Elite rule?

So the last time I checked, we were supposed to be living in a liberated country, freedom of speech and opportunities for all; yet why am I finding myself stuck in this elitist predicament?

Working back at my old job on the checkouts I see this all the time with the majority of customers treating you like you couldn’t rub two sticks together. A perfect example being a ‘gentleman’ coming to my till and asking for silk cut MOAVE cigarettes? I felt like saying hang-on earlobes... but I replied saying you mean purple, of course he had to get on his high horse and call me colour blind. So I handed him the cigarettes and said oh my mistake, me and silk cut must have got it all wrong. He either could not stand to be corrected by someone on a checkout or someone younger. Kind of makes me laugh because those beliefs will hopefully die out, but it seems unlikely as they get passed down through generations. This is where the media needs to change attitudes and I think Channel 4 do this brilliantly and let the viewer step back and think for themselves. Just like their recent documentary ‘My new brain’, where a bright young student fell from a 20ft wall drunk trying to gain entrance back into a club and was in a coma for 5 months. When he woke he had to start from scratch like a toddler and it was very upsetting and effective. They aired it right before big brother (large teenage audience) and made it relatable. It was there on screen laid out with no judgements; no plea for others to stop drinking, just the story of what happened and that was all that was needed. You tell someone not to do something and they are going to want to do it. I think this documentary caught onto this and engaged the viewer to think for themselves.

I have been at Southampton Solent University for a year now and got an impressive 2.1 for my overall grade, so typically I was in the minority of fellow peers who didn’t have to retake any units. Still why is there this rivalry between the established university and the new? The simple answer is that they think they are better than us, it is a common misconception passed down from generation to generation of elitist attitudes. I have studied a unit like this at my university which consisted of looking at the literary ‘canon’. This is basically a measuring table of literature that is supposed to make you a more educated and cultured person, which nowadays seems like a pretty prehistoric theory, yet it still holds importance. These writers earned their place on the ‘canon’ by either conforming or rejecting the hegemonic (most popular belief) ideology of the time it was written about. Although the ‘canon’ is forever changing it is still bound by the white upper-middle class man’s 20th century ideas. This is why you still get these pompous busybodies trying to make everyone conform to what they believe and rejecting those who don’t or who have different ideas about life and politics. This is what has been passed down to a high percentage of top university students and it therefore becomes a monotonous cycle. Life experience has to hold for something and none of us have the same and we should listen to every voice, not just these rich canonized authors.

That is why I think it is important to have universities like Solent who have different/less routine outlook on this and educate in a way that we have to use our own minds and not rely on what has gone before. I don’t want to rely on what’s gone before I want us to explore ideas; I want us to be creative and innovative. This is what I want and not what they want, and that is why I cannot understand people who are quick to judge. They may call us dumb and I can see why because there are such wasters in the world like the girl I walked past and overheard saying, “I don’t know why my mum’s so mad, at least I got something in the alphabet.” I’m guessing her results weren't... great. But we should not get tarred with the same brush, we try, we are innovative and creative.

Life Imitates art.

My mind has been growing with ideas and aspirations for the future, a quote that entices me to push forward is, “Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations.” This quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray really speaks to me and hearing it spurs me on to fight and chase what I am after in life.


My friends will tell you that I am always thinking and that my mind will not switch off. This personality trait makes me very observant as well as being a key speaker in debates. I believe thinking and reading critically is somewhat innate to me but is a technique we are constantly learning and that language is a manipulative form of expression.

During my first year of study at Solent University I have learnt many criticism theories, my favourite being Post-Colonialism. I chose to write my essay answering a quote from Edward Said’s Orientalism on how colonised writers represent the ‘other’. The novel I chose to do this on was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and how she represents the inhuman and middle-eastern characters. She manipulates the reader into sympathising with the monster, as he has learnt all the European discourses yet because of his deformity cannot join this Eurocentric culture. Later when a Turkish woman called Safie joins the European cottagers she is welcomed because her features are of a “regular proportion” to the patriarchal image they have learnt. Even though Safie has not learnt the European discourses she can still be included in their culture because she will always be subordinate to it and has similarities to the patriarchal image that is idolised.

This theory basically states, we take for granted how strange we must look to other cultural discourses. We take for granted that our imperialism is seen as the norm and that what ‘others’ do is bizarre.

Barthes is a favourite theorist of mine and I work hard to grasp and apply his post-structuralists ideas. Meaning is constantly deferred and we as critics learn as much as we can by reading around the text, yet it is impossible for us to know the meaning exactly. Our learnt discourses are imposed onto the text, that is why the “birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author” (Barthes, R. 1968).

I believe that fiction plays a major part in the movement of cultural ideas. In George Elliot’s novel Daniel Deronda, Gwendolen behaves radically for a woman of the 19th Century, “Gwendolen rather valued herself on her superior freedom in laughing where others might only see matter for seriousness.” This satirical behaviour is popular today and goes to support fiction slowly changing attitudes realistically. Showing that fiction is a way to deal with an emotion tentatively; just like holocaust fiction helps remind the reader how terrible it was. Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Shooting Stars’ supports this theory by having graphic detail so that it burns into our mind so we “Remember. Remember those appalling days which make the world forever bad.” These writers identify inequalities and help culture become more liberal. This is therefore fact portraying fiction, just like Oscar Wilde famous sentence, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”

Closet Case

Thought I’d start off my blogging journey with a subject that is closest to me... being gay. No no this isn’t going to be a winey coming out the closet story gees dry your tears. I told my parents 10 minutes before leaving to go to Brighton gay pride. Got well out of there, left my mum to drink a bottle of wine, crying telling our family and friends. So being a comfortable gay guy I have no hang-ups and enjoying the fun side of this LIFESTYLE CHOICE, yes I did chose this. Never understood that comment what do they want me to reply saying, yes yes... picked it straight out of the Argos catalogue.


So the point is being out for a year now I have started my observing of course... what else? Guess it’s the gay in me, we can be a nosey lot. Being gay and meeting another out gay guy is easy, it’s an attraction based on purely what you look like... it isn’t till later on in bed when you think to yourself, arr right this is what your bringing to the table. Simples but it’s a whole new ball game (excuse the pun) when dealing with a closet case and it simply boils down to this people; they’re idiots. What happens is during the first half a year or so (can be longer) of being out and gay you think every gay guy you then meet is flirting with you or wants you, why else would they be talking to you. This is stupid people, just because the other guy is gay doesn’t mean that you two are going to have sex... but probably.

Closet cases are a strange lot and this came to me when I met a closet case and I guess he thought I wanted him... he was right. But the point is, it made me nervous around him which is so unlike me, I thought he was going to turn round and tell me to leave him alone, but that’s almost impossible when your stalking him, just have to get better at hiding. I wasn’t even bothered with him until I realised he’s cute but I would have to tell him bluntly to fuck off you walking closet you’re so far in the closet you’re chilling with Mr Tumnus... then I’d ask how he was and that it’s been a year since I saw him.

Another thing that really gets on my goat is gay men who hate camp guys and are so straight acting and live their life out like a straight guy... apart from the sex. Although a lot of you would like gay men to all conform like this and to not ‘rub their gayness in your face’, I’m sorry to tell you we don’t live in the 50’s anymore. I’m not that camp myself but I love camp gays, so much fun and if we didn’t have them that where would the west-end be?? And we certainly wouldn’t see Louis doing his high kicks and being a massive diva on TV.

Therefore I love being gay and mothers accept their gay son for who he is... apart from the sex. My biggest fear is growing old and being in the industry I am in, being gay. It seems I’ve only got until I’m 30 to be cute and after that I will just live alone with my cats. Might as well because being gay, single and over 30 is the same as being fat and gay. You’re with the drags again and its last pickings at boy bar, you have a flash back and you find yourself finally feeling sorry for the fat kid who always got picked last in gym. I wish it could be different and we should care for the person inside but that would be a bit lesbian of us now wouldn’t it. That’s it I’m blunt and realistic and lil crazy but crazy in the good way not crazy like that family member no-one really talks to and yes I’m that family member.

Thanks for reading
Percy