Phallic statues, biopic boredom, prime minister controversies: the Trends you need to know
20 January 2023: Levelling Up woes | MLK statue's hard reception | Celebrity biopic overdose | Jacinda Ardern resigns
Rishi’s Levelling Up F*ck Up
This week the government announced round two of the ‘Levelling Up’ fund. This is a pot of money for which each constituency can bid to improve their area - from fixing a derelict high street to new transport infrastructure.
The concept of the fund was for it to go to deprived areas that need “levelling up” - like a UK version of the EU Structural and Investment Funds. Under Boris the opposition accused the handling of the fund of being political and giving money to Conservative constituencies. But what that narrative failed to consider is that in the 2019 General Election, the Conservatives won seats in some of the country’s most deprived areas, and this policy was the cornerstone of their re-election.
Fast forward to this week and the government can no longer rely on this defence.
While some areas in need did win big there were many more cases of very affluent, disproportionately Conservative areas receiving money while poorer areas missed out.
Leeds and Nottingham got nothing. Nor did Britain’s second city, Birmingham, a place with some of the highest unemployment and the highest child poverty rate in the country. Surely one of their five bids should have succeeded over a bid in, for example, Rishi’s own affluent safe seat for a project Rishi himself could have funded easily with his huge personal wealth.
Whatever the reasons, it’s safe to say Levelling Up has not been the PR success the government would have liked. A party in desperate need of unity found papers this morning full of angry Conservative MPs, the Tory West Midlands Mayor calling out the failed system, as did rightly enraged Council leaders and politicians from across the country.
What made all this worse was the Blitzkrieg of unprepared government ministers running out of London to try and spin the announcement. Rishi once again ignored the climate rhetoric of his government and jumped on a private jet to fly to Blackpool, adding to his out-of-touch image and increasing his ever-growing carbon footprint.
A government trying to restore its integrity saw Minister Michelle Donelan quote a rule which didn’t exist to justify Birmingham’s lack of funding, only to be called out by the council leader.
And a government with everything to prove in terms of basic competence finished the day with a police investigation into Rishi for not wearing a seatbelt in the back of his police-driven car. Out of touch, Rishi and his bumbling government have much to do before they’re seen as a government people can trust.
Sculptures for the Scrapheap
In a special corner of the internet (and red-top newspapers), there is always space for stories of “art gone wrong.” See this frankly terrifying bust of footballer Cristiano Ronaldo at Madeira airport, Celeron New York’s tribute to hometown hero Lucille Ball which has been dubbed “Scary Lucy” by locals, and the inexplicably naked, minuscule figure of Mary Wollstonecraft balanced on a plume of smoke in Newington Green.
This week, a new statue commemorating civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr joins the line-up. Unveiled at the site of Dr King’s 1965 Freedom Rally in Boston and entitled “The Embrace”, the sculpture was described by its artist Hank Willis Thomas as depicting a photograph of MLK hugging his wife Coretta Scott King after winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately for Thomas, viewed from other angles, the statue appears distinctly phallic, with even the po-faced BBC describing it as resembling a “sex act.”
Comedian Leslie Jones lambasted the piece during her appearance as guest host of the Daily Show, saying, “I can’t unsee it!” while the Washington Post’s art critic Sebastian Smee wrote, “If you’re going to make a figurative sculpture that amputates parts of the human body, you have to decide what to do about the transitions - the parts where the shoulder, for instance, once connected to the neck and head. The only solution is to perform the sculptural equivalent of a skin graft. That’s ugly.”
Who knows if Bostonians (hardly known for their geniality) will come to accept the monstrosity over time, but one thing is for sure, public tittering over frankly childish innuendo isn’t going anywhere.
Jacinda’s Epic Exodus
In a world where it has become custom for outvoted national leaders to publicly bemoan presumed election fraud or, in some cases culminating in their supporters besieging federal government buildings, the recent news from New Zealand is a very welcome palate cleanser. Having been in office since 2017, the country’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern party resigned from her role in a powerful yet surprising speech.
In her address, Ardern quoted ‘no longer having enough in her tank’ as the reason behind her resignation, which some have interpreted as an admission of burnout. While this is already a rare and refreshing statement from a politician, the Prime Minister’s honesty did not stop there. Perhaps Ardern’s most widely recognised achievement was her handling the pandemic with her ‘zero-Covid’ policy. While some had later criticised the move, it remained one of her ‘greatest hits’ in the global consciousness.
It is particularly striking then that instead of listing her best moments, Ardern listed the challenges that have shaken the country during her office: the terrorist attacks on the mosques in Christchurch, the major volcanic eruption, and the economic crisis. By quoting these events and admitting (shockingly) that politicians are human, Ardern secured a paradoxically victorious finale. With her speech, she embodied what many think an impossibility: a politician without machismo, strength without paternalism, and what comes across as a genuine prioritisation of the nation before one’s ego.
It is very telling that the BBC decided to report on the news with a caption: ‘Can women really have it all?’, suggesting that Ardern mentioning her family in her speech reveals the real reason behind the resignation. The caption has since been revoked, but it is insightful to observe the conclusions editors on national television, already considered too ‘woke’ by some, might draw. The impossibility of a young female leader remains a cognitive dissonance we will continue to grapple with.
Biographic boredom
Elvis’ story, told by Baz Luhrmann. Marilyn’s, by some exploitative producers at Netflix. Then Harry’s – from the horse’s (J. R. Moehringer’s) mouth!
It feels as though we crescendoed into 2023 to reach peak celeb biopic.
Between the noise about Harry’s ‘frostbit todger’, pictures emerged this week of actress Marisa Abela on the new Amy Winehouse biopic set. Whilst the photos were widely derided may be due to the fact that Abela resembles a drag queen more than she does Amy, one could also sense a collective apathy with the idea of yet another celebrity biopic.
For every one Spare fanatic, there appear to be ten others who have just reached the point of indifference.
“Have you reached the bit about the fights???”
“I haven’t even reached the first chapter…”
It doesn’t stop there. Elvis has widely been ignored at the season’s major awards, with only the odd nod to its cast and crew. Even the untimely passing of Elvis’ only child hasn’t garnered it much more attention. Contrast this to the box office smash hits Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman and Judy, and you’d understand if Baz is feeling a little bruised. And did you know that a new Michael Jackson biopic was announced this week? And a Whitney one?
Yes, it feels as though we’ve collectively tired of hearing the drug highs and comedown lows of other people’s lives and instead want to get on with ours.
It will be interesting to see what Penguin Random House does with this all. With rumours of a Meghan biopic underway, we wonder if her ghostwriter has been putting in double time, desperate to get ‘her truth’ out before we just stop caring.