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Eric; It's just a few rules Serena. Who watches TV on a TV anymore, anyway?
I found a way to illustrate my point through the wonder of Gossip Girl!
High-fives all around!
So; television, YouTube, illegal downloading… the impression I’m getting from your feedback is not that the medium is unimportant but that the content rules.
You’ve missed an amazing football goal and don’t want to have to wait for the Sports News, so you turn to the internet…
Or Entertainment news didn’t quite show you enough of James Franco and Anne Hathaway being hoisted by their own petard when no one finds their hosting of the Oscars funny;
Franco: I mean, I d'know... I mean, what'd you get if you win?
Franco: I mean, I d'know... I mean, what'd you get if you win?
Hathaway: You get an Oscar
- Yeah, but do I like... get money with it? Or...? (smattering of laughter)
- No, you get prestige. For the rest of your life everyone will refer to you as 'Academy Award Winner, James Franco'
- What do you mean 'everyone'? Like... even my mom? (a few chuckles)
That'd be weird if my... mom... called me 'Academy Award Winner, James Franco'... (one woman laughs)
- We-! - I've known her a long time.
Nice try (!)
Over Easter, my family and I missed the very first Doctor Who episode of the new series, so I hooked my laptop up to the TV-
...(this is very fancy stuff for me!) and we watched it on iPlayer.
Of course, the sound was still coming out of my laptop- but that doesn’t really effect me so ‘swings and roundabouts’!
These are all examples of things that either have been or are still available through conventional channels.
What of those pieces- films, opinions, music- that for one reason or other are not obtainable or viewable?
In yesterday’s Guardian newspaper, Saturday 7th May, 2011, there was a piece in the ‘comment’ section from Keith Allen...
- yes, that Keith Allen-
concerning a documentary he has made that will not be available in the UK.
He’d written to say that an excerpt from ‘Unlawful Killing’ had been leaked onto YouTube and “seized on by conspiracy theorists”
-unsurprising as, in his own words, it is about “a provable conspiracy… organised not by a single arch-fiend but collectively by the British establishment…”
The conspiracy in question? The death of Princess Diana.
Reading the article I had a not-insignificant amount of sympathy for Allen, who describes the problems he has had in the last three years getting the documentary released here in the UK- where lawyers have insisted on 87 cuts.
By his opening paragraph I was expecting a sensitive and honest portrayal of the facts and that his work had merely been misrepresented;
“The internet is a global lavatory wall, a Rabelaisian mixture of truth, lies, insanity and humour."
"I felt its power and madness this week, when an excerpt from my new film, Unlawful Killing, was leaked on to YouTube and seized on by US conspiracy theorists..."
"...claiming that the CIA had murdered Princess Diana, thereby allowing others to dismiss my documentary as mad.”
And then I watched the clip.
(Keith Allen Voiceover) This little boy is called 'Philip'. His full name is 'Philip Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg' and he grew-up in Germany.
He was raised amongst his Nazi in-laws, some of whom later became high-ranking members of the SS.
His Nazi relatives then sent him to this school, in southern Germany. Where he studied for a while under the Nazi curriculum.
Philip later recalled; "There was much heel-clicking, and shouts of 'Heil Hitler' were compulsory."
And here's Philip in Darmstadt, in the heart of Germany, in November 1937, attending a family funeral for some of his Nazi in-laws.
Marching in front of a sieg heil-ing crowd, this is Philip...
Next to Christoph, his SS brother-in-law, and Philip, his Nazi storm trooper brother-in-law.
Imagine if a man with a past like this had somehow ended up marrying into British aristocracy...
Well... he did! And as we know... he got 'first prize'...
He became 'Duke of Edinburgh'- also known as 'Prince Philip'...!
...after marrying Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen of England...!
Philip buried his Nazi past and became a respectable of British royalty...
And his story's continued, happily ever after...
Apart from a few 'family troubles' that were... quickly resolved!
How many times can one person say ‘Nazi’ in a minute?
Interesting that the uploader has posted only this video and no other… I think I’m beginning my own ‘conspiracy theory’…
As ‘bodydoubleprod’ noted in the comments below the clip; “I was just reading a book about promoting your indie movie...
"...where they suggested 'leaking' part of your film to youtube and then pretend to be angry that someone has 'stolen your footage'. I was thinking "well that would never work in this web-savvy age"...”
Before we start blaming children for their upbringing or pointing fingers at Allen for having a piece on the Guardian website denouncing a clip he then directly links to,
lets instead consider the manifestations of 'free speech' on YouTube.
In my experience this is a much larger issue in America than in England, where we seem naturally to be- as much as we satirize it- quite Politically Correct.
And if we’re not, then we’re at least aware of it- aware of the fact we're not.
In contrast, America has written into its constitution that its citizens should be allowed to say what they want, when they want.
My family spent time in New England last summer and whilst playing the ‘Car Registration Game’-
(they have different sayings and pictures on their registration plates for each state- it’s adorable!)
-my brother and I were both quite shocked to see the plate for New Hampshire;
New Hampshire, ‘Live free or die’
They don’t pay taxes for a state fire service because they don’t feel it’s right for a person to have to pay for someone else’s house fire to be put out.
Instead they have volunteers.
Who… may or may not choose to save your life…?
Personally, I’d be a little scared!
The YouTube user ‘LiberalViewer’ has almost three hundred videos ruminating on Free Speech.
He believes in the freedom of speech over political correctness.
(Liberal Viewer) So I'm a strong believer in 'free speech'- even when some people find that speech offensive.
And I've defended free speech in more than a dozen videos including videos defending the free speech of;
'NAMBLA',
'NAMBLA', the speech of the Westboro Baptist Church,
'NAMBLA', the speech of the Westboro Baptist Church, and even the speech of Nazi Gingerbread Men and Holocaust Deniers.
So, I was immediately sceptical last week when I saw on The Colbert Report a campaign to stop people from using the, so-called, 'R-Word'.
Which guest Tim shriver explained based on his experience running the Special Olympics at the beginning of this clip;
Tim Shriver; I represent 3.5 million athletes all over the world- 180 countries, where they compete all year round- and they have one goal:
their goal is to play sports and to show the world that people can play together, live together, and show them some respect.
The word 'retard' has become the symbol- for them, not for me, but for them- of the idea that they don't count.
(Liberal Viewer) Now I can understand people being offended by that word and it's not a word I use personally...
...but like I told my 10-year-old daughter, when the issue of 'bad words' came up recently-
no word is always bad and any word can be a bad word if you use it to hurt someone.
Which is why I remained sceptical of this 'Campaign Against the R-Word' until I heard Tim Shriver's answer when Colbert raised the issue of creating a 'thought police' in this clip;
Colbert; isn't that Thought Police? That's Thought Police, my friend. Shrivers; No, no...
Shrivers; No, I don't want to be a cop, I want to be a teacher. You're allowed, to be humiliating, degrading and hurtful...
...I'm allowed to petition you to at least recognise what you say and be aware of the option you have to stop.
(crowd's cheering drowns out reply)
To give you some background information here;
Stephen Colbert is an actor and political satirist who plays a caricatured, right-wing version of himself as a conservative political pundit based on many real life, right-wing hosts of American political news programmes.
Did that make sense?
I wanted to show you that clip as a comment, on a comment, on a comment.
Personally, I take issue with the LiberalViewer’s feeling that all speech should be protected.
A commenter, HighVoltage963-
reading these screen names out is very odd!
points out a wonderful quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, a popular Justice of America’s Supreme Court in the first half of the twentieth century;
"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
There is a very fierce debate in the comments section of that video actually that I would really recommend reading.
YouTube is a place where people feel free to express their own opinions and also to make themselves heard.
But with so much opinion it’s hard to sort the fact from fiction.
There are many political videos on the site, from 9/11 conspiracy theories- the most famous, of course, being 'Loose Change' (look that one up)-
to supporter-made candidate videos and those from official channels.
Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post (funnily enough!), thinks that Obama would not have been elected without the internet and social media.
In her video on the BBC’s ‘Virtual Revolution’ site she observes that “People don’t want to just see news, they want to engage in the news and comment back.”
And that's what YouTube provides.
We’ll talk more on the subject of guerrilla reporting and the expression of views tomorrow but for now I’m interested to find out exactly who do you trust?
Which sources do you turn to?