Keep Calm and Carry On... Travelling!

I haven’t posted in a while as I have been busy travelling across the USA on a trip that is serving multiple purposes: 1) visiting potential PhD programs, 2) attending two conferences, 3) satisfying my general curiosity (and hopefully PhD research topic) regarding representations of British culture abroad, 4) holiday!

My travels began on the West Coast giving me time to explore Los Angeles and California before I moved onto Texas and up through the mid-west to the East Coast for the final leg of the trip. It has been particularly interesting to see elements of British influence and presence and to try to understand what ideas this might be conveying about ‘Britishness‘ today.

The title of this post is appropriate because the Keep Calm and Carry On motto has made it across the Atlantic and adorns many notepads and pencil cases in the stationary stores I have visited in the States. As a phrase originating from World War II this can be considered a more old fashioned representation of Britishness: the idea of maintaining a stiff upper lip in the face of wartime adversity (insert picture of Winston Churchill here!). This association of Britishness with a sort of old fashioned chic was repeated to me when visiting the highly regarded British works of art and literature at the Huntington Library and Art Collections in San Marino, CA. In the early 1900s, American railway pioneer Henry E. Huntington sought older pieces from Britain to display in his Californian ranch and with Gainsborough’s Blue Boy (ca. 1770) being considered one of the most highly prized items in the collection I felt that Britain was again being associated with an enduring past. Moving onto Texas a conversation with a local revealed that he very much associated Britishness with the television show Downtown Abbey (a drama depicting British aristocrats in the early 1900s) and the idea of old-fashioned sophistication. I felt this theme prevail again in Michigan when, upon revealing my nationality, I was asked on more than one occasion what I thought of various members of the Royal family. Of course this is in no way a reliable picture of the influence and presence of Britishness in the USA today but from the snapshots I experienced I could feel a sense of admiration for Britain’s long history, the traditions that have come with that long history and remain today, and the sense of sophistication that seems to be associated with these traditions. The stiff upper lip motto Keep Calm and Carry On could be seen as encompassing aspects of both tradition and sophistication with the phrase’s connotations of robustness and quiet pride.

My experience in the USA has reminded me of a piece by Riz Ahmed, which was published in the Guardian in September 2016: Typecast as a Terrorist. In discussing his experiences as a British Muslim actor working in the USA, Ahmed writes, ‘The reality of Britain is vibrant multiculturalism, but the myth we export is an all-white world of lords and ladies.’ I had certainly felt this in my travel observations and now the big question is why is this myth exported? Why does British culture manifest abroad in ways such as the ones I experienced on my travels? What are the implications for this?

The Other Art Fair, Bristol 2016

Straying slightly from my research focus, I wanted to write about my recent experience attending The Other Art Fair at Bristol's Arnolfini. Part of the fair included performances by BitterSuite's Debussy String Quartet: a fully sensory concert in which the audience members are blindfolded, given tastes and scents, and are physically moved by the performers in ways that enhance the experience of listening to the music. It was an enriching experience as I imagined colourful scenes, even jumped a little at times and felt liberated moving with the music in a physical manner. BitterSuite are performing at Wilderness Festival this weekend and are looking to set up more concerts in the long term: http://www.bittersuite.org.uk

The Other Art Fair also included The Art of Dining: a pop-up restaurant scene celebrating quintessentially British food and drink (think fish and chips, bread and butter, lots of tea, and crockery adorned with members of the Royal Family). This immersive experience is created by Ellen Parr and Alice Hodge and includes the work of photographer Martin Parr, whom I have recently become more interested in due to his documentation of British life through photographs. Parr is interested in the difference between the mythology of the place and the reality of it and I feel that this in some ways intersects with my interests in representations of Britishness in popular culture. I hope to attend Parr's keynote address at a conference on Photography and Britishness, which is being held at the Yale Center for British Art this November.
http://www.martinparr.com/2013/pop-up-magic/

Mark Kermode Live in 3D at the BFI

I recently attended one of Mark Kermode's monthly appearances at the BFI in London. The movie critic's regular slot on the Southbank sees him answering questions from the audience, commenting on the latest movie news, discussing guilty pleasures with a special guest and screening clips from lesser known filmic gems. In summary it's 90s minutes of film geek paradise. During the evening some particularly interesting questions were raised:

Are critics out of touch with audiences? This was in response to Batman V Superman's success at the Box Office in it's opening weekend despite the bad reviews it received. Kermode pointed out that after the opening weekend, ticket sales for the film dropped dramatically, which indicated that movie-goers, like the critics, had not been fond of the film. In light of this, another question on this topic could be: given that so many people went to see Batman V Superman anyway, despite the poor reviews, what is the role of a movie critic? I enjoy reading reviews and have written some myself so I would argue that the thumbs up from a critic is particularly key for the success of lesser known films that do not generate anticipatory followings. However, for films such as Batman V Superman, which already have an established fan-base, the contribution of the film critic could be considered as slightly different. In my case, as a comic book movie fan, I wanted to see if Zack Snyder's superhero adaptation had got it as wrong as the critics had suggested. This movie-going experience ended up becoming something quite different: it was actually quite fun spotting the problems that I had read about in the reviews.

Why have movie running times increased? Does this allow for more artistic freedom or has it started a trend for films to be longer than they need to be? Kermode's answer to this was yes and yes. He stated that he had initially campaigned for longer running times so that filmmakers would have more artistic freedom but instantly regretted this as he felt that it was often used as a way for filmmakers to justify their importance without considering whether the story really needed the extra running time. He referred to Quentin Tarantino as a culprit for unnecessarily long running times. The question now is whether running times will continue to increase?

MediAsia 2015 Offical Conference Proceedings

The official conference proceedings for the MediAsia 2015 conference I attended in Japan in November have been published. This includes my presentation on 'Socio-political influence on the ideologies of Daniel Craig's Bond films: The power that lies within.'

The official conference proceedings can be found here. Please note that the presentation was delivered at the time of Spectre's imminent release in several countries (in November) and is phrased accordingly.

Please find the abstract below:

Socio-political influence on the ideologies of Daniel Craig's Bond films: The power that lies within.

James Bond is arguably one of the widest-reaching, longest-standing and most

influential film franchises of our time. In this sense it can also be seen as a source of

great power, a medium by which certain ideologies can be conveyed to many people.

When it comes to deciphering these ideologies and their origins, much as been written

about the influence of the Cold War on the ideas and themes contained within the

earlier Bond films. However, the socio-political backdrop for the Daniel Craig era

has been rather different so how might this have effected its ideologies? Craig’s films

are interesting to look at in this regard as they have been particularly sensitive to

socio-political shifts even within the actor’s tenure. It can be argued that contextual

factors such as the Anglo-American War on Terror and the London 2012 Olympics

have contributed to a shift in the representation of Bond’s national identity between

Casino Royale and Skyfall and, most recently, Spectre represents another set of values

and ideas that can be linked with the relinquished interest in Britain post-Olympics,

and growing fears surrounding ISIS and public surveillance. This paper attempts to

map some of the ideas and themes conveyed in Craig’s Bond films to possible

influences from their socio-political contexts, with a particular concentration on

Skyfall and Spectre.