If I were a cat, I'd be dead (silly reference to the proverb, nothing literal).
The thing is... I did click the link. This link. Oh, yes, I did - and now, I'm annoyed and growling (that should teach me to not read so many things, but... I'm not going to change).
I'd completely missed the Coogan/Mitchell thingy, and there's something about Brand that made me avoid what he had to say (in written form, and in video with Paxman)... but I read Webb's open letter, and I liked it.
I'll admit that the title of the anti-open letter open letter intrigued me, and I did read it. Usually, the rich style would have made me happy, but several things are bothering me... deeply.
In no particular order, there's the fact that the idea of an open letter is presented as if it were something old-fashioned (how many hints about an imaginary 18th century? I didn't count, but that made me growl).
The open letter is presented as a selfish exercise that should be limited to a regular letter sent to the intended recipient, not shown to the entire world. The targeted comedians are basically asked to limit themselves to their day job; they shouldn't show the entire world what they think of their colleagues (written in sarc font: how dare they?).
Another thing that bothers me is that comments were off "for legal reasons" on that blog entry. Ah. Okay... I seldom comment directly on newspaper webpages, or blog pages (because I don't want to create an account for that and I won't surrender my Twitter info to complete strangers - been there, blogged about it), but the fact that the rest of the world was barred from commenting on the words of someone who wants comedians to abstain from writing open letters to one another sounds ironic, in quite a not comical way - at least, to me it does sound ironic.
Then, because I was still in cat mode, I had a look at what people were tweeting on the topic, and I mostly found them praising the writer for telling comedians to shut up and be funny ('just that, no more, nothing else, we don't want to hear a thing about anything you might have to say that's unrelated to your comedian job').
I may have been living in a cave on that one, but this is the first thing I've read from this particular writer (I can't know everybody and read everything, now, can I?). I may be highly unfair to someone who seems to be appreciated by many people (the tweets about this entry were singing her praise), but I'm still deeply bothered.
There's the urge to make fun of comedians who want to speak their minds outside of their day job.
There's the will to silence them.
There's the desire to limit the interactions they, as comedians, are allowed to have. And this is a bit rich if we consider that tabloid quill-pushers (see, anyone can use old-fashioned images for whatever purpose) will comb through people's dustbins and bug their phones in order to get info to print in their fishwrappers, which people will eagerly buy because they want to read about the private lives of famous people. However, if famous people provide us with a piece of their minds, they're usually invited to shut up.
Well, I don't see why they should shut up. Everybody's allowed to speak his or her mind, and telling comedians or actors/actresses that they have to shut up is unfair, and it's not that complicated to throw the newspaper away or close the webpage.
We don't have to listen to everybody, but everybody can make a declaration (whether it's interesting or not).
Last, but perhaps not least, I find it quite ironical to complain about open letters in what looks a lot like an open letter, on which the audience cannot comment directly.
Of course I get the 'let's cover ourselves legally by preventing a flame war in the comments section', and I do understand that this is not strictly an open letter because this particular writer was paid to type that page, whilst I guess/imagine that most of the other open letter writers mainly got the satisfaction to get their answer/comment/whatever published (or maybe they get paid, but I can't seriously be bothered to care about that detail - really).
For fun, I hope Mitchell and Webb will co-write an open letter in response to that 'comedians, be quiet' page. I'd happily read that - because I would choose to read that, and I would certainly enjoy what they'd have to say.
It's not difficult for readers to make choices, and................
Oh, sweet Merlin! <genuine epiphany alert> I've just realized why that work made me so angry: this feels like bullying-light somehow (maybe not the intention, but this is how I read it, and that's why I'm so bothered).
Part of the mystery solved. Now... to get more people to agree that everybody's got the right to write and everybody's got the right to ignore some writing and select what they'll read. Oof! Not out of the wood on that one either...
Note to self: practise more selective clicking.
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