Clive Caines Cultural Contributor
If you who have had the kind of education that included knowledge of Greco-Roman culture you may be familiar with Decimus Junius Juvenalis otherwise known as Juvenal. For this article I wish to look at Juvenal’s satirical phrase ‘bread and circuses’: the interest here being that whenever the phrase is usually to draw attention to the fact that the masses are being duped by those in positions of power.
Any major event that takes the public away from noticing the full extent of the economic crisis currently enveloping the world is ripe for being cynically labelled as ‘bread and circuses’. In the past year the UK have had Kate and William’s wedding and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations to distract them from economic woe.
This summer sport has been the major distracter: we’ve had the European football championships; the Wimbledon tennis tournament; test cricket tours from the West Indies, Australia and South Africa and, probably most importantly in terms of the level of public attention, the Olympics and the Para-Olympics. In all of these events national flags can be seen fluttering in the wind, draped around shoulders, painted on faces or adorning the chest’s of spectators.
If the sight of flag waving hordes sharing their love of nation raises the hackles of socialists who believe in the notion of ‘false consciousness’ then what is watched on television must have them weeping with despair. Who can blame concerned socialists when television seems happy to throw up an endless diet of reality programmes such as The Real Housewives series, ‘Ice Road Truckers’ or the partially scripted programmes like ‘Made in Chelsea’. Reality television has no problem finding the sort of people that make you wonder how man-kind managed to muster the wit to fly to the moon – rest in peace Neil Armstrong at least you won’t have to spend long winter nights wondering who’ll be ‘America’s Next Top Model’ or who’ll triumph in Gordon Ramsey’s ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ – little wonder that there are many who cite television for dumbing down its viewers.
Photo courtesy iipdigital.usembassy.gov
‘Bloomberg View’ columnist and author of “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” Alice Schroeder feels that, dumbed down television aside, too much circus can have a negative impact on a nations economy: “When entertainment dominates a society, it changes more than the culture; it also reshapes the economy.You can see that circuses are where the money is from the rise of digital entertainment, which has steered enormous amounts of discretionary income toward digital content and the devices that run it: laptops, televisions, gaming consoles, smart phones. In the decade leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, the only major industry other than health care that consistently showed strong real growth was consumer electronics.
Although hit hard by the recession, spending on digital media has now begun to rebound. The question is who benefits. We produce a lot of content, yet most of the devices it comes on are not made in the U.S.”
It’s hard to ignore Schroeder’s point, especially when she can point to the Roman Empire’s obsession with the circuses of gladiatorial contests, chariot races and public executions as providing a historical precedent. However I’d like to suggest that the message of “bread and circuses” doesn’t have to be about a cynical elite that wants to pull the wool over the eyes of the masses. Take the contrast between London up in flames last summer and London currently having a summer of love with the Olympics and Paralympics: one suggests a London of no hope, no future the other suggests a London of any thing is possible.
Now I stand to be accused of swallowing the media’s view of the impact of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, the Olympic Games and
West Indies Cricket team. Photo courtesy dominica-weekly.com
the Paralympics but I see these events as positive and unifying. My view is based on the range of people seen demonstratively supporting team GB and flying the GB colours.
Twenty years ago the union jack all but disappeared from public view given that it was so heavily associated with a narrow conservative view of the world. Anyone attending the Olympic Games couldn’t help but notice that what it means to be British is being redefined with the range of people carrying the Union Jack. It is also striking that having the world on its doorstep has encouraged London residents to smile at one another and their visitors, if this is what “bread and circuses” can be used for then I’m all for it.
It is not just London that can be changed for the better through major public events: petty board level squabbles aside it is quite clear that West Indies test cricket is a unifying force for the Caribbean. It also helps to foster an alternative identity for those Diaspora children whose parents came from the Caribbean.
