The BNP and the Media

The Film, TV and Entertainment Industry is a hotbed of wishy-washy, bleeding-heart liberal do-goodniks. At least, that's the received wisdom and, it's got to be said, it's largely true.

You don't need the brain of a Stephen (Hawking or Fry – it makes no difference at that level) to work out the historical reason for this: If an industry is catering for a Mass Audience, and that Mass Audience is a Multicultural one, it isn't going to go out of its way to alienate any sector of that Audience. It follows that those who choose to work within the field are likely to be inclusive, fair-minded and generally easygoing, with an interest in people of all backgrounds and a wish for a healthy, cohesive society.

Of course there are exceptions. One elderly TV Writer I knew used to fume at anyone who'd listen to him (few did) that his late-nineties cop show was cancelled by “The Jew Yentob” because “it didn't have enough ethnics in it”. It only took a moment to look at a calendar and a Big Book of True Facts to work out that it was actually cancelled by “The Gentile Michael Jackson” because “it didn't have enough quality in it”.And “it didn't have enough audience for it”, either. He writes books now.

Last year, a TV Presenter (with his own long-running series and issues around drinking) mentioned to his Producer that he was inclined to lend his support to the BNP come the next General Election. The Producer, knowing this would end his career in a kind of instant, total, no-coming-back-from-it-ever-again, David Icke-meets-Simon Dee car crash of public humiliation and total industry revulsion, managed to talk him out of it and keep the whole thing quiet. So quiet, in fact, that it's probably only common knowledge to a few hundred people, along with the Press of several countries.

And no – it ISN'T Jeremy Clarkson. Even he isn't that dense.

The Far Right, of course, like to see a conspiracy in all of this. Some might even go so far as to write bizarre screeds like “Who Are The Mindbenders?” (I dunno; Wayne Fontana's backing group?), in which the Author, one N. Griffin, sees World Media Industries controlled by the sinister machinations of the likes of (sinister music, please...) Michael Grade, Michael Winner, Felicity Kendall and Dennis Norden (“Tremble before the majestic power and mind-splintering terror of my Occasional Light Entertainment Specials, oh quivering mortals! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”).

The Far Right will, for example, hit the roof (followed by the Daily Mail Comments Board) over a TV documentary like Panorama's recent “Hate on the Doorstep”. “You'd never make a programme like that about Ethnics!” they'll say, while calmly forgetting about other recent, equally powerful films like Dispatches' “Britain's Islamic Republic” or “Britain's Witch Children”. All important films looking, often uncomfortably, at forces that undermine a healthy society.

Having no hope of ever penetrating the Media Industry, the BNP and their like have turned it to their advantage (in their own martyrdom-obsessed imaginations) by filling the dank recesses of the Internet with their own, barely-sentient video sludge.

There's plenty to choose from. At the “high end” of the market (which, in TV terms, is a bit like calling Pricedrop TV the crème de la crème of insomniac shopping channels) there's “BNPTV” with their wonkily-framed, no-proper-mic' “reports” presented by a succession of wooden, stammering numbskulls.

Then there are the likes of Roger Phillips' hilariously inept “exposes” of London Streets With Very Few White People In Them (we could all, of course - and with far greater ease - take out a camera and shoot in places where there would be Streets With Nothing But White People In Them), presented in such nervously hushed and terrified tones by the porky skinhead that you'd think he was, at the very least, trying to catch Kim Jong Il red-handed, naked and smoking crack with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a nuclear missle silo in downtown Pyongyang.

And then you've got The Rest. Oh, so much of The Rest: Those painfully amateurish attempts at “filmmaking” (step forward and accept your Award, Mr Bertie Bert!) that all seem to follow the same pattern:

FADE IN ON:

Music: “Land of Hope and Glory”

Image: A succession of still images of thatched cottages, smiling, blonde children, old ladies knitting in rocking chairs in rose gardens, etc.

Caption:
THIS IS WHAT OUR GRATE COUNTRY USED TOO BE LIKE

CUT TO:

Music: “Islamic Call to Prayer”

Image: A succession of images of women in burqas, bearded chaps burning the Union Jack, mosques, etc.

Caption:
AND THIS IS WHAT ITS LIKE NOW

CUT TO:

Caption:
VOTE BNP

FADE OUT:

On You Tube, where you can find hundreds of these things, they're usually followed by dozens of comments like; “V Powerful stuff – the mainstream media won't dare show this as it's TO DANJEROUS!” or “That was a thought-provoking film, I shall send it to all my frends and they will join the BNP too!” (actual comments, of course).

Either our Nazi Friends are so starved of anything to bolster their imaginary world view that they are genuinely moved, impressed and galvanised by such dross, or they're simply such undemanding knuckleheads that the very spectacle of a succession of still images projected with such rapidity as to give the illusion of movement is enough to excite them. (Having said that, there are so many BNP supporters on Facebook who list the cinematic oeuvre of Mr Danny Dyer among their favourite movies that the latter is entirely possible.)

The BNP and their like wouldn't last five minutes in the Real Media. No conspiracy; no Master Plan. Just that their message is both unwanted and unwelcome by Audiences. Quite apart from that, they simply aren't up to the task of making real programmes. And I suspect they never will be.