Well i've watched most of it and it's been compulsive viewing...
Unlike Doppelganger, I don't have any guilt in watching a bully suddenly faced with the consequences of her actions - and I hope the other 3 get their share of grief too. And while we're at it - how come most of the news stories ignore Jack, perhaps the nastiest/thickest of the lot? I guess the 3 witches is an easier archetype, reminding us of Heathers and Mean Girls etc ?
I don't really agree with K-Punk either (I had to look up jouissance even though I used to have a few CDs by them - how lazy and crap is that?). Yes, there is pleasure to be had in Jade's downfall but I think the strength of the public reaction is only tangentially related to her class or her stupidity, chaviness etc. The pleasure comes from the chance to actually engage with bullies and bullying in a 'meaningful' and symbolic way. The people who rushed to the phones had school in mind more than class; images of fear and loathing, of standing in wet doorways watching friends get bullied and being too scared to intervene (stand up Cleo, H etc - this means you) because the consequences of standing up against bullies was simply to give the sly buggers another target...
Now all these poor bullied souls could re-emerge, maybe decades later, blinking into the light, to enact their revenge from the safety of a digital phone line...
Christ, I've been chased from a few roller-discos in my time by cider-stewed, diamondhead-headed Day Releasers and it was only when my Mum forced me to confront them when I was about 11 or so that I ever really came to terms with the whole bullying thing - resulting in me hitting the hardest one in the throat with a frozen ham (a fuck lot of jouissance in watching the surprise on that mad bastard's face as he choked and gargled and burst his knees open at the seams trying to find why the air had suddenly been sucked out the room).
That Jade was Jade was accidental; it could have been anyone else as part of that group of 3 (+Jack) - you only have to look at how the press more or less ignored the much more explicit racism of Jade's mother to understand how important the 3 against 1 dynamic is in the public consciousness.
4 comments:
absolutely, at my College some of my colleagues taught a General Studies lesson with the theme: "Cleo As Collaborator"?
I absolutely can not stand Jade. I agree with you.
But probably because Jade is the most well known and has the most to lose she's getting all of the grief.
I heard Teddy dumped Danielle as well. It'll be hilarious her talking about how Teddy loves her in the house.
Absolutely right about the classroom as much as class. Girls and boys like Jade stood at the school gates subjecting me to 'Paki' and other comments for year after year. No one said owt in response. I tried to ignore it and twenty-five years on it still hurts. Thanks.
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