Charlie Brooker is worshipped widely today with such reverence that you might well believe he was a wizard with the power to grant eternal youth. Alas, this is not the case. However what Brooker does have is the power to turn any program into TV gold- albeit gold that makes you feel slightly sad about the world we live in. I have been a Brooker mega fan ever since I was introduced to one of his Guardian articles in a Year 10 English lesson so it was something of an existential moment to hear him in person. I'll share a couple of highlights from the interview below:
This is not technically from the event but I thought I'd include it anyway. I saw Charlie Brooker walk past me when I was in the BFI gift shop. I never thought I'd lose my shit because I'd seen the back of a human's head. It was a strange moment. A moment that reinforced my belief that I should never be allowed to talk to any artist/writer/comedian/cool-human because I will probably just scream at them. I used to look down at One Direction fans who would cry and scream for Harry Styles but now I see their behaviour as incredibly restrained like a group of dignified stoic monks.
Highlight number one is getting to hear Charlie Brooker talk about his past ventures, and how he got into the bizness. In particular, it was interesting to hear him ruminate on his early work with Chris Morris on Nathan Barley. This 11-year-old show still holds up and I think will probably seem more hilarious as now we realise Morris and Brooker predicted the rise of the Hipster and Vlogger. I have watched many a Brooker interview so I already knew how he got into the industry but it is always reassuring to see someone so successful who started out with no connections in the media.
Brooker also talked about some of the shows that influenced him when he was younger. Unsurprisingly this included the Twilight Zone. I think in a generation's time we will find that many people are quoting Black Mirror as the show that inspired them. An interesting nugget of TV info is that the reason the Bridge Cafe from The Apprentice features in 2016 Wipe is because both shows are filmed in the same TV studios in Acton. The Boardroom is not in some skyscraper next to HSBC headquarters but rather just off of the A40. TV IS LYING TO US AND CAPITALISM IS EVIL!
We can also expect some more Black Mirror next year and some of these episodes are going to me more explicitly comedic. Having donned Brooker with the title of satire royalty, he is not actually too comfortable with the word himself. Brooker made some really insightful comments questioning the fruitfulness of satire. He said that it made him feel more sane when he watched Spitting Image or Not the Nine O'Clock News and I feel more grounded when I watch the Wipe shows. We feel part of a collective that can see the horror and/or ludicrousy in the world and that is comforting. However, we are still solitary. We are still sitting in front of a TV screen and not doing anything. To quote Brooker "I think that feeling of 'there are other people in the world feeling as alone as me' scratches and itch that probably shouldn't be scratched." He then went on to say that Twitter also serves as an itch scratcher of sorts. In this moment he clarified the feeling I think a lot of us have. It was only the other
day, when I heard that hospitals were going to start charging for disabled parking, that I got that niggly twitching feeling. So I went on Twitter. I fired out a disgruntled tweet and for a moment was soothed by a mini cathartic wave of righteousness. I find myself doing this quite a lot now. Just looking for a way to rid my mind of the frustration and sadness that the world seems to supply us with. Yet when I tweet a tweet it reaches a handful of my friends who generally have similar views to myself. It is a futile endeavour in all ways other than making me feel better about myself. Perhaps this itch should not be scratched. Maybe the itch would get so bad that we would leap from our seats, squirm around a bit, and then go and take part in some peaceful civil disobedience and actually change something. I doubt that Brooker is declaring we should ban all satire and delete Twitter but I think he has triggered a conversation we should all have. This thought is also discussed in an interesting way on Malcolm Gladwell's podcast using Loadsamoney as the case study.
I think that I do use satire as a tribal thing, to identify an isolating frustration I have in others as well. However I also learn about situations I had no idea about in programmes such Wipe, The Revolution Will Be Televised, and The Daily Show. Secondly, satire does not always make its target audience feel comforted. In Brooker's 2016 Wipe he admitted that most of his audience are the so-called 'liberal elite' that voted remain. While he mocks the idea that all people who voted remain are part of a 'liberal elite' he also pointed out that this 'liberal elite', which I would be stereotyped into, are also guilty of reductionism- often stereotyping the brexiteer in stupefying ways. No one can rest on their laurels when the nuance of all the political situations we find ourselves in are made clear. When satire clarifies nuance rather than replacing it with simplicity, it can, in fact, create more itches whilst it scratches others. This is what I think Charlie Brooker achieves.
So that was a little ramble of my thoughts from the event.
Thank you, now go away.*
* Incase anyone reading this is not well-versed in the Brookerverse, this is a Brooker reference rather than a me being rude.
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