Boredom (Badum Badum)

To chip in on the discussion of boredom and Graham Hon’s post:

“Boredom on the other hand is not tedious or flat - it is a free floating state of restless potentially dangerous energy. Boredom is systematically annihilated by ‘keeping busy’ with tedious tasks or having ‘experiences’ in museums or being ‘entertained’ by enervating 3D risk-free spectacles…”

This immediately put me in mind of Beckett – the impact of his plays is undoubtedly bound up with boredom, or at least the potential (or the fear) of boredom. Watching ‘Happy Days’ in a theatre you share the virtually featureless landscape with Winnie. I think maybe it’s an underdiscussed feature of Beckett, but the fact is you know that you’re going to be stuck there for a while and the surprisingly powerful dictates of politeness will probably keep you there. In that position, you’re as reliant on distraction as Winnie is – boredom creates a tension, and you’re hyper-focused on any occurrence, anything that comes to relieve it. But of course, the silences, the longeurs are also there – you know it’s there, the sense of futility, you feel it (or at least you do in a good Beckett production).

Of course, it’s a difficult thing to accept now that boredom can have a function like that in a play/film/TV series – boredom is simply not allowed, it can’t even be risked. Imagine if for a second we had to reflect on the implications of that silence, that boredom, in our own lives.

In Happy Days (and other Beckett plays) it’s also crucial that there’s always an ‘other’ being performed for that is supposed to acknowledge this activity, and the strength of belief in the fact that this ‘other’ really exists, or is really listening and isn’t indifferent, waxes and wanes (mostly wanes) throughout, even if it cannot be renounced completely. The various audiences: ‘us’ the theatre audience, ‘Willie’ (who may or may not give a toss), ‘God’ or any Big Other (or the ‘self’ performing for the ‘self’ – as problematic as that binary is). Which links to Wayne Blackledge’s response to K-Punk’s Alice post (and my own feelings about the ideas that guide the production of TV programmes) when he mentions ‘what the people want.’ The ‘people’ (this nebulous concept that is the product of fear, received wisdom, condescension and market research – the results of which, of course, are always shaped by the questions that are asked) are who this constant, cheap stimulation is supposed to be catering for (the new Doctor Who looks to be an improvement on the previous era, but that continuous, pumped-up, overbearing soundtrack remains), the imagined audience for this prattle. But who are ‘the people’ really? Not the people making the programmes/films/papers/music etc (since they know better – just ask David Yelland) and not the actual, existing viewers/readers/listeners either who are only getting what it’s assumed they want - but since it’s all supposedly created for them they end up thinking it’s what they deserve, or that this is just the way these things are supposed to be. It’s for no-one, but the belief that it’s for someone persists, cannot be renounced.*

Beckett dramatised this prattle and in doing so actually takes us close to experiencing the ‘real’ in which it takes place; now all we have is Winnie’s chatter, accelerated and virtually ceaseless. No gaps=no ‘boredom’ as we once might have understood it - but without boredom there is no relief (in more than one sense).

By the way, did anyone catch ITN’s coverage of the election campaigns getting underway? Where to even begin?

How about with this example of bad faith:

Reporter’s voice-

“Oh look, here’s another politician trying to establish a ‘relationship’ with a voter. It’s enough to make you want to go down the pub.”

(Yes, yes, you’re with us, the ‘people’, aren’t you? You see through the charade, right? You’re as tired of this as we are? So why the fanfare? If it’s so boring, then why are you showing us? And why, of the footage you had, have you chosen to air the bit where a politician called a member of the public who turned out to be unwilling to engage in conversation? Weren’t there a number of other phonecalls with more positive outcomes? Or was that single phonecall set up in the first place to be filmed by the news cameras…?)

Also amusing if depressing:

Interviewer hectoring Gordon Brown: “But how can you say business leaders have been deceived? How could they be deceived? These are some of the most intelligent people in the country.”

*Underlying this is also hatred. Don’t those media tycoons, those mass media producers, hate ‘the people’ with their whims and their fickleness, always having to keep them entertained, keep them watching? Don’t ITN’s producers and reporters hate these viewers they have to condescend to? Doesn’t Winnie want to kill Willie, kill the audience, and annihilate herself in the process?