By Hanna van Leent
Staff Writer
Stand-up comedy, acting, presenting on both television and radio, and writing; it seems that Russell Brand can do it all. He has a world tour with one of his shows and he performed in Amsterdam last weekend. His YouTube interviews score hardly under a half a million views and it seems that a cameras are always ready to record every step he takes.
Russell Brand’s life did not start that glamorous; he abused drugs, suffered from bulimia nervosa and dropped out of school and was expelled from another. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Furthermore, he suffers from bipolar disorder and ADHD. He has since been treated for his addiction problems and mental problems, and he claims having never abused alcohol or drugs ever since his recovery.
In a recent interview, Brand openly called for a “revolution” in an interview with Jeremy Paxman. The encounter was about a political magazine of which Brand was the guest editor. Paxman, known for “University Challenge” and “Newsnight”, is not known for his kind interview techniques. He is to the point and confrontational.
In the interview with Russell Brand, Paxman asked him whether he thought he would be taken seriously, because Brand had never voted. This was the trigger for Russell Brand (notorious for his high-speed manner of speech) to start talking. Brand laid out all kinds of ideological ideas about what the state should do and should not. In the end, he flat out proposes a revolution. But can Russell Brand be called a revolutionary himself?
In my opinion, it is not very courageous not to vote, and one may be led to question whether this is just a PR stunt by Brand in order to seem “edgy” and attract viewers – or whether he is actually using his fame to advocate a real revolution.
To answer this question, it is important to know what a revolutionary is. The Oxford English Dictionary states the following: “a person who instigates or supports revolution; a participant in a particular revolution.” The word revolution is harder to pin down, as it can have multiple meanings. For the sake of clarity, I chose the following: “The complete overthrow of an established government or social order by those previously subject to it; an instance of this; a forcible substitution of a new form of government.”
Brand does claim that he wishes to see the government overthrown by not voting and getting rid of the growing gap between the rich and the poor, and the profit motive, and changing the attitude towards the environment and the needs of the people. The changes he describes as necessary in our society are vaguely similar to Marxist theory: Heavy taxation on transnational corporations such as Google, Shell and Nestlé and the rich in general, and furthermore, getting rid of socio-economic inequality between rich by way of a revolution which Brand just prefers to call “Change.”
Brand wants the social order to be overthrown and it seems apparent that he does not care much about the government either. However, he is not clear about what form of government – if any at all – he wants to install after all these measures have been taken. He is a revolutionary in the sense that he supports revolution, or “Change” to quote it more precisely, but the general aim of that change is social equality in accordance with Marxist ideals.
Whether Brand is calling for revolution to benefit his own fame or to genuinely bring about profound change is a personal judgment and I would recommend watching some of the YouTube clips that are around as they are highly entertaining. Another, more serious message to take from Mr. Brand is that we, as students of UCR, but also as citizens, should think about whom we are voting for and actually read what the person or party you have voted for has done in the past and how they put your vote to use.
Hanna van Leent, class of 2015, is a History major from Rodenrijs, the Netherlands.
