Watching the Commonwealth games on T.V. the past few days has confirmed one thing for me; if ever there was a World Championship for “Almost”, then the English would walk away with it and break all previous World Records (held by them for the past twenty years anyway) into the bargain. In most endeavours you have to achieve at some level before you’re feted to the heavens as the second coming but those days, it seems, are gone. Now we’re treated to a string of interviews with the fourth, fifth, sixth placed English competitors and, like politicians losing an election, it’s seen as a victory? I guess the prime examples of this are in the music and sport industry, although film and T.V. soaps have run them a close second…..the only ‘close second’ we’re ever likely to have in any race.
In the music world there was a time when any performer worth their salt would have cut their chops on a gruelling circuit of pubs and clubs over several years before someone in a position of “ability” took notice of them and discussed a possible….that’s a “possible”….. opportunity at cutting a demo tape. Now mega-star singers and performers are churned out via pop shows run by industry insiders who are just chasing money or pussy, or both, and boys and girls are hailed as the greatest singer/dancer/sax player/opera star since…..*fill in your own choice of name here*. That guy who runs these shows, that "Stars in their Eyes" thingy, can’t remember his name, he gets a lot of attention for being unpleasant to people, gets the winner of these things to sign up to his management company…….there’s a great deal, get all the media promotion for free, sell the format of the programmes to other stations, take the money from the text-ins that follow then reap the recording and tour rewards of the performer into the bargain…… well, he may be a slithey tove but here’s a man who sees mediocrity and instead of lionising it, calls it for what it is; shit. We could do with him in the athletics field, methinks.
We’ve done what the molly-coddled generation that we’ve become always promised we’d become; “stars” without effort. Same as we can diet without cutting down on our eating and upping our exercise we believe we can achieve greatness without effort, gain riches and stardom just by being “us”, and we’ll scream and cry and rush out of the room in flurry of crinolines and talcum powder at the merest hint of criticism or any suggestion that we might, just might, need a little something called ability as well. I should have seen the writing on the wall when I went to a week-long drum workshop some years ago. Very good it was too, but, at the close of the week, the organisers had invited three record company A&R guys to come along and talk to those present (the youngsters that is, I, at forty-something then was well past it, trust me, I was) and all of them, that’s all as in “unanimous”, said the last thing they were looking for when signing someone to a contract was musical ability or talent; honest. Of course, those more savvy than me will have known that for years, I’m just a cuddly 57 year-old who still keeps the faith with the inherent goodness of the species.
Back at the Commonwealth Games, the ladies netball match between Wales and Jamaica was a classic in point. If ever there was an object lesson in what happens when the members of a rich, over-fussed, burger-fed, blame-culture reared, celebrity-mesmerised nation (that’s the UK in case you were confused) collides with a relatively poor, undernourished, struggling, career-searching nation (that’s not the UK in case you were confused) was demonstrated to great effect…….Wales lost, by the way, by about six zillion points to none. To watch the flabby, soft, pink, lacklustre performance of these Welsh ladies when placed alongside the sharp, slim, energetic, balletic performances of the Jamaican team was an embarrassment of some magnitude. Here was a team that hailed from a place where gang violence, prostitution, drug proliferation and poverty, all run by a masculine-dominated hierarchy intent on keeping women subservient …..yes, OK, sounds just like Swansea, I know…… and yet they were still able to give “our” ladies an object lesson in the art of sport played with passion, of sport played to win, above all, to win.
In interview after interview with the British contingent in so many of the recent sporting events it was seen as OK to get a fifth place, to get nothing, to “have tried hard”, and so much of this stems from the stupid, idiotic idea championed by the Labour Party and those of the “Ahhhh” society back in the nineties who foolishly believed there should never be ‘winners’ and’ losers’, just ‘competitors’. There was a backlash to this. What was lost was the opportunity for all those children who were running, jumping, skipping on the playing fields of English schools (those that Thatcher hadn’t sold off for housing developments to her cronies, that is) to ever feel the elation of winning and to want to repeat the feeling whenever possible; ever to feel the drive that coming second gives to those who wanted to come first next time and who would go on to become great; and you may not believe this but not everyone can, honest, not everyone can finish first, it’s a fallacy. Just the same as not all of us can go to university and read maths; it may come as surprise to you all……..but some of us just aren’t bright enough, trust me. It doesn’t mean to say we won’t succeed in life, just not at maths…… But by our use of the ‘Ahhh’ factor we’ve given mediocrity a stamp of approval, and so have our children because they saw their parents and teachers, those that were their role models, accept that it was OK to fall short of winning if winning meant you had to be aggressive in your approach to competition and to, in fact, beat someone else into second place. Thank Christ this stupidity wasn’t prevalent in 1939……..
Out of these ridiculous nineties, when our competitors said, “Thanks very much for settling for second place, I’ll just take that first-place rosette, if you don't mind”, the other ridiculous notion took root, namely that maybe we couldn’t win but you had to be seen to be trying hard to win, even if you didn’t. That way, if you could put on this mask of ‘trying’ and still fail then you could blame everyone else for your failures; “It was my trainer, my sponsor, my upbringing, my drug supplier……I mean, crikey, the Conservative Party had made an industry of it throughout the nineties and they were STILL hanging on to power! Nice guys finish first too, but they don’t make good copy (see below). What grew from this stupidity was a void stretching across our shortfall of ability over desire and into this black-hole the media manipulated, get-rich-quick generation that we’ve become flowered; what was needed in this snip-snap, sound-bite culture we’d donned was a face, an expression. We got it with all those pictures of footballers with their eyes bulging, their mouths open in silent screams, the veins standing out in their necks like knotted ropes that represented the ‘face of winning’ and from this platform the mask has spread to all male events on any given track and field competition space in any age group and of any ability.
That’s the problem when the sexually charged, educationally challenged, emotionally and socially stunted young men that have been raised to the podium of greatness by one piece of good work (i.e. some of our footballers that happened to score a goal at a useful time, some of our runners that happened to win an event without all other competitors falling over) become national heroes and multi-millionaires at one and the same time. Too young to appreciate, too young to articulate, too ill-prepared to negotiate they become the epitome of swaggering arrogance, with too much cash and too little sense. Unfortunately these are the very people that the young look up to. Young folk want a life without boundaries where excess is the norm and responsibility comes a very poor second to hedonism.
Seeing the strutting posture of self-obsessed footballing twenty-something’s wrapped up in lives of style but no substance is the goal to aim for and parents, eager to champion their children at all costs and by whatever means (ever been to a youth football match on a Sunday?) create the climate for this step-upon culture, where children dressed in "grown-up" fashion act in seemingly "grown up" ways, emulating the language and posture of their sporting heroes. This has spread and has become more prevalent over the past ten years in the so-called “blue-ribbon” events, in particular the men’s sprinting competitions.
The very level of testosterone fuelled build up that the men have been brought up on (I didn’t notice Roger Bannister screaming his way round the track after his sub-four-minute-mile run shouting “FUCKING HELL, FUCKING HELL, ITS ME, ME, I’M THE MAN, I. AM. THE. MAN!”) means they are primed and ready to blow up before, during and after the event. They’ve been brought up on a belief that, if they haven’t got that level of aggression then they’ll not succeed, won’t deserve to because success isn’t measured by track success but by “marketability”; ask yourself, will what I do on the track in the lead up to and end of my event make good copy? So we see sportsmen (and it is the men) put on the mask of arrogance, posture, anger, aggression, whatever for the photojournalists to capture and print on the back page of our papers. Watch them the next time an event’s broadcast and make your own decisions; there are some uncomfortable facts that can be gleaned from the procession of aggressive men screened on the tracks and fields of competitions.
Now what I’ve scribbled above may make you think that it is a recipe for competing to win? Not so. Where it falls short is the belief that, as soon as you’ve made your pile you don’t have to try any more; my parents called it laziness, we call it success and the ease with which a pile can be made through endorsements, adverts, clothing ranges indeed any other conceivable means that has nothing to do with the enterprise the individual is actually involved in, is staggering; you know the names, you’ll not need me to list them, just start at George Best and work your way forward……… I know, sportsmen are an easy target, but my fears for the future of mediocrity triumphing further over excellence go deeper than that.
I prepare for the inevitable avalanche of death threats, or I would if I thought that anyone else read these notes of mine, but can someone tell me what Keira Knightly had done prior to her appearance in “Pirates of the Caribbean”? Now, I agree, she is a very beautiful woman, she had a fine figure, a dainty turn of foot…..but as ‘an actress’ she has a long, long way to go, yes, even in “Pride and Prejudice”. I’m not comparing her, just drawing parallels you understand, but actresses such as Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and their ilk knock Knightly into a cocked hat and she’d probably admit as much too……..but only in private, you understand, you have to talk-the-talk in this world…….. I know that the others mentioned are much older, more seasoned, but they served their apprenticeship over the years growing and maturing gradually, honing their art for years before becoming that much overused phrase, “brilliant”. Knightly has been branded “brilliant” after a couple of years on screen, no stage work just the false impression of film where arse-doubles, correct lighting and the use of "angles" are the norm. She's been branded as "brilliant" by those around her who have made her what she is (we’re not talking about other actors, directors or writers here, those people who can give her the tools of the trade, no, we’re talking managers, publicists, stylists, media consultants, haute couturiers and all those other hanger’s-on, many who just want to get into her pants). If they fail, if any chink in the armour becomes visible they’ll lose their meal ticket and so the myth is manipulated, the public greed for revelation drip fed and the enigma she has been made is perpetuated until, like the king’s new clothes we believe we can see it too.
Now she may turn out to be as prodigious in her talent and output as those mentioned above, but she has a long way to go to get there in my humble opinion. Unfortunately, like so many sportsmen and on the back of one gig , she is hailed as the new queen of the screen and is hoisted up alongside those of far greater experience and talent; it’s not that she doesn't posses great talent but that she may well be denied reaching it due to being forced to peak well before time that I object to. As it is, by holding her up as “brilliant” after so little work, the bar is lowered. Now celebrity is the desired goal of a majority of youth who don’t want to gain celebrity through achievement, just gain celebrity like their heroes in the soaps, music world and sports arena. We, their audience, lose the ability to distinguish between stuff and substance, they lose the ability to become what they really, truly are, win or lose, and we, all of us, lose an opportunity to find true inspiration for our own dreams.
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