That 10:10 video...

My attention was drawn to this via a piece on Pickled Politics by Rumbold. The tone of it, veering ever-so-slightly into Daily Mail-wailing territory, primed me for disagreement. Yet I adore Rumbold, and like many, find him to be really rather sane most of the time. Certainly, when you consider that he identifies as a 'classical liberal' (otherwise known as libertarian), he's punching way above his weight in the 'sane and humane' stakes. In short, before watching the 10:10 video he mentions, I was intrigued by both his claim that the video depicts 'two children murdered for refusing to back the 10:10 environmental campaign' and the slight note of shrieky moral condemnation with which he made it. I mean sheesh, it's just a video, right? No children were actually harmed, and maybe, just maybe, there would be a vein of wicked South Park-style humour to it?

So, I gave it a watch.

Wow, just wow. Just via the comments on other blogs, I saw that plenty of people were pissed at this video for the whole exploding-children element (though hello, they explode adults as well, and that's not any better!). I agree, it's incredibly distasteful, but really - who gives a shit?!

It's easy, way too easy to reach for the moral condemnation here. As I said, they depicted children being blown up, they didn't actually do it. What is most objectionable about this video is the fact that, as a friend put it, it is an EPIC FAIL. There are so many layers of fail here; let's begin with the most recent. As Rumbold mentions, 10:10 tried to use the hackneyed 'it's just a joke!' defence. The thing is, jokes are about humour, right? Humour is supposed to be funny, right? Being the smug smartarse ex-lit student that I am, I thought perhaps there might be some clever-clever ironic shit in there that, even if it didn't justify the exploding humans, might at least justify 10:10's claim of 'just kiddin', guv'.

Thus, I watched for the funny and good fuckin' Lard, there was not a punchline in sight. Oh look, two kids aren't bothered about 10:10! Oh, 'no pressure'! Oh, now they've been blown to a bloody pulp? What's this? You're going to do the same thing twice more, but with adults? Fuck off. I was feeling distinctly cheated at the end, thinking 'So that was it?!'. I even asked the aforementioned friend to watch it (a man who knows shit about comedy, being an Armando Iannucci aficionado and the guy who introduced me to Arrested Development) and he didn't find it funny either. Look, I've watched Nighty Night. I've connected with my inner capacity for sick humour, even though South Park pisses me off at times with its clever-cleverness. Ironically, the only thing that I found funny was the fact that this was directed by Richard Curtis, effectively confirming the frequent charge that he has nary an idea what genuinely worthwhile, intelligent humour looks like.

What made me even more angry about the video was the fact that it's so fucking dumb. You can see that it's trying really hard to be funny, in an it's-the-age-of-realistic-video-games-and-we-must-get-everyone's-attention-somehow! way. The thing is, I can't help thinking that the only people who would find humour in such a repetitive, laboured piece of poo, are the kind of people who frequent Cif and will immediately start mentioning 'overpopulation' whenever anything remotely climate-change-related appears. Anyone else will just watch the video, waiting for something to happen. It's completely backfired, because instead of making 10:10 look nonchalant and cool and happening as is quite clearly the intention (hence why almost eeeeeveryone wants to be on their team and it's only ever a couple of people being asploded) it just makes Richard Curtis and 10:10 look desperate, albeit for different reasons. You get the impression that he's having some kind of later-life crisis, needing to prove that he is still relevant and 'edgy': 'Look! Look! I'm still funny, and I've always been, biatches!' Um, no, sorry, Rich. Interestingly, my instincts appear to have been spot-on as to the film-makers' aims, according to Wikipedia:

The film's makers said that they viewed No Pressure as "a funny and satirical tongue-in-cheek little film in the over-the-top style of Monty Python or South Park". Before its release, it was described as "attention-grabbing" and "pretty edgy."

10:10 have made themselves look tragic and incompetent; so attention-needy that when Richard Curtis batted his lashes at them, they dropped their dignity and went: 'Yes! We WILL accept your pitch, and endorse the finished product too! Whee, look at us, we're 10:10! LOOK AT US!!!' Whether they got swept up in the excitement of having RICHARD! CURTIS! on board and just lost their critical faculties, didn't really watch the finished product before putting it online, couldn't bring themselves to tell him it was shit at the last minute, OR actually did think it was funny - it's not good.


They've let the side down. If left-leaning people are supposed to be good at anything, it's comedy. How many funny right-wingers can you honestly think of, compared to lefty/liberal types?! Not only have 10:10 reinforced the stereotype of environmentalists (and anyone else who gives a shit about injustice) being branded 'humourless,' but the video is additionally humourless in that it's not funny. 'No Pressure' - goddamn, what a punchline! My sides are splitting! They've also harmed their campaign, for a number of reasons:

- What is seeing people exploding going to make most folk think of? Terrorism. Yes, that's right, this video is ideal fuel for all those people who love ranting about 'liberal fascists' 'eco-terrorists' and so forth. It may also even be a power-up to those who go on about how 'the Left' is 'in bed with Islamists' for all I know... It certainly makes environmentalists, and by definition, all Lefties, look like dehumanised authoritarians. Given that climate scientists have been constantly constructed as such, especially during the fucking 'Climategate' scandal, you wouldn't have thought it could have got much worse.
- As I was saying before, the video is dumb. The whole point of environmentalism is that it works alongside science. 'We,' the people who accept that climate change is a reality that needs to be managed ASAP, are supposed to be all about the science. The truth and the knowledge. If you're not good at shock tactics, if it's evident that shock tactics make little difference to the climate debate in the UK (mercifully, 'Climategate' had little impact on most people beyond deniers, if I remember correct, though I dread to think what might've happened in the toxic media-sphere of the US) and are constantly employed by deniers - why go there? It merely affirms that the truth is not enough (which we all know anyway!) and fuels the denier assertions that action on climate change is about power and control, not protecting our future.
- Shock tactics, when not harnessed to a very clear objective, are naturally going to fail. The reason that wingnuts have historically employed them so successfully, is because they use them in the service of emotive arguments and for short-term gain. Climate change is so intangible, incomprehensible and long-term for most people, that shock tactics only alienate them. The worst thing about this video is its massive communication fail. What the fuck is the point of it? What is its message? Could you tell me? Funnily enough, I found myself primarily wondering how it was in the video that 10:10 - or the green movement, or whoever was supposed to be responsible - managed to get explosive inside so many different people to detonate. Nothing else was really interesting enough to engage me... When Peter Crouch is the most noteworthy thing about your video, you know you're in trouble.

The tragic thing is that from what I've seen, as someone who's signed up to 10:10's website, they are actually bold, dynamic and direct in their activism. Their Lighter Later campaign, for example, makes sense on various levels - even if you know absolutely jackshit about climate change, you can surely see the value of having more daylight - happier people (more serotonin production!), less money spent on electricity, it's easy to support and implement AND it's a way to combat climate change! This video makes them look like a bunch of idiotic, posturing posh-kid students with no practical focus, trying to show off and look cool. They are not operating in a vacuum, and unfair though it is, unfortunately their actions reflect badly on ALL such campaigns, not just their own. Let's hope they learn from this fiasco, and not let such a monumentally massive PR cock-up happen again...