Kitsch - Cute
Thinking Allowed
BBC
4.4 • 997 Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2019
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Cute and kitsch - Simon May, visiting professor of philosophy at King’s College London, explores cuteness and its immense hold on us, from emojis and fluffy puppies to its more uncanny, subversive expressions. Also, the changing significance of kitsch, from garden gnomes to Eurotrash. Ruth Holliday, Professor of Gender and Culture at the University of Leeds, suggests that judgements of taste have shifted ground rather than relaxed. They’re joined by the cultural critic, Peter York.
This programme was first broadcast in March 2019
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.3 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:36.2 | I'm Laurie Taylor and this is a Thinking Aloud podcast for BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:41.8 | A single word is enough to cover such disparate phenomena as Donald Trump, |
| 0:46.0 | Shirley Temple, Kim Jong-il, E.T. Jeff Coons and Hello Kitty. Find out which one. |
| 0:54.0 | This is your Captain speaking. |
| 0:57.0 | I'd like to welcome you aboard this Eurovision flight. |
| 1:01.0 | Sigma Freud famously argued that we repress memories that are too disturbing, too |
| 1:07.4 | horrific to be allowed into consciousness. |
| 1:10.0 | So how one wonders might he explain the manner in which one such disturbing memory is instantly |
| 1:15.4 | propelled into my mind by nothing more than these few notes of music. Yes, we're back in 2007 the year when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister and Northern Rock failed. |
| 1:35.0 | And the year when the UK's Eurovision song contest entry was, what else? |
| 1:41.0 | Flying the Flag and featured, I can see it now, well the horror, the horror, six singers dressed up as air stewards pushing an airline drink's trolley around the stage. |
| 1:51.0 | Yes, flying the flag by Scooch. |
| 1:54.1 | Now even if that song and its performance was hardly commended by the Eurovision. |
| 2:01.2 | Now even if that song and its performance was hardly commended by the |
... |
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