New Chris Morris Series! But What Will It Be...?

[Gavin]

Dropping the kids off at school. Then he'll have a bun.

Do you want to borrow my binoculars?

It's a fucking eclair. Call yourself a fan...

[Chris K]

Everyone's lambasting of Morris inspired teenage comic creations reminded me of a spoof news-like website me and my brothers made when I was about 15, so I looked it up again and actually found some of it hilarious.

Can someone else check it out and tell me what you think. It's quite hit and miss in places but this article in particular I thought was sweet (in comparison to the other things we've seen in this thread):

http://www.geocities.com/the_smock_issue_2/chintochin.html

Here's the full run (all two):
- http://www.geocities.com/ntnod/frontpage.html
- http://www.geocities.com/the_smock_issue_2/frontpage.html

[evelyn_blake]

Well if this is to become a parade of mildly embarassing work that has some tenuous connection to Chris Morris allow me to contribute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOpQKAVHxeM

[mrpants]

Rumour has it that Morris is 'trying some things out' with Nick Burns. I'm afraid I don't have a YouTube link of it though.

[Cack Hen]

You call yourself media savvy? Don't bother speaking again unless you can provide hard evidence with a YouTube link.

[Garam]

This is somewhat relevent. Someone made a short film based on the Geefe columns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h_JJHaeag8

Ooh er

[Paaaaul]

This is somewhat relevent. Someone made a short film based on the Geefe columns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h_JJHaeag8

Ooh er

Lookie here for more details

[Garam]

Crying out loud. Sorry all - I searched, but couldn't find a thing. Kindly delete my post so that noone will read it and think 'wanker' later on.

Incidentally, thanks for being polite and not calling me a wanker, Paaaaaaul.

[Paaaaul]

wanker

[Garam]

You had to go and spoil it.

[LeboviciAB84]

Oh, that was your video! I'd been wondering ever since you mentioned I'd been nice about it. Yes, well done.

[Morgan]

This was the last thread I looked at before going to bed yesterday.  I was in a weary, sleep-deprived state, and the last thing I can remember doing before nodding off was slurring, quite to myself, 'ah, who gives a fuck, he's shit now'.  It has taken until now for me to remember this, and I have to say, I think it's the line I'm going to stick with.

[IanW]

- bump -

Went to a debate on the ethics of Al Qaeda last night where the argument was made that the franchise is more of a western phenomenon than anything else, and that the London bombers weren't yelling in rage at the injustices of the Iraq war and the Palestine/Israel situation but acting more like pissed off, pompous, narcissistic adolescents, blowing themselves up in something like a more extreme version of self-harming.  

Anyway, the point is Chris Morris was there which maybe is a hope raising thing - he might be on the right tracks with this new project.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

...acting more like pissed off, pompous, narcissistic adolescents, blowing themselves up in something like a more extreme version of self-harming.  

Nathan Barley Series 2 then?

[23 Daves]

Perhaps he's going to write a sit-com about terrorists that's in the style of "The Young Ones".

Young Asian Man with long beard: "Honestly, I just don't understand why whenever anything explodes in this house everyone automatically blames me!"

It could of course mean nothing at all that he was there, he might just have a genuine interest in the subject.

[Go With The Flow]

EDIT - whoops

[hands cold, liver warm]

george bush reacts

[IanW]

Nathan Barley Series 2 then?

That's the worst case scenario.  But the thing is, with annoying media idiots there really wasn't ever much of a misunderstanding was there?  Look, annoying media idiots - let's hate them.

From the point of view of last night's speaker, though, there is a huge misunderstanding about what motivates people from Beeston (not all of them, of course, and not just Beeston) to blow themselves up.  The standard position is that their actions are somehow linked to US/UK foreign policy (wouldn't you say this is the majority view?).  But Faisal Devji's point is that it has much more in common with the mentality that draws teenagers to become goths, or draws satirists to make late night ambient radio shows in which ineffectual human beings are presented as essentially zombieloid morons stumbling haplessly from one disaster to the next i.e. misanthropy.

So unlike NB, if Morris were to take this line he would be challenging a received opinion.

Or would he?

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

The trouble with that argument is that it doesn't accept that anger/nonconformity/extremism etc can ever be heartfelt or justified - it lumps everyone in together, labelling them all as show offs and nothing else. It seems a strangely apolitical view.

Grant and Naylor writing Every Bomb You Make for Spitting image - was that just a kneejerk adolescent bit of posturing, or did they actually give a fuck? I'm convinced it was the latter, and I'm also convinced that those who try to discredit satirical comment of that kind do so because they're threatened by it. Or at least threatened by the idea of others holding strong beliefs.

[Ciarán2]

Crying out loud. Sorry all - I searched, but couldn't find a thing. Kindly delete my post so that noone will read it and think 'wanker' later on.

Incidentally, thanks for being polite and not calling me a wanker, Paaaaaaul.

Not at all, I clicked on your post without looking futher down and watched the clip without realising there was any CaB involvement! I really enjoyed it. I stupidly failed to realise that it was PLC in the lead role and I met him once in a pub in Dublin... (but I was very, very drunk).

[IanW]

No, that argument doesn't say anger/nonconformity/extremism can never be heartfelt or justified... it's very specific about these people.  And it's a political argument.  And angry too.  It's saying these people are actually apolitical, even if they follow the script and claim to be acting for the oppressed muslims of the world.  It's all me me me.  Even if it's all me me me suddenly becoming not me me me.

I'd suspect Grant and Naylor probably did give a fuck, but Chris Morris isn't rumoured to be making a program about them... No, I do think there's something to be said about a lot of politics amounting to nothing more than self-affirming ethical gestures at the moment.  This doesn't at all discredit actual anger and political motivation.  In fact it's an angry, politically driven point.  It's very difficult to argue against nihilists from a nihilistic point of view.  And these 'ethical gestures' are nihilistic in that there's no real manifesto behind them, they are their own justification, self-contained, inward-looking.

[23 Daves]

The trouble with that argument is that it doesn't accept that anger/nonconformity/extremism etc can ever be heartfelt or justified - it lumps everyone in together, labelling them all as show offs and nothing else. It seems a strangely apolitical view.

On a basic level, though, I can see the point.  The vast majority of terrorists who blow themselves up do belong to a certain generation, and a number of them do seem to think that as soon as they've done the job, they'll be presented with a multitude of virgins to play with on the other side.  Now to me, that sounds exactly like a male adolescent fantasy - complete death metal/ soft porn nonsense, really.  That others would refer to it as "religion" admittedly muddies the argument a bit, but nonetheless...

Also, one convicted terrorist actually said "Let's blow ourselves up in a nightclub, all those digusting loose whores in there, who could possibly sympathise with them?" which to me also sounds exactly like the idiotic ramblings of a sexually frustrated adolescent.

On a more universal level, it gets more complicated.  Most of us, after all, are at our most politically involved when we're between the ages of 18-25, but does this mean we're only doing it as attention seeking or tantrum throwing?  I doubt it.  A lot of the views I had ten years ago are still firm beliefs now, I just lack the time and energy to devote to promoting them, and perhaps I feel that the traditional means of expression aren't really effective.  

It's an interesting argument, but as I haven't read up that much about it I'll avoid going into too much depth.  I'm just speculating, really.

[IanW]

Ah no, yes, I see your point about Grant and Naylor now.  Sorry.  Yes, I mentioned about Blue Jam being somehow mentally linked to what goes on in the minds of these suicide bombers.  But that's just me making that point.  As it happens, though, even though Blue Jam had more of an impact on me than most things, and I love it, and nobody should ever curtail artistic license, you can't deny it's savagely bleak, contemptuous even.  

And that's why it's so good.  It's (in parts) unrelentingly vicious.