One of my favorite
American idioms is “jumping the shark”, which refers to the moment when
something that was good becomes rubbish. It derives from an episode of the popular
US
sitcom “Happy Days”, in which The Fonz, a character who was supposed to be the
very epitome of cool, jumped over a shark on water skis. Why? Well, the writers
had run out of ideas and wanted to revitalize the show. Instead, the image of
The Fonz in swimming trunks and leather jacket suspended in mid-air over a
shark became crystallized in the popular consciousness as the moment when the series
lost all justification for its existence, beginning a slow decline that lasted
a further five years until merciful cancellation.
Since The Fonz’s
fateful slow-mo leap in 1977, many actors, directors and TV shows have jumped
the shark. For instance: Robert De Niro. Once upon a time he was great, but now
he’s rotten- apocalyptically bad. What was the last film he did that was even
watchable? Probably Casino, and that
came out in 1995. Since then, Machete,
Stone, Little Fockers… ugh: seventeen years of taking the paycheck in
exchange for strapping on the metaphorical water skis and leaping over sharks.
He’s not the only one:
Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino- who both peaked at the same time as De Niro-
slipped into tight fitting trunks and took the leap around twenty years ago. And
then there’s Francis Ford Coppola and The
Godfather Part Three. Coppola’s peer Martin Scorcese hovers eternally on
the verge of the great leap, but hasn’t quite made it yet.
The interesting thing
is the anger and disappointment fans feel. Nobody cares if Steven Segal makes a
duff film, or if Tom Cruise knocks off another mega-budget boring commercial
blockbuster. That’s what they do. But when it comes to great artists, there’s a
sense that they are betraying their talent, their integrity, their audience. Robert
DeNiro owes his audience nothing, but still it’s depressing to see him
squandering his gift on garbage in exchange for cash. We expect more.
Is “jumping the shark”
restricted to the world of popular entertainment? Not at all: I think it has
applications in the world of politics also. It would be too glib to apply the
term to the career of a tyrant like Bashar Al-Assad, but when it comes to less
lethal political regimes like the comedy bumblers of the EU then I think it’s quite
useful.
For many years I maintained
a typically British attitude to the EU- the visa free travel was nice, and the
open market stuff sounded plausible, but the utopian goal of a federal United
States of Europe was risible. In short, I viewed the EU as a rubbish but essentially
benign organization. But then came the fiasco over the European constitution,
which was rejected in referenda by the French and Dutch (Gordon Brown denied
the British a vote). It was duly renamed a treaty and passed via national
parliaments, thus circumventing the will of the people. Even then, the Irish rejected
it, and so they were forced to vote again, until the people produced the result
their masters in Brussels
wanted.
At that point, the EU
totally jumped the shark, and everything that has happened since then- appointing
a comedy Belgian as “president”, lecturing other countries about democracy, dumping
billions of Euro into a series of gaping black holes- has been a series of
footnotes. The sad thing is that, like the final five seasons of Happy Days, or
Robert DeNiro in Analyse That, it’s
not even funny.
But is the EU the only
political organization to have jumped the shark? It’s difficult to say. Ever
since protests erupted against Vladimir Putin late last year, pundits have
speculated that the Russian president is about to strap on his skis. I don’t
see it happening yet, but what about all this Pussy Riot business? It’s bizarre
to witness the full might of the state being deployed against three clueless
young women whose protest was so asinine. Hardly anybody thinks their treatment
is fair, either inside or outside Russia . Putin himself recently dropped
hints that the process might have gone a bit far. At the end of the day though,
I don’t think the Russian authorities will suffer much should the members of
Pussy Riot wind up in prison for several years. The opposition already hates
the state; its reputation is not at stake.
The Orthodox Church,
however, that’s a different matter. In the 1990s, most of Russia ’s intelligentsia
had a more or less favorable attitude to the church. But with the ecclesiastical
hierarchy endorsing severe punishments for Pussy Riot, they seem to be at risk
of alienating educated opinion once and for all, signaling a return to 19th
century attitudes, when most “progressive” intellectuals saw the church as a
corrupt tool of the ruling authorities. If the church has not yet jumped the
shark, then Patriarch Kirill and his colleagues are surely preparing to hurtle
over another aquatic creature at least- like a tuna, or perhaps a very big
catfish.