Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with the internet will have noticed its tendency to get a bit het up about the slightest of things. The ability to broadcast and respond instantly isn't really conducive to reasoned debate, but it is handy to glean an idea of how people really think and feel. By its very instant nature it can lend itself to moments where someone says what they really think, perhaps being unaware what that reveals about them.
Take, for example, climate change. That's pretty much a done deal, right? Nobody reputable's questioning that any more, right? I mean, plenty of people are questioning it, but nobody, you know, bright. Only the terminally dense or those with financial skin in the game are truly, publicly doubting the veracity of the Anthropocene. And so, it follows, that it's a subject which generates a reasonable deal of consensus.
Now, the heart-warming, eye-popping, awe-inspiring, this-is-what-you-pay-your-licence-fee-for-and-don't-you-forget-it nature documentaries of Sir David Attenborough were, for a long time, subject to a fair degree of criticism by environmentalists, as for many years they skirted round the issue. Maybe offering the odd hint that all wasn't as it should be but, as a general rule, not scaring the Sunday evening horses.
A few years ago, Sir David decided that this approach wasn't cutting the mustard, and started to use his platform to make explicit the link between the dealings of humans and the destruction of habitat and changing of climate. Reasonable enough, one might think, it's too easy to think everything in the garden is rosy, and the odd reminder that it isn't probably isn't the worst idea. Programmes about the natural world need to acknowledge that humanity's headlong rush towards consumerism has serious consequences for the world as a whole.
Unless, of course, you're Daily Mail Columnist Sarah Vine, who tweeted intemperately after watching Perfect Planet, a programme which is explicitly about the planet we live on and all the forces that act upon it.
Tuned in to watch a bit of david Attenborough but am now being subjected to propaganda. Yes, I know: humanity is an evil plague on the planet. But can I just look at some elephants please? #PerfectPlanet
Poor old David Attenborough, he can't bloody win, can he?
Now, there's a fair bit to unpack here. What, precisely, did she expect from it? The trailers have made it pretty clear what it's about. Then there's the dismissive "yes I know" which implies she means anything but. But the biggest give-way here was the word "propaganda". As if telling the truth is now akin to trying to brainwash people.
I know we live in a post-truth age, but it's slightly surprising to see reportage by one of the world's most highly respected broadcasters described in such a manner, as though Attenborough were Leni Riefenstahl. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised by this linen from a woman whose husband, Michael Gove, routinely vets Freedom of Information requests, only granting them to newspapers he deems friendly, and once refused to answer questions from a C4 news reporter by saying that he was pursuing "a left-wing agenda". But having got used to this sort of truth-twisting from HMG, it's still a bit of a shock to see it applied to someone as unimpeachable as Sir David.
The replies, as is so often the case, were eyebrow-raising and instructive. Some called for a "balanced argument" as if the debate were still a live thing. One complained of "being lectured at for being alive." All told, there was a palpable sense of grievance that the BBC were screening something showing the world as it is, not as the respondents would wish it to be.
This ostrich tendency is, I think, one of the things most hampering the movement towards a zero emission world. This bunch of snowflakes had a fit of pearl-clutching at the mildest suggestion that they might need to alter their lifestyle a little, and their first instinct was to lash out. At David. Attenborough. Copper-bottomed, Navy-Strength, certified national treasure Sir David Attenborough.
Because there aren't any easy ways out of this mess, no matter how much dishonest politicians like to pretend that there is. It will involve a change of lifestyle. Less driving, less red meat, less flying, less new stuff. Reduce, reuse, recycle. But the second that gets brought up the entitled whining babies that make up a significant proportion of our population throw their (plastic) toys right out of the pram.
More curiously, Vine, who despite all appearances to the contrary, isn't stupid, must have known what the programme was about. Watching it and then complaining about it is a bit like watching It's a Sin and then saying "I don't mind the gays, but why do they have to flaunt it?" It smacks of spoiling for a fight, and at a time when the BBC is being assailed on all sides by the cultural barbarians who make up the majority of the right-wing press, Vine's jibes are on-brand, opening up yet another front in the forever war between public service and those who seek to monetise everything. Why shouldn't the programme just be a parade of lovely elephants? It's only lefties who think that they're going to die out. Maybe you could put some of them in hats, that'd be nice. That's what they'd do on Disney plus, and at a reasonable price, too.
Comments
Post a Comment