Charlie Brooker | How to prevent more riots | Comment is free | The Guardian
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/14/charlie-brooker-prevent-more-riots
As well as addressing the gulf between the haves and have-nots I’d look at TV shows that confuse achievement with the acquisition of bling
In the smouldering aftermath, some politicians, keen to shift the focus from social inequality, have muttered darkly about the role of BlackBerry Messenger, Twitter and Facebook – frightening new technologies that, like the pen and the human mouth, allow citizens to swap messages with one another. Some have even called for the likes of Twitter to be temporarily suspended in times of great national crisis. That’d be reassuring – like the scene at the start of a zombie movie where the news bulletin is suddenly replaced by a whistling tone and a stark caption reading PLEASE STAND BY. The last thing we need in an emergency is the ability to share information. Perhaps the government could also issue us with gags we could slip over our mouths the moment the sirens start wailing? Hey, we could still communicate if we really had to. Provided we have learned semaphore.
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Back in the 80s the pioneering aspirational soap opera Dallas dangled an unattainable billionaire lifestyle in front of millions, but at least had the nous to make the Ewing family miserable and consumed with self-loathing. At the same time, shows aimed at kids were full of presenters cheerfully making puppets out of old yoghurt pots, while shows aimed at teens largely depicted cheeky urchins copping off with each other in the dole queue. Today, whenever my world-weary eyes alight on a “youth show” it merely resembles a glossily edited advert for celebrity lifestyles, co-starring a jet-ski and a tower of gold. And regardless of the time slot, every other commercial shrieks that I deserve the best of everything. I and I alone. I’d gladly introduce a law requiring broadcasters to show five minutes of footage of a rich man dying alone for every 10 minutes of fevered avarice. It’d be worth it just to see them introduce it on T4.
If we were to delete all aspirational programming altogether, the schedules might feel a bit empty, so I’d fill the void with footage of a well-stocked Foot Locker window, thereby tricking any idiots tuning in on a recently looted television into smashing the screen in an attempt to grab the coveted trainers within.
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But perhaps it’s better to nip future trouble in the bud with the use of deterrents. Obviously a small percentage of the rioters are sociopaths, and you’ll never make any kind of impression on their psyche without a cranial drill. But the majority should be susceptible to threats. Not violent ones – we’re not animals – but creatively unpleasant ones. Forget the water cannon. Unleash the slurry cannon. That kind of thing.
Greater Manchester police has attracted attention by using Twitter as a substitute for the “perp walk”: naming-and-shaming rioters by tweeting their personal details as they leave court. Not bad, but maybe not humiliating enough. Personally, I’d seal them inside a Perspex box glued to a billboard overlooking a main plaza for a week, where people can turn up and jeer at them. It’s not totally inhumane: they would be fed through a tube in the top – but crucially, they would be fed nothing but cabbage, asparagus and figs, and since they wouldn’t be allowed out for toilet breaks, it would be getting pretty unpleasant in there after 48 hours. And it would be a cheery pick-me-up for passersby.