fullfathomfive
25-10-2007, 07:02 PM
http://www.culturewars.org.uk/2006-01/stupidgits.htm
The Public Information Film (PIF) is a televisual constant, to a greater or lesser degree. The authorities have always seen television as an ideal forum for telling people what to do and letting them know what is good for them.
No-one tries to tell us about the dangers of polystyrene ceilings anymore.
There is a strong strain of 'the public are idiots' running through these films in these years.
This also makes good use of the stentorian tone (here, Donald Pleasance, elsewhere Patrick Allen, Valentine Dyall or Michael Jayston) that is part teacher, part apocalyptic preacher, which would crop up time and again.
But people are not just idiots; they are actively threatening - 'Where's your lad?' (1980) drips with fear of urban youth, attempting to strike the same fear into parents. He is a bastard, and you are idiot parents.
PIFS are also indicators, like adverts and programmes, of their society. Accordingly, 'Young Workers' (1973) assumes a large section of the audience will be working in factories, and will also be idiots.
'Jobs for Women' (1970) seems very patronising - encouraging young women to get careers rather than jobs - but is made for an society where this concept was relatively fresh and the employers did not need to pay equal wages for the same jobs.
Now we have the idiot who is also so culturally ignorant he can only be reached by an allegory with a fashionable shoot 'em up.
Our culture has problems with young people: how to create them, what they are here for, how to teach them, what do with them when they behave badly, that are probably universal but seem increasingly acute.
An internet search bring up only five references to a PIF known as 'The Natural Born Smoker', shown at tea time in 1985, in which a man sits in some kind of laboratory, with his grossly distended finger and tiny ears (he never listens).
It is hard to escape the conclusion that though it seems aimed at adults, the real targets are people just about to start on sexual activities.
You can sense this fear in some other, more apocalyptic PIFs. 'Rabies Outbreak' (1976) suggests a future world in which all stray animals would be destroyed, and in which we would actively live in fear of animals.
The implication is that foreigners live this way all the time. An alternate world in which things we take for granted are smashed.
The belief in the munificent Authority certainly seemed at the time to be fading: the concept that the government could tell you how to lift properly, to wear white at night, to tidy up as you went to bed, or to cook all three courses of a meal in the oven at the same time was losing credibility.
'If however, you have had a body in the house for more than five days, and if it is safe to go outside, then you should bury the body for the time being in a trench.' This is clearly aimed at the small percentage who might actually benefit from this advice.
Valuable advice for all.
The Public Information Film (PIF) is a televisual constant, to a greater or lesser degree. The authorities have always seen television as an ideal forum for telling people what to do and letting them know what is good for them.
No-one tries to tell us about the dangers of polystyrene ceilings anymore.
There is a strong strain of 'the public are idiots' running through these films in these years.
This also makes good use of the stentorian tone (here, Donald Pleasance, elsewhere Patrick Allen, Valentine Dyall or Michael Jayston) that is part teacher, part apocalyptic preacher, which would crop up time and again.
But people are not just idiots; they are actively threatening - 'Where's your lad?' (1980) drips with fear of urban youth, attempting to strike the same fear into parents. He is a bastard, and you are idiot parents.
PIFS are also indicators, like adverts and programmes, of their society. Accordingly, 'Young Workers' (1973) assumes a large section of the audience will be working in factories, and will also be idiots.
'Jobs for Women' (1970) seems very patronising - encouraging young women to get careers rather than jobs - but is made for an society where this concept was relatively fresh and the employers did not need to pay equal wages for the same jobs.
Now we have the idiot who is also so culturally ignorant he can only be reached by an allegory with a fashionable shoot 'em up.
Our culture has problems with young people: how to create them, what they are here for, how to teach them, what do with them when they behave badly, that are probably universal but seem increasingly acute.
An internet search bring up only five references to a PIF known as 'The Natural Born Smoker', shown at tea time in 1985, in which a man sits in some kind of laboratory, with his grossly distended finger and tiny ears (he never listens).
It is hard to escape the conclusion that though it seems aimed at adults, the real targets are people just about to start on sexual activities.
You can sense this fear in some other, more apocalyptic PIFs. 'Rabies Outbreak' (1976) suggests a future world in which all stray animals would be destroyed, and in which we would actively live in fear of animals.
The implication is that foreigners live this way all the time. An alternate world in which things we take for granted are smashed.
The belief in the munificent Authority certainly seemed at the time to be fading: the concept that the government could tell you how to lift properly, to wear white at night, to tidy up as you went to bed, or to cook all three courses of a meal in the oven at the same time was losing credibility.
'If however, you have had a body in the house for more than five days, and if it is safe to go outside, then you should bury the body for the time being in a trench.' This is clearly aimed at the small percentage who might actually benefit from this advice.
Valuable advice for all.