Monday 14 May 2012

JOEY BARTON, NEO-DADAIST


I don't wish to comment on Joey Barton's latest piece of performance art, but I continue to be intrigued by his portrayal in the mainstream press. This today from The Guardian's Five Things We Learned From the Premier League This Weekend:

For all that he has tried to reinvent his image this season and make himself the poster boy for fascinated intellectuals with little interest in football – mainly by showcasing an in-depth knowledge of where the CTRL C and V keys are on a keyboard – this was Barton at his worst: vicious, thoughtless and selfish.

Interesting, this, given that, as I believe Jon Bon Jovi once put it: "THE VAST MAJORITY OF BRITISH JOURNALISM ADOPTS EXACTLY THIS NAKEDLY ERSATZ APPROACH TO THE USE OF LITERARY QUOTATION".

But seriously, if you don't believe me, check out something like this, from the New Statesman. In my experience, this is what most reviews in these sorts of publications (TLS, Guardian, LRB, etc) look like. You begin a piece by parachuting in some quotation/anecdote from somewhere or other as a way of showing off erudition and wide-reading. Okay, you could defend this on postmodern grounds (all writing is quotation blah blah), or by arguing that alluding to others shows a certain scholarly deference, but more often than not the contemporary habit is much closer to a wider culture of casual namedropping and the gossipy, celebrity-ish adoration of Great Men and Women. Merely adopting this stylistic tic is a sort of class password, a shibboleth of sophistication, a fast-track to the inner circles of court.

As such, isn't Joey Barton actually doing something quite interesting, quite revealing, in recognising that this simple methodology is a shortcut to power and influence in the modern mediascape? See also his fawnish Twitter exchanges with Piers Morgan and Alan Sugar (ie. the most repellent, reptilian Great Men in the postmodern universe). Why is Barton any different from those journalists who wheel out risible morsels of Philip Larkin's un-poetry for the umpteenth time in articles about the sixties? Why are his quotations of Smiths lyrics a topic of condescension and ridicule, while J.K. Rowling/David Cameron/Boris Johnson have adopted exactly the same point of reference as a way of shoring up the intellectual/moderately-radical-in-youth side of their PR bios?

Why are Barton's displays of erudition automatically dismissed as fake opportunism? Might I take the opportunity, by way of an answer, to reintroduce an old-fashioned phrase that is unfortunately becoming increasingly apposite in all kinds of contexts right now: class prejudice.

Not saying Barton isn't a tool, of course. I just think it's important we try to ascertain exactly what kind of tool.

2 comments:

Alex said...

Watching yesterday all I could think is why was Barton the first player I'd seen react like that to a red card? Tevez, Terry, Gerrard, Fabregas have all done things on the pitch at Molineux to drive me furious and left unsanctioned. I could totally understand a player having such a reaction to gamesmanship or perceived injustice. Lord knows people in the stands would. To this day I wonder in awe how Fergie managed to reconcile Rooney with Ronaldo post-World Cup.

I completely agree with your analysis r.e. class prejudice - I can't bring myself to join the Barton-hate bandwagon 100% for exactly that reason.

Why does he seem so keen to pick the wrong fights though? He took Karl Henry's game against him when he was at Newcastle personally, refusing to appreciate a fellow professional's attempts to force a game, but then tries so hard to impress Guardian journalists who are only ever going to hate him...

Alex said...

Incidentally, haven't you ever wondered why it is, with all the many avenues for money to leave the game illicitly, the main talking point about financial abuse in the game always seems to come back to player wages?

Agents can syphon off millions, Russian oligarchs and oil-men can buy trophies, spiritual homes can be sold off for housing estates, Cardiff can float the idea of playing in red etc. etc. and yet so many seem to claim that the real death of football lies in reasonably talented chavs being paid more than those in respectable professions.