Entertainment

In 2019 Martin Scorsese the director of Goodfellas, Raging Bull, and Taxi Driver had the audacity to say that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) wasn’t really for him. So earth-shattering was the response to the idea that the then seventy-six-year-old, nine-time Academy Award for Best Director nominee had no intention of turning up to the midnight premiere of Avengers: Endgame, that Scorsese quickly had to write a defensive article explaining that he wasn’t meaning to demean the fans, the cast or the crew and that it was only his personal opinion that the MCU had more in common with theme park thrills than “*the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being*”.

It is unlikely that American critic, writer, political activist, philosopher and celebrated New York intellectual Susan Sontag would have given so respectful an explanation. Thirteen years before Iron Man launched the MCU, Sontag -an enthusiastic cinemagoer- had already announced the end of cinema’s life cycle. In her essay, A Century of Cinema, originally written for the Frankfurter Rundschau, and later abridged for The Times she argued that:

:::quote
While the point of a great film is now, more than ever, to be a one-of-a-kind achievement, the commercial cinema has settled for a policy of bloated, derivative film-making, a brazen combinatory or recombinatory art, in the hope of reproducing past successes. Cinema, once heralded as the art of the 20th century, seems now, as the century closes numerically, to be a decadent art.
:::

![A photograph of Susan Sontag in 1972 sat at her desk in front of a typewriter.|2480x1488](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1680640408/post/marvel_susan_suntag_i2hwbf.jpg "Susan Sontag (1933-2004) was an influential American writer, essayist, and cultural critic known for her diverse body of work. Photograph: Jean-Regis Rouston / Roger Viollet / Getty Images.")

Here Sontag makes clear that it’s not just that she found 1995 to be a worse year for movies than say, 1965. But that the whole industry had crawled towards a homogeneity whereby the only way to guarantee a profit was to ensure repetition. [The numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/market/) would tend to agree with her.

### Top Grossing Movies in 1965

| Rank | Movie | 1965 Gross | Tickets Sold |
|-|:-|-:|-:|
| 1 | The Sound of Music | $163,214,286 | 161,598,302 |
| 2 | Doctor Zhivago | $111,721,913 | 110,615,755 |
| 3 | Thunderball | $63,600,000 | 62,970,297 |
| 4 | Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines | $31,111,111 | 30,803,080 |
| 5 | That Darn Cat! | $28,062,222 | 27,784,378 |
| 6 | The Great Race | $25,333,333 | 25,082,507 |
| 7 | Cat Ballou | $20,666,667 | 20,462,046 |
| 8 | What's New, Pussycat | $18,820,000 | 18,633,663 |
| 9 | Shenandoah | $17,268,889 | 17,097,909 |
| 10 | Von Ryan's Express | $17,111,111 | 16,941,694 |

### Top Grossing Movies in 1995

| Rank | Movie | 1995 Gross | Tickets Sold |
|-|:-|-:|-:|
| 1 | Batman Forever | $184,031,112 | 42,306,002 |
| 2 | Apollo | $172,036,360 | 39,548,588 |
| 3 | Toy Story | $150,004,917 | 34,483,888 |
| 4 | Pocahontas | $141,551,246 | 32,540,516 |
| 5 | Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls | $104,371,496 | 23,993,447 |
| 6 | Casper | $100,328,194 | 23,063,952 |
| 7 | Die Hard: With a Vengeance | $100,012,499 | 22,991,379 |
| 8 | Goldeneye | $93,662,146 | 21,531,527 |
| 9 | Crimson Tide | $91,387,195 | 21,008,550 |
| 10 | Waterworld | $88,246,220 | 20,286,487 |

### Top Grossing Movies in 2022

| Rank | Movie | 2022 Gross | Tickets Sold |
|-|:-|-:|-:|
| 1 | Top Gun: Maverick | $718,732,821 | 68,778,260 |
| 2 | Black Panther: Wakanda Forever | $438,291,367 | 41,941,757 |
| 3 | Avatar: The Way of Water | $425,527,069 | 40,720,293 |
| 4	| Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness	| $411,331,607 | 44,856,227 |
| 5	| Jurassic World: Dominion | $376,851,080 | 41,096,083 |
| 6	| Minions: The Rise of Gru | $369,695,210	| 40,315,726 |
| 7	| The Batman | $369,345,583 | 40,277,599 |
| 8	| Thor: Love and Thunder | $343,256,830 | 37,432,587 |
| 9	| Spider-Man: No Way Home	| $241,130,301 | 23,074,670 |
| 10 | Sonic the Hedgehog | $190,872,904 | 18,265,350 |

As prescient as Sontag was regarding Hollywood and indeed capitalism’s devolution into cannibalism and dependency on sequels, franchises, and reboots, even she would have been amazed by the size of the great Marvel cinematic ouroboros. Since 2007 there have been thirty-one Marvel films with eleven more in development, for comparison it has taken James Bond sixty-one years to make twenty-seven films. On average that’s a new Bond film released every two and a quarter years, and a Marvel movie released every six months.

How does a franchise this hulking stay intact? Well, the increasing frequency of the term “superhero fatigue” would imply that audience interest is disintegrating like Bruce Banner’s shirt. But this has less to do with the colossal scale of the MCU and more to do with the inherent blandness required to keep it all together. Marvel Studios -like all movie studios- know that they need to make it as easy as possible for any member of the public to see one of their movies. This means that despite the thirty-one films and the immense amount of goings-on, they need to keep the world-building as simple as possible. There should be absolutely nothing preventing anyone from seeing a Marvel movie, including knowledge of any of the events or characters within the MCU.

This leads to what Sontag derides as “*bloated, derivative film-making [a] brazen combinatory or recombinatory art*”. The easiest way to cobble together a Marvel movie is to stuff it with things the audience already knows. Characters are bland, interchangeable, quip-throwers. Big-name actors appear in cameos to break down the fourth wall and switch on the audience’s dopamine producers through the power of recognition. Then characters from other Marvel films will appear, substituting movie magic for a “Look! It’s them!” moment. They’ll engage in plastic banter that would fit perfectly into any franchise instalment. To borrow an analogy more often associated with computing: this is not a bug, it’s a feature. Every element of these films is designed to be as smooth and as homogenous as possible so that no single element upsets the MCU as a whole. That’s why the dialogue follows the same structure; scripts follow the same template; why the music, lighting and cinematography is bland so that nothing can possibly be mistaken as an outlier.

![Marvel's Phase Four had 10 movies and shows that launched in 2021, as announced by Kevin Feige at San Diego Comic-Con 2019.|2800x1724](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1680640408/post/marvel_phase_4_stage_qbmzm6.jpg "The Marvel Cinematic Universe has 'phases' that organise and plan storylines with interconnected movies and shows. 'Phase Five' began with *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*, released to poor critical reception in February 2023. Photograph: Kevin Winter / Getty Images.")

Sontag writes that “*the point of a great film is […] to be a one-of-a-kind achievement*”. But it is a much sounder monetary policy to instead try and replicate an already existing achievement, and Marvel Studios knows this. If Kevin Feige has any kind of mission statement taped to his office wall, it won’t be Sontag’s “*If cinema can be resurrected, it will only be through the birth of a new kind of cine-love*”. Instead it will be half-legend/half-maniac 80’s producer Don Simpson’s corporate philosophy memo from his time working for Paramount:

:::quote{type="quote"}
The pursuit of making money is the only reason to make movies. We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make art... Our obligation is to make money, and to make money it may be necessary to make history, art or some significant statement.
:::

The saddest part of Sontag’s predictions about the “*hyper-industrial*” cinematic industry was that even the “*astonishingly witless [films would…] fail resoundingly to appeal to their cynically targeted audiences*”. “Resoundingly” might be a Mister Fantastic stretch for now but she was not far off. Increasingly the MCU has failed to appeal to their core demographic: MCU fans. Letterboxd -the social media site for cinephiles- top reviews of the latest Marvel film *Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania* include:

:::quote{type="review" authorName="ash" url="https://letterboxd.com/ashmatxx/film/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania/"}
This is one of the worst looking films I have ever seen, even by Marvel standards.
:::

:::quote{type="review" authorName="Angie Han" url="https://letterboxd.com/ajhan/film/ant-man-and-the-wasp-quantumania/1/"}
do they know cinema is a visual medium
:::

The visual effects have been widely panned but what seems to have cut to the core of the fan base is that these films just aren’t fun anymore. Even the most devoted of acolytes left the cinema disappointed that the film was in effect, just a trailer for the next film, setting up yet another world of weightless, consequence-less, contentless, mush.

![A scene from Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Ant-Man (left) speaks to Kang the Conqueror (right).|2560x1440](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1680640408/post/marvel_antman_quantumania_cwchwv.jpg "*Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania* launched Marvel's Phase Five with disappointing reviews. Devoted fans left the cinema disheartened believing it to be a mere setup for the next movie.")

Sontag was a snob, some would go as far as saying she was a monster. But she was a snob about art because she knew art was important. She knew the value of aesthetic entertainment. She did screen tests for Warhol and wrote essays “Against Interpretation” and “On Camp”. She understood that art should be revelatory and would have hated how the only thing Marvel (and indeed cinema) has to offer is Stockholm syndrome.

“A Century of Cinema” was Sontag’s final word on the movies. So disheartened was she by the industry, she stopped writing about what was once her passion. And yet, she kept going to the movies. She could never bare to watch them at home and decried that half the movie experience was sitting intimately in the dark with strangers; being “kidnapped” by the movie, “surrender[ing]” to it; sharing this experience. Yet it is reported that “At the end of her life, working hard, and often ill, Susan Sontag went to the movies almost every day of the week”. She may have publicly turned her back on the whole enterprise, but she never truly lost hope. She knew there was something better out there, a small film, a foreign-language film, an independent film. As more and more people begin to resist Marvel’s chokehold on cinema perhaps, they would benefit from doing what Sontag did and venturing out in search of something new, something they have truly never seen before.

The increasing frequency of the term “superhero fatigue” implies that audience interest is disintegrating like Bruce Banner’s shirt.

How the MCU became the McDonald's of cinema

The American author Gertrude Stein once termed museums 'cemeteries of culture': places where physical reminders of the past sit dormant behind glass cabinets to be stared at by visitors. This is a wholly one-sided view of what a museum is and what a museum has the potential to be, particularly in the modern day. Stein is incorrect, museums are not places where the past goes after it is long dead, rather, museums can explore and represent the past, present, and future in tandem. While serving as a repository for the past and the history of culture, museums can also be places of creation, global creativity and inspiration; places where the entire community can be welcomed to explore what the physical remainders of the past mean to them, right now. The V&A East Museum proves this.

The V&A East museum project is a new project from the Victoria and Albert Museum based in East London, in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The site will consist of an east museum building designed in two parts: the Storehouse, a collections facility crossed with a public exhibition space, and the V&A East Museum, a more conventional museum space with a main exhibition hall for major exhibitions and two collection galleries. They will open in 2024 and 2025 respectively.

There is a lot to unpack here as to why the east museum is noteworthy. The Storehouse portion of the site is something that has not really been seen in the museum sector before; it is essentially a transparent museum studio space that will allow visitors to see 'behind the scenes' of museum work. Except this facility is being built as an intentional public space, merging back of house with front of house. For context, the typical museum storage facility is typically a plain-looking warehouse in which shelves of objects are organised and cared for by conservators and archivists behind closed doors. By its nature, this conventional storehouse cuts the public off from a significant part of the collection. But V&A East's new spaces challenge this, allowing the public to see museum work in action and grasp the full extent of the V&A's collection and how it is stored and cared for. This is a museum space that wants you to pay attention to the man behind the curtain and understand how he makes the magic happen.

![Internal render views of the central public collection hall in the new V&A East Storehouse at Here East|1200x877](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1668423037/post/v_and_a_render_2-min_t2glnh.jpg "Internal render view of the central public collection hall in the new V&A East Storehouse at Here [Here East](https://hereeast.com/about/), designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Source: [Diller Scofidio + Renfro, 2021](https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/va-east#va-east-blog).")

![Internal render views of V&A East Storehouse at Here East.|1200x1146](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1668423037/post/v_and_a_render_1-min_pzv7za.jpg "Internal render view of V&A East Storehouse at [Here East](https://hereeast.com/about/), designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Source: [Diller Scofidio + Renfro, 2021](https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/va-east#va-east-blog).")

By integrating the storage facility with the public museum, the Storehouse will be a wholly new experience for the majority of east museum's visitors, many of whom have little idea exactly what goes on behind the scenes of a large institution like the V&A. It will give visitors unprecedented public access. Seeing the care and reverence objects are treated with and understanding their origins and purpose will open up new avenues of engagement for museum visitors, will highlight under represented movements and will advance cultural conversations which museums can rarely facilitate with the public. For younger visitors, this new engagement may even spark inspiration for their creative practice and future career aspirations.

## Goodbye West London. Hello East London.

Perhaps the most interesting point of this project however, is that it aims to engage an audience who are currently completely unengaged in museums: those aged 16-24 living primarily in the four Olympic Boroughs in east London that surround the new V&A site. To pitch a museum, particularly one with the scope and reach of the V&A name, aimed primarily at young people is a big challenge, bravely undertaken by the V&A, and one which I would be ecstatic to see come to fruition successfully.

As a museum and heritage professional myself, I am the first to get excited by museum projects and the concept of a new and innovative museum. However, I am also the first to admit that museums can be boring for some. Endless collection displays with repetitive cabinets with objects and written descriptions are not the most engaging, and many museums lose out on attracting a younger demographic because of this perception. To put it bluntly, museums aren't cool for most young people.

Additionally, the recent and much-needed conversations about the colonial legacy of Britain's museum spaces mean that those of non-white backgrounds may feel that the museum space is not for them. Engaging a diverse audience in a museum's collection galleries is so important but can often be overlooked. V&A East's aim of engaging young people from secondary schools in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park area is also an effort to encourage diversity in the Victoria and Albert museum audience and create a space for those of all backgrounds.

The east bank have already embedded the views of young people into the planning of this project, before the museum spaces are even open. In the east bank masterplan, the Victoria and Albert museum provided 6-month paid opportunities for young East-Londoners to contribute to the decision-making process and help the early concept design. In turn, it helped them develop their creative skills. The [V&A East website](https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/va-east) summarises the aim of the east project director:

:::quote
"More than just a museum or collections store, it will be a creative campus and social space embedded within its local community, focusing on equipping young people with the interest, knowledge, and skills they need to flourish creatively."
:::

This is a site which does not focus solely on the past, but on the future, and the impact that the V&A can have on young people's creativity and innovation, developing skills that will serve them for the rest of their lives. Plainly speaking, it uses the past through contemporary lens to develop the future, which (in my opinion) is one of the great purposes of the museum space.

![V&A East Youth Collective members, Kate, Nabiha and Faizah presenting their personalised map of east London as part of Resolve Collective’s 'Starting From the Ends’ workshop|1200x800](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1668423037/post/v_and_a_map-min_lbxj77.jpg "V&A East Youth Collective members, Kate, Nabiha and Faizah presenting their personalised map of east London as part of Resolve Collective’s 'Starting From the Ends’ workshop. Source: [RESOLVE and V&A.](https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/va-east#va-east-blog)")

## Can it possibly be fun?

If I were to say the word 'museum' to you, what are the first words that come to mind? Stop reading for a moment and actually think of a word or two.

For some, it may well be 'history' or 'artefacts'. Others may think about how the space makes them feel: 'happy', 'interested', 'angry'. And admittedly, yes, some may well feel bored. The vast majority of us have found ourselves in a museum space at some point in our lives, we often interact with them first as children, perhaps on school trips or with grandparents. This can tend to foster a sense of boredom around the museum experience, making it something you 'have' to do, or something that is tied to learning.

V&A East Museum designed a space in which museum objects can prompt connection, global creativity, joy, and excitement for young people, rather than limiting their experience to one in which they must learn something. [V&A East talks about](https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/east/open-call-visitor-experience-at-va-storehouse) fostering 'emotional responses' to the museum collection rather than intellectual responses. When young people engaged with east museum's objects, they note, the most potent interactions occurred when an emotional response was provoked (whether positive or negative), and this response in turn led to an interesting discussion.

If we try to preclude what a young person should 'get' or 'learn' from a museum collection, we are doomed to force on them a bland and unengaging experience. Rather, if we give young people the tools to explore the collection in these public spaces in their own way, create their own responses, whether that be joy, anger, curiosity, or antipathy, we allow them to shape the new museum space into something that is uniquely their own.

Beyond the scope of young people, the engagement strategy at V&A East sounds appealing to visitors of any age: the promise to host pop up displays, of object handling, interactive and immersive experiences, and creative workshops and performances would give every visitor the chance to have their curiosity ignited by the various collection objects. This kind of engagement has already been seen in the increasingly popular Museum Late format; usually adult-only, these events give visitors the opportunity to explore the various collection objects after dark, often with alcohol, music, special talks, and even craft activities. These events are often great fun and give adult visitors the chance to feel like a child again in the museum space, to play and find things that make you excited, engaged, and interested. If you have never attended one of these events, I strongly suggest you do.

![A Museum Late event at the Royal Academy of Arts, London|1200x675](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1668423036/post/v_and_a_royal_academy-min_lwe3d4.jpg "A Museum Late event at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Source: [Timeout / Max Meichowski](https://www.timeout.com/london/attractions/museum-lates-late-night-museum-events-in-london)")

## East Bank is a museum of the future

On a personal level, I cannot wait to visit V&A East Museum myself and see this innovative idea in action. They seem to have all the tools at their disposal to make east museum really engage with young people in the Olympic Boroughs and I wholeheartedly hope they pull it off. Few museums have the budget for this kind of ambitious enterprise but engineering the museum's work and space as one of creativity and fun is something all museums can try to do to broaden their engagement with local communities.

It is my belief that museums are only partly about the past. Sure, you can visit a museum and see a 3,000-year-old sculpture, or a 500-year-old tapestry, but what makes these objects interesting is that they allow us to understand more about our own place in the world today. Museums are welcoming spaces in which we can connect and find common ground with other human beings, in which we can learn about different cultures, different time periods and become interested in finding out more. The V&A East Museum intends to foster this spirit and instil it in young people, encouraging connection, curiosity, creativity, and fun. The museums of the future will hopefully look like this as well, because it is this generation of passionate and inspired young people who will create them for others to enjoy.

If I were to say the word 'museum' to you, what are the first words that come to mind?

V&A East: The coolest new museum that's actually relevant to us

Let me set the scene: it’s 2010, I’ve just finished a difficult day of learning at primary school. I leave school, swinging my rucksack over my back as I go, ignoring my classmates as I rush across the playground. I run down the street to my house and tear through the front door, flinging my shoes and bag in the porch. I grab a chocolate bar, turn on the TV and jump on the sofa. Horrible Histories is on CBBC, and I cannot miss it.

This scene will perhaps be familiar to others of my age: rushing home to watch after school CBBC before tea time. However, it seems that this is not the case for pre-teen children today. With streaming services and smart devices in high supply, kids are watching TV in a completely different way than my own generation did. Nothing proves this more than the BBC’s recent announcement that CBBC will be taken off the air in three years time. In May, the BBC’s Director-General stated that the organisation is moving to a [‘digital first’ approach](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/26/bbc-four-cbbc-come-air-digital-first-drive/) to meet the growing demand for streaming TV rather than watching it on a televised channel. This move also helps the BBC meet a £285 million budget cut. To summarise: after this three year period, CBBC will continue to be available on BBC iPlayer, but it will not be available to watch on your average terrestrial television.

![The cast of CBBC's *Horrible Histories](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1659385715/post/bbc_history_brdodg.jpg "The cast of CBBC's *Horrible Histories.* From: BBC iPlayer.")

It doesn’t seem to be the case that CBBC is not appreciated by its current target audience. In fact, CBBC proved itself valuable in the midst of the first COVID-19 lockdown, when many parents faced the brave new world of homeschooling their children. By showing BBC Bitesize every morning during the lockdown as well as their usual schedule of entertaining and educational content, CBBC provided help and support to children and parents alike. An [Ofcom report in November](https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/228538/BBC-Covid-research-summary-report.pdf) of last year indicated a distinct appreciation for the BBC during the pandemic and attests that CBBC proved its great value for children during this period. So, what is the thinking behind this move online?

### Deja Vu?

The ethos behind moving CBBC exclusively online, as outlined in their ‘digital first’ approach, is that they will be in a better position to appeal to the attention of their young audience. And I’m inclined to agree with them. Kids these days are digitally literate to a somewhat terrifying level and using technology is a matter of intuition for those who grow up tapping on their parent’s smartphones or iPads.

Meanwhile, the past 10 years has seen the rise of Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other streaming services which have transformed the way we watch television. No longer do we have to wait for our favourite show to be aired live on TV, nor do we have to schedule it to record on the Sky+ Box. Want to watch Peppa Pig on repeat? No problem. Grab Mum’s iPad and you can queue up 10 episodes. The BBC’s programming choices reflect this trend. However, this is not the first time the BBC has moved a televised channel exclusively online.

Back in 2014 it was announced the [BBC Three would be taken off the air](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26447089) and moved exclusively to iPlayer. The rationale behind this move was, again, budget cutting. For BBC Three, it was thought that moving online would allow the channel to better access its target audience of 16-34 year-olds who were increasingly [‘watching in their bedrooms and watching on tablet devices’](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26447089). However, in [March of 2021](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56251020), it was announced that BBC Three would be ‘back on TV’ after being responsible for some of the most popular BBC shows of the previous 5 years, including Fleabag, Normal People, and Killing Eve.

The decision to move BBC Three back on TV was [backed by research](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56251020) that showed there was still a market of young people who tuned in the old fashioned way, i.e. on a terrestrial TV channel, and thus BBC Three was born again. However, this begs the question, will the same thing happen to CBBC? Logically, the online move makes total sense and when we look at the way children are watching TV today, it seems like CBBC might move online and stay there. However, on a personal (and very nostalgic) level, I really hope CBBC returns to live TV.

### Nostalgia

When researching this article, I asked my parents about their memories of kids TV when they were growing up. During the 1970s, kids TV was restricted to brief segments of a few hours at lunchtime, after school, and Saturday mornings; kids simply had to watch whatever was on. Today, we know the opposite is true and rather than monopolising the attention of children as they once did, the BBC now has to compete with a plethora of other options.

My parents talked with great nostalgia and fondness about the programmes they watched as a child, and when I think about my experience of kids TV, a similar nostalgia takes over. Horrible Histories; The Story of Tracy Beaker; Dick and Dom in ‘da Bungalow; Prank Patrol, to name but a few, were all CBBC shows (now largely discontinued) of which I have very fond memories. I don’t deny that this sense of nostalgia has influenced my opinion on the recent CBBC story. CBBC coming off the air feels like the end of an era for my generation but it’s impossible to deny that we are turning away from TV channels and towards streaming services.

![A man and a woman sitting on a couch watching Netflix](https://res.cloudinary.com/fledger/image/upload/v1659385715/post/bbc_netflix_g86ltp.jpg "*Netflix and other streaming services are now the most popular source of home entertainment for many households. From: [Cottonbro/Pexels.](https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-sitting-on-a-couch-watching-4009401/)*")

With this vast choice, it makes sense that not all children are watching CBBC. It seems that kids don’t race home to catch their favourite show anymore. And why would they? When they can watch it on demand any time, the need for a terrestrial channel goes out the window. I myself can’t remember the last time I turned on the TV and tuned into a channel, except at my parent’s house. The majority of us stream our television now, for the convenience and vast choice it provides, which seems to be leading fewer and fewer of us to spend our money on a TV licence in order to watch the BBC.

### To Stream or not to Stream?

On the national scale, TV licence purchasing is declining. According to the [TV Licensing website](https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-licences-facts-and-figures-AB18), there were 25,396,530 TV licences in operation in April 2020. This declined to 24,837,360 licences in operation in March 2021. Considering that the [numbers of households in the UK](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/datasets/familiesandhouseholdsfamiliesandhouseholds) has been steadily rising in this time, fewer and fewer households are spending money on TV licences. Is this the effect of people choosing streaming services over the BBC? It seems likely.

Furthermore, it seems that this divide between those who have a TV licence and those who don’t is a generational one. Out of curiosity, I posted a poll on my personal Instagram story asking those of my friends who do not live with their parents if they have a TV licence. Out of the 58 people, 64% said they did not have a TV licence, with the other 36% saying that they did. Taking into account that almost all of my Instagram followers fall between 18 and 35 years old, this very basic survey suggests that young people who do not hold TV licences outnumber those that do.

In the new world of vast streaming choice, it seems that the BBC is not the first choice for young people, even if they did grow up watching the CBBC channel. The choice on offer is vast, and the BBC can often feel outdated and unappealing in this huge field of streaming options; the BBC is at risk of getting lost in the background for young people in the UK today.

However, it cannot be said that the BBC is not thinking about its broadcasting choices. The move to put CBBC online, as much as it upsets 10 year-old me, is a wise choice, it moves television for children into a sphere which many of them are already familiar with and can easily access. It remains to be seen, however, whether CBBC will get the levels of engagement they are aiming for when they move online. It’s not as simple as it was in the 1970s and the fight to make popular content has never been more intense.

I can't remember the last time I turned on the TV and tuned in.

Is the BBC relevant anymore?

“Can we watch the new Dave Chappelle special?” I sighed, heavy with Sunday blues, and turned to look at my husband, who had something like impish glee lifting a corner of his mouth. We’d been staring at the TV, fifteen minutes deep into ‘What Shall We Watch’. It’s a dance I’m sure you’re familiar with, the sit-down dance of angry button pushing and endless scrolling that cohabitation requires we put ourselves through each night.

“Um...” I paused.

Staring up at the TV, I considered Dave Chappelle… I didn’t know a lot about him, but I knew his name, knew all too well the categorically bad buzzwords associated with him. I thought, *isn’t he that intolerant, sexist comedian? A raging transphobe? And didn’t I see recently that he referred to himself as team [TERF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERF)?* (Meaning, a trans-exclusionary radical feminist, the controversial faction of feminism that J.K Rowling infamously aligned herself with last year).

It was safe to say I. Was. Dubious.

Tweets, story shares, and articles whose titles I’d only glanced at flashed through my mind. It’s rare that I find stand-up comedy - or American comedy in general if I’m being honest - laugh-out-loud funny, so the only times Dave Chappelle had strayed into my social sphere had been in reference to his controversies, and that one time he played Bradley Cooper’s best bud in 2018’s, *A Star Is Born*. But evidently, during my internet trawling, my subconscious had been absorbing damning headlines like, “Dave Chappelle recycles tired tropes to hit trans athletes,” and “Dave Chappelle questions Michael Jackson’s accusers in new comedy special.”

Unconsciously, I’d already decided that I didn’t like Dave Chappelle. Not Dave Chappelle as the satirical comedian, the actor, the father, but as an embodiment of intolerance and hatred. *We* don’t like Dave Chappelle. And by we, I mean my corner of the internet - bookish, body-positive, vegan, liberal and inclusive. The general consensus across my socials is that he’s unkind. More than unkind; he’s told ‘jokes’ about every kind of ism there is. And despite the fact that I hadn’t heard Chappelle’s thoughts on transgendered athletes in context, that I hadn’t heard any of the comedic tension and set-up of his material on Michael Jackson’s accusers, I took the opinions of others as fact. The internet says Dave Chappelle is transphobic, so he *is* transphobic.

As a side note, I don’t intend to go back and watch Chappelle’s complete body of work either, I don’t care to. After watching *The Closer*, my personal opinion of him (keyword here being personal, now that I’ve consumed his content for myself and formed an opinion), is that he relies on shock tactics for laughs, doesn’t like being told when he’s wrong, miscommunicates the satirical nature of his comedy, has a bit of a victim complex. To *me*, his jokes just aren’t funny. But, that doesn’t mean they aren’t for everyone, and it doesn’t mean they aren’t jokes. Offensive, provocative, ill-informed and close-to-the-bone jokes. But jokes all the same. Still, this also isn’t to say that all the backlash Chappelle and Netflix are receiving right now isn’t deserved. More on that later.

Back to Sunday night. I gave a half-hearted eyeroll, bored of staring at the, frankly quite insulting, ‘Top Picks for Amara’ section that Netflix was offering me. *Spider-man 3* and something starring Jennifer Anniston called, *Office Christmas Party* - Netflix, *do you know me at all?*

Morbidly curious about Chappelle’s transphobic remarks, I relented, almost excited for the post-watch Insta paragraph I was already planning. Because once I’d heard Chappelle’s hideous opinions for myself, I could join in on the hate train and help get this guy cancelled, right? Deplatform him. Silence hate. #DaveChappelleIsOverParty.

“Fine, put it on,” I said. “But why do you want *me* to watch it?”

“Because I want to see your reaction.” And there it was again, that challenging, little smirk on my husband’s face.

I knew exactly what he was anticipating. Before we’d even pressed play I could feel it rising; that scorch of anger and injustice churning in me like acid reflux, a feeling usually only ignited in me by those intolerant people on the internet who lurk in comment sections with their faceless avatars and anonymous usernames. And yes, I’m fully aware of the irony of that statement - friendly and tolerant of all, unless you yourself are unfriendly and intolerant. As you read on, I hope you’ll be able to recognise my efforts in acknowledging that everyone, Chappelle included, will individually experience the world in whatever way resonates with their personal truth. And even when those truths sound like lies spoken to *my* own core beliefs - of kindness, compassion, and love - I’m adapting my response not just to be explosively reactionary, but questioning and patient. Because in expressing my complete rejection of those who are intolerant of the LGBTQ+ community, I myself am being intolerant of them, their beliefs, and their own human experience. It’s a cycle of ignorance. Yep, there it is, I’m getting my hippyish, wellness blogger two cents in early. We are all learning. We are not all at the same level of acceptance and universal love for our fellow humans, but we can be. Because here’s the thing, I’m not sure if Chappelle is totally intolerant of queer people. He’s certainly no ally, but he is not the enemy.

So, here goes. We pressed play.

Three and half minutes in and my jaw had already dropped. Chappelle had just used “Nigger-ish” as an adjective to describe his decision to opt for the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine, the “third best” as he deemed it. “I’ll have what the homeless people are having,” he said, as I shook my head. *Nigger-ish!? Hard R!?*  At this point, I could feel my husband’s eyes on me, watching, waiting for me to pause the show and start ranting, as I’m wont to do. For context, it probably took us about a month to get through *Tiger King*. I’m sensitive, ok. I once nearly walked out of *The Book of Mormon* for being racist… even as a long-time *South Park* fan; I’m gullible, and have a hard time differentiating between satire and genuine bigotry. You could say my sensitivity is as soft and delicate as a single melting drop of snow on a withering rose petal, but I’m working on it. And I only mention my quick-to-trigger sensitivities because, watching Chappelle’s extremely triggering set, I was truly shocked that this time… I wasn’t.

“Well, it’s not funny, but he’s obviously just making edgy -” cue exaggerated air quotes, “- jokes,” I said.

Within the first ten minutes, Chappelle had buoyantly delivered close-cutting comedy that *could* offend black people, Covid sufferers, victims of anti-Asian hate crimes, the homeless, victims of molestation, and Jewish people. The jokes that got an audible gasp out of me in Chappelle’s opening warm-up included an anecdotal tale of child sexual abuse, where Chappelle states he “used to get a kick” out of ejaculating in the preacher’s face who molested him, and Chappelle’s description of his idea for a sci-fi movie named “Space Jews”. Like I said, audible gasp. It shocked me - assaulted my moral compass - but rationally, I knew that Chappelle’s intention for the joke was to mock the oppressors in those situations and to make light of the injustices that befall Chappelle as a black American.

In response to the slap-in-the-laugh track that was “Space Jews,” Chappelle addressed the quieted, uncertain laughter with a warning to his audience that, “it’s gonna get way worse than that,” referring to the last ten minutes of reeling off offensive one-liners targeting various marginalised groups. I saw this warning as preparation, a chance for me to turn off the TV, because if you don’t like him at “Space Jews,” your piss is probably going to be boiling later at his comparison of transfeminine bottom surgery to “Beyond meat vaginas.” Still, I stayed, because I hadn’t been offended yet, and I was *supposed* to be offended.

Already anticipating the backlash that was to follow the special’s release, Chappelle stated that he knew *The Closer* would be his last special “because I have an objective tonight,” going on to explain that he hopes to clarify his stance on issues such as feminism and trans rights that have been called into question after his previous Netflix specials. Though 2018’s, *Equanimity*, won the Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special, and 2019’s, *Sticks & Stones*, helped Chappelle secure the annually awarded Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, their reception was still shrouded in controversy. But just before I get to my thoughts on Chappelle’s insensitivity towards the trans community - the part I’m scared people will be waiting for with bared teeth dripping with bigot-blood (the way I was when I went into watching *The Closer*) - I’d like to include the comments of Deborah Rutter, President of the Kennedy Center, who presented the Mark Twain Prize to Chappelle. Rutter asserted, “Dave is the embodiment of Mark Twain's observation that 'against the assault of humour, nothing can stand'...” cementing my own belief that Chappelle’s content, though I’d describe it with all the P’s - problematic, provocative and poorly judged - is meant to be taken as satire.

But how, I hear you ask, the hell can you not think Dave Chappelle is intentionally, inherently transphobic when so many of his punchlines are a direct punch down on the trans community? Here’s how. Chappelle is a boomer, but he’s also scathingly self-aware, and a cunningly clever provocateur. I’m genuinely unsure if he’s stubbornly ignorant on the simple difference between gender and sex, or if he’s intentionally inciting the dogmatism often displayed by fanatically woke social justice warriors, and purposely pissing gasoline onto the flames of his own cancellation to prove a point. Because, how do you think all this controversy, all the news headlines, hashtags, and tweets, has affected the number of times *The Closer* has been streamed? At the time of writing this there have been 650 new tweets written about Chappelle in the last hour. It’s even possible that Chappelle is subverting the nature of cancel culture to promote *The Closer’s* layered narrative surrounding free speech.

What I do feel sure of however, is that underneath the clickbait, shock tactics of Chappelle’s material on the LGBTQ+ community, lies just cause for the comedian’s misdirected sense of injustice. Here, I’ve attempted to unpick what *I* found to be, on the surface, the most disrespectful stabs at queer people, but would like to note my privileged stance as a cisgendered, supported member and ally of the community.

### So, what is Dave Chappelle actually mad at?

#### America’s disregard of black lives.

When referencing the recent cancellation of 29-year-old rapper, Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, known by his stage name, DaBaby, Chapelle expresses outrage that the social repercussions for the rapper were much more severe following his homophobic comments at 2021’s Rolling Loud Festival than when Kirk shot and killed a black man merely three years ago. 19-year-old, Jalyn Domonique Craig, died of a gunshot wound to the stomach in 2018 after an altercation in Walmart in which Kirk claims to have fatally wounded the man in self-defense. Chappelle highlights the “disparity” in the public’s reactions to literal murder and homophobic rhetoric. Chappelle’s true aggravation is at the fact that Kirk’s career went unaffected by his murder of a young black man, with the rapper going on to sign with Jay Z’s label, Roc Nation, in late 2018, with Chappelle stating, “in our country you can shoot and kill a nigger but you better not hurt a gay person's feelings.”

#### Militant wokeness.

Chappelle is angry at the internet, at call-outs, cancel culture, and viral smear campaigns. Yet, instead of making an example of the domineering sense of social justice and internet pile-ons that can be extended to a person on the internet simply for promoting the wrong kind of haircare vitamins, Chappelle instead commented on the internet’s cultural minefield in the context of queer people, or “newer gays” as he distastefully labelled them. Repeatedly, Chappelle referenced that saying the wrong thing would get him “in trouble,” suggesting to me that perhaps the jokes directed at the LGBTQ+ community are coming from a place of hurt and embarrassment, of being misunderstood and unforgiven for past mistakes. Chappelle has misplaced the butt of the joke on the LGBTQ+ community, when really, I believe him to feel isolated by the unappeasable army of the easily-offended.

#### Our obsession with celebrity culture.

Throughout the show, Chappelle recounts a number of invasive interactions he’s had with members of the public, like being filmed interacting with a maskless waitress when out for dinner with his wife. Chappelle commented that the intent of the person behind the camera was to catch him saying something politically incorrect and publicly shame him for it online. He also presents a situation where he was being followed from store to store by a woman who wanted to confront him for remarks that she deemed sexist, to which Chappelle asks where she heard this material, imploring “did I follow you to your car and do my act?”. This scenario not only hammers home the dangers of internet hearsay, but highlights the invasiveness that having a high profile invites into a person’s life, exacerbated by social media which bridges the gap between performers and artists, and their audiences.

#### White privilege.

The above altercation escalated to the point where the person filming, who happened to be a gay man, called the police on Chappelle. Chappelle goes on to make the painfully profound point that “gay people are minorities until they need to be white again,” which is painful in its ignorance, because of course being a minority and being gay are not mutually exclusive, and profound because Chappelle is expressing the hierarchy of race still abundant in America. His issues here are with police brutality and racial profiling, yet Chappelle belittles this point by going on to make toxically masculine remarks about the gay man’s clothing choices, which are totally irrelevant. Throughout the show, Chappelle dismisses criticisms that his jokes “punch down” on the LGBTQ+ community, which I would have to agree with. If anything, this is an example of punching sideways. The shifting of Chappelle’s outrage from the threat of danger felt by black Americans in police presence to the fact that a *white* gay man used his *white* privilege completely ignores the existence of black queer men, as does his later impression of a transwoman brashly stating, “I’m a girl now, nigger, you must treat me as such.” Chappelle’s clumsy observation here only serves to divide us further, putting blackness and queerness at impossible odds with each other, not to mention the complete exclusion of black trans identity.

#### Cancel culture.

About halfway through the show, Chappelle recounts a story from 2005 when, young, uneducated, and ignorant, he was [performing transphobic material](https://sfist.com/2010/03/04/woman_tells_off_dave_chappelle_he_r/) which included the use of slurs such as “tranny”. He acknowledges that his “pronoun game was not as nice as it is today” and admits that he’d never even heard of the term *transphobia* at the time. I’d argue that, like Chappelle, the majority of cis and straight people were indifferent to the struggles of the LGBTQ+ community in the early 2000s. But as I expressed earlier, it is only when we empathise and learn that we can grow as a society. It seems that Chappelle is hurt that despite the growth he feels he has achieved today regarding tolerance and understanding, it is still the article that was written about him following that show in 2005 that is quoted today.

It was at this point that I almost started to feel sorry for Chappelle. I was slowly realising that I had dissociated the dense, palpably offensive narrative surrounding him from the living, breathing 48-year-old man that he is. Chappelle expresses his frustrations with this himself, stating that a lot of his critics have “never seen me for themselves, they just repeat what they’ve heard,” and at this point, sitting on the sofa, I swallowed shamefully. I recalled a line from earlier in the set and let its message sit heavy with me for a moment, “it’s art, and you’re free to interpret this art however you’d like.”

And then my conscience flip-flopped again because the problem is, this message applies to everybody including people who hold extremist, anti-trans views, and who may misinterpret the satirical nature of Chappelle’s comedy and use it to fuel their violent tendencies towards trans people. It also includes the black trans youth, one in three of which attempted to take their own life in 2019, who may interpret Chappelle’s satirical commentary as a personal attack on their identity. So, while I strongly resonate with Mark Twain’s reflection quoted earlier, that nothing should be off-limits in comedy, I do think our consideration for the wellbeing of others needs to be prioritised over the shouts of Chappelle’s supporters that *“it’s just a joke!”*

And while I personally still believe that Chappelle’s entire performance was nothing more than edgy comedy, satirical slants, and a little bit of unintentional ignorance, there’s no denying that some of his jokes should be left in the dark, uninformed ages of the early noughties. We can do better than rape jokes, better than reinforcing harmful stereotypes and targeting another person for their appearance.  In 2021, the year that has seen the highest record of fatal hate crimes against the trans community, there can be no space made for purely spiteful commentary on trans anatomy, that will only incite hate and self-doubt. This is why I am in support of the employee walk-out and peaceful protests that happened on the 21st of October outside Netflix’s headquarters in Los Angeles. Do I think Chappelle’s piece should be banned from Netflix? No. But I do support the need for more exposure to trans creators, stories, and performers across all mainstream media. I also think that a trigger warning should be issued at the beginning of *The Closer*, and maybe even all comedy that toes the line of intolerance. Because although I - Miss Boohoo Sensitive Pants - was not triggered, and did not find Chappelle’s comedy personally offensive, I am not trans, so whatever I feel doesn’t matter. And I mean that in earnest, because I will never know what it feels like to be a prisoner of my own body’s biology.

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I’ll leave you with the concise words of Craig Jenkins, who gave *The Closer* an ambivalent review on Vulture and summed up the exact sentiments I went to bed pondering on Sunday night: "how much you enjoy The Closer will depend on whether you're able or willing to believe the comic and the human are separate entities and to buy that the human loves us all, and the comic is only performing spitefulness for his audience."

Unconsciously, I’d already decided that I didn’t like Dave Chappelle. Not as the comedian, actor, or father, but as an embodiment of intolerance and hatred.