Blimey! Some sort of (post)punk infection....
Not only does 'I'm a Celebrity...' feature John Lydon (now more than ever resembling Old Man Steptoe), but tonight, its opening sequence was soundtracked by.... 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'.
OK, I'll admit it, against my will (honest!), I've been sucked into watching. Partly it's the disquieting thrill of reality disjunction. Lydon (so evidently charismatic, so gargantuan a cultural presence) is from another world, another ontological plane, to the rest of them. There's the same frission that must have occurred with royal visits before the royal brand became fatally compromised. Lydon is so much bigger than everyone else in the camp, all those hasbeens and never will bes. The inevitable face-off between Jordan and John (who are surely destined to be the last two standing) will be a struggle between Celebreality and an older, (superceded?) version of fame. Jordan, the pumped-up quotidian, a kind of hyper-exaggerated ordinary, John, last denizen of a mythic age...
BTW, nice to see that some thing's don't change. Lydon's 'fucking cunts' outburst live on ITV was Bill Grundy all over again.
Posted by mark at February 4, 2004 10:19 PM | TrackBackWith smug Ant and Dec as Bill Grundy (though not nearly as intelligent).
What bothers me in all this business is that, in the various broadsheet profiles of Lydon, PiL is either never mentioned or only mentioned as a footnote ("he went on to do some weird stuff"). Also in Lydon's autobiography PiL are given barely two pages. Which suggests that he himself is more besotted by the showbiz aspects of what he engendered rather than the music he will leave behind. When it's time for the obituaries it's likely that "Metal Box" will not be mentioned.
Posted by: Marcello Carlin at February 5, 2004 09:16 AM