BY JAMES SIMONS
”Listen mate, being a rowdy enough bunch over here at GQ, you’d think we’d be, like countless others, cheering along as you cavort across our media platforms, snorting at class hegemony and taking swipes at cultural oligarchy with glee
”You’d think we’d have been up front for your India shows, if, for nothing else, to marvel that a high-profile foreign comedian actually managed to perform in India. Instead, we’re wondering how our karma could be so off-tilt that we got you instead of Jerry Seinfeld. Jerry would have just told jokes, but you, Mr Bleeding-heart Iconoclast, you couldn’t resist a little swoop into Asia’s largest slum, where every visiting foreigner takes a camera crew to exude empathy and pat the backs of these noble savages, who, despite their poverty, mystify with their decency, which you, in turn, read as some kind of sainthood — as if the people of Dharavi had yet to grow thumbs, and if they had, they would have all clubbed each other to death by now”.
CLASS ABSOLUTION
The writer of the letter then makes reference to a ”class-absolution” that started with Brand’s Trews web series comprising ”tired collegiate screeds” about air pollution and mimicking newscasters in ”a silly voice, we’re just not sure what the hell you’re on about anymore. ”
Then there’s your “Messiah Complex”, where you bounce around from the most quotable Gandhi, the easy-to-reach Christ-bytes and a kind of Che Guevara for Dummies with a bit of Malcolm X for edge. We do admit: this shit is perfect for the Twitterverse. And it’s the Adderall Generation that seems to absorb your mushy
DETRACTORS
The poignant open letter continues ”your detractors may tell you to leave all your politicizing to the educated classes and go back to being a comedian for the blue-collars, but we’d argue that by now you should stay away from that too, because aside from having read all the books you have, we also know who Bill Hicks is. Stop stealing his shit.
When it comes to contrarian politics and spiritual suppositions in stand-up comedy, you don’t come close to old Bill, you sound like that dude in high-school that no one wanted to do mushrooms with. You know, the guy that says things like “in a way, Jesus was the first socialist / you know, like, the universe is actually made out of love”, and other such mouth garbage.
Step forward comedian, Russell Brand was at a festival in India last weekend, where he made some laugh but drew more criticism than he did plaudits, according to our source who was at the festival. Perhaps it is time for Brand to make some kind of adjustment, if his critics are now stretching as far as India.
More on this can be read at : http://www.gqindia.com/get-smart/pop-culture/open-letter-russell-brand-gq-india#sthash.K7Hl1fvY.dpuf
