Stating the Bleeding Obvious

I see there is a gent called Neil Boorman doing the rounds at the moment, he’s got a book out and he’s going to try and make a few quid out of it. Having burnt all his expensive designer togs he has spent a year buying no branded merchandise at all, from his clothes to his food he has avoided everything – although apparently he has had some issues with toilet paper, he should have used leaves, newspaper or copies of his book perhaps. The luddite should be pleased at someone taking a step back from today’s rampant consumerism, but frankly, he’s annoyed. Why? Because this is the latest in a long line of publicity seeking idiots who have decided to make money out of stating the bleeding obvious to open mouthed, brainless ‘right-on’ liberals.

Remember Morgan Spurlock and his “Supersize Me” movie, wasn’t that clever and insightful? Yeah he made a stack of cash telling us that if we ate nothing but McDonalds for a month we’d probably look a bit pasty by the end of it. Really? Bloody hell, what an incredible revelation that was. This new fella is letting us know that in a society of rampant consumerism it can be a bit tricky getting about the place if you’re hell bent on avoiding all brands, even crap ones like Kwiksave and Amstrad. If you want to find out more you’ll need to buy his book which he’s published through a branded publishing house rather than typing each copy out personally and selling it on street corners, which would perhaps be more in keeping with his big point. The man is an idiot and one assumes a recently graduated art student.

Do these people think we’re stupid? Do they think we don’t see through their hollow gestures straight to the bottom line? Yes they do, and they’re right because we seem to lap up this crap. Michael Moore has made a career out of it, guns are bad, the US made a mistake going to Iraq etc, it’s all delivered with the same hyperbole and one-sidedness that they condemn the perpetrators for using and it’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer between the eyes. By reducing these complex arguments to black and white polemics they add nothing to the debate and simply make all the detractors look like fools. You need to make the audience think if you want them to react, not simply beat them over the head like it's an Oliver Stone movie.

Me I’m off to make a new documentary on the dangers of the motor car. I’m going to lie in the road in an effort to prove that cars can kill you if you’re not careful, I will be shocked, stunned and quite possibly slaughtered when I find out that these machines we drive around in everyday have the power to kill unsuspecting pedestrians. I’m expecting to make a posthumous fortune out of it.