young Ones and Blackadder, and West End musical We Will Rock You (2002). Like Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith, Pamela Anderson and Gryff Rhys Jones, he graduated from stand-up microphones to all-round amusing celebrity.

The New Guns

Michael McIntyre tops the list of new hot favourites (2010), who brings a well spoken, slightly camp, overweight and veering on politically incorrect humour, that sells out everywhere he goes. He also frequently hosts Live at the Apollo, a big TV stand-up show.

Kevin Bridges uses his Scottishness to make laughs; as Rob Brydon sometimes uses his Welshness. Sarah Millican uses relationship-disaster humour. Omid Djalili, born of Iranian parents cashes in on comedy about people in Iran, Iraq, Israel or anywhere ‘foreign’.

Iranian Shappi Khorsandi plays on a number of unique selling points – an Iranian woman working in Britain, tapping into the personal experiences of religion, culture and her divorce and disastrously trying to get back into the dating game. Miranda Hart plays on her taller, often awkward physical coordination to show how hard it is to get into the dating market in the first place.

The Controversial

Russell Brand carved a career from controversial comedy of the practical joke variety, which hasn’t stopped him being successful in film acting and TV presenting. Jimmy Carr combines dark humour with deadpan delivery, often pushing at audience-comfort boundaries. Scottish humourist Frankie Boyle deliberately generates morbid, often pessimistic joking, which has led to TV comedy success and losing it.

There is an argument that all comedy, especially stand-up, must be somewhat controversial. It was ever thus, from it’s Commedia dell’Arte origins to political comedy of today. What is certain, is that it’s serious big business making people laugh.

First published on Suite 101, 22 December 2010.

Photo: The Lonely Stand-Up Comic’s Spotlight – Kadellar

Read On

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

The Politics of the Great British Weather

January 23rd, 2012 | Comments Off on The Politics of the Great British Weather

Drought Control Is a Political Hot Potato - Leyo
UK’s most talked about topics are weather & politics. Put together, they can be a potent barometer of public opinion, ignored by politicians at their peril.

Bob Dylan sang: ‘You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,’ (Subterranean Homesick Blues, 1965), but in politics, those who keep an eye on the weather usually do themselves big favours. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (1894-1986) is attributed with warning in response to a question from a journalist about what is most likely to blow a government off course: ‘Events, dear boy, events’. The weather is the ultimate event.

When sporting events go well at a national level (like England winning the football World Cup in 1966, tennis doing better than normal or Olympic golds coming home), politicians bask in the glow of success of others. A lovely day on election day is said to favour Labour; while bad weather brings out more Conservative supporters. Weather influences well-being, opinion polls and the knee-jerks of administrations in their ‘blue sky thinking’.

Weather Clearly has Political Dimension

Societies create laws governing their air, water pollution, global warming, transport, buildings, food preparation and chemical usage everywhere. In that sense, climate is a huge influence on day-to-day politics. When things go wrong, and there are droughts, floods, incapacitating snow and ice, hurricanes and other extremes, then the responses of the authorities top the news agendas.

Even weather outside Britain causes political upheaval. In 2010, erupting Icelandic volcanoes disrupted air travel to such an extent that the entire travel/tourism industry feared for its future. People panicked and the skies were empty of planes across half Europe. In early and late 2010, extreme snowfalls across most of Britain brought the nation to a standstill: schools and shopping centres closed, railways halted, airports iced up and shut.

Political demands that new ‘resilience-planning’ must be begun immediately led politicians to start blaming each other and governments. It became the news story, alongside people’s suffering and difficulties. Inextricable links between weather and politics was first noted by Bill McKibben in his 1989 book, The End of Nature, which blew global warming/climate change onto the international stage. That his views and those of his subsequent disciples were not unanimously accepted, confirms that weather is a political hot potato.

Uniquely British Weather and Politics

Russia, Scandanavia and northern Europe regularly experience winter temperatures below 20 degrees. Mountainous areas like Switzerland have huge snowfalls, regularly. They have equipment to clear runways, railways and roads. Harsh winter, usually described as ‘a cold snap’ by the media, seems to catch the UK by surprise. That is why weather politics is so entrenched.

For a relatively small area of land mass, the United Kingdom has extremely varied and frequently changeable weather. Heavy rains in many areas made the verdant green pastures that led poets to wax lyrical. William Blake wrote in 1808: ‘And did those feet in ancient time/Walk upon England’s mountains green?/And was the holy Lamb of God/On England’s pleasant pastures seen?’

Disasters in stormy waters offshore, crashes, explosions, collapses, crumbling of mountains, hills, flatlands, floods and deluges are all somewhere, sometime deemed to be a failure of government, a lack of public funding, incompetent officials, complacent ministers, a political party or a particular policy. Rarely are catastrophes seen as natural part of living on earth: it must be somebody’s fault. Politics must respond.

Local Difficulties

Wyn Grant, writing about British politics in December 2010, remarked that when Scottish transport minister Stewart Stevenson resigned over the bad weather in December 2010, it ‘wasn’t because the weather was bad, but because information was not released quickly enough about how bad conditions were leading lorry drivers and motorists to be trapped overnight in their cars. The minister then compounded his errors by going on television and declaring that there’d been a ‘first class response’.

In 2001 in Weather Online Philip Eden recalled ‘the greatest drought on record’ in Britain. Summer 1976 marked ‘the culmination of a prolonged drought which had begun in April 1975. By April 1976 the drought had become very serious, not only for the water-supply industry but also for agriculture. The topsoil in East Anglia had turned to dust and was being systematically eroded by stiff easterly winds. Farmers warned of poor yields unless the rains came soon. They didn’t’.

In response to the feeling that the government of the day (Labour) should be seen to do something they did two things, neither of which were the ‘rain dance’ some people demanded, but where typical political responses. A Drought Bill was rushed through Parliament to restrict water consumption, some areas were rationed through standpipes in the streets. Health fears were heightened by the absence of air conditioning in most workplaces, and fires broke out without the means to extinguish them.

A ‘Minister for Drought’ was also appointed. This was Mr Denis Howell, MP, who was minister for sport, and found drought added to his brief. Howell toured the country, reported to Cabinet, Parliament and a special crisis management committee that was set up. Within three days it had started raining! Politics was seen to have ‘done something’.

As UK Parliamentarians and governments dance about making laws, holding meetings and trying to manage the news, British voters despair. They grumble about bad planning, lack of foresight and common sense. Oppositions have their hour in the spotlights, saying what they would/wouldn’t have done.

The possibly poisoned chalice of the 2012 Olympic Games coming to Britain has yet to be tasted in full. If there is a hot summer of drought andwater is in short supply again, then the ‘blame game’ will be the main show, the political activities will flourish. But in politics, every day’s weather backdrop is a photo-opportunity for somebody.

Weather unites the Brits; pointing out the obvious (‘Such a lovely day!’) is a British trait. It’s the politics that divides people.

First published on Suite 101, 20th December 2010.

Photo: Drought Control Is a Political Hot Potato – Leyo

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

Conspiracy Theories and Computers Are Natural Bedfellows

January 21st, 2012 | 1 Comment

Hackers Can Open Any Locked PC Door - mengwong
From ‘The World Is Being Invaded By Computers’ to “The Greatest Invention of the 20th Century’, views are polarized about everything to do with technology.

By the end of 2010, in tandem with computer technology evolution, advances in the information-age and increasing disenfranchisement many individuals felt, WikiLeaks arose. Global, new media and non-profit making, it released millions of documents acquired from anonymous and leaked sources.

Is All Information Valid in the ‘Information Age’?

This publishing of secret, confidential, controversial and embarrassing files from inter and intra-governmental communications, horrified administrations and their agencies and possibly compromised security, but fed the appetite for disclosure that the internet and social networking birthed.

The founder of the platform, Julian Assange, was wanted in a number of nations on a variety of charges, as people and officials responded in different ways to ‘leaking’. A group of internet-activists/hackers, known as ‘Anonymous’, in December 2010 claimed to have crashed MasterCard and other websites by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

This was in revenge for the firm suspending facilities to WikiLeaks. Nothing can be totally secure in computing environments. As celebrities, politicians and criminals find, the internet harbours few secrets. A loose-knit group of knowledgeable activists, even a solitary hacker, can access anything, anywhere, any time to achieve what he or she wants.

Computers Don’t Accept Innocent Mistakes

Rubbish in, rubbish out (UK); garbage in, garbage out (USA). Either way, it means if people input inaccurate, nonsensical stuff into a computer, inaccurate, nonsensical stuff comes out. Conspiracists also have it that deliberate inaccuracies can destabilize whole financial systems, steal assets or blackmail individuals.

Tim Ross, Social Affairs Editor of UK’s Daily Telegraph (Dec 2010) pointed out that having a name misspelt by call centre staff is annoying enough, but it could have serious consequences ‘in which people are denied access to their own funds’. Research at King’s College, London blamed outsourcing on overseas staff unfamiliar with names, and ‘poorly educated bank clerks in Britain for errors in data entry’. Verification of identities, addresses, dates of birth, previous employment details can become impossible in dealing with accounts, savings, job interviews or credit-worthiness checks. Carelessness can cost money.

Ross reported the study’s finding of three main sources of error: call centre staff keying in names phonetically either accidentally or deliberately; misreading paper files; and operators ‘typing too fast who key in the right letters in the wrong order’. Not so much conspiracy, then, as messing up.

Violence and Computers

One troubleshooting site on the web is PC Hell: ‘that place you visit when your personal computer is driving you insane with problems, glitches. To soothe the frustration, we’ll provide tips, hints and troubleshooting remedies to help you out of PC Hell. Be warned, however, sometimes there is no exit….’ They offer solutions to viruses, blocks, wrong application errors, non-installations and ‘how to delete undeletable files’. They all rely on users having computer literacy, jargon control and understanding what their problem is.

People are routinely driven to frustration, anger, even violence, over computer problems that seem impervious to human solution. That there could be a series of conspiracies to make people not only computer-addicted but dependent on the remedy-providers, is feasible, according to some and needs to be combatted in different ways.

Violence has a broader dimension. An undated paper by Alfred Bork (University of California) and Netiva Caftori (Northeastern Illinois University), suggested that the computer ‘as a highly interactive learning device, might contribute to the solution of some of the major ethical problems of our society’.

With a lack of outlets for people to vent their frustration, violence is endemic in the world, they said. They proposed an interactive learning module more than transmitting information, that encouraged children to create own behaviour patterns and solutions.

Childhood templates of violence are established, they argued, from parents or religions. New technologies of ‘film, television fiction & news, and computer games have complicated the situation, with widespread use of violence ’. They claimed that computerized programs in young peoples’ native languages utilizing computers as questioning/answering tutors were the panacea.

Theory of Conspiracy Theories

Mike Bedford wrote on PC Plus (Jan 2010) that ever since shiny silver debris was reported in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, government conspiracies have abounded. This one was that aliens were hidden by the US government, but it laid the foundations for future conspiracies including:

  • Who killed Kennedy?
  • Did Americans actually land on the moon?
  • Who was really behind 9/11?

And then, right up to the 21st century:

  • How many world wide webs are there?
  • Do most security, law agencies and militaries actually have their own untappable web networks?

Bedford suggested: ‘conspiracy theory is disarmingly simple: all you need is an occurrence, the suggestion of a dark cabal, a wilful disregard for evidence and a creative mind’. He said that once released, the tale ‘takes on a life of its own and begins galloping around the globe’. As it moves, ‘self-appointed experts pick it over’, so ‘layers of detailed information are added to what may originally have been an overheard whisper, a lie or a simple misinterpretation’.

Leaving aside politics and aliens, Bedford cited top computer related conspiracies, including: specially written software discovered hidden messages in the Bible, published in The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin; the USA’s Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is a smokescreen to keep people looking for non existence lifeforms; and the government covers up the dangers of Wi-Fi.

He also dealt with the notion that government eavesdrops on emails, listens to phone conversations, is copied in to all texts and internet searches. Many argue that with high global terrorism alerts, that is less conspiracy than common sense, though no two people can agree. That it’s Google rather than government that does the surveillance for targetted advertising is a variation; the theory that the CIA can break any code is unprovable.

Internet-borne viruses and cyber-attacks being products of foreign and hostile governments (China, former USSR nations) may carry credibility, according to Bedford. However, digital set-top boxes containing hidden cameras explaining why governments are forcing digital switchovers and Microsoft’s Wingding font being a coded attempt to incite racial violence, are theories, proving for Bedford, that ‘lunatics are taking over the internet’.

This is confirmed for him by the theory that the microprocessor was ‘the result of reverse engineering technology from an alien spacecraft’, that came to earth at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947! That’s the wonder of the internet, that one thing feeds another. which is just what a conspiracy is.

First published on Suite 101, 9th December 2010.

Photo: Hackers Can Open Any Locked PC Door – mengwong

 

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

The Real Power of Some UK Parliamentary Procedures

January 17th, 2012 | Comments Off on The Real Power of Some UK Parliamentary Procedures

British House of Commons: Some Strange Procedures - Editor5807
Early Day Motions to be signed, Adjournment Debates to be attended, Private Members’ Bills to pass: life in the Commons is not all effective.

The MPs’ expenses scandals in 2008-2010 and refreshing of the Commons at the 2010 General Election did not elevate public approval of elected representatives. Most people understand how laws emanating from the European Union render Parliamentarians impotent. Nevertheless, a disapproving public expects MPs to do their duty.

And that means doing voters’ bidding. Edmund Burke’s warning from 1774: ‘Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion’, means little to voters who want their MP to deal with localised unemployment, doctor/dentist/schooling matters, tax/unemployment issues, planning consents and a new pedestrian crossing. Many of these issues are in the domains of local councils and other organisations.

However, no MP with ambition to be re-elected would say that. Everything is taken on. An MP is expected to have an opinion, be informed, act on, take up the cause of everything that affects the entire constituency and every soul in it. As part of this, when a campaign is started for/against something, people will often demand their MP joins in.

Adjournment Debates

Richard Eyre, director of the UK’s National Theatre 1987-97, wrote in his diary National Service (2003), 18th May 1989: ‘Went late, 10.30pm to the House of Commons for an Adjournment Debate. It’s apparently a way of putting a point on record and forcing a minister to answer it. Tory MP Alastair Goodlad made a good (well briefed) speech about the National Theatre to an audience of two Tory backbenchers, the Minister Richard Luce and his Parliamentary Private Secretary, director David Aukin, National‘s Head of Press Stephen Wood, and myself. He gave us very good review and argued for increased funding from the Arts Council…Luce was wholly noncommittal but wholly respectful’.

The tone suggested that Eyre believed an Adjournment Debate was an especially grand Parliamentary event played out in front of a packed House. Little could be further from the case. The fact that he noted two Members of Parliament andthree visitors in the gallery watching, suggested, in fact, a large audience for such a procedure.

The motion, ‘That this House do now adjourn’ is a formality. It’s usually taken without vote, although Members intent on rebellion or disruption could vote that this House do NOT adjourn. Once the Motion is put, there is an opportunity for one Member from the backbenches (chosen by the Speaker’s Office) to put a matter of burning interest to the House, usually from his/her constituency, recorded in Hansard, the official record of Parliament’s proceedings.

It’s normally on such topics as coastal erosion, the closure of a particular school or hospital, the case of an individual pensioner, child, victim, criminal, company who may have suffered some travesty or miscarriage of justice or administration. The Ministerial reply usually argues a defence for the Government department and a defence or criticism of local government, depending on which party controls it.

The Minister often promises to look into it, to address it in some way, hold an enquiry, report back to the MP concerned. Sometimes a regional group of MPs will raise an issue of wider importance, like roads, rail, jobs, the actions of a council or quango. Sometimes an MP will choose a topic of national significance (to show a growing expertise to boost his/her credentials).

Whatever the cause, an MP speaking in an Adjournment Debate goes down well in the local media, nicely ticking the box marked; ‘being seen to be speaking up for constituents’. To say that is not to belittle it. It’s a rare and valued opportunity for a backbencher to speak directly and publicly to a Minister to get something done.

The Power of Petitions

In the 1800s the Chartists and others presented huge petitions mainly on electoral reform and suffrage. In modern times people in their thousands sign petitions to Parliament demanding redress of grievance or particular action. Pleas are placed by an individual MP ‘in the bag’ at the rear of the Speaker’s Chair. They can be introduced by an MP speaking in the chamber if he/she can catch the eye of the Speaker, follow the protocols and get in a quick bit of publicity for the cause.

Most petitions are quietly placed without fanfare, but they are reported in Parliamentary proceedings; so again, publicity is created. All well and good, it’s just that often people expect their petitions to move the mountain of Government disagreement, whatever the number of signatures.

Early Day Motions and Private Members’ Bills

EDMs are motions on the Order Paper each day for the House to consider ‘at an early day’. In practice, that means almost never. But again, they allow MPs to raise issues of national or local concern. Some can be parochial, about local football teams or school results; most are serious. A single Member can table an EDM, and then other Members can sign it too.

In the course of a Parliamentary session, there may be hundreds of Motions, some signed by one, some by dozens, a few by hundreds. It’s a mark of success to table one that is signed by many. Rare is the EDM that gets debated, though a Select Committee might take one up, or a Member use one in an Adjournment Debate. Publicity given to EDM’s is out of proportion to their value in changing Government policy. The public urges their own MP to sign a particular one, and protests if he/she declines.

Once a Session there is a ballot for twenty backbench MPs to put forward in allotted time a Bill of his/her choice. Campaign groups look out for the winners to adopt ‘their’ Bill. The realities of Parliamentary time, willingness of Government to let a backbencher change legislation, constraints of European membership and contentiousness of the topic determine that six or so are debated. Perhaps one a year becomes law.

Again. the public sees these bills as opportunities for their pet subjects to get the laws they deserve, and they pressure MPs accordingly. Of course, that’s what the job is partly all about, doing things that often make little difference. If the public don’t feel satisfied, they can vote the MP out next election.

First published on Suite 101, 26 November 2010.

Photo: British House of Commons: Some Strange Procedures – Editor5807

Read On

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

Can Freelancing for All be the Future of Work?

January 16th, 2012 | Comments Off on Can Freelancing for All be the Future of Work?

Homeworking Preferred By Freelancers - Jason Pack
As globalization, technology and economic reconfiguration take hold, most people’s future patterns of working are changing. But can everybody be freelance?

Shift Happens is not the only site to warn that young people are being prepared for jobs that don’t yet exist; that world change is happening exponentially fast, and learners of 2010 will have 10-14 jobs before they are 40.

In November 2010 the Professional Contractors Group: PGC ‘the voice of freelancing in the UK’, held its first National Freelancers’ Day to promote the career choice that increasing numbers of people are adopting as traditional job opportunities change, or disappear altogether. A message from the Prime Minister added official endorsement to the concept.

It’s not just the UK that is waking up to an emerging freelance workforce of around 1.4m. The USA recognises over 40 million ‘independent workers’, Canada has 2.7m people self-employed, France around 300,000, Australia 2.1m self employed (1m independent contractors), Italy at least half a million and The Netherlands about 9% of the total workforce.

Some Expert Future Predictions

Futurologist Dr James Bellini argued at the freelancing day in London that ‘career’ and ‘job’ need to catch up with the ‘fluid, flexible, trust-based and collegiate concept of wealth-making practices’ in the digital age. He felt that knowledge-based technologies were transforming the ‘working machine’, the ‘wealth of networks’.

He thought that by 2020, 80% of UK working adults would no longer travel to a desk. Their specializations would be replaced by ‘work eco-systems dependent on contingent freelancers’. Tim Jones, Programme Director of The Future Agenda, concurred with the view that value creation would shift away from traditional boundaries to ‘embrace people interested in portfolio careers’.

Another futurologist, Ian Pearson of Futurizon, said that automation/robotics would replace people in administrative intelligence-requiring work, and the future would demand human contact skills: emotional, caring, interpersonal and communication. He thought a hospital consultant easier to automate than a nurse. A consultant is ‘an expert system linked to a complicated brain’; a nurse is about people, hands-on.

Tom Austin, Vice President of Gartner thought the world would need ‘organizational agility’ along lines of ‘swarming behaviours’. New forms of teaming/swarming to attack problems will be gathered to attack a problem, then dissipate. The freelancer will work in different swarms, according to skill, experience and price. Andi Britt of IBM supported the view from IBM global research of 700 organizations, that teams will form quickly, collaborate, share, unconstrained by organizational and geographical boundaries’.

The Pros of Freelancing

Seth Godin, world famous freelance entrepreneur, maintained: ‘An artist is someone who brings humanity to a problem, bringing creativity and insight to work, instead of choosing to be a compliant cog’. Sir Tom Farmer, founder of the Kwik-Fit empire, believed that a leaner organization was the way forward, with certain functions outsourced routinely.

So an argument for freelancing begins to stack up. The rapid eroding of traditional jobs and ways of doing almost everything are an incentive to get ahead and start marketing skills freely, widely and openly. The freedom to work when people want (allowing for the economic necessities of life), being one’s own boss, the end of 9-5 and daily commutes in expensive, crowded, inflexible transport systems must strike a chord with many people who are frustrated, numbed and weary with working practices today. The ability to fix fees/charges and the sheer variety of the jobs are equally powerful appeals.

The skills of IT, writing, media relations and PR, accounting, law, management and change-leading consultancies are easily seen to fit into freelancing working models. Other job areas do not apparently fit so well. However, retailing, repairing and even manufacturing are forms of freelance. A business sets up to sell, make, fix a product and must market it.

The Freelancing Cons

This sounds exciting enough for those who can think in abstracts, and are not affected by loss of their jobs through changing technologies and practices. There are more downsides to bear in mind than being locked in previous modes of thinking, too. Tax restrictions can be big hurdles. In the UK particularly the tax authorities do not like self-employment and freelancing, and through their infamous form IR35 make it deliberately difficult in their attempt to tax the ‘hidden economy’.

Job security, paid holidays and sick leave are not readily given up by people conditioned to rely on them. The need to keep and/or pay for comprehensive accounting records, own insurances and legitimate/taxable expenses can be quite daunting, even off-putting.

Gary Barber, who describes himself as an ‘independent User Experience Designer’ pointed out that some of the other downsides to freelancing include: cash flow; bad debtors; getting credit lines; getting enough work often against larger, slicker outfits of freelancers; managing sporadic gluts of work; separating home/office situations and the isolation of that way of working. Freelancers don’t always own their work: that could be a drawback for creative people.

Nobody Really Knows the Future

Seeing into the future is clouded in mystery; predictions are notoriously difficult and over the years there have been some monumental failures. However, some things are reasonably safe to assume: technology can only advance (though some think there is a finite amount of cyberspace available and a limit on what the human brain can cope with); the world has a potential problem with energy and water supplies down the road. Even guessing the size, shape and scope of school buildings and universities of tomorrow is but a stab in the dark, building on what seems likely.

While the past is both fascinating and a source of career choice, it’s clear that ways of working are changing beyond recall. If everybody was self-employed, hiring him/herself out, keeping almost all their earnings, buying health/education/food as required, based from home, families being more responsible for their own, harnessing the benefits of technology, would that mean an end to big government, taxes, restrictions?

Or would people have to reinvent them in the name of defence, health and safety, protecting the vulnerable and rationing resources?

First published on Suite 101, 26 November 2010.

Photo: Homeworking Preferred By Freelancers – Jason Pack

Read This Next

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

Charity and Compassion Fatigue Is Wearing Down Fundraising

January 15th, 2012 | Add a Comment

Can There Be Compassion Fatigue in the World?

They say that ‘charity begins at home’, but people give generously all over the world and always have done. In times of hardship, will they stop giving?

According to Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project, caregivers experience high levels of compassion fatigue. They meet daily ‘heart wrenching, emotional challenges,’ with chronic stress tolls taken on all carers, from full time employees to part time volunteers. “Eventually, negative attitudes prevail.”

These people have a strong identification with helpless, suffering/traumatized people or animals or some aspect of the environment. In the extreme, carers can exhibit symptoms from neglect to abuse of their charges, simply because they’ve become worn out with caring and emoting. With the economic difficulties of the early 21st century, some people may find their compassion fatigue extended to weariness with charities.

As some people are numbed yet influenced by screen violence, those used to battles, injuries, accidents, death, violence can become immune, yet still traumatised. Emergency and health staff, military personnel, police, teachers and social workers can condition their caring responses to cope. People’s shock can also become neutralized by seeing endless tragedy/disaster on TV.

Psychology of Giving to Others

In a 2009 article in Newsweek, Peter Singer said UNICEF reported 10 million children under five die annually (27,000 daily) from preventable diseases, lack of safe drinking water, sanitation or adequate diet. He said that people feeling financially ’tapped out’ was no excuse: ‘we are vastly better off than those so poor they struggle to meet basic needs’.

People are more willing to help individuals than masses, as shown in fundraising campaigns. Psychologists call a diffusion of responsibility attitude ‘the bystander effect’: others will deal with the problem. There is also an element of ‘futility thinking’, where people feel charity giving is but a ‘drop in the ocean’, so what‘s the point?

A further reluctance in the ‘psychological barriers to giving’ is the money itself: there is a perception that excess slices of donations evaporate in administrative costs; if the aid is to a ‘foreign’ and/or unstable country, too ‘much vanishes through local corruption or wars; and a feeling that ‘governments’ should deal with these matters.

Tara Parker-Pope in the New York Times in 2007 said: ‘Giving is the gift that gives back. The ritual of showing how much we care also makes us feel good’. Whether famous philanthropists in the past enabled schools, hospitals, old people’s homes, libraries, concert halls because it ‘made them feel good’ is debatable. If they did it through Christian or other faith-based conviction, that may be more accurate.

Warren Buffett and Bill & Melinda Gates are modern-day benefactors, appealing directly to equally wealthy business people. They said in June 2010: ‘America’s richest people should commit at least 50 percent of their net worth to charity’. Buffett committed 99% of his fortune; the Gates gave $28 billion to their foundation to be funnelled into good causes.

Law of Diminishing Returns

There are individuals and organizations looking for help across the world. Some call it ‘moral blackmail’. In the UK, for example, trips to supermarkets find charity collectors at the doors; walks down high streets see profusions of ‘chuggers’ (charity ‘muggers’ paid to persuade people to sign up to support a charity with their bank details).

Sellers of The Big Issue are spread around town centres, but they at least are part of a business designed to help homeless people help themselves. Big ‘flag’ days are held by many charities, licensed to collect in the street and door-to-door, covering almost every cause under the sun from Christian Aid to cancer research, from animal welfare to protecting children.

Television hosts ‘telethons’ to promote major causes for hours at a time, using footage of good works done with previous appeals and appearances by celebrities, and artistes, current and retro-revival. The UK’s annual Children in Need has raised over £500 million since 1980; the biannual Red Nose Day, part of Comic Relief’s charity work, has taken over £600 million.

The annual Poppy Appeal raises around £30m a year for the Royal British Legion, the main charity caring for war injured. Performers in huge open air galas were developed in events like Live Aid, Live Earth, Live 8 while Sport Relief generated the same sort of charity/cash hype with sports participation.

This in addition to countless people asking for sponsorship for hikes, walks, fasts, bike rides, parachute jumps from their friends and neighbours and those unable to think of excuses to aid scouts, buy hospital equipment, give operations to individuals with rare diseases. Can financial support for so many causes grow forever? Are people resistant? Isn’t disposable income finite?

Charities Always Need Funds

Charities have be inventive to get money. Without it, they cannot achieve anything. The failure of crops, earthquakes, droughts, volcanoes and civil wars continue all the year round. People get sick, have diseases, are injured, hurt, tormented, damaged. People always need help. The poor are always on earth.

The internet has heralded the terminal decline of the Christmas card; that main charity revenue stream could dry. The lottery is a painless way for indirect giving to charities and good causes, but even that could shrink as taxes squeeze peoples’ budgets.

Charities must modernize, find new approaches. Many are big business, and with health and safety laws they presumably have to be fussy about goods donated for resale. Sending out ‘on spec’ thousands of cards painted by Foot and Mouth Artists works; pens and notebooks sent out in hope from the Red Cross in 2010 was mocked.

Charities expect criticism and resistance as well as giftings.

First published on Suite 101, November 2010.

Photo: USAF

Read On

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

Movie Heroes and Villains Naturally Mirror Life’s Realities

January 14th, 2012 | 1 Comment

Movie Heroes and Villains Echo Life

‘Hero’, ‘star’, ‘celebrity’ are devalued words, but a true hero is valiant, brave, selfless; a villain is evil. But in film, it’s not all black and white.

While the world is not full of stereotypical good/bad, evil/righteous people, nonetheless, a struggle between the light and dark sides of life and the supernatural have been inspirational in the film industry.

In Christian belief, God/Jesus versus the Devil/Satan/Lucifer is at the heart of faith. All good drama needs and feeds on clearly defined conflict. Perhaps an example of the perfect hero is Gregory Peck’s portrayal in To Kill a Mocking Bird (1962) and the ultimate villain is Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs (1991).

In the words of the Brian Wilson song by The Beach Boys, Heroes and Villains (1966/67): ‘heroes and villains, just see what you’ve done’. But way before that, stereotypical ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’, the ‘white hand/black hat’ of the westerns, have dominated movies, stories, comic books and popular thinking. The baddie needn’t even be human (2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968, or Terminator, 1984).

Boundaries were blurred with The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, 1968’s epic spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone, in which definition of rogue and honest guy are far from clear cut. However, that didn’t detract from the stereotype being the normal Hollywood staple, sitting alongside the mad/eccentric professor (Back to the Future, 1985), the sympathetic mum (ET, 1982) or bag-lady (Home Alone, 1990), the incompetent/scheming official/cops (Gotham PD in Batman) and the unlikely hero born from cowardice/fear (Cape Fear, 1962; 1991).

The Stereotypical Villain

A villain is a downright bad person, especially in fictionalized creation. In the early movies before sound, the baddie had to be seen to be evil or sinister, and this gave added momentum to the stereotype: dark, cloaked, sneering, relishing the misery of the innocent, pushed to its limit by Darth Vader in the Star Wars (1977-83).

Given a good airing in melodrama andcommedia dell’Arte, villains plotted against the hero/heroine or the innocent victim, and are usually the main protagonists turning the plot. They are characters audiences love to hate. They might be a creature, alien, or animal (Jaws, 1975). By contrast, the hero merely follows the villain’s agenda.

In Latin, a villanus was a serf bound to the soil of somebody else’s villa, which in French became villein. Such a person would have had to work his way up society’s ladder, and gradually the word came to mean someone seeking advantage at the expense of others, using skills and deceits that spring from a flawed personality. In comic books, super-villains were needed as realistic counterbalance to superheroes.

People have often found the villain to be more interesting than the hero. Some actors prefer to play baddies on stage and screen. In Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), readers found Satan the most appealing character; the Biblical temptation of Eve by Satan as a serpent is often understandable to a modern audience.

Ray Wise in Reaper (2007/9), Devil (2010), Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate (1997), Robert de Niro in Angel Heart (1987), John Glover in Brimstone (1998/9), Viggo Mortensen in The Prophecy (1995), Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick (1987), Peter Stormare in Constantine (2005), Gabriel Byrne in End of Days (1999), Norman Bates in Psycho (1960) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968) are a handful of different screen incarnations of evil and/or terror. That’s without listing the obvious horror, horror-thriller, chiller, slasher and related categories of movie with an evil intent usually thwarted by heroic goodness: Halloween, Poltergeist, Friday 13th, Blair Witch, Nightmare, Saw, Alien, Hostel, I Know What You Did Last Summer and a host of similar fare.

The Archetypal Hero

Obvious heroes might include James Bond, Indiana Jones, Rocky, the Washington Post journalists in All The Presidents’ Men (1976). Unlikely Heroes (2004) was a documentary narrated by Ben Kingsley about unsung individuals who took action and made impacts on lives during the Nazi era. The Chinese epic Hero (2002), Imaginary Heroes (2004) and Outlaw Hero (2006) about Jesse James were some films using widespread understanding of what is a hero. Superman, Spiderman and Batman revel in their comic book origins of super-charged heroes.

Dr William Indick of Dowling College writing in Journal of Media Psychology, November 2004, said: ‘as the central figure in the film experience, the hero is the integral archetype in the collective unconscious of American culture. He is at once a collective and personal encounter, as each individual in the audience identifies personally with the hero’s story, while the hero simultaneously embodies the collective hopes and ideals of the culture that creates him’.

The personal identification with the hero is what Carl Jung called ‘the transcendent function of myth and dreams’. Myths express goals, wishes, anxieties and fears; dreams are personal myths, said Indick. Young children playing want to be the heroes; every parent wants to be the hero to his/her children.

The theatre of the mind is a well-used psychological concept, a kind of personalized movie. In this context, it’s easy to see how the notion of a universal hero experienced vicariously by ordinary people took off and gained hold in the collective psyche. Indick believed that the modern superhero derived primarily from comic book combined classical Greco-Roman traditions with Judeo-Christian ones to make heroes empowered with ‘super’ abilities, yet flawed with human frailties.

Females of the Species

Some clear heroine examples included Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Ellen Ripley in Aliens (1986), Marge Gunderson in Fargo (1996) and the eponymous roles in Norma Rae (1979), Thelma & Louise (1991), Erin Brockovich (2000), and Silkwood (1983).

Bonnie Parker, the female half of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) was an obvious, baddie, killing while stealing, but under the influence of a charismatic man. Elizabeth Hurley as the Devil in Bedazzled (2000); Maddison Lee in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003); The Baroness in GI Joe (1987); Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye (1995); Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin (1997); Catwoman in Batman Returns (1992); Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction (1987); Mystique in X-Men (2000); Jennifer Check in Jennifer’s Body (2009); and Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct (1992) are a selection of female villains, as varied, evil, scheming apocalyptic and manipulative as their male counterparts.

Male, female, animal, fabricated alien creature or a tortured creation of a troubled mind, evil personified as a villain coupled in battle with a universal, sometimes unimagined hero (or anti-hero) is the lifeblood of movie worlds. Without them, natural worlds would be the poorer.

First published on Suite 101, November 2010.

Photo: Jeblad

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

Loneliness & Isolation: Paradoxes of Today’s Easy Communication

January 13th, 2012 | 1 Comment

Loneliness, Isolation: Paradoxes of Communication

More technological convenience; less personal contact. More computers, less human communication. Is young people’s health in danger by social isolation?

Literature has long recognised the problem. John Steinbeck’s 1937 novel, Of Mice and Men, is about the pervasiveness of loneliness and isolation: “a guy gets lonely an’ he gets sick”. In 1959 Alan Sillitoe published The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, about a young man who takes up running to escape dismal home life and bleak prospects. It was made into a movie in 1962.

All Ages Can be Isolated and Lonely

Neither is it confined to young or old. ‘Julianne’ is one of many lonely hearts mid-lifers who write of their isolation on the internet. She is 41, and has always suffered low self-esteem and confidence, has no partner, no children and is in a cycle of misery that exacerbates her social problems. She teaches, but knows few people, as colleagues socialise with their own families. Her parents are elderly; she is lonely.

She has contemplated suicide, seeing no way out of her situation. In the past, as a child, she felt she was unpopular, and as an adult was prescribed various antidepressants. When she seeks help, she is advised to join classes, a gym, travel more; occasionally she goes on drinking binges. More technology is not her answer, but what is?

In a world where technology grows exponentially, Shift happens estimates technical information doubles every 72 hours and by 2049 a £500 computer will exceed computational capabilities of the human race, where there is more reliance on data, cameras and the knowledge-based economy, less freedom of movement and spirit of adventure, scientists have suggested that loneliness and isolation are some of the biggest problems society is storing up for itself in the near future.

Much in the Window, Nothing in the Room

In August 2006, the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine published a study, reported in Medical News which indicated that childhood social isolation and loneliness increased risk of poor physical and psychological health later in life. Over a thousand children and young adults were studied through socioeconomic factors, weight and intelligence up to age 26, at which point those without ever having had a partner and with nobody to provide emotional support, were rated socially-isolated adults.

It concluded that the longer an individual youngster was socially-isolated from family and friends to a meaningful length of time, the worse their adult health. This at a time when medicine, food, information offer the safest, healthiest lifestyles the world has enjoyed. Man has got to the moon and back, but, as people realise, in some cases he has trouble crossing the road to talk to neighbours.

In April 2010, the New York Post reported the death of a homeless New Yorker who had gone to help a woman being attacked, after almost 25 people walked past him lying in a pool of blood without doing anything to help, all recorded on CCTV.

Are Computers Entirely to Blame?

The UK Coalition Government is, in the words of several ministers, trying to insert ‘common-sense and balance’ into laws and regulations, from surveillance to data protection and the safeguarding of vulnerable people. However, no government can uninvent computers, data, organisational and planning functions.

No new law is planned to compel people to appear physically in shops, banks, insurance agents and holiday outlets when they have embraced doing it at home with a few mouse clicks. No regulation is tabled to stop people listening to music on electronic gadgets in a cocoon of personal isolation as they go about their lives.

In Britain, for a number of years, a contentious political issue has been closures of local, often small, post offices. Pensions are paid automatically into the bank accounts of elderly people, and it reduces the chances of them being mugged for their cash on their way home. The consequence has been loss of business in shops and post offices, no social intercourse en route and increasing isolation in both rural and urban areas.

While many older people embrace new technology, are happy to use pin numbers, remote banking, internet ordering, computerised homes, where beds are raised for them, alarms are automatic, security is high, and their fridges and gas/water taps are regularly checked to ensure they are not ill. On the other hand, other older people who have no computer access are excluded from a microchip-driven world.

Young people hiding in bedrooms, ostensibly doing homework, is hardly new. What is different nowadays, is that they can open doors into virtual reality worlds of social networking, games, entertainment and lifestyles that are more real, more personal and less condemning than the real one. As secondary/tertiary education embraces distance learning, social isolation may intensify.

First published on Suite 101, 2010.

Photo: Rick Harris

 

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

Roots Matter in the Diversities of Life, Culture and the Arts

January 11th, 2012 | Add a Comment

People Like to Be Rooted - Bill
In an age of ever-extended families and diverse communities, peoples’ need to know where they come from and belong to is reflected in their arts.

From Genesis in the Bible on the one hand and Darwin’s Origins of Species on the other, to Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Two Tribes (Go to War) (1984), everything from religions, traditions, lifestyles and world-views are determined by people’s roots.

Heritage-search companies offer programs to research family trees for probate, adoption or interest in genealogy. Military records from the first world war (1914-1918) are now accessible on line. Interest is high in getting a picture of how a great grandparent lived and died.

In 1977 historical epic Roots aired. It‘s an early example of a TV mini-series, based on the studies author Alex Haley made into his own family history. The saga followed the tribulations of young warrior Kunta Kinte, kidnapped by slave traders in the late 1700s from Africa, taken to America, sold into slavery and then of his descendants to the present.

It inspired sequels, Roots: The Next Generations (1979), Roots: The Gift (1988) and Queen (1993). More importantly, it created interest in family lines and blood ties and shed fresh light on the historical abomination of human slavery.

People’s Roots Inspire the Arts

British writer Arnold Wesker wrote the ‘self discovery’ play Roots (1959) about a rural Norfolk family coming to terms with their daughter going to London and falling for a Londoner, with his city/modern views. The family prepared to meet him, but he didn’t show. He sent a letter saying it wouldn’t work, the mix of cultures. It made Wesker famous, became part of a dramatic trilogy, and demonstrated how family roots both feed and bind people.

Roots was a 1996 album by Brazilian metal band, Sepultura. The Lamont Dozier song Going Back to My Roots (1981): ‘Zippin’ up my boots/Going back to my roots, yeh/To the place of my birth/Back down to earth’ was performed by Odyssey in the 1980s. There are at least seven versions, including disco mixes, some recorded by the man himself.

The same title named a greatest hits album by Bob Marley and The Wailers (1998). A slight title variant, same theme, Back to My Roots, was a reggae hit for Lucky Dube. A different set of lyrics were created by Steel Pulse, another reggae piece. Roots inspired computer games and RuPaul and Bobby Womack both recorded songs/albums with the title.

Roots in Literature

To take one nation, Sharon Marshall on South African Info (1999) said: ‘The dawn of the new South Africa spawned a quest for ancestral roots and the “real” story of how the Rainbow Nation got here in an increasingly wide range of literature’. She picked out a selection of (2004) books written in search of what President Thabo Mbeki called ‘the holistic truth’, a yearning for understanding roots.

Islands by Dan Sleigh (2004) dipped into the racial inter-mix that began in colonization; insight into 19th century mixed marriages came in The Caliban Shore by Stephen Taylor; using archives, Theresa Benade created romance and heartbreak, touching on mixed-rooted South Africans in Kites of Good Fortune; Echoes of Slavery by Jackie Loos published for the UN Year Against Slavery documented intimate accounts of slaves; and Every Step of the Way by Michael Morris analyzed the factors that preceded and created apartheid, bringing history alive for readers tracing ancestral and national roots.

According to Karmel Melamed on Iranian American Jews (2007): “It took Iranian Jews in the US nearly three decades in exile from the land they called home for roughly 2,700 years to appreciate their rich history and culture preserved in their Judeo-Persian literature….. the Persian language written in Hebrew characters by Jews living in the countries modernly known as Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and some parts of India during the last 1,000 years’.

There is a Sikh Roots website; there are sites devoted to American literature and people and sub-cultures’ roots, including one, for instance, on ‘swampland/southern roots’. The indigenous peoples of Australia, New Zealand, North America, Africa, Asia, Europe find, interpret and preserve roots of their language, traditions, racial hallmarks to give them identity.

Roots As Movie Theme

Movies illustrate this desire. On one rural, parochial, small-town level, there was Dogville (2003), a Brechtian epic about a woman running from the mafia agreeing to work for everyone in an isolated, claustrophobic community as the price for being ‘accepted’ into their midst.

On similar lines, Straw Dogs (1971), saw an American and his English wife facing hostility evolving into violence, because he was from a culture and background that was alien to the community, he was not rooted there, so was fair game. Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto (2006) was about a peace-loving remote tribe enslaved by bloodthirsty dictators. Avatar (2009) was built around the total, tragic clash of cultures with diametrically opposed roots and belief systems.

Focussing on the family unit, The Addams Family (1991) and both Meet the Parents (2000) and Meet the Fockers (2004) demonstrated how family traditions and shared history make it difficult to move on. This is a common feature of relationships involving people from different backgrounds, cultures, communities, generations; in short, virtually everybody. That these films were comedies, doesn’t alter the fact that they were about roots, old and new.

Semi-closed religious communities, such as the Amish, fascinate movie directors. Witness (2005) showed the outside world penetrating the time-honoured values (roots) of a community leading to conflict, the stuff of films, of course. Some saw Clash of the Titans (1981, 2010) as anti-Islamic; Men In Black (1997) was viewed by others as propaganda against inter-racial unions.

Aliens, particularly the invading, hostile, clash-of-civilizations variety included: interplanetary conflict in This Island Earth (1955); War of the Worlds (1953); Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956); V (1983); Independence Day (1996); Mars Attacks! (1996) and Signs (2002). The list is in reality very long.

Whenever cultures conflict, there is the tension demanded of drama and writing. Everybody is born into some place, tribe, community, culture and history. Everybody is the product of mixed genes. People like to know their roots, however tangled.

First published on Suite 101, 23 November 2010.

Photo: People Like to Be Rooted – Bill

Read On

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

Creatives, Mavericks and Non-Conformists in the Movies

January 9th, 2012 | Add a Comment

Herd of Sheep Mentality vs Creativity - 3268zauber

Movie plots need conflicts and tensions. Readily available is the solo fight against society, the system, big business or baddie(s). Atticus Finch opposing racial prejudice in small town America in To Kill A Mocking Bird (1962) is the beating heart of the story: it rings true. Rebel Without a Cause (1955) made James Dean the maverick star.

Lynch-mob mentality of hysterical masses clamouring for somebody’s blood makes a perfect protagonist. The voice in the wilderness, the lone person of conscience/courage within the crowd, is the stuff of inspiration. Those who refuse to toe the (unjust) line are often regarded as heroes, but not till later.

Irish political philosopher Edmund Burke (1729 -1797) is attributed with: ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’. The truth of that is grit to directors. Mavericks who stand against received or popular wisdom are labelled eccentric, weird or downright mad.

Creativity, Rebellion and Mavericks

According to Professor Tom Filsinger in his book Creativity and Rebellion: Why They Go Hand-in-Hand, creatives struggle in overly structured environments. ‘Studies on creative people have consistently demonstrated that creativity is associated with openness to new ideas, risk-taking, and being inner-directed. Do these traits put creative people at odds with the culture and people around them? The answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no’.

Some work groups suffer from ‘groupthink’, believing in their own superiority, valuing conformity, resisting new ideas. They send covert/overt messages of rejection to people who are different or stand out from their crowd, which causes creative people to ‘adopt a rebellious attitude regarding rules and authority’.

Creative people usually prosper ‘as artists, entrepreneurs or in professions that encourage openness, risk-taking and eccentricity’. Filsinger called creative people ‘the dark menace of the universe’ because creatives are often misunderstood by others.

In 1999, Rolling Stone Magazine published a list of films made by ‘mavericks who busted rules to follow their obsessions… in the defiant spirit of rock & roll’. Besides rebels within movies, ‘maverick’ creative directors produced such classics as: Coppola’s Godfather Trilogy (1972, 74, 90), against all odds making a mafia family into a sympathetic, credible influence; and Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), a mad tale that had always obsessed him.

John Ford tackled ‘racism inherent in cowboys vs Indians’ in The Searchers (1956); the innovative breadth of vision in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); Orson Welle’s debut Citizen Kane (1941); macho rituals in Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980); troubled director Polanski’s Chinatown (1974); John Huston’s ‘breaking all the rules’ in The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948) and the ‘reinvention of film form’ by Tarantino in Pulp Fiction (1994) all made it into The 100 Greatest.

Other contenders included Mankiewicz’s All About Eve (1950); Charles Laughton’s only directed film The Night of the Hunter (1955); Siegel’s subversive sci-fi Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956); Roeg’s chilling Don’t Look Now (1973); Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977); John ‘the father of American mavericks’ Cassavetes’ Faces (1968); All the President’s Men (1976) and Terry Gilliam’s gifts for satire and production design ‘created a nightmare vision of dehumanisation’ in Brazil (1985).

Non-Conformists In Films

That creative rebellion is reflected in outstanding film characters should be no surprise. Alternative Reel suggested top movies featuring non-conformists, warning that for many people, nonconformity is a form of conformity, and that ideas or people being new, odd or unpopular doesn’t make them nonconformists. Conformity can only be measured against the mores of the time.

Barfly (1987), offered a determined rejection of what everybody has to do; Into the Wild (2007), student abandoned possessions to hitchhike to Alaska; V for Vendetta (2005), a look at surveillance systems coercing conformity; Dead Poets Society (1989), a teacher raging against things and inspiring students to make their lives extraordinary, although some argue he was too comfortable in his life to be a nonconformist; and Five Easy Pieces (1970), upper-class US dropout.

Fight Club (1999), channelled primal male aggression; Easy Rider (1969), rebel bikers on the American hippie road; Harold and Maude (1971) death-obsessed teenager and anarchic old woman; Cool Hand Luke (1967), prisoner refusing to conform; and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Jack Nicholson feigned craziness in a madhouse, fought against petty authority. Observers have noted just how many of these have starred Jack Nicholson.

Other contenders for the list could include ‘The Dude’ in The Big Lebowski (1998); the two unemployed/unemployable actors in Withnail and I (1987); Renton trying to clean up and escape drugs and friends in Trainspotting (1997); outlaw biker film The Wild One (1953); pirate radio DJ speaking his mind in Pump Up the Volume (1990); and the troubled teenager in Donnie Darko (2001).

Equally, people seeking their ‘inner idiots‘ in The Idiots (1998); the Mexican underworld road trip in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974); the surveillance expert in The Conversation (1974); wise-cracking private investigator in The Long Goodbye (1973): teenage girl and older boyfriend in Badlands (1973) or the slight variation in Bonny and Clyde (1967) could make the non-conformism list.

Furthermore, perversity, violence and evil in Blue Velvet (1986); increasing isolation of the Taxi Driver (1976); Bertolucci’s weak-willed assassin in The Conformist (1970); Spanish-American conflicts in Smoking Room (2002); controversial Venezuelan dictatorship movie The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003) and revenge plot The Take (2007) have also been argued for inclusion. However, perhaps 90% of all movies revolve around somebody refusing to obey rules.

Just as on stage, rebellion by adolescents or older (About Schmidt, 2002) makes good, recycled cinematic spectacle. However much young people want to or are made to conform, the desire to defy authoritarianism is deeply ingrained in the human psyche. That’s why the last world war is so fascinating in all its horror. And why movies will always be inspired by the odd, the different, the unusual and the challenging.

First published on Suite 101, 20 November 2010.

Photo: Herd of Sheep Mentality vs Creativity – 3268zauber

Read On

Filed under: Articles at Suite 101

« Previous Page
Next Page »