to Brighton to do her degree and masters and she's found that her ability to fulfill her potential
has um varied in both places obviously she um she feels because of
uh i suppose maybe cultural hegemony hegemony um
insight for us and as a woman she's expected to act in a certain way and be a certain way
and aspire to do a specific thing um fulfill a specific purpose when she came to and she was
always considered a little bit mad when she came to Brighton and she found that she had a lot more
freedom to just kind of uh go for what she really wanted she wasn't judged for it which obviously gave
her it it gave her more confidence within herself to go for it and therefore achieve what she wanted
to achieve felt like she could achieve as well so okay so pause that because this is turning into
a long statement rather than a question the thing is to try and turn that into a question
so what's going on in that for me is there's an issue about conformity yeah you think there's
something in people's environment that's um making them act in a certain way in a certain way
yeah well you know everything's a paradigm and many things are held in a hegemonic state
of conformity which is what you've got in the three films that you've chosen to look at for
time being so the main characters in 1984 The Matrix and V for Vendetta are not managing to conform
with the dominant ideologies of of the power structure above them but they've got to look
like they are so they're in an endless process of sort of trying to fake it till they make it
but realising that they can't because it's not right for them well when you move to somewhere
like Brighton which is as far as it goes in this country a relatively fluid place for sexuality
and identity and it's a fairly eccentric place for kind of looks and aesthetics then
then it's probably not going to get any better than that as a place to be a bit different and
fitting like people expect people to be a bit different in Brighton it's almost the norm in
Brighton is to be a bit different in fact isn't it that perspective as well that people in Brighton
appear a bit more eccentric um is that a perspective relative to how the rest of the
the country might consider them are they actually eccentric or is there something about Brighton
that freedom to just express them so well they have freedom to
express themselves I think it is they're not actually eccentric but relative to yeah it is
relative everything is relative and Brighton relatively speaking is a friendly eccentric
place for the south of England but if you go to the north of England people are twice as friendly
well once you start going to Manchester Sheffield Leeds or anywhere around there people look you
in the eye and say hello just for the sake of it and nobody thinks they want something from you I
mean it's really different so Brighton is special in relation to the rest of the south
and and then what happens is you kind of get a like attracts like thing so
so is Brighton the gay capital of Europe I don't know it's that it's had that claim for a long
time so a lot of people when they're thinking about coming to university if they've got gender
sexuality issues and they think they might be coming out to their family in the next few years
well then clearly Brighton's a good place to do that you might as well have a good time with it
you know so there's it brings people who've got issues to work with in that realm to this place
because it's a relatively safe place I don't really know what it's about with the fashion and
style factors of Brighton I think it's a mixture of a bit of fallout from London and maybe a bit
of influence from Europe and it's kind of a bit of a melting pot thing it's just like it I don't
really know it's one it's very hard to take it back to where it started but I do know that Brighton
in the 70s was a shithole I mean it wasn't a trendy place it was like Hastings or any other
seaside resort that was a bit run down but there were enough people that for some reason were into
like new agey thinking and other stuff that started businesses here that brought other people here
and then it just kind of snowballed really but I think there's something the other thing about
conformity I mean Brighton isn't as eccentric as it looks and it isn't as cosmopolitan as it looks
it's got a veneer on it it looks very kind of ethnically diverse but actually most of the
ethnically diverse population of Brighton are passing through quite quickly they're doing courses
or they're here for a teacher in English thing or something like that so they're not really Brighton
residents they're not really staying in the community so I think Brighton is a place that
is not a what you see is what you get a place it's got a lot of allusions to it like The Matrix
and Viva Vendetta in 1984 what you see is not a what what's going on
What I find is that like you said a lot of people just kind of come and pass through here
but then you're getting people from all over the world like literally all over the world will
come to Brighton and then they'll spend their three years here on whatever it is and then
they'll go up in those three years because it's such a diverse place culturally just in so many
ways it will open their minds like more than maybe the uni experience would for people in other
countries and then everyone will go off to other parts of the world and they will work they will
work on whatever their career with what Brighton's also giving them as well yeah kind of open their
mind it's kind of a there's this it's a conducive environment to be a more accepting person of
difference so there's something about Brighton that's maybe impacting how people think and how
they interact with their environment well that's critical mass what you're talking about is critical
mass when you've got enough of the same type of person or the same type of behavior in a space
then it starts to take over so you know pride in Brighton is a really important event because it says
to everybody you know this is a place that you can feel okay about your sexuality and although
there are people in Brighton who won't be okay with that there's more who are so the critical mass
is always what rules isn't it I mean that's what creates the conformity you know if you're one in
a hundred then you are the outsider and the weirdo or whatever but if it's 70 out of a hundred or
either like you or just not bothered or you know as long as you don't bother anybody else do whatever
you like which just kind of feels like what Brighton's like then it attracts more people like that
who are just a bit more open a bit more liberal minded speaking a bit more politically there was
an article on the BBC recently also relevant to media how it can shape how we think there was an
article with the headline lowest trained price rise in however many years it was but the way they
phrased it and within the article as well is that we should the British public should be thankful
that this is the lowest trained price rise yeah in a long time and that's a BBC article and obviously
there's going to be a certain amount of bias and do you think do you think that the media can be used
to kind of shape how the general public think yeah of course they can and that's a classic example
of hegemony isn't it that things are shit but it could be worse
so be grateful for small mercies I mean that's a classic you know that's what hegemony came from
Gramsci who was imprisoned by Mussolini and Mussolini was a communist dictator and he his
understanding of hegemony was you can make everybody do what you say because you're a
dictator and you've got armed forces who point a gun at people and say you either do what I say
or I'll kill you most people will do it but it takes a lot of work to point a gun at millions
of people I mean that's a that's a difficult task it's much easier if they just do it because you
throw a cloak of something over them go tell you what I don't agree with the church but I'm going
to let you carry on going to church but otherwise you've got to do it as I say I'm throwing you a
bone I'm placating you it's the opening of the masses or whatever you know you get thrown a bone
so then you don't you just kept bubbling under that point where you'd rebel or kick off because
you've got something and you don't want to lose that it's better than nothing I mean that's that's
kind of where hegemony came from as a concept so and nearly always what comes along with it is what
we've got with you know UKIP now is blame the minorities blame somebody for everything being
wrong and propose that you're going to solve it by getting rid of those people I mean it's not a
new story that is it look at all the great dictators look at Hitler and all those lot like
here's a problem it's their fault don't worry we're going to get rid of them and we'll solve the
problem you know and we're there again I mean we haven't learned from history we're absolutely
there again I suppose I don't know there was another article I came across it's a bit different it's
about perspective how we perceive other people there was an article about what was the most
perfect face shape or what yeah and that was based on it was a study done by a group of people
based on what they knew up until that point and obviously like back hundreds thousands of years
ago is there the statues of how who who was that Greek sculpture who sculpted what he believed to
be like the most beautiful woman do you mean Michelangelo yeah and she was uh this obviously
like quite a voluptuous kind of kind of lady and obviously uh within this article it seems a
perspective of like like most uh true beauty is obviously very different now
well that's just a fashion though isn't it I mean there's different concepts of beauty are
there are things around ratios and proportions particularly around face that are when people
say that beauty is in the eye of behold it's not necessarily true you know there are face types that
everybody thinks are more attractive because they've got perspective as well isn't it that's just
well what they've the information they've been given since birth on ideals well I don't know I
don't know if it is that's that's that's the debate isn't it that's the nature nurture debate
is you know are you born hardwired up that there's certain it's something like the the
the the distance if the distance between your eye center is the same as the distance between
your nose and your top lip that's very good and it's just like proportions sort of stuff
that looks right it just looks right or it looks pretty whatever but then body shape and style and
all that kind of stuff that's that's a sort of fashion that blows around when the winds of time
a bit more but fashion is another form of conformity that's the link between what you're talking about
before because you were talking about something that looks right because one year something
let's say like flares used to be really popular people would look at them and be like oh yeah that
looks great I want to wear flares well I did when I was a lad yeah nowadays the same people would
laugh at the idea of wearing flares properly I imagine there are many cases of that well I
tell them else looking at something just knowing it looks right yeah well you know when I was 13
and I became a punk there were only flares in the world there weren't you couldn't get straight
like jeans you had to get your mum to take your flares in and when I did get my mum to take my
flares in which involves cutting a v out and kind of tidying them up people actually pointed at me
and stopped to me on the street and went shit stoppers that's what they used to call them
because they weren't flared it's like oh shit stoppers at that point in time I was definitely
not conforming with the dominant fashion but it was so avant-garde it was so new that people
didn't even know that what I was doing was a fashion it wasn't a fashion it was it was a deliberate
breaking of of that I don't know a hegemonic aesthetic might be taking it a bit far but
it was definitely a breaking point of flares had had the day punk put a nail in that coffin along
with other things but then three years later everybody had got straight legs on and then that
was just another fashion so always what happens is you've got the avant-garde or the cutting edge
is really weird for a while and then everybody copies it jumps on board that train and then
that's it it's just another fashion then isn't it which is another form of conformity there seems
to be a theme of everyone feeling like they should be doing what everyone else is doing
well it seems to be by and large what human most human beings want to be accepted and the best way
to do that is to is to conform and there's obviously ways that people will abuse that to
get what they want I guess people in power
yeah well people are very easy to manipulate aren't they I mean I can't remember the documentary
maker's name but there's a documentary about how before the 1930s the american british governments
sold a dream which was of a utopian and perfect dream of what your life could be fantasy which
was kind of emerging consumerism at the time but then the wall street crash that happened in the
30s where capitalism just collapsed the government suddenly realized they couldn't sell that fantasy
anymore because it'd fallen to bits so what they realized was you don't sell your people a fantasy
vision of the future you sell them a nightmare that is a fake it till you make it thing which
does kind of work in some environments if you want to look brave then you have to be brave
and then you look brave and then you are brave but if you're acting that isn't natural is it
so being that this isn't natural I'm relatively natural with it because I've been interviewed
so many times on I'm used to the kit so there's a point where if you do something enough you
kind of internalize it and then that's the fake it so you make it thing but you're talking about
acting natural in relation to conformity and fitting into a hegemonic paradigm you know
that feels like the right thing to do but actually you're being duped by the powers that be who are
just going that's well that's what we want great throw them another bone and you know get them
divided up so that they're all throwing stones at each other and then we'll have a nice time in our
castles and mansions or whatever we seem to be given a certain idea of what make it using fake
it till you make it like you can't act natural but also we're giving this idea that of what making
it actually is and that's obviously within like we're in maybe in a bit of a trap we are in a
trap because we know that the symbols of aspiration of our society are money sexiness looks kind of
of getting stuff getting material stuff so you know winning the lottery woo so you buy five cars
shag loads of people do loads of drugs go on holiday and then what you know it doesn't there's no
evidence that that makes anybody happier very little evidence to to indicate that that kind of
stuff makes people happy every rock and roll band on the planet you know they do the first album
it's angsty kind of edgy album great then they get more popular and then they get more drugs and
more groupies and then they kind of get another popular record and then by the time they're on
the third or fourth album nearly every time they've imploded because there's only times you can
shag somebody because they're knowing that they don't even know who you are they're just
they've got an idea of something that they think is you because your face has been on the telly or
whatever and it's a house of cards you know it doesn't make any sense plus we've created role
models of our society who are models footballers and pop stars I mean they're the least likely people
to have any kind of thing to bring to the table in terms of any kind of use to society there are
liars actors pop stars models we seem to be incredibly important and what's that about why do we aspire
to that why why do we do that why do we put those people on a ridiculous pedestal and aspire to be
like that if you go to India or a society that's a little bit less obsessed with that it's getting
more so now but you know I suspect that at least 50 years ago in India I suspect that your aspirational
figures might be my uncle John who's a really good upstanding member of society or you know
a political spiritual leader or somebody who's got a bit of integrity I'd like to be a bit more
like that I mean who's that in our society Russell Brand you know that's the best we've got is an
ex junkie comedian he's fucked up so anyway your job isn't to try and put the world to
rights your job is just to do a dissertation so please will you just come up with a question
that you can lead what you're doing for the next few weeks and then once we've done the
pre-production stuff we can review it again but just keep something about those three films that
you've got pull out some clips that start to help you tell a story about power oppression
paradigms hegemony control conformity manipulation and I'd recommend watching zeitgeist and I'd
recommend watching utopia as well but don't use them as a main source just see if anything out of
that helps trigger what's going on made the force be with you
