Across the isles, cups of tea have been spilt over a very public culture battle between a political representative and music heavyweight.
By Kate-Marie Thorpe
British singer James Blunt is biting back after UK Shadow Culture Minister and Labor MP Chris Bryant labelled him “blooming precious”.
The row erupted shortly after Eddie Redmayne’s Golden Globe award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in ‘The Theory of Everything’. Bryant spoke to The Guardian on Friday regarding the private school upbringing of some of the Great Britain’s most talented emerging performers:
“I am delighted that Eddie Redmayne won [a Golden Globe for best actor], but we can’t just have a culture dominated by Eddie Redmayne and James Blunt and their ilk. Where are the Albert Finneys and the Glenda Jacksons? They came through a meritocratic system.”
In his defence, the indie-pop musician fired back a letter to Bryant on Monday, claiming his private boarding school upbringing in fact worked against his favour while attempting to break into the music industry.
Critics labelled his soft tones and accent ‘too posh’ for the likes of commercial success, but his billboard topping hits ‘You’re Beautiful’ and ‘Bonfire Heart’ suggest otherwise. Blunt’s full letter reads:
Dear Chris Bryant MP,
You classist gimp. I happened to go to a boarding school. No one helped me at boarding school to get into the music business. I bought my first guitar with money I saved from holiday jobs (sandwich packing!). I was taught the only four chords I know by a friend. No one at school had ANY knowledge or contacts in the music business, and I was expected to become a soldier or a lawyer or perhaps a stockbroker. So alien was it, that people laughed at the idea of me going into the music business, and certainly no one was of any use.
In the army, again, people thought it was a mad idea. None of them knew anyone in the business either.
And when I left the army, going against everyone’s advice, EVERYONE I met in the British music industry told me there was no way it would work for me because I was too posh. One record company even asked if I could speak in a different accent. (I told them I could try Russian).
Every step of the way, my background has been AGAINST me succeeding in the music business. And when I have managed to break through, I was STILL scoffed at for being too posh for the industry.
And then you come along, looking for votes, telling working class people that posh people like me don’t deserve it, and that we must redress the balance. But it is your populist, envy-based, vote-hunting ideas which make our country crap, far more than me and my shit songs, and my plummy accent.
I got signed in America, where they don’t give a stuff about, or even understand what you mean by me and “my ilk”, you prejudiced wazzock, and I worked my arse off. What you teach is the politics of jealousy. Rather than celebrating success and figuring out how we can all exploit it further as the Americans do, you instead talk about how we can hobble that success and “level the playing field”. Perhaps what you’ve failed to realise is that the only head-start my school gave me in the music business, where the VAST majority of people are NOT from boarding school, is to tell me that I should aim high. Perhaps it protected me from your kind of narrow-minded, self-defeating, lead-us-to-a-dead-end, remove-the-‘G’-from-‘GB’ thinking, which is to look at others’ success and say, “it’s not fair.”
Up yours,
James Cucking Funt
The row was not only constricted to print media, with the Twittersphere erupting over the claims. Fans backed the British singer, while others defended the minister’s comments for addressing the need for a change in the system. Blunt himself also tweeted:
Needless to say, the anger-driven burst published in The Guardian was rebutted with another forthright response from Bryant, this time attempting to soften the blow. He said to Blunt:
“I’m delighted you’ve done well for yourself. But it is really tough forging a career in the arts if you can’t afford the enormous fees for drama school, if you don’t know anybody who can give you a leg-up, if your parents can’t subsidise you for a few years whilst you make your name, and if you can’t afford to take on an unpaid internship.”
Since holding the position of Shadow Culture Minister, Bryant has made very public his own thoughts on diversifying the British Arts culture and conquering the divide between the well-off and underprivileged in terms of arts education and participation. He further commented:
“My fear is that someone like Stanley Baker, the son of a disabled miner in the Rhondda, who rose to be one of Britain’s greatest film actors (Zulu), would have found it even harder to make it today.”
No retaliation has been noted from Blunt since. However, the likes of Dame Judy Dench and David Morrissey have given their two-pence worth, with the former exclaiming the economic exclusion and financial obstacles to training have made the profession more elitist.
Image Source: Zimbio Australia
