Owning his caricature--but not quite getting it

Chris Selley, at Macleans.ca's Megapundit, draws our attention to Jian Ghomeshi's most recent fit of self-parody:

A rather senior colleague has asked us to write about Jian Ghomeshi’s column in today’s National Post, in which 25 per cent of Moxy Früvous says he’s “aspiring to become a caricature of myself.” It seems Mr. Ghomeshi was recognized on the streets of London—England, you know—by an “attractive young” Canadian named Diane, who professed admiration for his television work, but later conceded she may have only seen Shaun Majumder make fun of him on This Hour Has 22 Minutes ... [S]eeing how much people seem to like the caricaturized Ghomeshi, he’s thinking about adopting the mannerisms. “Owning your caricature,” he says. “That’s the future.”

Mr Ghomeshi perhaps fancies that this isn't so much self-parody as it is a kind of über-chictellectual meta-self-parody. Alas, no, as Selley points out:

If you find yourself just an iPhone purchase, a few fist bumps and a lame catchphrase away from the grotesquely caricaturized TV version of yourself, then perhaps the goal of becoming a caricature of yourself has already been largely attained.

You'll notice too that yours truly was given a plug at Megapundit re. this Ghomeshi blighter. Does this, then, make EMG a mainstream flavour? Alas again! Not according to Sitemeter. (Think of humble admissions such as this as my way of owning the infinitesimally small place in space and time which I occupy. That's the future!)

Suburbanpup Impoverished

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I cannot believe that Jian Ghomeshi gets paid to write. Though, I will admit that I don't think I've looked at a single one of his columns since the last one I mentioned here. It could just be bad luck, I suppose, that I only ever happen to read the most insipid mush that he is able to ladle out with 20 minutes' notice from his editors.

But--and this is assuming that his columns aren't all rubbish--when they are, they really are.

First paragraph:

Two events of significance occurred for brown people around the world on the weekend. The first is an unqualified demonstration of the East gaining acceptance and admiration in the popular culture of the West. The second is a royal reminder that we probably ought not get too uppity and optimistic about the first event.

"The first" he mentions here, refers to the recent critical success of the film Slumdog Millionaire:

The excellent little Indian-film-that-could is now a frontrunner for the Oscars. And there is no denying its brilliance. This is a foreign language film, set in Mumbai, and using South Asian actors and storylines. The music is the most outstanding and forward-thinking soundtrack around. The lead actress is arguably the most beautiful woman in the world. It has it all. Westerners are increasingly flocking to Slumdog Millionaire and ... it is uncompromisingly Indian. For that, many of us take a great deal of pride.

I love this. Not a word about the story, just a lot of vapid chictellectual approval of the actors' race, and the film's "forward-thinking soundtrack." ( ... I mean: a forward-thinking soundtrack?! That is: a forward-thinking soundtrack?!!)

No mention either, you'll notice, of the film's director. A Mancunian as it happens. ... But what, after all, does a director really do?

But the really silly part of this business is Mr. Ghomeshi's taking "a great deal of pride" in the success of the film. Why does he take so much pride? Well, because it is so "uncompromisingly Indian," like he says. The fact that he (Ghomeshi) is not Indian is, he continues, totally beside the point. The film is about "brown people" and, because he is a "brown" person he feels a deep and significant connection with it--or anyway, a deep and significant connection with its critical reception.

Pretty shallow stuff, Jian.

Still, he probably could've been forgiven this, except that he goes on to bemoan the sort of cad who is incapable of appreciating "the nuances of the lineage of brown people."*

Eating your cake and having it too, eh?--how you must have identified with the themes of this film!

(I should note at this point that I have it on good authority that Slumdog Millionaire really does achieve a Dickensian level of brilliance. Well worth the watch, apparently.)

He concludes the piece, in the style of gut-churning-personal-revelation-of-a-racism-afflicted-youth, by expressing his disapproval of Prince Harry, who--in case you didn't know--recently expressed his fondness for a "Paki":

I was reminded of those later early years when news broke that Prince Harry had been caught on videotape calling someone a "Paki" recently. Harry is the grandson of my Queen. The same Queen that was mine in England. I've never thought that she would want to harm me. And Prince Harry has since apologized. But then, using words like that is usually more than a simple mistake. Maybe our road to progress isn't all paved in the gold of the Globes just yet. Two events occurred this weekend. And sometimes some of us still feel like slumdogs rather than millionaires.

To my mind, there are only two things that can be said about this:

1) I don't know which of Mr. Ghomeshi's high school teachers insisted to him that a piece of writing should always end with a dazzling crescendo of emotive synthesis ... I remain undecided in any case as to whether, if I met them, I should prefer to shake them heartily by the hand and thank them for the laughs, or slap them hard across the face.

2) Maybe our road to progress isn't all paved in the what of the whats now?!

_______________________

*Which is doubly silly given Mr. Ghomeshi's broad (if utterly trivial) strokes re. well-meaning white people.

That being said ...

Now I know that I've said a lot of mean things about Jian Ghomeshi in this space, but credit where credit's due: the guy handles himself pretty bloody outstandingly in the face of this sulking, beetle-browed prima donna:



Pretty impressive--as I'm fairly certain that if I was in Jian's shoes I would've been incoherent with terror. Hell, I'm fairly certain I would've been crying.

Still ... If, say, I wasn't a congenital coward, and found myself in Jian's shoes, I imagine being a little less restrained:

BBT: Would you say that to Tom Petty?

EMG: Would I say that to Tom Petty? Sorry, Tom Petty? As in Tom Petty?

BBT: Would you--

EMG: Sorry! Sorry! If I can just interrupt: are you comparing yourself to Tom fuckin' Petty?!

BBT: You--

EMG: I tell you what, you jumped-up Jed Clampett, why don't you just get the hell out of my studio!

BBT smacks microphone away from face. Rises (with some difficulty) from chair.

EMG: Yeah! Off you go, fella. And try not to let the door smack the toupee off your wattled amateur head on the way out. [calling into hallway] And I think I'm gonna fill the next ten minutes of air--that nobody would've bothered paying attention to if I hadn't mentioned your goddam Hollywood credentials--with a little Tom Petty!

... Five minutes later I'd be kicking myself for failing to point out that even Billy Bob's little act here was stolen.

The View from Cloud Cuckoo Land

Ghomeshi strikes again!

Whatever your politics, [Barack Obama's] inspiration to the Jay-Z generation is unarguable.

Oh. My. God. How the ef did this make it into print?!

I mean: whatever your politics?! How do you figure, Jian? ... The sentence somehow manages to be both preposterous and utterly meaningless all in one go.

And why is it any less impressive that other politicians appeal to the various non-Jaz-Z generations? Because those generations, by comparison, tend to be informed, educated, intelligent, cultured? If Barack Obama had widespread appeal amongst the illiterate, the incarcerated, the pre-pubescent, and the lobotomized should we then, whatever our politics, also be impressed?

(Stupid question ... And for the sake of my sanity, don't answer. Please don't answer!)

If Obama loses the nomination in the coming days or weeks, the loss won't be tragic for him. But it might be for those millions of newcomers inspired to give organized politics and participation a try.

You'll forgive me, Jian, if--when this happens (God willing)--I consider it a good thing. Even if a frighteningly close one.

Well-Meaning White (and White-Bred) People

Here's a phrase that I've been hearing a lot of lately: well-meaning white people.

The funny thing about this phrase in its currently fashionable usage is that while it is meant, literally, to indicate the positive correlate to the negative ill-meaning white people, it is nonetheless still employed as a kind of soft epithet. When we talk about well-meaning white people we do not mean the good guys with the white skins as distinct from the bad guys with the white skins. We mean, instead, lame-o's.

Which is to say, apparently white people come in one of two types: bad guys (racists, one assumes, given the preponderant focus on skin colour here) and a kind of loser/fool hybrid.

Charming! You'll be sure to tell me which category I belong to, as I'm either too racist or too much of a grinning dope to be able to say for myself. (We won't get into the stickier business of which of these the average white person would prefer to be thought of as in the absence of a category that pays even a lip-service to human dignity.)

Jian Ghomeshi--who is of Iranian descent, and therefore not white, and who hosts CBC radio's Q--recently used this phrase in a piece he wrote for the National Post's (ongoingly deplorable) arts and letters section. The article undertakes to examine the etymology of another phrase--one that I, personally, have never noticed being notably used--"back in the day."

Transgress those cultural boundaries, Jian!

Now, I should say that it was not the use of the locution "well-meaning white people" that bothered me here. To be quite honest, I'll admit that if I haven't used precisely those words to describe the sort of weed who (to draw on a relevant example) listens to Q, then it is by pure accident. These people do exist. And they are, unquestionably, idiots ... That they are also Jian's target audience is, for the purposes of this argument, but an irony en passant.

And it is not the fact that Jian continues on this theme throughout his column in such a relentlessly and shamelessly insulting way: talking about "hip-hop culture being appropriated and bleached by the dominant mainstream class" (my emphasis) and quoting a man so culturally and spiritually barren that he actually

... refuses to say 'back in the day' ... and laments that it's lost all of its original meaning. He argues it's been overused into transparency. "It's the equivalent of the 45-year old white guy who uses the term 'my bad' without a trace of irony. I just want to slap the guy."

That even this sort of trite, lame ass sentiment--if it were directed at anyone other than white people, that is--could earn Jian a short, sharply-worded complaint from one (or all) of our Human Rights Commissions, is, I repeat, not the thing that troubles me here.

No, rather, what really gets up my pinched Scot's nose about this piece is its naked shittiness (from the point of view of journalistic craft, you understand); its complete lack of relevance, its complete lack of interest, intelligence, discernment ... What really bugs me about it is that the only apparent reason that I can make out that it was paid for and printed by the National Post's arts editors, is that they are themselves a bunch of well-meaning white people, and thus decided to let substance hang where they could get a little trendy self-admiring self-deprecation in by way of (double plus!) a token non-white person.

That is: the problem is not that the piece is belittling of white people; the problem is that--in spite of its pop-intellectual newsytainment aspirations--that's all that it is. That's the only thing the piece succeeds at!

I'm sorry, but if I'm to be roasted for the colour of my skin, then I should prefer that it be done by someone with a brain, an education, and the bare minimum of competence.