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Michael and Us

PREVIEW - #335 - Songs of Emptiness

Michael and Us

Luke Savage and Will Sloan

Tv & Film

4.6668 Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2022

⏱️ 3 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

PATREON EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/335-songs-of-66874909 U2 (and specifically Bono) are the uncontested world leaders in "fusion philanthropy," and the hagiographic documentary U2: A ROCK CRUSADE (2009) celebrates this legacy uncritically. So it falls upon us, as usual, to provide the criticism. PLUS: our institutions are failing us, and the institution of comedy is no exception.

Transcript

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0:00.0

The movie is called You Two, A Rock Crusade. It's a documentary from 2009. That's right. It's a

0:07.6

documentary. It's part of the same genre as night and fog and crumb and gimmee shelter.

0:14.4

It's essentially a hagiographic portrait of Bono and his philanthropy, his charity work, his

0:19.6

activism, whatever you want to call it, that is

0:21.6

without tension or sharp edges of any kind. I mean, insofar as it even entertains the idea that

0:28.4

anyone might want to criticize Bono, it presents all of the criticism in a kind of fortune cookie

0:34.2

or like astrology sort of way. You know, when you open a fortune cookie and it says

0:38.4

something like, sometimes your compassion can lead you to be too trusting or, you know, something like

0:43.8

that. So, you know, even when it does entertain the idea that, you know, someone might deign to be a

0:49.2

critic of the great man, Bono, it's very much in that vein, you know, it's like the type of criticism

0:54.1

that is really just praised by any other name. So this. the great man Bono. It's very much in that vein. You know, it's like the type of criticism that

0:54.6

is really just praised by any other name. So this is a film which introduces Bono as someone with

1:00.6

quote, never-ending energy drive and commitment to social causes. This is the story of a charismatic

1:05.8

performer who takes his talent into politics. It's in fact so bending over backwards to praise Bono

1:12.6

and represent him as a kind of flawless and saintly figure

1:16.3

that at one point in showing some footage of a press conference

1:19.2

he did with Bob Geldof achieves the unimaginable feat

1:23.0

of making Bob Geldof look cool.

1:25.9

And somehow thinks that by showing the scene where Geldof is very

1:30.2

pointed and critical towards various governments for just not meeting various commitments around

1:35.1

climate change. And Bono is very obsequious. It then tries to present Bono's obsequiousness,

1:40.7

you know, his flattery of power as actually, you know, this is the sort of adult and mature and

...

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