Questions And Answers - (RTE 1, Monday)
Decade Of Dance - (Network 2, Sunday)
Fair City - (RTE 1, Tuesday and Thursday), (RTE 1, Tuesday)
Law, class and culture, no less - RTE television focused this week on subjects you might expect to find more readily in an Open University sociology module. Analysis of law and class was, of course, prompted by the upheavals generated by the Sheedy affair. Naturally, the fallout forced itself to the forefronts of the Questions And Answers and Prime Time agendas. With eerie coincidence, law and class was also a central theme in Fair City's rape trial. "Culture", whatever the word means nowadays, was sprayed around Treo? and Decade Of Dance like gun licences in hick America.
Two journalists and two politicians flanked presenter John Bowman around the desk of Questions And Answers. The five pondered the question of whether or not there is a class bias in Irish legal circles. There cannot but be, was, in essence, the argument of one of the journalists, Gerry O'Regan, editor of The Star, that paragon of sensitive, class warrior journalism. After all, he continued, the legal elite tend to come from broadly similar backgrounds; attend similar, usually fee-paying schools; enjoy the same sports and pastimes, and often socialise together.
Fair enough. It would be difficult to argue cogently against O'Regan's remarks. But it was striking, too, that all five at the table were middle-class themselves. Might there be a class bias in Irish media and political circles, especially among the media and political elites? Logically, following O'Regan's argument, there cannot but be. OK, it might be different in tenor and temperament, to that characteristically found among lawyers. But, even if the popularly believed (rightly or wrongly) sweeping adjectives of liberal for media people, conservative for legal eagles and opportunistic for politicians are applied, the reality remains: class bias is inevitably endemic in Irish society.
Sure, it's more starkly apparent among the legal elite. Given its power and its feudal-like hierarchies and initiations, heavily ritualised and stylised, the law is alienating (and arguably deliberately so) for many people. Media hierarchies are not as theatrical or obvious but, when and where it matters, they can be equally effective. News organisations seldom tire of reminding the public of how essential they are for democracy. Again, that's fair enough. But the internal structures of news organisations are at least as hierarchical as those in most other businesses.
Anyway, the debate progressed. Politicians Brian Cowen and Brendan Howlin, and the other journalist, Geraldine Kennedy, made predictably measured, if less potent, contributions than O'Regan had done. One of them argued however, that Judge Hugh O'Flaherty's doing the honourable thing by resigning had restored the integrity of the judiciary. Well now, that was a bit simplistic and naff - the judge's resignation had, it's true, restored much of his own integrity. But the issue of unavoidable class bias, even given the checks and balances of the legal process, could not be elided quite so readily.
Not that journalists or politicians can escape the hook either. Who can? The archetypal, centre-left voting, liberal journalist may argue that he or she is consciously on the side of less privileged people. But some form of anti-authority outlook - at a minimum, measured scepticism - is almost a prerequisite in journalism, if the job of monitoring/ decoding establishment propaganda and holding society's power centres responsible to the public is to be avidly pursued. Conversely, a pro-authority outlook for lawyers (given the power of the law they serve and, presumably, their genuine faith in its ability to dispense justice) has an obvious place and function.
Perhaps we should leave it to the psychologists (another, by and large, middle-class group!) to explain how unconscious evaluation can sometimes help determine perception and how each of us subconsciously structures social reality. But, when attempts are made to objectify the issue of class, the media and political elites might look in the mirror even when, as in this case, they have rightly identified the dangers of class bias among another very powerful group. A degree of self-consciousness - seldom lacking among TV pundits and presenters - was, ironically, badly needed on this week's Q&A.
In the end, questions of power and authority and the formation of public opinion - all within the orbits of politics, law and the media - tend towards ideological answers or weary, folk-wisdom aphorisms such as "one law for the rich and another law for the poor". Perhaps the most pervasive form of insidious and vulgar class bias in these times is to be found in television advertising. You know the stuff: "humorous" working-class accents being patronised by smarmy business-class accents, deemed to have a greater authority, reliability and cachet. There's not much point in trying to change all that - the task is just to understand the motives and results of the drivel you're being fed.
The motive behind the making and screening of Decade Of Dance was to celebrate the growth of Irish club "culture". Well, why not, I suppose. If frenetic dancing, bare chests, exposed brassieres, overt sexuality, smoke, strobe lights, personal projection, Ecstasy, "chilling" and grabbing your crotch while leppin' about having a good time is culture, so be it. Broadly similar carry-on used simply to be called "having fun". Still, semantics apart, there was an appropriate energy about this eulogy, which reflected the high energy of 1990s nightclub life.
But eulogy it was. Indeed, this was a eulogy on speed in which even memories of euphoria were sufficient to prompt embarrassing guff about "religious feelings" being experienced by ravers. One DJ, recalling a particularly euphoric gig, slipped in an analogy, likening his role to that of a priest celebrating Mass. Raised above and facing the gyrating throng, he performed the sacred duties of playing pop music. Fair enough, many of the DJs had more to offer than, say, Tony Blackburn. But a respect for proportion wouldn't go astray either.
There are subjective and generational perspectives to dance music, of course. The generation that thought Lonnie Donegan cool when, during the 1950s skiffle craze, he played a washboard, undoubtedly saw themselves as a kind of youth movement avant garde. Likewise the people watching and listening to the technicians-as-musicians brigade manipulating computer sounds for their contemporaries to have religious experiences.
So, you're either part of the scene or you're not. Certainly, though it seemed wildly overstated at times, there can be a creative aspect to dance music DJ-ing. But again, as with the "culture", "religious experience" and "creativity" ascribed to this phenomenon, there was a Woodstock-scale aggrandisement about much of this eulogy which grated. A diddley-eye opening, footage from Puck Fair in 1965, of dancing during the showband era and of people saving hay in Dev's Ireland, sought to suggest a lineage of dance and general culture which was far from totally convincing.
Yes, people have always liked to dance but there was an arbitrariness about the selection of such images. Why not 1970s John Travolta disco naffness or even punters strutting their stuff to Simple Simon or The Birdie Song? Both, after all, have been, eh, performed, in clubs down the years. But, like an embarrassing old uncle, I suppose, they were kept safely from sight. Dance music, for all its cool and cred, will probably, in 20 years time, look and sound as ridiculous as glam, disco and skiffle can now. Time will tell. Meanwhile, as with earlier manifestations of popular music "culture", a business-class of wide boys and girls will have cashed-in on their contemporaries' religious experiences.
None the less, the pace and style (emailish lower case captions, strobey camerawork, unusual angles) of Decade Of Dance was fitting. One aspect of it however, raised questions. The Cork dance scene was feted above all others. In Cork, the scene was deemed to have an authenticity, vibrancy and soul which Dublin, where it was too often a mere fashion, could not match. This may be true but, when you realised that the programme came out of RTE Cork, such an assessment raised questions about parochial perspectives. Then again, "culture", like politics, does, doesn't it?
MEANWHILE, back in Dublin, Fair City finally got to its most hyped episodes since the Celine Dion-assisted death of Helen Doyle last year. The rape trial of Dr Jack Shanahan began, reflecting issues of law and class which were occupying the media on the front pages and tops of news bulletins. Would the dirty doc be found guilty of raping wholesome, workingclass Lorraine Molloy? Would they all be geriatrics by the time RTE had wrung the last, lingering drop from a storyline which began so long ago that it kicked off when Manchester United didn't have the measure of even Monaco, never mind Juventus?
The RTE Guide put the feuding pair on its cover. Regular television ads warned that it would all come to a violent and shocking end. It sounded as though Sam Peckinpah was about to direct Tolka Row. Well, this week's episodes have, like the early period in Turin for Juventus, gone Dr Jack's way. In fairness, the acting - even allowing for the stereotyping of the lawyers - has been largely commendable. The character of the dirty doc has always required a major suspension of disbelief - he seems too precious and wimpish to be genuinely menacing - but his gloating will, no doubt, have punters keen to see him have his stethoscope shoved down his throat.
Still, the fact that, in a soap opera morality play, good must finally win out, means that the tension, such as it is, is fatally undermined. In soap, character is destiny and social position and status can't save this creep. But the real world, as we know, is not always quite like that. Fair enough, I suppose - Fair City will inevitably satisfy the conventions of its genre - but the inevitable outcome of restoring faith in Irish law to overcome class bias jars with the public mood at present. Anyway, having found an issue with resonance, RTE is determined, as it was with the absurdly melodramatic death of Helen, to flog it, arguably beyond its natural life.
Of course, the promise of "a violent and shocking end" recognises that viewers can anticipate the upshot, if not the detail, of the final outcome. There is, then, a conservatism about the entire gig which incidental dramatics cannot mask. For all that, though, the issue is a relevant one. But the great pity remains that there is a kind of violation of viewers' emotions by promising them a drawn-out series of twists and an over-the-top conclusion. If, in ratings-driven television, this falls short of rape, it's still a form of molestation because its appeal is constructed with advertisers, at least as much as viewers, in mind.
Finally, back to culture - or, at any rate, the culture of "culture". Treo? is a new bilingual series which wonders whether or not "Gaelic Ireland's sacred cows can survive the Celtic Tiger"? Given the cliched language and animal imagery of such metaphors, it might be considered a form of Zoo TV. It might also be considered that a culture which talks in such terms is already in trouble. Anyway, this week's opening episode began with a rush of images: Dev in his pomp; Croke Park in the heyday of the Catholic Tiger; the arrival of plane travel heralding the highpoint of semi-state glamour. Decade Of Dance had used very similar material.
Michael D. Higgins railed against the growing "philistinism" of the glib freemarketeers. Curling his lip, he injected vehement disdain into condemning "conversations in the chambers of commerce about foreign holidays and makes of cars". Mind you, in fairness to him, he did remark, over grainy footage of a religious procession, that it wasn't so long ago that "we were marching determinedly back to the 16th century". And therein is the crux, isn't it? Deciding which aspects of traditional Ireland and which of the new are of value is a contentious business.
A magnificently condescending and plummy Movietone newsreel voiceover spoke about "Irish peasants sharing their cottage with a pig". The assumptions of superiority in the prig's patronising delivery were, of course, repulsive. Yet, the equally casual assumptions and patronising tones of much of 1990s Ireland are little better. Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill pointed out that Irish language elitists behaved just as coarsely in Dev's country. And, of course, many did. But the isolationist Ireland of that time and the integrationist country of, say, the dance music generation ("dance music breaks down cultural barriers," claimed one DJ) have a commonality of tone which is not always admitted.
Anyway, in a week in which law, class and culture shifted, unusually, from being background forces into much sharper focus, Treo? was timely. Again, it was a middle-class view of things cultural, not that that invalidates it in any way, but it does put it in some perspective. Rest assured that a force as formidable as free-market economics will mine Irish culture for profit. Phillip King suggested as much and he didn't even have to mention Riverdance. One final point: does anybody know what "diglossia" - a word which appeared in a Treo? subtitle - means? There is a strong relationship between language and culture, isn't there? Diglossia, no less! Diglossia!