Monday, June 02, 2025

Monday Marxism


So what or who  might your top three Marxists be? Mine are roughly* as follows:

1) The Marx Brothers.

2) Marks & Spencer

3) Karl Marx.

So despite various scandals and poor lifestyle choices I'd give top marks (groan!) to the actual Marx Brothers. The absurd (had to get that word in), surreal but often strangely conventional comedy family that still remain highly influential, copied and referenced within art and entertainment to this day. I was introduced to them fairly early on when their films were still regularly broadcast on TV in 425 blurry lines. Those films would have been almost thirty years old at the time but I didn't really realize their age because my own wee out of time world was completely  monochrome just like theirs. I just liked them because they were stupidly funny and so different from the Billy Cotton Band Show, Come Dancing or whatever the two available TV channels coughed up at the time. I even enjoyed the ridiculous and hammy musical bits they added in.

Marks & Spencer - Mainly about the food but also for their trouser selection which for some reason seem to be made in sizes that can fit somebody like me. *I also know that this Marx was actually Michael Marks but who cares?

Karl Marx - Grizzled, misunderstood, often misquoted and a byword for a theoretical political radicalism that is a better model than many others. I can't completely disagree with someone who said "Keep people from their history and they can be easily controlled" (unless that's another misquote). The thing is we all know that Marxism will never work because amongst other things ... people are involved and human life is way too complicated.

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