Tuesday, 4 November 2014

Russell Brand the Funny Little Essex Boy

Maybe it's because we come from the same miserable part of Essex that I'm starting to feel for Russell Brand.



I've never seen his act or his films or his TV shows nor read any of his books. I don't think we'd get on much actually. He's a hedonist, I am a nobody who thinks too much about limescale and rides a bicycle badly. Yet I have time for him because he wants change. Not incorporeal, David Cameron-style change. But actual change.



Perhaps he's not going about it the right way. Perhaps there are other people better suited to getting the message across. Nevertheless, he's in the public eye and he's using it to his advantage.



This year however, he has been employed as a circus sideshow act by the BBC and this has had a detrimental effect on the impact he wants to make. People are watching and passing on clips of him on Newsnight, not to listen to what he has to say but to laugh at his chaotic, manic persona. And to laugh. To laugh at him.



"Haha! Funny little working class Essex boy trying to use long words! Get back to shagging and West Ham, you pointless dandy!"



My Twitter feed is full of people who want change but disagree with Brand's methods - he was rightly criticised for suggesting people not vote - yet rather than acknowledging his input and his desire to make those in charge accountable, they ridicule him. They ridicule his appearance and his demeanour and poke fun at the way in which he peppers long, complex sentences with multisyllabic words because - to them - they just don't go with the accent. That seems a bit snobby to me.



The latest manner of undermining him this week is by trolling his Twitter feed and replying 'Parklife!' to his tweets. Trolling is okay if you're trolling Russell Brand. It says so in Twitter's introductory page.



Like every other human being on this planet, Russell Brand has many, many flaws but fuck me, at least he's having a go. Perhaps the problem with Twitter (UK Twitter anyway) is that it's easier to create a buzz with a laugh than with an argument.



Don't put the revolution in the 2015 calendar just yet, Russell. We still need to iron out a few things. http://ift.tt/eA8V8J



from UK Comedy - The Huffington Post http://ift.tt/13DwqGN

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