Brass Eye Revisited

[BJBMK2]

But what does "never seemed genuine" imply? That he was a fraud? or just that the footage came across as fake? The latter seems accurate, since most people came away with the impression he was just another Morris character.

I assume that's just Lucian's interpretation/opinion of the scene. Admittedly, I probably would have figured it was just another character too, the "It's just another form of racism" line. It's TOO perfect in it's bleakness, darkly funny, and extremely disturbing undertones, that it seems like it could have been almost plucked straight from Blue Jam.

[Retinend]

really? i must have mised something

Derail, but you dismissed the evidence in another thread because the accuser (a then-close-friend of Foucault's) happens to be on the right wing these days.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/french-philosopher-michel-foucault-abused-boys-in-tunisia-6t5sj7jvw
French philosopher Michel Foucault 'abused boys in Tunisia'

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/4/16/reckoning-with-foucaults-sexual-abuse-of-boys-in-tunisia
Reckoning with Foucault's alleged sexual abuse of boys in Tunisia

[chveik]

Derail, but you dismissed the evidence in another thread because the accuser (a friend of Foucault's) happens to be right wing.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/french-philosopher-michel-foucault-abused-boys-in-tunisia-6t5sj7jvw
French philosopher Michel Foucault 'abused boys in Tunisia'

that guy is hardly trustworthy. he retracted most of his statements. but yeah it's all 'because he happens to be right wing'. go fuck yourself

En 2020, il affirme dans France-Amérique que le philosophe Michel Foucault aurait eu des relations sexuelles avec des enfants en Tunisie contre de l'argent et décrit l'œuvre et l'engagement politique de Foucault comme « l'alibi de ses turpitudes »22. Un an plus tard, il réaffirme cela dans Mon dictionnaire du bullshit23, sur le plateau de C ce soir24 et dans le journal conservateur The Sunday Times25, tout en ajoutant que Foucault aurait eu ces relations avec des enfant de huit à dix ans sur des pierres tombales dans un village proche de Tunis aux vacances de Pâques 1969. Ces assertions, massivement relayées par des médias du monde entier (Angleterre, Allemagne, Argentine, etc.)26 ne sont cependant pas étayées par d'autres sources et vont à l'encontre de plusieurs éléments de la vie de Foucault en Tunisie (les menaces dont il faisait l'objet en Tunisie, et le fait qu'il n'enseignait plus à l'université de Tunis mais à celle de Vincennes, qui rendent peu probable un retour en 1969). Dans une enquête de Jeune Afrique, des habitants de Sidi Bou Saïd (village où Michel Foucault résidait) contestent alors les propos de Guy Sorman, et l'une des personnes interviewées, affirme que les partenaires de Foucault étaient « des gars de 17 ou 18 ans qu'il retrouvait brièvement dans les bosquets sous le phare voisin du cimetière. »27 Dans un entretien au journal Die Zeit publié le 7 avril, Guy Sorman admet n'avoir pas vu Michel Foucault dans ce cimetière et dit s'être basé sur une rumeur entendue dans l'entourage de Jean Daniel28. Deux jours plus tard, Philippe Chevallier souligne dans L'Express le peu de consistance de ces accusations et fait remarquer que Guy Sorman a tenu des propos variables. Interrogé, Sorman affirme dorénavant que Michel Foucault ne l'intéresse pas particulièrement, admet n'avoir aucune preuve de ce qu'il affirme, et, après avoir accusé Foucault d'avoir violé des enfants de huit ans, mentionne finalement d'éventuelles relations de Foucault avec des jeunes âgés de dix-huit ou de quatorze ans26.

https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/idees-et-debats/michel-foucault-et-la-pedophilie-enquete-sur-un-emballement-mediatique_2148517.html

[Retinend]

You yourself intimated that he was right wing so his accusations were not to be taken seriously.

"admet n'avoir aucune preuve de ce qu'il affirme"

what would that "proof" even look like? These were rapes that happened in the sixties.

[chveik]

You yourself intimated that he was right wing so his accusations were not to be taken seriously.

"admet n'avoir aucune preuve de ce qu'il affirme"

what would that "proof" even look like? These were rapes that happened in the sixties.

l'express is a right wing journal. read the article. there are a lot of inconstencies. even Sorman's wife account is at odds with what he said. but while the 'anti woke' press (and people like you) would love it to be true. i'd rather wait for more tangible testimonies.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Sorman didn't invent the story. There have been so many comments and innuendo about Foucault's time in Tunisia its almost a running joke.

Edward Said made similiar remarks. I don't want to join in with the press taking down a famous intellectual because he happened to a gay guy with a well known interest in kink, but it is shite that the issue has been an in-joke for decades "haha, Foucault sure seduced those young students with his intellectual brilliance" stuff. Or we're in the bizarre situation where a guy synonymous with the intellectual defense of transgression must have a squeaky clean reputation: the one thing we didn't want to happen.

I'd walk in front of a laundry van to defend De Beauvoir tho

[Retinend]

l'express is a right wing journal. read the article.

Relevant part:

"L'âge des amants ? Il n'est plus bien sûr : "Qu'est-ce qui vous permet de distinguer un "jeune éphèbe", comme le dit Jeune Afrique, d'un garçon de 14 ans ? Moi, je ne sais pas faire cette distinction. Je peux dire que c'étaient plutôt des enfants que des hommes d'âge mûr"."

It sounds to me like he is sticking to his story, rather than "retracting" it, as you falsely claim. It is puzzling why a right wing newspaper would be so much in Foucault's corner, but whatever the reason it seems to be making a meal out of the "fragility" and "fluctuations" of an old man's memory for the purpose of dismissing the rape of Tunisian boys.

[chveik]

Sorman didn't invent the story. There have been so many comments and innuendo about Foucault's time in Tunisia its almost a running joke.

Edward Said made similiar remarks. I don't want to join in with the press taking down a famous intellectual because he happened to a gay guy with a well known interest in kink, but it is shite that the issue has been an in-joke for decades "haha, Foucault sure seduced those young students with his intellectual brilliance" stuff. Or we're in the bizarre situation where a guy synonymous with the intellectual defense of transgression must have a squeaky clean reputation: the one thing we didn't want to happen.

I'd walk in front of a laundry van to defend De Beauvoir tho

i think there's a difference between doing dodgy stuff with students by using his position (which i have no trouble believing) and raping eight years old in a graveyard

[Video Game Fan 2000]

If it was anyone else "okay, he may have abused his position to have sex with minors and written a moral defense of paedophilia...but he didn't defile Muslim graves with unspeakable acts of child sex!" would seem ridiculous.

[chveik]

If it was anyone else "okay, he may have abused his position to have sex with minors and written a moral defense of paedophilia...but he didn't defile Muslim graves with unspeakable acts of child sex!" would seem ridiculous.

just saying it's not the same crime, it's still indefensible. i think his students were in uni, not children.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I regret making glib comments about this. I think its likely Foucault did some dire shit and that should colour how people read the most extreme claims in his works and his influence in general. On the other, I'm pretty disgusted by framing it in terms of his later relationships and death from AIDS, or as somehow scandalous for the 'father of woke' (pfft).

Foucault professed attraction to young boys frequently and wrote that sex with children was no different than any other kind of subject forming activities. I think that's enough for me or else we argue paedophile v ephebophile and thisn't an anime forum.

[Retinend]

Re: the political framing of the accusation in the context of the woke/anti-woke culture war, the article I posted above puts it this way, which I agree with:

This absence of media reckoning with Foucault's alleged paedophilia in Tunisia can also be linked to the distortions and silencing that have characterised the way Sorman's claim has been framed by The Sunday Times.

The British newspaper undermined the possibility of an unbiased reckoning with Foucault's alleged history of sexual abuse by framing its report as an attack on "a beacon of today's 'woke' ideology" and "Parisian intellos". In so doing, it cheapened the much-needed conversation around Foucault's alleged sexual abuse by turning it into just another biased critique of the French left by a right-wing British news outlet.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/4/16/reckoning-with-foucaults-sexual-abuse-of-boys-in-tunisia

I am not interested in giving the antiwokers ammunition, but if you want to know where the pedophiles who intellectualize their abuse (NAMBLA and so on) get their ideas from, it's from Foucault, so it's worth mentioning that he was very likely a pedophile himself.

[chveik]

I regret making glib comments about this. I think its likely Foucault did some dire shit and that should colour how people read the most extreme claims in his works and his influence in general. On the other, I'm pretty disgusted by framing it in terms of his later relationships and death from AIDS, or as somehow scandalous for the 'father of woke' (pfft).

Foucault professed attraction to young boys frequently and wrote that sex with children was no different than any other kind of subject forming activities. I think that's enough for me or else we argue paedophile v ephebophile and thisn't an anime forum.

fair enough. i spose the most fucked up things said in the press (i'm not making up that a lot of what Sorman wrote turned up to be bollocks) and the fact that people have been trying to discredit him for the last fifty years (and that in those fifty years they didn't manage to dig up victims' complaints or whatnot, although i can understand it would be difficult in a country like Tunisia) have made me overlook his actual tendencies. and i guess i should leave it at that, i feel pretty bad looking like a paedo apologist. apologies Retinend and al

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Sorman's comments should be taken in context of France having its own version of the CRT panic specifically around activist intellectuals. The subtext of the story isn't Foucault's presence as a vestage of colonial authority blah blah blah but suspicion cast over someone with the dual role of intellectual and activist.

get their ideas from, it's from Foucault,

Hakim Bey surely. Americans have plenty, they don't need to import.

Love to kick a sociologist when he's down but Foucault's defense of paedophilia hasn't made as much of a mark as people think it has. It's more what his defense of paedophilia says about his view of sexuality as a whole that people should question.

[markburgle]

Yeah, there's a load of tweets from women saying they shaved their private parts when they were 13-14 before going to One Direction concerts, thinking they might get invited backstage (hopefully none of them did).

That's so crazy to read but it all doesn't surprise me. It's that age where you're just mad horny all the time and the strength of those desires creates the delusion that a: you're an adult now and b: it must be good to have something if you want it that badly.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

On the subject of recognition of things being different in 2021 than in 2001, it should probably be pointed out that the most hysterical anti-paedo press was actively involving in covering up some of the worst actions. The hysterical, moral panic stuff goes hand in hand with brushing things under the carpet. Its hard to imagine the Yewtree-ing being as extensive as it was without the outrage culture and voyeurism. Its not hard to find people arguing that America's appetite for true crime podcasts, reality tv about violent crime, etc goes hand in hand with a culture of police violence and I think there was a similar thing going on the UK in the 90s and 00s.

When people not from the UK wonder about how Saville and others got away with it while being in the public eye all the time, its probably a good time to argue that they'd have less of a hard time doing it in an environment that didn't have a constant barrage of moral panic, outrage and salacious edu-tainment about paedophiles and sex crimes. The tone was sickening, I remember Private Eye reprinting a page of paedo-panic headlines and they were all shit like "WHAT HE DID TO THEIR LITTLE BODIES".

Dehumanising language about sex offenders also goes into it - beast, monster, animal, etc. It all goes towards towards creating the grand guignol shitshow that takes up every jot of space about the topic in the collective consciousness - and inevitably leads to emotional exhaustion. It must be punishing for survivors of any kind of abuse to take things public if the public is emotionally exhausted by a parade of horror and absurdity (which is why I'm a defended the 'troll doll' part - it captures this perfectly)

I think the 2001 Special is the best one. Its probably the only one where the celebrity stuff really works 100% of the time too, because its not about famous faces saying absurdities anymore, its capturing a certain kind of self-righteousness and credulousness that drives any kind of outrage or purity culture. Whereas outside of Cake and Crime I didn't like the the celebrity stuff in Brass Eye much at all. The funniest moment is Manning seems to realise he's being duped and pausing "...sick bastards".

[neveragain]

The 'sick bastards' is part of Manning's script. Can't remember the exact line but it's something like "These aren't real drugs, they're made up in a lab somewhere, by sick bastards."

I'll stick up for the celeb bits. They're funny and the point they make is sound (often celebs don't do their research, so don't blindly trust what they might tell you).

[BJBMK2]

Chalk me up as another one who still really likes the celeb bits. Satirical intent aside, they are often a way for Morris to indulge the other part of his humour that makes his work sparkle and stand out from so many imitators, his sense of the absurd, and the giggly joy that can come from just taking an idea and stretching it to it's illogical conclusion.

The way the camera lingers on David Amess's uncomfortable, Tory face as he gets a blast of monged Cake music down his ear (and the lovely little spinny motion Morris makes with the boombox as he pulls it out of shot).

The Nicholas Parsons cut up. Immature maybe, but there's almost an adolescent joy in taking a clip of a perfectly nice old man, and twisting it. "An elephant can NO, more, get it's trunk up, itsarse, then we could, lickourballs".

"She needs WOLF power, or she will explode in...a shower of...pulped yams".

Steven Berkoff smashing up the toy village.

Being unnecessarily rude to Darcus Howe for the sake for a quick cutaway gag.

Most of what Tommy Vance does (even if he was allegedly the only one aware of what was going on).

Getting celebrity bullycunt "Mad" Frankie Fraser to condone gunning down Noel Edmonds.

[Retinend]

Steven Berkoff smashing up the toy village.

This is the only celeb cameo I can think of that felt like more of a collaboration than a piss-take.

Related to that, do others have "get as far away from the bed as possible, make the distance from you and the bed as large as possible" etc. etc. floating around their head space during periods of laziness?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Its the look Manning gives the camera before "sick bastards" and his double take reading the names of the "loony...things" that does it for me. Like he's on the point of realising but doesn't quite get there.

I'm shocked the "another form of racism" guy was real. I never thought of it as anything other than a bit. What a line to get spontaneously from yer actual nobbler.

[thenoise]

Yeah, there's a load of tweets from women saying they shaved their private parts when they were 13-14 before going to One Direction concerts, thinking they might get invited backstage (hopefully none of them did).

What's that? Hair?? I don't like hair?!?

[Ambient Sheep]

...the lovely little spinny motion Morris makes with the boombox as he pulls it out of shot.

One of my favourite things ever, that.  I wonder how long it took him to practice getting it perfect?

Definitely one for the "Extremely small moments in comedy that make you laugh way more than intended" thread, which I'm not sure I've ever posted in before.

^{_{BTW, RIP the Chris Morris discussion subforum. :-)}}

[Magnum Valentino]

Despite the name and origin of the site, I'm not sure everyone goes in there. I always forget it exists and the subforum is much less active than Comedy Chat.

[Ambient Sheep]

Agreed.  I once forgot about it for months and was surprised when I went in there how much activity there had been.  I now try to check in there at least once a week(!).

[sevendaughters]

I recently rewatched it all and forget how good an actor Morris was. In the first episode he goes from "himself" to a mock Iranian news host to Bernard Lerring the traumatised weasel dispatcher to posh huntsman Patrick da Fronk in about 5 minutes. I still think it's the best non-serial comedy Britain has ever produced and while the value of the celebrity bits has gone down (not hugely impressed with the elephant with trunk up its arse one) the value of pretty much everything else has improved in the years.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

His delivery in the "Cowsick" section is masterful.

[Thomas]

I recently rewatched it all and forget how good an actor Morris was.

He is - I've said before that I'd love to see him in more films and TV. Even just small roles, as in

Spoiler alert

Richard Ayoade's The Double

[close]

.[nb]spoilered in case anyone hasn't seen it and fancies a nice surprise.[/nb]

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

His physical and vocal performance choices are both so idiosyncratic and he has an uncanny ability to create a fully realised character within seconds. How long is Bernard Lerring actually on screen, yet he feels substantial from the tiny snippets we're shown.

Such a shame he's almost entirely shifted focus to the other end of the camera.

[H-O-W-L]

I think the music parodies are also pretty much pitch perfect.

[Fambo Number Mive]

He is - I've said before that I'd love to see him in more films and TV. Even just small roles, as in

Spoiler alert

Richard Ayoade's The Double

[close]

.[nb]spoilered in case anyone hasn't seen it and fancies a nice surprise.[/nb]

He's very good in IAP as well. I like how his character in that is clearly a bit of a snob but also rightly pissed off at Partridge's bullshit.