Mood: Oh the irony!
Music: T Rex - 20th Century Boy

Ah yes, I know I am biased. He’s British and I love it when Brits take the piss out of Americans (because let’s face it–they make it too easy!) but I was actually completely unaware of the whole MTV shadoodle!

If you are wondering to which shadoodle I am referring, then cast your eyes here.

Ah Russell… the good old Essex bloke who doesn’t understand that while we over here are very good at taking the piss out of ourselves and everyone else (See: Have I Got News For You), some people just can’t take a joke. Now I know the few people who read this are American so I don’t want this to seem like I’m taking a shot at you–I like Americans generally–but I do have to admit to finding the country completely bizarre a lot of the time.

What Brand said was hilarious, I haven’t even seen clips of it but just reading what he said is enough to make him a legend. Calling Bush a “retarded cowboy”?! Comon, admit it–you were thinking it too.

To be honest I can understand the shock Americans suffered at the hands of Brand’s err… brand of humor; Americans are patriotic to the point of being nationalistic and a great majority still support Bush after everything he and his administration are responsible for. Voting him in the first time around knowing who’s loins he sprung from is somewhat forgivable; voting him in again after he pissed on American civil liberty followed by wiping his arse on his ‘Habeas Corpus tissue paper’ is–let’s face it–completely irredeemable. But since (and yes, I’m generalizing here) there is this great ignorance amongst a lot of Americans regarding world politics and how not only Bush, but America itself is percieved by the rest of the world, then it is understandable they would scream bloody Mary at Brand’s cowboy canoodling. Yee-haw.

The backlash Brand has suffered since hosting the MTV Video Music Awards has been staggering, and generally rather amusing! Many crazed Americans are calling for him to be banned from the country and of course out came the obligatory “you wouldn’t have won the war without us!”-type comments. It’s gone up a notch now with the numerous wars the US have started world over, it’s all about how if we want America to come save us from Iranian nukes we better shut the hell up and get back to wallowing in our jealousy of America and it’s people! You know, personally, I’m just waiting for the USA to implode and then break down into smaller insignificant countries USSR-stylee.

I kinda got this vibe that Americans think they are the only developed nation in the world (and I use the term developed loosely). More than a few times I came across this notion that Americans feel the rest of the world is jealous of their power and stature. This is a prime example of how little international news makes it into the American consciousness. There are a whole bunch of other countries I would take qualities from before I even sniffed at the USA. Mostly European countries, but Canada is certainly up there too. Doesn’t that just get ya in the nuts eh? “No sorry we’re not jealous of you, but hey those Canadians! Now they have nice clean cities!” Though I’m not sure about the frogs…

Anyway back to Russell… he is a legend over here in the UK. He says what he wants and that’s what we love him for, we don’t hold back over here we tell it like it is and that’s our way of doing things. Like I was saying before, shows like Have I Got News For You and Mock the Week are highly indicative of the type of nation we are–we’re very happy to point out our own faults and laugh at them.
It just seems we’re a bit more street smart than Americans overall, a tad more cynical about the world and that’s just simply realistic. We are patriotic of course, but we will come down like a ton of bricks on our leaders if they put a foot out of line. I’d like to think we were a bit more aware of world affairs too, and we have the BBC to thank for that. We don’t hide from the world in Britain–especially England. Go to London, you’ll see what I mean.

With Russell I think it was simply a case of a Brit being too used to taking the piss out of everything–especially politics, that’s practically what he’s known for over here, so he thought he could swan about and take the piss abroad as well. Russell probably hasn’t learnt his lesson though, and will continue to exercise his freedom of speech in a country that prides itself on being the “home of freedom”. Funny how freedom of speech is ok just as long as you’re not saying something against the masses.

Hypocrisy at it’s best!

Edit: This post has become all the more ironic now that Sachsgate has made Russell a bit of a villian even here! I did say he would probably still keep going and taking things too far! Though in all fairness, the Sachs thing only raised 2 complaints from the public originally, there were “other forces involoved” in making it the big national hoo-har it became. Seriously, look this info up.