Radiohead and Waiting

Just lying in a bar with my drip feed on Talking to my girlfriend, waiting for something to happen And I wish it was the sixties, I wish I could be happy I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen 

(the bends, 1995) 

I cannot think of any lyric that better sums up my experience of growing up in the 1990s than the one above, from Radiohead’s the Bends. I had a niggling feeling that nothing was happening. My parents had seen men land on the moon, but the Apollo programme has ended before I was even born. My parents had also see the invention of Concorde, whereas I only saw supersonic passenger flight decommissioned, as it was too expensive. You might argue that I have lived through a communications revolution, witnessing the birth of the internet and mobile phone technology, but this seems a somehow inferior experience to me. My parents could catch a flight out of Heathrow and land in New York before they had even taken off, while I can access Facebook on my phone. Indeed, these technologies, although they were born in the 1990s, didn’t really come into their own until the new millennium.  

I am not really interested in a debate about whether advancements in travel or communications is more exciting. This is only a metaphor for a lingering feeling of disquiet – that nothing was happening in the 1990s. It was not long after the ‘90s ended that things did start to happen though. It started when a man living in a cave orchestrated the largest ever coordinated attack against the USA on its own soil. Using World War Two Kamikaze-style tactics he destroyed icons of American imperial capitalism, military might, but failed to reach his last target in Washington. That a man in a cave in Afghanistan (or a house in Pakistan) could do this seemed unbelievable. What’s more unbelievable is that the most powerful country in the world, with the largest military budget was unable to catch him (or execute and dump him in the sea) for a decade. It was as it we had entered a Bond film.  

The Bond film continued when a computer programmer with white hair founded a global organisation to gather and release the world’s secrets. He even defied the world’s most powerful country at a time when it was run by a cowboy out to avenge the attacks by the man in the cave (house in Pakistan). Kim Jong Un is the most recent Bond baddie threatening to turn the world order upside down.  

Scotland’s near secession from the United Kingdom, Brexit, the election of Donald J. Trump, Catalonia’s vote for independence... things have started to happen and maybe there’s a bit too much happening, as if making up for the lack of activity in the 1990s. 

Skyfall and Brexit Britain

I watched Skyfall on TV this Christmas (December 2017). I first watched it at the cinema, when it came out in 2012. I was abroad and watched it on my own. I got the last seat in a packed cinema in Amsterdam, suggesting that James Bond still has appeal outside the anglophone world. I was struck by the film's sexism, nostalgia and jingoism then, as I was in 2017, and much more so than in other, recent, James Bond movies. I confess that at times I found the patriotism exhilarating, but in a dirty secret pleasure kind of way. There are constant references to how things were better in the past, or how "the old ways are the best ways". The key motif is the return of the Aston Martin DB5 - symbol of British engineering and design icon, but one might also recall how Bond is issued with a gun and a radio - no fancy new gadgets necessary. Skyfall appears to be a call to return to traditional British values and, writing in 2018, the film seems like an uncanny poster-boy for Brexit. I will elaborate with a few examples.

When the new Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), sticks his nose into MI6 business his understanding of life "in the field" is brought into question. It is then revealed that he has seen active service in Northern Ireland. Since the Bond films are always set in the present, and given Mallory's age, we might guess that this active service was in the 1970s or 1980s. It is unlikely that M (Judi Dench), who is of a similar age to Mallory would have seen such front-line action. The implication is that she, as a female, could not have the same understanding and experience as either Mallory, or Bond. Indeed, this is confirmed as the film comes to its climax. Bond (Daniel Craig) takes M to Skyfall, not to hide from villain and ex-agent Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), but to fight him on their own terms. There, she does see active service, and she is killed, because she is a stupid girl. Note that, against all odds, Bond and his elderly game keeper (male) both survive. What was Dench thinking when she accepted this role? The look in Bond's eye when he acknowledges Mallory as the new M is one of relief - now we can go back to normal and do things properly. The female M was tolerated for a while, but in her final film she is shown to be weak. When there is an existential threat (MI6 is blown up), the atavistic need for a public school-educated male to fill the role is apparent. The retreat to Skyfall is a reminder that Bond's blood is aristocratic and that he has ties to the landscape: no foreigner would know where it is, or understand about its priest holes and secret tunnels.

Near the beginning of the film, a female agent, Eve, watches Bond fight a villain on the top of a train. She has a partial shot and is ordered to take it by M: she does, but shoots Bond. Dench's M does not lack the metal to make such calls, she just gets it wrong, as she did when sacrificing Silva. The consequences catch her up in this film. When Bond and the female agent later meet in London, Bond ribs her for the miss: "you gave it your best shot". He quips that field work is not for everybody. At the end of the film Bond asks if she is not returning to the field. Eve replies that she is not. She has realised that fieldwork is not for everybody. She then introduces herself as Eve Moneypenny, before taking up the role of secretary (or PA) to M. That's right, she had a go at being the hero, but mucked it up because she is a stupid girl. Realising that she could not cut it, she took up a desk job. Not as an analyst or similar, but as a secretary: she now knows her place. Previously, when in Macau, Moneypenny assumed a submissive role when she shaves Bond. She knows her place.

Mallory is one example of a renewal of the old system. Bond is another. He fails his medical when returning to active service (after having been shot by Moneypenny), but he is reinstated nonetheless. Why? Because M instinctively knows that he is the best. The fact that others might score more highly in tests is irrelevant - Bond must get the job. Dench's M must make way for new male "talent", all that remains of her is her porcelain bulldog with a union flag on its back. Moneypenny must get back behind a desk. From now on, jobs in MI6, we can presume, will be reserved for the old school tie. Public school boys have always comprised the British secret service, as represented in Bond and in real life. The implication is that the only people truly allowed to do the tops jobs are old, public school educated, men. This is made abundantly clear when Bond first encounters the new Q: "you have to be joking... you still have spots". Q fulfills his role with distinction, however. Apparently being a young male need not hold you back after all, but you will still have to put up with prejudiced remarks and no one will take you seriously.Is this the Brexit Britain that we can look forward to?

The Aesthetics of Assange

Julian Assange addresses the crowd outside the Ecuadorian embassy today

Julian Assange appeared in public today, for the first time in 61 days. A small group of pro-Assange protesters lined the pavement opposite the Ecuadorian embassy where Assange is claiming asylum and the rest of the surrounding streets were taken up with a large police presence, press and tourists. The atmosphere was friendly but excited as the Met Police helicopter circled overhead (presumably to help catch Assange should he make a bolt for it). A few diplomatic cars with blacked out windows sped away and one person in the crowd commented "that's it, he's gone". But he wasn't gone. He did appear, slightly later than his advertised 2pm slot, on a balcony - just out of reach from the police (both physically and legally). 

But what does this mean in aesthetic terms? Assange knows better than anyone that since around 9-11 we have entered into a Bond Movie. The (seemingly) loan baddie Osama takes on America and the West in a daring terrorist attack, unbelievably hitting the Pentagon and the WTC. Then some of his henchmen hit the media: a one eyed man with hooks for hands called Abu, a man who decapitates statues with a razor-tipped top hat and another man who releases all the world's secrets via the Internet... you can't make it up.

The great American intellectual George W. Bush, during his presidency, simplified the War on Terror that followed for us, by explaining that "you are either with us or against us" and often adding that the terrorists' motives were simply that that "hate freedom".  With Assange though there is a problem, to invoke Spinal Tap: there's a bit too much fucking freedom if you ask me. In fact Assange has crowned himself price of truth and freedom - how can we fight against that? This reminds me of George W's response to the Yes Men's prank website www.gwbush.com and the satirical campaign "Yes Bush Can!" that followed in the run up to the 2000 election. While the website was only intended to highlight hypocrisies on the real Bush website George W didn't like it at all. In fact he said that they had gone too far and that there should be limits on freedom of speech (imagine Spitting Image being taken to court...) At the same time as the Assange case we has Pussy Riot beginning their 2 year prison sentence for... well, playing an anti-Putin Punk protest song in a cathedral. I guess the church could be pissed about trespass (although I'm pretty sure they're supposed to forgive trespasses) and maybe not Punk fans but guess what? The Russian Orthodox Church called for clemency! So who prosecuted? And for what? It's a joke. You might be able to convince me that they broke a law but a two year custodial sentence? We all know this is about Putin sending out a message: criticise me, and you'll end up in prison.

One of two diplomatic vehicles (with blacked-out rear windows) leaves the embassy unchallenged

Meat wagons line up outside Harrods

 This makes it very difficult to call for limits on freedom of speech without sounding like a right wing fanatic. But I reckon there should be limits. Surely releasing defence plans (read "weaknesses") is irresponsible. We are operating in an information age vulnerable to cyber attack but old school defence has always guarded its secrets - think of the Cold War or even Bletchley Park. Certain information in the wrong hands can cost lives.

Back to aesthetics and we can now see that Assange is evoking cinema (Bond baddies), music (Punk and protest songs in general) and art (specifically protest art and culture jamming in the Yes Men!). He was also evoking Eva Perón through the manner of his address. I also feel the white hair adds an element of Bond baddie and the French-sounding name coupled with the Australian-British(?) identity adds a kind of suave debonair sophistication also found in Bond movies. Furthermore Assange appears to have made the US and UK act as if it is they who are in a Bond movie. Cold War era espionage and trickery are back on the table. Do they really think we are so stupid that we won't see through these sexual assault "accusations"? Anyone with half a brain cell can see it's a set up. Just as anyone with an ounce of moral fibre or sense of justice can see that Pussy Riot have been fitted up: it's political. But I have a solution: Assange should offer to stand trial, in Sweden, in absentia. He could appear via video link. If found guilty he should give himself up and serve the sentence, if not in Sweden then in the UK or Ecuador even. Surely the UK couldn't object to him being moved from the embassy if he were going to prison? (whether in Sweden or elsewhere). 

Met Police Helicopter presumably waiting to track Assange should he make a run for it!

So, aesthetically, we can expect the UK or US government to poison Assange by ascertaining only he in the embassy eats a certain food product (Vegemite I expect), or kill him with a poison blow-dart the next time he appears on the balcony. Perhaps Assange will evade the blow-dart and escape to Ecuador on a jet-pack? Assange could be said to have brought issues of freedom of speech and the policing of the Internet into the public conscious and debate and artistically this could be seen as operating in the same mould as the Yes Men and many others (see my posts on Militant Art for examples).