02/11/2012 The Review Show


02/11/2012

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Tonight, four days before the US elections, we hold a mirror up to

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the cultural life of America, reflected in print, on screen and

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in sound. Both President Obama and Mitt Romney say their favourite

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family viewing is the sitcom Modern Family, but that benign view of

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life in America, isn't the whole story. Tom Wolfe's new novel, Back

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to Blood, rips apart the idea that the US is a racial melting pot.

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Conservative commentator, Dinesh D'Souza, rips into President Obama,

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in his feature-length documentary. Obama is a radical communist.

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think he's a Marxist. While the Sundance Grand Jury prize went to a

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film that condemned the country's called war on drugs as a disastrous

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failure. We watch American imports by the box set, but do prime time

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shows influence the way Americans vote?

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Remember this voice? Come with me, down memory lane. Radio 4 releases

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more than 900 episodes of Alistair Cooke's Letters From America. How

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did he shape our view of the United States.

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My transatlantic guests are the writer and broadcaster, Lindsay

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Johns, Sarah Churchwell Professor of American Literature at the

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university of east aingia, and the novelist, Lionel Shriver. We begin

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with a new novel from Tom Wolfe, only his fourth in a career that

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began in the early 1960s, Back to Blood is set in contemporary Miami.

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A city, seen through Wolfe's eyes, is a racial vortex n which Russians,

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Haitians, black, white Americans, collide furiously.

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It's 25 years since pioneering journalist, Tom Wolfe, cemented his

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reputation with his debut novel the Bonfire of the Vanties, a satire on

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race in 80s New York. Which was made into a film starring Bruce

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well lisence and Tom Hanks. Now, in Back to Blood, his first

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novel in eight years, Wolfe picks up on similar themes, casting his

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eye over another city transformed by immigration, where crime and

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racial resentments are rife. The book, inspired by visits to Miami,

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over the space of five years, a shadowing of former myamy Herald

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Reporter, features a diverse cast of character, including a black

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police chief, a Haitian professor, Russian oligarchs, and a Cuban cop,

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Nestor Camacho, whose daring rescue of an illegal immigrant from the

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mast of a yacht, makes him headline news. He look up, the man on the

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mast is no more than ten feet above him. He's looking him right in the

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face. What an expression. The cornered animal, the do you know

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rat, drenched, dirty and exhausted, panting, barely able to utter a cry

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for miraculous salvation. Another strand of narrative sees Wolfe

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returning to a theme close to his heart, the contemporary art world.

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And centres on the gift to the city museum of an apparently impressive

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collection of paintings. The fools had put $500 million into a world-

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class cultural destination now worth precisely nothing! They all

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become world-class jokes, utterly lamebrained, unbelievably gullible

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culture-strivers. The horse laugh would resound round the world.

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Wolfe is now in his 80s, but does this tale of Miami vice prove that

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the great man of letters still has his finger on the pulse of America.

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All people, all people, everywhere, have but one last thing on their

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minds -- Back to Blood, all people, everywhere, you have no choice but,

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black to blood! Obviously the biggest story in this book is about

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race and the fault line, do you think he has it right? I think it

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was absolutely superb, I loved it. Tom Wolfe is somebody who really

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does have his finger on the pulse. As far as I'm concerned America is

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a cauldron of racial insanity. When I was reading novel, I could almost

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feel Tom Wolfe stirring that pot. Do you know of Miami? I do, it is a

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very sexy city, it is sultry, he has company turd it beautifully.

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Even down to talking -- Captured it beautifully. Even talking about the

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creole? I loved it, the Haitian character: what I really enjoyed

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about the novel, the politics of shade, the pygmantocracy, the way

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the aesthetic ideals came out. The Haitian professor don't want his

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son speaking crole, that is the lingo of the people of Haiti, but

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the Haitian professor doesn't want it, it is pure self-hate. Straight

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out of Fanog. All the characters, Russians, Haitians, anglo-s, are

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they characters Ormeauity ofs? think they are -- motiffs? I think

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they are bigotted stereotypes, I don't think there is a character in

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the book, aside from Tom Wolfe. If you wanted to save everybody in the

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audience �20, read more of that text. That would unsell the book

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faster than anything. I mean, you can review one of my books any time,

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because you obviously give everyone the benefit of the doubt. But, boy,

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I honestly found this book so bad as to be unreadable. It is gimmicky,

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it is boring, it is repetitive, it uses the same line over and over

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again. It has these stupid little punctuation marks, you could see it

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on the page, all the colons, instead of using ittalalics for

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thoughts. I -- italics for thought. I think it is an embarrassment. And

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a big shame for Tom Wolfe to be spending his life like this. I love

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his earlier work. Bonfire of the Vanties and Man in Full, there was

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a tremendous sense of energy. Did you get that sense? There is energy

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in the book, it is like talking to someone on cocaine, boring, and I

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have to agree with Lionel on this one, it is overwrought, hyperbolic,

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hyperactive, hypertension, hypertroughied. Everything about it

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is so over the top. It was the novel novelistic equivalent of a

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car crash. What is exploding is the language, the words erupt into

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sleeks, and cat calls, and explanation marks and --

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exclammation marks and question marks. I couldn't stand it. I have

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to disagree, I loved the Latin vocabulary, there is the

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monsvenerace. The monspubice comes open. There is onomatopaya, it is

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hard after the fourth or fifth time. I know that he's a big fan of

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Balzac. The big theme, power, money, class, especially race, you know

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what, he also functions with the little character. I cared about

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Nestor, and the Haitian professor, and the Russian oligarch. He says

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outrageous things about race, but you don't think it is a problem?

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Far from it, I welcome it. I'm tired of all this post-racial Obama

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BS. I think it is wonderful, as far as I'm concerned, America is one of

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the most racially polarised societies I have ever been to. It

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is wonderful he tells the truth. Nobody is disputing this, he's

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animating stereotypes to say, guess what, this is a racist country. Who

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was in doubt about that? Nobody rational is in doubt about that.

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The fact that he has these character, each of some

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representing a type. The wasps who are just gestures towards the

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schools they attended, that is all you need to know about it. All

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about John Smith is going to Yale. I read it as an elogy of the dying

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genus, the wasp. The Latinos in the ascendancy. It is almost a goodbye

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to the Anglo-Saxon white Protestant class. It is a scream of fear that

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the wasp is dying. He didn't, funnily enough, he paid scant

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attention to the wasp character, he was more interested in other

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characters. In the Miami Herald. seemed to think newspapers held a

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lot of power and that was Wu break the story. He was living in the --

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he was going to break a story. He was living in a bubble. Can we go

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on to another area where he takes a pop, he loves to take a pop, that

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is in the art market. In a sense he definitely has a point there, maybe

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an obvious point, but he has a point there? He has been making the

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point over and over again, I don't think this advances his point any

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further. The jokes are really lame, they are really crude, he makes the

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same joke over and over again. You think OK, she don't know who

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Sheigal is or what an aura is. There is an argument that says that

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the Magdalena character a nurse and highly trained, would knot know a

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lot of the stuff that Tom Wolfe says she doesn't know, for example

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what is "cutting-edge", did you feel there was a reductive nature

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to the female characters? I can see a little bit of what you are saying,

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I found he decks trously weaves a lot of the plot lines together, in

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a very good way. I found the plot wandering and unfocused. I found

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the characters that I cared about them. I cared about the Haitian's

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daughter, I thought that was an excellent case, OK the argument is

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made that he's an octogenarian, maybe his powers are declining, I

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didn't think so. The fact that he could get into that character's

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mind and explore the shade-based politics, I thought that was

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fascinating. Will he remembered more as an essayist, and Bonfire of

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the Vanties, is there room for people like him now? Well, sure.

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Tom Wolfe created what was called the "new journalism", we are still

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writing it. In a way he really changed the culture, opened up a

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whole new way of writing about reality. I feel protective of him,

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believe it or not, just because I think this is rubbish, and the

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earlier stuff is really great. Everybody should read that. I grew

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up on Radical Chic, all that is fantastic. Go back to basics with

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him. And that's where he's best at. Two feature-length documentaries

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have been trying to tell Americans two very different stories over the

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last two months. First 2016, Obama's America, presented by the

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conservative writer, Dinesh D'Souza, Dell was into the President's past

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-- delves into his past and talks about the what the future would

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hold were Obama to be re-elected. It has taken more than $30 million

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at the box-office, making it the second-most popular political

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documentary of all time. Obama came out of nowhere. Dinesh D'Souza's

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lock into the future of the USA under a second Obama administration,

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depicts a President at odds with his own country. He doesn't really

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like the United States. But, on the other hand, he's President of the

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United States. Using his own book, the Roots of Obama's Rage, and

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Obama's autobiography, Dreams From My Father, D'Souza tries to relate

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his current policies to the people who influenced him in the past.

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a long time I said between the two greys -- I sat between the two

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graves, the pain I felt was my father's questions, and my

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struggles of my brothers and my birthday. He says that it is his

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Cologne yummism that has led him to reduce the power and influence of

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America. Theoretically there is nothing to stop a Government taxing

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100% of income, so long as the people get benefits from the

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Government, commensurate with their income, which is taxed. Obama is a

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radical communist. I think he's a Marxist. Do you really believe he's

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a welfare thug and Muslim? He's acting like it. The film attempts

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to link the President with communism, anti-American, and even

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terrorismism. It will clearly chime with a certain section of public

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opinion, can a polemic like this sway a larger section of the

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American electorate? Dinesh D'Souza starts out which

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setting himself up as in parallel with Barack Obama, they are both

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the immigrant to America. Were you intrigued at the beginning? I was,

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I was invited in. And I think that because D'Souza is an Indian

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American, it is a very clever approach. Here I am, you know, I'm

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also a minority. But I'm the good minority and he's the bad minority.

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I'm the real American convert and Obama is now the enemy within. He's

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the Trojan horse, and he's trying to destroy the country I have come

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to love. It is very clever, in a way. But it started out, and then

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the arguments build, and then he goes to some strange places,

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doesn't he, for his evidence? enjoyed the fact that he went to

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Indonesia, Honolulu, he put Obama in a geographical international

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context, but, to be honest with you, after the first 20 minutes it

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degenerated completely into an anti-Obama tirade, it was a

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pernicious polemic, it was a tendenshious pieces, there was the

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mobile phone doing the interview, let me let you in on the secret.

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Inciting all the people, the founding fathers of Obama's beings,

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Bill Ayer, Edward Saied, Jeramiah Wright, this was the evidence he

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had, that what Obama was out to do was undermine America. It is the

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Manchurian candidate, purporting to be non-fiction. When he ends the

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film and saying when Obama says it is time to change America, what he

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means is he wants to change it into this post-apock lift liptic

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landscape -- post-apocalyptic landscape. He likes to drag people

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in if as trigger points. There is a psychologist who never met Obama,

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who talks about how an abandoned son might feel like. The real

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evidence is Obama senior himself, it is not evidence, but that is the

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real story. He basically makes up this story that he says that this

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is what Barack Obama senior taught his son to think, and now this is

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what his son must think, though he never actually lived with him. Now

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he's this robot who has been programmed. The whole reason he has

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run for President is to destroy the country by building up debt. He

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brings in the former controller general of America, who says it is

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true the debt is sky rocketing and points out it started with George W

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Bush, and he said when Obama is do done with it, that is his nefarious

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plan, and ignores that. We are not at a point when we don't have to go

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back and look at Obama's childhood, we have an entire term to look at.

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We know what he wants to do, because he has been doing it. The

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fact that this film distorts say what he has done with Iran,

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according to D'Souza, Obama's just letting Iran get the bomb. No

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problem. It is pure scaremongering. The sanctions have been incredibly

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effective. I agree with everything that has been said. There is one

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redeeming feature, there is a comic gem of a line, they go and speak to

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the granny, and say the speaking fee is a goat, and they brought

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three, just in Kay. They also went to see Obama's half brother George.

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We can show a clip of this. This is an extraordinary interview when

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Dinesh D'Souza, and Obama's half brother Josh who won't play the

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game. Recently President Obama spoke, he was quoting from the

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famous story of Cain and Able, and we are our brother's keeper. My

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question is you are his brother, is he your keeper? Go ask him, he's

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other issues to deal with. He's taking care of the world. What

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about at home? He's taking care of me, I'm part of the world. When he

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fights for global warming he helps you, there is less carbon in the

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world and you can breathe more easily. He doesn't have to help you

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directly. No. I think that Dinesh D'Souza

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kept it in, lots of people want to go pursue that agenda would have

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put it on the cutting room floor. What a beautiful slapdown. It has

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made $33 million, the only one that made more was Fahrenheit 101. It is

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being promoted in one section of America, but Rupert Murdoch urged

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everybody to watch it, I find that surprising? I find it terrifying.

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It is showing we are in a political climate that nobody is having

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recourse to fact. There was no reason or logic, it was purely

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emotion, and that is paranoia. It is a thesis that Richard Hofstedder

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wrote in 1964, there are passages from that essay. It is as if

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D'Souza set out to show the truth, this is about pure paranoia. That

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is what it is about. When you look at some of American television,

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Glenn Beck and some things on Fox, that is where the roots? Compared

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to that this is mild. Because he's smarter, it is strategic. He's

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presenting himself as the rational intellectual, that is one of the

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reasons why he kept that scene in there. He's presenting himself as

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the good guy, willing to listen and go down the world. And completely

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falls down at the end. There is a bizarre scene at the end, where he

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says this is what the world will look like, the future of America,

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there is this frame that is a little Indian boy, and so that

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seems to be, speaking of the enemy within, the threat seems to be

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somebody who looks a lot like Dinesh D'Souza, it is really,

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really strange. It is very scary when you have the kids singing at

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the end, it is almost like demonic. Everything in this documentary is

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trying to delegitimise Obama's presidency. I was glad I saw t I

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wouldn't have normally gone to see it. And the fact is, Americans like

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us do not get exposed to the other side and visa versa. The only

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people who will pay to go and see this film, are already card-

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carrying members. It won't affect the election.

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Next we turn to a film by the documentary maker Eugene Jarecki,

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which won the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. It

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examining the relationship between drugs and the law in America.

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The House I Live In takes its name from the 1946 Oscar-winning short

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film starring Frank Sinatra, made to oppose anti-semitism and

:20:34.:20:38.

prejudice in post-war America. It is a pointed gesture as Jarecki

:20:38.:20:42.

follow the consequences of the war on drugs. Launched by Richard Nixon

:20:42.:20:47.

in 1971. 40 years on he depicts an American divided along racial lines

:20:47.:20:52.

and in denial. As I started to ask around, I found

:20:52.:20:55.

if people knew anything about the war on drugs, they thought I was

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talking about something in a foreign country. Yet surprisingly

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very few seemed to have an idea about a war going on in their own

:21:03.:21:08.

country. I haven't heard the term "we're on drugs", sin the 1980s.

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Using his own history as a starting point. He interviews a family

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friend and former housekeeper who looked after him to the detriment

:21:18.:21:22.

of her own family, in particular her son, who fell victim to drugs.

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It is devastating what happened to my son with drugs, I would love to

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change that. Jarecki uncovers disparities in the criminal justice

:21:30.:21:36.

system, which impose lengthy jail sentences for drug-related crimes,

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and appears to have a disproportionate effect on the

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African-American community. A long time ago we made drugs into this

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huge thing, and we have made it so illegal, I think sometimes we have

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people doing a whole lot of time for not very much crime. More

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disturbingly, some interviewees suggest that sinister forces have a

:21:57.:22:00.

vested interest in keeping the war on drugs alive. The thing with the

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law on drugs is, and the question we have to ask is, not why is it

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failure, why given that it seems to be a failure, why is it persisting.

:22:08.:22:13.

I'm beginning to think, maybe it is a success. What if it is a success,

:22:13.:22:18.

by keeping police forces busy. What if it is a success by keeping

:22:18.:22:21.

private jails thriving. Maybe it is a success on different terms than

:22:21.:22:28.

the publicly stated ones. Sarah, in that film, incredibly

:22:28.:22:32.

simple statistic, 5% of the world's population is in America, 25% of

:22:32.:22:38.

the world's prison population in America, and 500,000 people in for

:22:38.:22:41.

non-violent drug crimes. It patently doesn't work, had you

:22:41.:22:44.

heard these argument before? I had heard some of them. The way he

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connected all the dot was extraordinarily. This was one of

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the best documentaries I have ever seen in my life, bar none, it

:22:51.:22:54.

should be mandatory viewing, not just any American, but anyone who

:22:54.:22:57.

wants to understand how America works, but how the interconnections

:22:57.:23:01.

of the criminal justice, the economy, drugs, race, how it all

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tuely ties up. One of the spwes interviewees is the writer David

:23:07.:23:14.

Sigh -- interviewees is the writer David Simon who wrote The Wire, I

:23:14.:23:18.

finished the departmentry thinking of him for President, he's the only

:23:18.:23:23.

one that understands the way the world work. You have a cogent

:23:23.:23:27.

expression of how the drug trade works on the streets, from the

:23:27.:23:32.

father of a drug user who is now in jail himself in Florida. He talks

:23:32.:23:37.

about the street where the drug dealer gives the kid 10 cents to

:23:37.:23:42.

get the water and keep the change, then it was time to make their own

:23:42.:23:48.

money. That was cogent, chilling and easy? It is powerful, and

:23:48.:23:53.

humblinging, as someone who spend a lot of time mentoring people in

:23:53.:23:57.

Peckham, the lack of role models. Anthony Johnson, and they

:23:57.:24:00.

introduced his father, and he was in jail, and the father broke down.

:24:00.:24:04.

It get you there. It is so poignant. At the same time, it was a

:24:04.:24:07.

brilliant documentary, but I never once got the sense that I'm being

:24:07.:24:12.

bashed over the head. It wasn't "worthy". It was done with a real

:24:12.:24:16.

deftness and lightness of touch. What was interesting as well, is

:24:17.:24:21.

what Jarecki was saying, is when Nixon brought in the war on drugs,

:24:21.:24:24.

actually, the balance was for treatment over incarceration,

:24:24.:24:29.

people forget that? I didn't rather that. For me, the most startling, I

:24:30.:24:34.

knew the statistic, but one million African-Americans incarcerated in I

:24:34.:24:40.

will ja. There was an early 1990s lyric, "crack cocaine degenerate

:24:40.:24:47.

the black folk", when the documentary put it in a stark

:24:47.:24:52.

narrative. Race is there, it starts with the nanny and coming back to

:24:52.:24:56.

her at the end. The personal story that sparked this and Jarecki found

:24:56.:25:00.

himself, the idea is the nanny, they leave, they go to New York,

:25:00.:25:04.

they want to take nanny with them, they offer double the money, and

:25:04.:25:09.

she thinks she's doing the right thing for the family, but it isn't.

:25:09.:25:13.

Did you think the story needed to be there for Jarecki? Not really,

:25:13.:25:17.

it makes a nice point of entry for the film maker, but the story

:25:17.:25:22.

itself is so big that you don't need that in. It is a decorative in.

:25:22.:25:27.

I'm not sure I agree, she makes the story about him. It makes this

:25:27.:25:29.

question about responsibility and guilt. If this is all something

:25:30.:25:33.

that is happening to other people. He becomes partly responsible for

:25:33.:25:36.

this, because he was chosen over her son, and her son died as a

:25:36.:25:41.

result of that choice. It was her having to go away to look after the

:25:41.:25:47.

white kid? One of the things I like about what he puts together is

:25:47.:25:52.

sympathy with, especially, the Small drug dealers. Because what

:25:52.:25:56.

they are doing, perparticipating in the economy that is available to

:25:56.:26:01.

them. The only one. There are no jobs in these areas. There are no

:26:01.:26:06.

factories. So the drug dealers are actually the entrepeneur. They are

:26:06.:26:09.

the real Americans. They are enterprising. They work very hard.

:26:09.:26:12.

The other enterprising people are the police officers, who get extra

:26:12.:26:17.

pay for the amount of lifts they do. It is easy to do 50 marijuana pick-

:26:17.:26:23.

ups for arrest, but difficult to get one murder charge. Everyone is

:26:23.:26:27.

working on drugs and it is perpetuating it. I'm usually

:26:27.:26:32.

socially conservative, if you forgive the pun, it is an

:26:32.:26:36.

emotionally charged documentary, seeing this documentary I was very

:26:36.:26:42.

challenged. In Britain it is very different to the states, it was so

:26:42.:26:45.

hard-hitting, but at the same time, nisly balanced. What do you think,

:26:45.:26:49.

if you were -- Nicely balanced. What do you think, if you were

:26:49.:26:53.

watching it as an American in America, do you think there is any

:26:53.:26:58.

space for change? No, that is what is so utterly dismaying about the

:26:58.:27:03.

work, it is dead on, incredibly persuasive, and preaching to a

:27:03.:27:07.

brick wall. Nothing will ever change. Nobody is ever going to

:27:07.:27:15.

just go for treatment, or much less decriminalise recreational drugs in

:27:15.:27:20.

in the United States. It will never happen. It is the one thing that

:27:20.:27:25.

politicians will never support. What Simon from the Wire said, it

:27:25.:27:29.

don't look to politicians, you guys, American citizens have to do

:27:29.:27:35.

something? Absolutely. Two things that gave me a modicum of hope.

:27:35.:27:40.

Agree it is mostly desperate. One in a cynical way, it shows that

:27:40.:27:44.

white people are falling into the trap, because they are not being

:27:45.:27:49.

incarcerated at much higher rates because they are taking crystal

:27:49.:27:53.

meth. It is working-class and they are poor. David Simon makes the

:27:53.:27:57.

point that it is cheaper to kill the poorest 15% because it is more

:27:57.:28:02.

effective. What I'm wondering is once white people get caught in the

:28:02.:28:06.

trap it will make white people take notice. All these people,

:28:06.:28:10.

incarcerated, away from their families, no chance of turning a

:28:10.:28:14.

buck for their families, contributing nothing, and costing

:28:14.:28:20.

an absolute fortune? They are not, the prisons are for-profit, it is

:28:20.:28:25.

an inventive to incarcerate individuals. It is four money.

:28:25.:28:30.

hope it is clear I'm not defending it, it is not that it is expensive,

:28:30.:28:34.

it is generating profit. You even have a corrections officer who says

:28:34.:28:39.

I was porn to be a corrections officer, I'm a law and order -- I

:28:39.:28:43.

was born to be a corrections officer, and I'm all law and order,

:28:43.:28:47.

but saying it doesn't work. That is in cinemas in November, it is

:28:47.:28:51.

extraordinary, try to get to see it. American programmes have long been

:28:51.:28:56.

the staple for British TV, some US imports have been the most highly

:28:56.:29:01.

acclaimed on our screens. As well as influencing our view of America,

:29:01.:29:05.

they reflect and refrabgt elements of America back to itself. We have

:29:05.:29:08.

been watching documentaries that examine the velgs relationship

:29:08.:29:12.

between the programmes Americans watch, the sitcom, and the social

:29:12.:29:15.

and political views they hold. would you do if one of your

:29:15.:29:18.

children came to you and said they were gay? You can't separate what

:29:18.:29:22.

happens in marriage and in families from how it affects everything in

:29:22.:29:26.

American life. Debates about family values have

:29:26.:29:30.

come to dominate presidential election campaigns. Issues such as

:29:30.:29:34.

gay marriage and abortion, which polarise the electorate, are

:29:34.:29:37.

reflected in American television drama and comedy, as well as on the

:29:37.:29:43.

news channel. In Family Guy, what sitcom says about America now,

:29:43.:29:47.

which aired last Saturday on BBC Two, we ask whether sitcoms, in

:29:47.:29:51.

particular, show us another side of American public opinion. In the

:29:51.:29:54.

last decade, the proportion of gay couples raising children has

:29:54.:29:58.

doubled. One in four of them are now doing it. In this episode of

:29:58.:30:08.

Modern Family, Mitch and Cambring home their newly-adopted baby.

:30:08.:30:13.

barely sat slept, it is all women in the orfanage, maybe she can't

:30:13.:30:18.

fall asleep unless she feels a woman's shape. So here. What the

:30:18.:30:22.

hell is that supposed to mean. America in prime time, a four-part

:30:22.:30:27.

series from PBS, broadcast by the BBC next year, looks at the history

:30:27.:30:30.

of American television, through the evolution of four distinct

:30:31.:30:35.

character types. The independent woman, the man of the house, the

:30:35.:30:40.

misfit, and the Crusader, in the context of the political and

:30:40.:30:47.

cultural zeitgeist. The writers and producers of hit prime time series,

:30:47.:30:50.

have consistently used television as a sounding board of big issues,

:30:50.:30:56.

not just on niche channel, but commercial networks like NBC and

:30:56.:31:03.

CBS. I was watching Mash at five or six years old. It was all about war

:31:03.:31:09.

and people dying, and I wonder how I interm preted it. I'll take him

:31:09.:31:17.

first -- Intrp preted it first. I'll take him first. Hawk Eye

:31:17.:31:25.

didn't want people to die. What's he doing ahead of my buddy? Dying.

:31:25.:31:28.

Does American television reflect changing public opinion more

:31:28.:31:32.

accurately than other cultural barometer, or is it, itself, in the

:31:32.:31:36.

vanguard of change? What do you think, there are

:31:36.:31:41.

certain things that seem to be tackled a lot, and are just common

:31:41.:31:44.

place in American television, like gay dads and so forth, it is always

:31:44.:31:49.

in the context not of interracial. It is never black and white, is it?

:31:49.:31:53.

You are never going to get, in Modern Family it wouldn't have

:31:53.:31:57.

worked if one of them was black, the networks wouldn't have run it?

:31:58.:32:01.

American television right now is strangely segregated, it is partly

:32:01.:32:08.

the product of the advent of cable. When you have literally thousands

:32:08.:32:13.

of channels available, you can cater to niche audiences, that

:32:13.:32:17.

includes racial niche audiences. There are dozens of all-Spanish

:32:17.:32:24.

channels. They don't need to watch shows in English about white people.

:32:24.:32:29.

A lot of them won't. So why try to cater to that audience by just

:32:29.:32:32.

adding a Spanish person. Interesting, though, isn't it. The

:32:32.:32:37.

idea there is a British idea that the families congregate around the

:32:37.:32:40.

television for mass viewing, you are saying really it is very

:32:40.:32:44.

separated in America now. You don't see the shows that reflect anything

:32:44.:32:49.

other than that? These documentaries brought home to me

:32:49.:32:55.

the phrase "sundown separation", never the Twain shall meet, the

:32:56.:33:00.

Cosby Show, Girlfriends, the friendsesque equivalent, but for a

:33:00.:33:03.

black audience. Completely different world and tragic. One of

:33:03.:33:08.

documentaries, and I can't remember which one it was, they were saying

:33:08.:33:13.

it is incredibly unusual on television to see an African-

:33:13.:33:16.

American woman and a white woman kissing on television. You could

:33:16.:33:23.

feel the frisson when she said it. We We can't overstate the case here,

:33:24.:33:28.

The Cosby Show was unbelievably popular with white America and as

:33:28.:33:32.

with black, that was why it was such a landmark programme. It is

:33:32.:33:36.

only latterly, with the advent of this niche targeting audiences that

:33:36.:33:45.

you can do this. It clearly has some dillitorous effects, one thing

:33:45.:33:47.

mainstream television did, is it meant you had to find ways to

:33:47.:33:52.

create a more collective vision of what an American family or career

:33:52.:33:55.

might have looked like. There is collective vision. What happened

:33:55.:34:03.

with cable is it released the medium from the grip of very

:34:03.:34:06.

conservative networks. And their stupid policies about having

:34:06.:34:11.

married couples in two different betdz, and also it released them

:34:11.:34:18.

from federal laws about what kind of language you can use. And how

:34:18.:34:22.

much nudity. The medium has just taken off. I think this American

:34:22.:34:26.

prime time series does a very good job of documenting that really

:34:26.:34:31.

television has overtaken feature film in excellence. But what about

:34:31.:34:38.

in terms of reflecting how people feel and will vote, the sitcom The

:34:38.:34:41.

Middle, which looks entirely at a family through the resomething he

:34:41.:34:45.

is, what did you think of that. It seems to be pretty popular?

:34:45.:34:53.

seems to be. It is hitting a similar demographic that Roseanne,

:34:53.:35:00.

without the acidity and that of Roseanne. Both of these

:35:00.:35:05.

documentaries interview RoseanneBarr, she was great. She

:35:05.:35:09.

comes in and says the TV presented this world in which every girl was

:35:09.:35:15.

thin and blonde and capitulating, she said she didn't want to show

:35:15.:35:20.

that world, she wanted to punch the world out of the stereotype. They

:35:20.:35:24.

showed wonderful clips about her version of working-class America

:35:24.:35:32.

was showing a truth. The The Middle isn't doing that, it is Anwar know

:35:32.:35:37.

dine version where everything is OK -- anodyne version where everything

:35:37.:35:46.

is OK. The Wire, I wouldn't have stressed the the terrible Americans

:35:46.:35:55.

and the segregated TV, the TV is so great, and it is doing things that

:35:55.:36:02.

people use never to do on TV before, look at The Wire. That is

:36:02.:36:05.

performing a social service, preflecting the country back on

:36:05.:36:11.

theself, in much the same way as The House I Live in. Is it art

:36:11.:36:15.

imitating life or the other way, it is a curious fusion of the two.

:36:15.:36:20.

Talking about David Simon running for President, but The Wire,

:36:20.:36:24.

politicians should be watching it to see what is going on? David

:36:24.:36:28.

Simon knows what he's talking about, he was a beat reporter on this

:36:28.:36:32.

stuff for ten years. Before we finish this, let's talk about the

:36:32.:36:38.

role of animation, it seems animation of way out there. So you

:36:38.:36:44.

have South Park, you have Family Guy, and the Simpsons, saying a lot

:36:44.:36:48.

of things before. No cow is too sacred, they are ripping into

:36:48.:36:52.

everything. It was really refreshing. We don't get it here.

:36:52.:36:58.

We haven't got that fabulous sat tie, that fabulous needle help

:36:58.:37:04.

sharp thing? And yet we have the sense of irony, we give people the

:37:04.:37:08.

Simpsons and all sorts of things, it is fairly advanced and our

:37:08.:37:12.

television shows that, even though British people say we have no irony.

:37:12.:37:17.

America in Prime Time will be on in the new year. As part of Radio 4

:37:17.:37:26.

aers's celebration of 90 years of transmissions, the BBC has put 9

:37:26.:37:30.

unhundred episodes of Alistair Cooke's Letters From America on-

:37:30.:37:36.

line. It was first broadcast in March in 1946, and ran to a total

:37:37.:37:42.

of 2,896 installment. Come with me, down memory lane. You are, I

:37:42.:37:49.

imagine yourself to be, in the passenger seat of a 1933 model A

:37:49.:37:53.

Ford. In the driver's seat would be me. Alistair Cooke was born in

:37:53.:37:59.

Salford, the son of a Methodist lay preacher, he won a skorlship to

:38:00.:38:05.

Cambridge, and went to stud -- scholarship to Cambridge and went

:38:05.:38:14.

on to study at Yale and Harvard, he proposed to the BC an and broadcast

:38:14.:38:20.

called An American Letter, bringing the two countries together in

:38:20.:38:23.

understanding and affection. I want to tell you what it is like to come

:38:23.:38:28.

back to the United States after a sobering month in Britain. And say

:38:28.:38:34.

what daily life looks like and feels like by comparison. Cooke's

:38:34.:38:37.

meticulous observations transformed America for his listeners. He

:38:37.:38:42.

didn't peddle his own opinions. Over 58 years he witnessed history

:38:42.:38:47.

in the make, including the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in

:38:47.:38:53.

1968. There were flashes and the button eyes of Kennedy turned to

:38:53.:38:58.

Cinders, she was slapping a young man, saying listen lady, I'm hurt

:38:58.:39:02.

too. There was a huddle of clothings and staring out of it was

:39:02.:39:07.

the face of Bobby Kennedy, like the stone face of a child lying on a

:39:07.:39:11.

Cathedral tomb. Cooke's last letter was broadcast on Friday 20th of

:39:11.:39:16.

February 2004. The year of the 5 5tr United States presidential

:39:16.:39:22.

election. -- 5th United States presidential election. Hence the 15

:39:22.:39:29.

out of the 17 primaries won by the Massachusetts candidate John Kerry,

:39:29.:39:34.

who since the campaign's beginning has sounded an odd and lonely boast,

:39:34.:39:39.

"George Bush must be driven from the White House, and I'm the man to

:39:39.:39:46.

do it". It is so interesting listening to his first and last one,

:39:46.:39:50.

even saying ow the cadance in his voice has change -- how the cadance

:39:50.:39:57.

in his voice has changed. He has that avun later Bonn hom me, it is

:39:57.:40:07.
:40:07.:40:09.

the buet -- avuncula bonhomie. He has seldom been bettered. It is a

:40:09.:40:13.

very poetic prose, a modern given. Did you used to listen to him?

:40:13.:40:19.

voice of my Sunday mornings. He's never pompus, he strips away all

:40:19.:40:26.

the verbage, and the obvuscation, it is limb pid prose, but it is

:40:26.:40:31.

lovely. Did it feel like 15 minutes? It felt more like 20

:40:31.:40:37.

sometimes. I found myself getting a little impatient. I think it is

:40:37.:40:41.

partly an era thing. In today's terms 15 minutes is a very, very

:40:41.:40:46.

long time to be attending to something. Especially if it is just

:40:46.:40:56.
:40:56.:40:56.

voice. We wouldn't chose to do a 20-minute essay voice now. He's

:40:56.:41:02.

also very digressive. He has a form that repeats frequently, that he

:41:02.:41:08.

comes at a subject from out here, and circles in on it. It's very

:41:08.:41:14.

artful. But it is leisurely. I started, once I had gone through a

:41:15.:41:18.

few of them, was like, look, get to the point. I never found it, the

:41:18.:41:22.

skill is to hide the skill, he does it so well. Sarah? I like the idea

:41:22.:41:27.

of thinking about him as a modern Gibon, it hadn't occurred to me. I

:41:27.:41:31.

was thinking about the 8th grade social studies and history teacher

:41:31.:41:35.

I wish I had. I wasn't impatient with the leisurely nature of it,

:41:35.:41:39.

admire the artfulness, I kept wanting him to tell me something I

:41:39.:41:42.

didn't know. That might be just because I teach this stuff and I

:41:42.:41:46.

work with it. For other people less familiar with when he explains how

:41:46.:41:50.

the Supreme Court works, but he does that really well and really

:41:50.:41:53.

cogently. At the time when he was probably at his height, we didn't

:41:53.:41:57.

have this global internet. And people were listening for things

:41:57.:42:01.

they didn't hear or know about? still think people could benefit

:42:01.:42:04.

from it T it is very educationally, if you want to understand how the

:42:04.:42:07.

system and the country work, he really does understand it. He's

:42:07.:42:12.

very good at conveying it. should plug the website, the

:42:12.:42:18.

website theself is very well put together. It isies toe -- easy to

:42:18.:42:28.

dip in and out. You can go to things separated by theme, by time.

:42:28.:42:33.

Particular events, you can look up the 9/11 broad ka. For the casual -

:42:33.:42:39.

- broadcast. For the casual dandier it is great. That is a shout out to

:42:39.:42:43.

the web teams who created it. A link to the website and details of

:42:43.:42:45.

everything we have discuss tonight are on the website. My thanks to

:42:45.:42:54.

Sarah, Lionel and Lindsay. Next week Jo Whiley will be here with a

:42:54.:43:01.

show about books and Mick Jagger. Before we go, American presidential

:43:01.:43:04.

candidates have picked up an instrument to would the electorate.

:43:04.:43:08.

Even if they don't, it seems there is always a whizzkid on hand to set

:43:08.:43:12.

their words to music. # Hey I just met you

:43:12.:43:16.

# This is crazy # Here's my number

:43:16.:43:21.

# So call me maybe # It's hard to look right

:43:21.:43:24.

# At you babe # Here's my number

:43:24.:43:34.
:43:34.:43:34.

# So call me maybe I love you back! I love you Obama.

:43:35.:43:39.

I want to make sure people know precisely why I'm running for

:43:39.:43:44.

President, and the answer is simple. # What's up gangster

:43:44.:43:47.

# I love people # I was born and raised here

:43:47.:43:51.

# I love this state # I love cars

:43:51.:43:53.

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