Så se dog noget "Bullshit!"

Det er sjældent, man bliver positivt overrasket over, hvad man kan finde på 3+'s TV-programflade–eller for den sags skyld på de fleste andre danske TV-kanalers.  To aftener i denne uge har jeg dog været positivt overrasket–og ganske klækkeligt underholdt, nemlig af de amerikanske tryllekunstnere "Penn & Teller" og deres Emmy-nominerede TV-serie "Bullshit!", som nu kører på 5. sæson i USA.  Egentlig er jeg ikke meget for tryllekunstnere, specielt ikke dem af David Copperfield-typen (omend man da må anerkende mandens magiske evner for tilsyneladende i længere tid at have borttryllet Claudia Schiffers smag og dømmekraft).  Men den store storsnakkende Penn & den lille (bogstaveligt) intetsigende Teller er også noget ganske andet, og dem har jeg syntes godt om siden begyndelsen af 1990erne: Dels er de ret sjove, og dels er de undertiden ufatteligt politisk ukorrekte. 

Det skal jeg vende tilbage til nedenfor, men her foreløbig blot lidt reklame for serien, som altså ikke har så meget at gøre med tryllekunstnere, som den har med … bullshit.  Den handler i al sin enkelhed om–gerne med et godt grin–at afsløre, når folk lader som om de er seriøse, men det de præsenterer er noget skidt.  Så de første par aftener (to afsnit pr. aften) har nogle af mine yndlingsaverisoner fået med grovfilen: clairvoyante; miljø-dommedagsprofeter og Greenpeaceniks, som tror på menneskeskabt global opvarmning; alternativ medicin & alternativ behandling, o.s.v., o.s.v.  Til gengæld har "the good guys" været bl.a. folk fra Cato Institute og Bjørn Lomborg.  Andre afsnit, som ikke har været vist endnu, omhandler bl.a. konspirationsteorier, våbenlovgivning, recykling, passiv rygning o.l.  (Afsnit sendes og genudsendes på 3+: 28/1 22:00, 28/1 22:40, 29/1 23:20, 4/2 22:05, 5/2 23:25.)

Kan man ane en politisk linie?  Måske–og så kommer vi til, at Penn Jillette selv (i lighed med P.J. O'Rourke) er H.L. Mencken Fellow ved … Cato Institute–og ganske libertær i sine udmeldinger:

"Well, I'm a real total-freedom nut, a libertarian, and I'm one of those crazy optimists. Let people do what they want and everything will be okay." (interview, Boston Phoenix, July 2-8, 2004)

"I'm a hardcore libertarian. I want everything legal." (FilmForce.IGN.com website, October 13, 2003.)

"[I am] a Libertarian, pro-freedom, governs-least-governs-best, free market advocate." (Regulation magazine, Summer 2001.)

"We talk an awful lot about whether you have to stop at libertarianism or go on to anarchocapitalism." (Slate.com, February 4, 2006)

Jillette har også taget den såkaldte World's Smallest Political Quiz, hvor han scorede 100 ud af 100. "That was easy", sagde han efterfølgende.

Teller–som aldrig siger et ord i deres trylleshows eller TV-programmer–har været lidt mere fåmælt om politik, men under en online chat på WashingtonPost.com blev han spurgt om, hvem han ville stemme på i 2000, og han svarede:

"I am Libertarian. Democrats and Republicans, well, it's kind of like a 'magician's choice' — two identical incumbent organizations pretending to be different so that we will vote the same old mob back into power. I think our only hope is to support intelligent third-party candidates." (December 29, 2000.)

Penn & Teller er særligt optagede af ytringsfrihed.  Her er, hvad Penn for et årti siden sagde til Reason Magazine om Beavis & Butthead, vold og kunstnerisk ytringsfrihed:

Reason: How do you feel about the Beavis and Butt-head controversy?

Penn: Complete and utter insanity. There's no issue you can find that I could be further on one side of. The fact that Beavis and Butthead–cartoon characters!–are being blamed for things in the real world seems so close to insanity that I can't imagine believing it. There are two ways that I can see to argue this issue of the link between real violence and TV violence. One is to show that there's no [causal link] between the amount of violence someone watches and how they act in the real world. There just isn't. That's one way to go: [Researchers] didn't find anything, so shut up.

The other way to go is to just talk about the moral issue. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, those who sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither. That' s all you need on this issue. The thing I said in The New York Times, which I probably shouldn't have said, since it probably weakens our side, is that, if in a country of 260 million people, all the art that we have done completely freely does end up killing four people a year, that's OK. That's an argument you're not supposed to make because it goes against the weird zero-risk society that we're supposed to be going towards. Even if it would turn out that three people who were predisposed to violence–not just inspired by the stuff, but motivated– committed a crime, that's OK.

One of the problems is that people confuse inspiration with motivation. If I'm the kind of person who's going to kill somebody, whether I do it Taxi Driver style, Beavis and Butt-head style, or Bible style is my decision. As far as I'm concerned, none of those artistic things enter into it at all. If I'm going to [kill] you, I don't care very much whether I light you on fire and say, "Heh, heh, cool," or say, "Suck on this," and shoot you in the stomach.

No one has an idea really of where we should draw the line. What about the Bible? Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around. If you're looking for violent rape imagery, the Bible's right there in your hotel room. If you just want to look up ways to screw people up, there it is, and you're justified because God told you to. You have Shakespeare and you have Sophocles–what are we going to do, lose Oedipus Rex if someone pokes an eye out?"

5 thoughts on “Så se dog noget "Bullshit!"

  1. Morten Holm

    Ja Kurrild, tak for tippet. Så meget desto mere begrædeligt var det samme søndag aften at zappe fra et forrygende Penn & Teller til DR2 Deadlines 2. sektion, hvor Jes Stein havde hevet tre “eksperter” (Richardson, Emmeche…etc.) i studiet for, over en halv time, at diskutere hvordan vi bekæmper de voldsomme klimaændringer. Det havde klædt Deadline at nuancere panelet, for hele tre enige eksperter der klapper hinanden på skulderen er, udover meget kedeligt, også DR i et politisk ærinde når det er værst.

    Svar
  2. Erik Kofoed

    JA! Kurrild skal have enormt mange tak for tippet! Jeg så det for første gang i går, og det er bestemt noget af det bedste, jeg har set i dansk tv i lange tider.Måske skulle man selv prøve at lave en underskriftsindsamling mod det farlige stof dihydrogenmonooxid…;)

    Svar

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