Do we really think The Public deserve the right to have a say? Freedom of speech is enshrined up there with democracy and justice, but it has come under increasing fire in my house this weekend.
Katie Price walks out of the jungle - because The Public consistantly vote for her to be demeaned, punished and ridiculed, displaying their unpleasantly vindictive side. Because? She split from lovely cuddly Peter Andre?
The Public have kept the Jedward Twins in the farcical 'singing' competition that is X Factor, purely to spite Simon Cowell and to fulfill their need to snigger at someone more inept than themselves in the tabloids and on TV.
And The Public will also moan about the depictions of violence in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, along with side complaints about having to 'read' most of the film, with its hours of subtitles. Hypocritical behaviour since the Reservoir Dogs director has been flogging this particular brand of cinematic violence for some time, garnering himself numerous accolades in the process and Hollywood's finest are simply queueing up to be featured in his next gore-fest.
If we really don't like seeing violence, he wouldn't be a wealthy, world famous cine-bore, would he?
So we conclude that The Public is a nasty, spiteful, selfish, greedy, vindictive many-headed monster that consistantly lets us down as a civilized society. Hence why the Nazis did so well in the first place. And yet to deny The Public freedom of speech, or democratic powers to vote (or indeed the right to breed...)leaves us all vulnerable to the worst forms of oppression via dictatorship. Out of the frying pan and into the fire?
I suggest that we target our vitriol more carefully in future. Can we even rid ourselves of the festering sore of reality TV? Stop picking at it for more cockroach-crunching stomach-churning moments? I would sooner see wall-to-wall Tarantino before the watershed so that we can educate our kids to analyse and learn from its overblown seditious attraction. We all want to stop and look at a road accident. Some of us become doctors as a result.
Can we drag the standards of tabloid journalism back up to a semblance of pre-school literacy? Write the odd feature ABOUT something - anything - where evolution is taking us, what can we learn from exploring other planets, can anyone work out what the God particle is or how to counterbalance Google's censorship of world information?
All those in favour of a return to education, comment here please.
PS Have I missed the debate where we point out that Tarantion's deliberate misspelling of his title is supposed to remind us that he is re-writing history on purpose? Reclaiming the Nazi story, just like NWA took back the N word? Social commentary about our dumbed-down society? Yeah, I know, just to encourage this sort of debate to rage all over the internet advertising his big ole movie for free...
