--- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, ryanne hodson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> cameras follow tony blair around for a day.
> this is something i always dreamed of
> being able to really see what our leaders do all day.
We have to approach this with a (very) critical eye, however. To what
extent *does* this video allow us to "really see what our leaders do
all day"? What does it include and, much more importantly, what does
it leave out? That the video was compiled from ten days of footage,
not one, is perhaps telling. What's more, perhaps an 'ordinary' day in
the life of a Prime Minister--especially Blair--isn't what's
important. This is one instance where the quotidian focus of
videoblogging hides more than it reveals. I want to know about the
extraordinary days--the days when Bush calls, terrorists attack,
torture gets approved, death tolls come in. That the major mode of
address in the video is an interview in which Blair discusses his
duties in the first-person is also important. Again, in this instance,
I think it hides more than it reveals (though it could also reveal by
hiding, and kind of does; that the war isn't mentioned merely draws
attention to the fact that the war isn't mentioned). Like any personal
videoblogger, Blair is free to mediate the way he comes across--he
performs, creates an image or idea of himself and his job that he'd
want the viewers of the video to accept. I want to see the videoblog
of someone on Blair's periphery is what I want to see. Someone who
shoots him (with a camera, of course!) when he's unaware that he's
being shot (unlikely, but I can dream), who shoots him when he okays
the use of white phosphorous in Iraq. I want D. A. Pennebaker to go to
10 Downing Street is what I want. I want fly-on-the-wall video of our
politicians, not officially sanctioned stuff. Because first-person
videoblogs (and I consider this to be in the first-person, despite its
third-person footage, its major mode of address being Blair's voice
discussing himself) has its limitations. This sort of video is one of
them. Why should we believe the reality of Blair's video? What does it
really say about his day? I would wager very little. This question is
actually something we should be asking about all videoblogs, of
course, not just about Blair's video. As so many of Richard BF's
videos prove (to those of us who know that the character of Richard BF
is a rich, messy mix of reality and fiction), we take a lot on faith
in this community. I suspect that Blair is capitalising on those
connections we still tend make between amateur or home video and
unmediated reality. I say a day in the life on Tony Blair would have a
lot more--a lot more that he doesn't want us to see--going on.
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