The coalition government of Britain, formed because of the complete lack of difference between the policies of the Conservative and Labour parties, has given its blessing and a state subsidy to the mounting of Christian Crusade week. Because as the official pamphlet states, "We need to no longer have any disturbing political differences when we are all of one faith and believe in one God and one Flag"
A fantastic piece of blackly comic polemic, as scathing about organised religion and celebrity as The Devils, and just as funny! Strangely this film, despite being rooted in 60s pop culture, perhaps is more relevant to today's culture than ever. The plot involves a teen idol pop star who has a bad boy persona and regularly does performance art-style on stage mortification rituals 'drawn from life' of being put in prison and then released through the power of squealing teen (and middle-aged housewife) groupies, and what happens when his managers start manipulating his image in association first with government policies about getting everyone eating six apples a day (to get the surplus down), and then when the church decides that they want to use Steve Shorter's conversion to true faith to bring his young audience back to regular worshipping.
Even during the first jailbird performance, Steve Shorter is already a kind of uncomfortable figure of unquestioned worship by his legions of adoring fans. The film is audacious in its suggestion that it doesn't take much to have the underlying ideology of an act completely change as long as the figurehead remains the same, and lends their stamp of approval to the new message of going from rebellion to repentance.
It is a film that lets nobody off the hook. It is scathing about the manipulative celebrity managers (yes men, but always with an eye towards making more money and doing whatever pleases the investors more than protecting their client); the wider society (1984-esque situations of monolithic government or religious bodies getting their unpalatable message bluntly put across beneath the figure of a currently in vogue celebrity endorsement, with an uncompromising fanatical zeal); the earnestness of the pretentiously artistic (with terribly shocking avant garde points of view, yet espousing them while sipping champagne with their oligarch father. And wanting innovative entertainment, but also needing it to be sanitised and mass market replicable rather than disturbingly one off); is upset by the over emotional and easily led audience just waiting to be told what to think next; and is even scathing towards the two lead performances themselves from our impossibly beautiful, yet strangely impassive and blank, couple, acting like posable mannequins just waiting to be put into correct positions to sell the best products. That leaves a disturbing unrelatable blankness at the heart of the film, though in some ways that makes the later sections when Steve is lashing out against Vanessa or trying and failing to orate a damning speech at an award ceremony, more upsetting rather than less, as it feels as if these 'beautiful people' are struggling to articulate emotions and anger towards their situation that they cannot really understand. Instead their beauty hardens into a shell masking their emotional immaturities (although the immaturities still regularly break through in Steve's case, from the adolescent lashing out at authority figures, to Clockwork Orange-style becoming the figurehead of a new form of control without ever really changing at all. Rather the society does around him, and wants different things to be embodied by him).
This all sounds rather bleak, and indeed it does feel that way, but it is also extremely funny too! Especially the deliriously ecstatic government ad extolling the chivalrous virtues of apples, although this section involving the filming of the advert is itself only a precursor to when the church gets involved! There is a brilliant shot of a bunch of Bishops all in a recording studio (one of whom is just barely gritting his teeth and getting through it, who is also the only one who raises concerns about the cheapening of religion but who gets completely ignored by his companions!) listening to a 'groovy' version of "Onward Christian Soldiers" by a Beatles-style boy band all dressed in monk robes (even with sandals and tonsures! Though a couple of band members still have cigarettes stuck in the strings of their guitars and are wearing cool dark glasses!), and then during the big Christian Crusade rally the same boy band return except doing a borderline-litigious riff on The Shadows both in dress and in their way of playing a version of Jerusalem! (One of the great things about the film is that it actually
does make the anthems toe tappingly catchy!)
The Christian Crusade rally itself is almost visit of the Pope-levels of gaudy insanity. We get cute kids introducing the festivities, an Olympic Torch-style runner setting the event off, a bunch of Boy Scout marching bands dressed unnervingly like Hitler Youths. There are banners galore and the whole thing has an aura of a wild revivalist preacher ceremony too, even before the afflicted are wheeled into the front row to benefit from the healing properties of Steve Shorter's specially composed song for the event (brilliantly we get the shot of Steve coming off the stage to lay hands on them then as he turns to go back onstage the various people try to get out of their wheelchairs to follow him, only to collapse in a heap on the ground!), there are marching band songs (including a snatch of the Monty Python theme tune avant la lettre!) fireworks galore and even a perhaps inadvisable decision to use an icon of a burning cross by the organisers! Oh and there is also a team of cheerleaders too, adding to the sense that an American football game is going to break out at any minute and adding a weird Transatlantic-vibe to the proceedings that only compounds the American accented management team behind Steve Shorter's company (who also appear to own the rights to exclusively broadcast the event on the, again unfortunately named, SS TV station!)
So as you might have guessed, the satire isn't very subtle! But it is really amusing! I especially like that they have flyers for this event that advertises Steve Shorter prominently and then at the very bottom has a speech by a firebrand Bishop (complete with 50s-style Teddy Boy quiff in his picture!) as the supporting act! That speech ends up having the Bishop (with very Hitler-esque lectern pounding orating!) doing a 1984-style indoctrination of the crowd into carrying a card bearing the words "We will conform" with them at all times!
We then get the conflicted Steve having a final breakdown at, where else, a glitzy award acceptance dinner, in which just asking to be treated as an individual more than just a mouthpiece (though he doesn't articulate it as clearly as that. I was actually reminded of a number of episodes of the recent Black Mirror series by this film. In this section Bing's inarticulate speech at the talent show judges in Fifty Million Merits. But the interchangable figurehead material also plays like a far better cynical take on politics and passive audiences than Waldo Moment) leads to Steve's complete fall from grace. He's been built up to be a faux-Messiah figure and in the end even his destruction takes the form of being crucified by the media. Steve goes from being the nation's (maybe the world's) favourite and beloved entertainer to being a shunned pariah because of his reprehensible actions within a matter of days. Even his ex-manager can only imagine that his reputation will
perhaps rise again (resurrect?) far in the future once Steve is safely dead.
Despite these blackly comic themes and blank, inarticulate, even passive lead performances, Steve's situation eventually becomes quite moving. What happens when you have given such solace to others through your performances, and they have (unwisely) invested so much of themselves into you and your persona, only to find that you have to collude in a fraudulent act (one that destroys your own faith) to allow others to unquestioningly belive in you? And how far can you take it into horrible, manipulative, twisted parody of genuine feelings and still be able live with yourself, let alone with the debasing effect that your act is having on others?
