We live in an age of confusing political correctness where most people are afraid to say anything that might be construed as offensive to anyone else.  It’s a sticky subject, for sure.

Wikipedia defines political correctness as:

“behavior seen as seeking to minimize social offense in gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, handicap, and age-related contexts.”

Some things to make clear: 

• My intention is not to bang the drum about white men feeling the brunt of political correctness.  Honestly.
• I’m not going to bang on about “political correctness gone mad.”  (I am not the Daily Mail.)
• I’m only discussing the ideology of political correctness to make this look like a well-reasoned argument, as opposed to going straight into a rant about TV adverts that are clearly sexist against men.

I don’t necessarily think political correctness has gone mad, or too far, or actively discriminates against white men.  I do get annoyed, however, when men are portrayed as stupid, lazy and annoying in adverts, when we’ve spent the past century rightly moving away from adverts that portray women as inferior to men.  Take a look at the following, all genuine adverts and one from as recently as 1970 (from a Daily Mail rant about women or feminism or something or other)

I think we can all agree that these adverts are clearly no longer appropriate.  They should never have been considered appropriate.  They are sexist, promote domestic violence (and even murder!) and portray women as inferior creatures to men.  They may purport to be tongue-in-cheek, but equally they can be inferred as serious.  They are certainly not politically correct.  They would never see the light of day in the twenty-first century.

Let’s take a minute to consider the final picture above, a ketchup adverts from 1953 which proudly boasts that A WOMAN can open the bottle.  Then, tell me how exactly this is different to the advert for Oven Pride oven cleaning bags, with its shit advert and slogan: “So easy, EVEN A MAN can do it.”

In May 2009 the Advertising Standards Agency declared this advert “not sexist,” “light-hearted,” and “tongue-in-cheek.”  What utter, utter BULLSHIT.

Another advert, for a product the name of which escapes me for now, shows a man and a woman sitting on a sofa.  The man fidgets in his seat, to the clear irritation of the woman who pulls a lever on the side of the sofa catapulting the man through an open window and into the distance.  The woman allows herself a self-satisfied grin as the advert ends with a slogan akin to “If only all pains were as easy to get rid of.”  Replay that advert in your head with the roles reversed and it is undoubtedly SEXIST.

While these small-time Charlies might dabble in sexual inequality to sell their products, we should be able to rely on a global giant like Tesco to avoid making such gaffes.  Or can we?  Well, clearly not as I’ve seen fit to mention it AND write the following letter to their Customer Services office in Dundee.  I’ll let you know if I get a reply.

Dear Tesco

Firstly, I would consider myself a regular and dare I say valued Tesco customer, shopping in your magnificent Toton store at least weekly.  Secondly, this is the first time I’ve ever felt compelled to write a letter of complaint to anyone, let alone my preferred choice of supermarket.

Picture the scene: it’s a Saturday afternoon and I am in your Toton (Nottinghamshire) store.  My girlfriend and I have invited friends over for dinner, and I’ve agreed to do the cooking.  Bereft of ideas I decided to buy a cookery magazine; BBC’s Good Food Magazine seemed a good choice.

Imagine my disgust when I located the aforementioned magazine in a section of the magazine display clearly labelled WOMEN’S INTERESTS. 

Why don’t we extrapolate this product categorisation throughout the entire store?  In fact why not just split the whole damn store into MEN’S and WOMEN’S sections?

All of the cleaning products, household items and of course anything to do with cooking should be located in the WOMEN’S STUFF section of the store, while all of the home entertainment, crisps and DIY goods should be in an area of the store clearly defined as MEN’S THINGS.  The alcohol aisle should be split into beer, cider, red wine and whiskies (MALE DRINKS), while white wine, champagne and Bacardi all sit under FEMALE DRINKS.

In this era of political correctness and sexual equality, how can a massive international retailer like Tesco still consider cooking as a solely female interest?  Likewise there are car, sport and music magazines under MEN’S INTERESTS.  Newsflash, Tesco: some women also like sport, music and cars.  Some women I know even DRIVE.  Yes, that’s right!  WOMEN!  DRIVING! 

I’m sorry to destroy your 1930’s view of the world but it’s simply no longer acceptable to label products MEN’S or WOMEN’S (with the fairly obvious exception of sanitary towels and, you know, that type of thing).  If Gordon Ramsey walked into one of your many stores and for some mad reason decided to buy a cookery magazine I’m sure he’d use an f-word or two when he found a magazine about his chosen career in the WOMEN’S INTEREST section.

Please Tesco do something about this clearly outdated method of categorising magazines in your stores.  We all know certain types of products are aimed at different sub-sections of the population, but to have cookery magazines in the WOMEN’S INTERESTS section of your display is clearly not appropriate.  At best this is lazy retailing; at worst it strengthens outdated sexual stereotypes.

I hope you will take my comments on board.

Yours faithfully

Gareth Goodall

HOW THINGS WORK

Ray calls me at ten thirty the next morning, which is first thing for him.

“Jack.”

“Ray.”

“You made the Daily Mail, but nothing else.”

“Thank God for that.  No-one who reads The Mail will have heard of me.  I’ve not lost any would-be album-buyers there.”

“Jack, that’s bad.  I hoped you might at least make one of the red-tops, but someone marginally more famous than you vomited outside an AA meeting yesterday and the gossip pages are all preoccupied with that.”

“Good.  I’m pleased they deemed someone else’s faux pas more newsworthy than mine.”

“Jack, an appearance in The Sun today would have given your career a very nice little boost.  They told me they’d print your story as well.”

“Hang on a minute—you spoke to The Sun about this?”

“Of course.  I want to see your name in the papers, because your name in the papers will sell records.  I tried all the tabloids.”

“Did you ring them?”

“Yeah of course I did.”

“Fucking hell Ray.  I can’t tell you what yesterday was like.  I didn’t sleep last night.  I thought I’d be woken up by gangs of rabid, placard-waving lunatics burning effigies of me outside the flat.”

“You need to chill out a bit, chap.  I don’t think you understand, do you?  As your manager, part of my job is to get you maximum exposure so people will go out and buy your records.  You’re not going to get plastered all over the papers for being a bloody nice bloke, are you?  You’re going to get in the papers for being a bad boy.  Although the media pretend not to like them, they love bad boys.  Good news doesn’t sell newspapers.  Fact.”

“Ray—”

“Jack, this is how things work.  Trust me.”

“Can’t I just release a good first single and a great album without too much unnecessary fuss and hope it sells because it’s a quality product?”

Ray sighs, theatrically.  “I wish it were that simple, I really do.”

“Whatever.  What was it you said yesterday about a video?”

“Ah, yes.  Let’s talk business.  I spoke to the record company guy and he says they’re willing to throw some cash at a video.”

“Which single do they like?  Everyone Knows?”

“It’s a moot point.”

“So they haven’t decided.”

“That’s a moot point.”

“Ray…”

REIGNING FHM High Street Honey SAMANTHA LOUISE is to star in the SEXIEST MUSIC VIDEO EVER, a source close to the stunner said. 

The video for the single PLASTIC WOMAN, by singer-songwriter JACK SMITH, will include the gorgeous Sam and two other lovelies dancing around in not very much at all.

To be filmed next week, Plastic Woman will overheat TV screens everywhere when it first airs next month.

.

            CHARMING AND AFFABLE BUT SLIGHTLY CONTROVERSIAL

            It was Ray’s idea.  “Be charming and affable,” he said, “but say something amusing and slightly controversial, just to get the readers’ attention.  But not too controversial.  We don’t want people to not like you.”  How was I to know the magazine would hit the shelves the same day some fool in America burst into a school and shot sixteen seven year olds before putting a live grenade in his mouth and blowing his head clean off his shoulders?

            The editor of B-Minor music magazine—Britain’s biggest magazine for fans of alternative music—is an old friend of Ray’s who owed him a favour.  I’m a virtual unknown in the music industry and the release of my second album is a couple of months away (my first album, as we say in the industry, tanked).  Ray, my manager, thinks the interview will help raise my profile before the release of the first single and the album, a month later.  He says, If you throw enough shit, some sticks.

A Minute with Jack Smith

 

It’s been over a year since you released your critically acclaimed debut album Where Do All The Dirty People Go?, what have you been up to?

I’ve been doing a lot of touring and I’ve been working on my new album which will hopefully be out in March.

 

What can we expect from the new album?

It’s eight tracks long, but we haven’t decided on the title yet.  The record company want to use White Noise, which is one of the tracks.  I’d prefer something like No Happy Endings.  I didn’t mean it, but the album is kind of a story — like a suicide note.  It’s pretty dark — much more so than the first album — and I think No Happy Endings as a title reflects that.  But it’s the record company’s money, so it’ll probably end up being White Noise, which I still like.

 

You say the new album is darker — in what other ways is it different to the first?

I made it all myself, which I really enjoyed.  I wasn’t signed to a record company, so there was never anyone interfering, suggesting I make songs more ‘poppy’ so we can release them as singles, or telling me to trim them down so they’re suitable for radio play.  That really drove me on and made me want to make a great record.  Everything on the record is as I intended it to be.

 

You recorded the new album without a record deal?

I didn’t have much choice.  After Dirty People flopped, the record company dropped me.  So I started writing and recording a few songs.  One day I realised I had this great album, and somehow it ended up on someone’s desk at Objective [Record Company].  Nobody heard the album until it was completely finished, so it’s very special to me in that sense.

 

What would you be doing now if you weren’t doing this?

I’d probably be back in my old accountant’s job, bored out of my fucking mind.

 

What is more important to you—commercial success or critical acclaim?

I always say critical acclaim, but critical acclaim doesn’t pay the bills, does it?  I’d like both, obviously, but if I’m honest, I’d rather people loved my music and didn’t buy it, as opposed to being commercially successful but loathed.

 

How do you hope people perceive you as an artist?

I honestly don’t really care.  Obviously I’d rather not be hated, but I don’t intend to pander for popularity either.  I’m not doing this because I want to be popular or famous or feel important — I’m doing it because I love doing it and it’s more interesting than sitting in an office tapping numbers into spreadsheets.  I don’t crave adulation or try to write songs that make a statement.  I’m not trying to be clever and I don’t have any further agendas — I’ll just keep doing this as long as I’m making enough money to get by.  It’s a job.  A great job — and I’m very grateful to be doing it — but it’s a job nonetheless. 

 

If you died tomorrow, how would you like to be remembered?

I don’t know — I’m not really one for legacies.  If I had to be remembered then maybe it could be for something infamous, like a maniac who got hold of some firearms and ran amok in public.

 

If you had a million pounds that you had to spend by the end of today, what would you buy?

Firearms.

 

Who would your ideal date be, and where would you go?

My girlfriend, Kate, obviously.  But in case she doesn’t read this I’ll say Kate Beckinsale.  I’d probably take her to an all-you-can-eat buffet.  Somewhere not too cheap but not too fancy.  Like me.

 

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

My teeth.  I hate my teeth.  They’re crooked and I always get food stuck in them which can be embarrassing.  I’m not a vain person but I really hate my teeth.  Oh, and I’d have a couple of inches taken off my penis.  Ms Beckinsale, if you’re reading, call me.

 

Finally, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Never fight naked — unless you’re in prison.

 

Jane Sergeant

            Until early afternoon I sat grinning, holding January’s B-Minor music magazine, proudly reading over my affable, slightly controversial—but hopefully amusing—replies.  Kate even called to say she liked the interview (although she said she hoped I was joking about Kate Beckinsale) and everyone in her office liked it too.  Now I’m sitting watching news report after news report on some Iraq War veteran shooting a class of school children then killing himself.  I look back at the interview:

If I had to be remembered then maybe it could be for something infamous, like a maniac who got hold of some firearms and ran amok in public.

            Why did I try to be funny?  Why did I listen to Ray?  I look back at the TV.  Crying children, crying parents, crying teachers.  Everyone’s crying except the news reporters, who speak in slow, low voices from long, serious faces.  Anyone who reads this magazine article after two o’clock this afternoon is going to think I’m a sick, sick fuck.

            Ray rings up.  I tell him to turn on the news.  He says So what?  I tell him to read the magazine article again.  Ray says Oh Christ.  I say I know.

            “Bloody perfect timing, Jack.”

            “I know, I know.  God, I’m so stupid.”

            “Stupid like a genius,” Ray says.  “You can’t buy publicity like this.”

            “Bigger picture, Ray—”

            “Jack, no publicity is bad publicity.  In fact, bad publicity is better than good publicity.”

            “That doesn’t make any sense, Ray.”

            “All that matters is being in the public eye, OK?  It worked for the Rolling Stones.  I’ve got to go anyway.  I’ve had an idea for the first video.  I’m talking to the record company this afternoon.”

            “I get to make a video?”

            Earlier on in the week I told Ray I wanted the first single to be Everyone Knows You’ve Been Screwing Around (Except Me) but he was quick to disagree, saying he’d spoken to the record company and they didn’t see it as commercially viable enough for a lead single (which is a polite way of them saying No fucking way are we going to release THAT).  The single will be released about a month before the album, so it needs to be a great song that makes people want to buy the album.  Ray says that the choice of first single is a massively important decision, and he tells me, over and over again and in no uncertain terms that I should probably leave the decision-making to him and the record company.  Ray says my skills are writing and performing, while his skill is separating the wheat from the chaff.  I say I hope he isn’t referring to any of my songs as chaff.  He says that artists like me are passionate individuals, and sometimes that passion can cloud judgement.  I wish he’d just be honest and say it’s a purely economical decision, based on market trends and demographics and all that nonsense, and that the record company’s A&R guy will simply pick the song he thinks will make the record company the most money.

            Kate calls and asks if I’ve seen what’s happened in Bumfuck, Alabama (or wherever it was).  I tell her I regret my maniac with firearms comment—she tells me not to think about it.

            “But this was my first ever magazine interview and I’ve put my foot in it completely.  Anyone who reads that now is going to hate me.”

            “Forget about it—it’s done now.  Jack, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.  I just wanted to say that I’m going to be late home tonight.  Like, really late.  Don’t wait up—that kind of late.  This due diligence report is booked in for review first thing tomorrow and it’s about ten percent completed.  Don’t worry about the interview.  It was weeks ago—people will realise that.  How were you to know this would happen?”

DAILY MAIL, JAN 3RD 2008

SINGER SMITH’S SICK SHOOTING JIBE

Little-known British singer-songwriter Jack Smith has been criticised for comments in an interview with music magazine B-Minor in the wake of yesterday’s shooting in Alabama. 

Asked how he’d like to be remembered, Smith replied, “a maniac who gets hold of some firearms and runs amok in public.”

Although Smith’s comments were made in an interview BEFORE the Alabama shooting, they have still angered readers, who are demanding that the magazine publish an apology in their next issue.

More to follow…