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Big Brother Isn't Watching You

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Big brother isn’t watching you
Young people around the world are rebellious and refractory, and often they do what they want to do. Why are young people rebellious and refractory? Some will say it is because the community affect the young people. The community affects them, but sometimes it is also because the community and government are not taking care of the younger ones in the community. As the young people of England made demonstrations in England especially in Birmingham and Manchester. The reputable English comedian and actor Russell Brand have written a commentary about the riots in England. The Guardian published the commentary on their website back in 2011.
Already in the very beginning of the text, we see what Russell Brand’s attitude is to the English riots. He starts his commentary by talking about a situation in the TV program Big Brother. The situation he talks about involves three people from big brother house; Russell Brand describes the situation as tens and exiting “Early in that series there was an incident of excitement and high tension” (line 13). I think he is using the Big Brother series, because he uses the big brother aspect. One of the big brother aspects is that you look after the younger ones and especially the younger ones in one’s own family. Russell Brand is satiric in his commentary on English riots; first, you can see that in the title of the commentary “Big Brother isn’t watching you”. What he writes between the words here are, that in this case the government are not taking care of the young people in the community or taken any notice of them. He replaces big brother with government and then he says “isn’t watching you” which indicates that he does not think the government are taking care or notice of the younger citizens in england. Secondly, he makes a satiric point in line 25 “I mean even David Cameron came back from his holiday”. The British prime minister did not came back from his holiday in Tuscany, Italy. Even after this, quote and in the following lines he talks down the government for not doing anything.
Russell´s writing-style has a purpose; his intention is to prevail upon his reader to believe the same about the English riots as he does. He does this in a very special way. He is very personal, including telling the reader that he was forced into moving in to Hollywood, as if he had moved there without wanting to. Firstly, he begins with explaining his relation to London, so that even though he lives in Hollywood, it seems authoritative for him to be speaking on behalf of the rioters. Secondly, he writes in a very modern language complementary to how they speak in Britain today. He also talks about some of his own experiences in his early 20s. In his early 20s, he used to participate in some various protest. Russell Brand is from the economy class, just like the ones who are doing these riots. He also uses this in his way of arguing. His writing style is very normal; in some parts, you can see that he is a comedian and actor. Because he uses “fucking” two times and he puts some jokes in the text as well. The swearing is normally seen in comedy and other funny things, therefore you get this feeling, that there is a bit difficulty in taking him seriously. You have to say, “This is a very serious case he is writing about”.

Why are these riots occurring in the beginning? If you look at line 57 it could have something to do with the fact, that these young people feel alienated from the community. That is what Russell brand think we should think about. We should kick around a few neurons and work out why so many people feel utterly disconnected from the cities they live in.” (line 56-57) He says that young citizens feel disconnected and allied. And that draws back a line to earlier, where I talk about how he thinks that the government is not taking care of the younger citizens in England. In another way the government have to take care of the younger people even though, they are not voting.

The purpose of this commentary is, to comment on the riots. Brand’s main focus is not to say that they are mindless, but to come up with a reason why the riots are even occurring. He is not saying that they are not mindless; but merely that saying they are mindless at all is the wrong approach. They should be looking at causes of the riots that Brand claims is the government and carelessness towards the youths. In this context the phrase, “Big Brother isn’t watching you” is suitable, because Brand believes just that -the government is not really watching the rioters.

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