Just watched this via a link on this thread to SF’s Room 101 appearance.
It’s Stephen’s Oxford Union address, and is largely an extended eulogy of Oscar Wilde.
But what I find alarming is the audience. Somehow I struggle to see them as representing the nation’s greatest minds*. Time and again, when Fry uses the phrase ‘as I’m sure you know’, I have the distinct impression that in fact they haven’t a clue what he is on about. There is also a general sense of self-consciousness and short attention span.
Anyone else find this?
*or, perhaps more alarming, they genuinely are the greatest intellects of the day
H.P. Saucecraft says
I’m absolutely baffled by your post.
There were a few coughs from the auditorium, but apart from those inevitable intrusions there was absolutely no evidence of them being anything but a rapt, receptive, and appreciative audience. I have no idea where you got your “distinct impression that in fact they haven’t a clue what he is on about”.
I’m no great fan of Fry (or of Wilde), but he speaks engagingly enough, without notes, and it seems to go down very well.
Care to detail the sources of your “alarm”?
DougieJ says
Just my impression, er, running away from me perhaps. OOAA, as you are demonstrating.
Opinions Brian, opinions…
bricameron says
Why do you deem it alarming? The progressive western view is one of acceptance. Stephen Fry is talking of a much distant past.
Moose the Mooche says
Have you ever watched University Challenge?
I’m absolutely terrified by how much these kids know. They need to know less.
That will come with age, of course.
Rob C says
They need re-educating. Mind colonics. I one episode I saw the smug odious cog turd hadn’t even heard of Bob Dylan. Could tell you all sorts of stuff about algebra and science but no knowledge at all of the counter culture, same with his spod chums. Goddess help us. They need dosing.
Moose the Mooche says
There is nothing wrong with not having heard of Bob Dylan. There is not even anything wrong with not liking him.
I am thunderously, last-man-in-the-universely alone in this opinion. I realise that.
Rob C says
What hope for a world where the next generation think that the counter culture is a crumb of stilton in a Waitrose coffee area, eh ?
Moose the Mooche says
Bob Dylan is not the counter-culture. Just a cult. Evidently.
Rob C says
Actually, you’re correct. Bob never really bought into the 60s counter culture scene, the boring sod.
Rob C says
He’s saying ‘I’m sure you know’ because he knows they don’t and he does. Smugness personified.
salwarpe says
He can’t win. If he didn’t add those little codicils, he would probably be accused of talking down to his audience.
He’s erudite, loves his subject (dear Oscar) and clearly loves talking about all aspects and side issues connected with the bloke. He was undobtedly aware that his audience is partly in the room, partly on the internet, with a consequent variance in general knowledge.
He was being polite to the students.
Gatz says
I was more alarmed by the size of his paunch these days than the audience or the speech. I rather enjoyed the speech, or at least the half I listened to over breakfast. I’ll finish watching later.
Gary says
I enjoy watching the Oxford Union videos, but it’s always struck me how immature and ill-informed the students can be. This is more embarrassingly evident when the guest is someone they don’t like (George Galloway is a good example; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0oWNR7k27s).
Kid Dynamite says
yebbut, I cringe on a daily basis when I think back to some of the things I did and said while at university. If you can’t be immature and ill-informed but still utterly convinced you’re right when you’re nineteen, when can you be?
Gary says
I completely agree; I just sorta thought it’d be different at Oxford.
Vincent says
There is a lot of variation in students, and most benefit from being stretched. This is complicated by ‘trigger warnings’ and risk-averse PC (but not PC) ‘policy’. We’ve almost all been there, and some of us still are. I despair at the cultural ignorance caused by a cultural emphasis on commerce and screens these days, but doubtless this was the case when i was a post-grad 30 years ago, and though Dylan was obviously better than Keats (see thread on Dylan).
The problem for the lauding of the divine Oscar (of whom I am also fond), is that his “feasting with panthers” was using a rent-boy brothel involving messenger lads, viz. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/may/06/books.booksnews. We all have to decide where we stand on the peccadillos and indiscretions of those cultural persons who we discover are not the moral types we anticipated. Rolf and Jimmy I am happy to lose; Oscar is more difficult.
deramdaze says
Please, nurse, make him go away!
Tuned into the tennis on Tuesday only for Fry’s smug mug to be staring back at me on a regular basis. Thank God I don’t support Norwich City, it must be unbearable.
It was worse on Wednesday, for every shot of a tennis player, we had about ten of David Beckham.
Rob C says
His ubiquitousness is utterly tedious. Award ceremonies, general media coverage per se and if I google twitter, there he is on the link ffs, as if it’s obligatory to follow him, and as for all this fawning over his ‘genius’, he’s had the benefit of a classical education, as have many people. Big deal, and as for QI, it’s all read off cards anyway.
Jim Cain says
I’ve grown to loathe Stephen Fry, and yet I used to like him. I think it’s a case of familiarity breeding contempt. He genuinely is the thick person’s favourite intellectual.
Gary says
Nonsense. I won’t have that. Derren Brown is my favourite intellectual.
Jim Cain says
Ha. I’m not saying that Fry is thick, or that everyone who likes him is thick, but he’s definitely the go-to-guy if you’re a thick person wanted to post an ‘intellectual’ quote on Facebook. The most common one is that half-baked thing he said about taking offence.
Rob C says
‘The thick person’s intellectual’. Love it Jim. Consider it duly nicked !
Jim Cain says
Ha. Cheers, but it’s not mine. I think the original quote is that Fry is ‘a thick person’s idea of an intelligent person’.
Rob C says
Great line 🙂
H.P. Saucecraft says
Alan Davies was a little bit bitter when he discovered, in the very early days of QI, that he was cast as the resident yokel, especially as he’s anything but, and that Stephen Fry’s perceived schoolmastery knowledge is all scripted for him. Davies works without the advantage of a script.
The problem I have (oh, big fucking deal, DO tell us Saucy) with Fry is that he’s set up as something very close to a genius. Certainly a great big cuddly National Treasure. But he hasn’t yet created one single great work of art. He’s a talented performer, a witty man (although not as witty as he likes to think), but he’s not an artist. He hasn’t written a great novel or a great play or delivered in any other sphere that the thespian, and even there his resumé is a little thin. His championing of Oscar Wilde is telling – the self-identification with him is obvious. Yet Wilde didn’t create a single great work of art, either. Fry lauds The Importance Of Being Earnest as an important and lasting masterpiece. Well, it’s not. It’s about the same level of achievement as An Inspector Calls. Or Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.
Jim Cain says
Not to mention the fact that he got Jeeves all wrong.
H.P. Saucecraft says
His Jeeves was catastrophically wrong.
RubyBlue says
But he hasn’t yet created one single great work of art.
And interestingly he admits this himself, on Desert Island Discs recently. That the only talent he has is a facility with words and a good memory. I’m not sure if he’s being disingenuous, but that was his stated view.
Moose the Mooche says
I don’t understand how he got to do DID twice. As if he was a different person in 1980-whatever when he last did it.
While I’m here, the four series of A Bit of fry & Laurie are a fuck sight better than anything by Oscar Wilde.
Rob C says
Alan Davies….
God’s Teeth.
H.P. Saucecraft says
That’s strange, Rob – because when I see Alan Davies he reminds me of you. IF YOU HAD A BRANE HA HA.
Rob C says
That’s funny Saucey, as Stephen Fry reminds me of you,
WITH MUCH NICER HAIR.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Yebbut I SAID IT FIRST AND NO RETURNS HA HA NYER
Rob C says
SUCK MY MAGICK PAKORAS.
Rob C says
Bang on there re. Wilde.
Sniffity says
I say thee nay – The Happy Prince and Other Tales, if not art, will do full well until the real thing comes along.
Rob C says
You’re right there. His children’s fairy tales are lovely. His finest work.
His poetry was pretty dire though. Yeats he wasn’t. On a related note, Yeats visited him in Tite Street and Wilde’s children were scared of him because he freaked them out with Irish Fairy Stories, which as we know are scary shit.
ewenmac says
In defence of the old Jessie…
I can see why he comes across as smug but I don’t think there’s much substance to it. He seems a bit of a tortured soul with suicidal tendencies and a history of addiction; not that unusual in his line of work but I think the “self-satisifed” persona is a bit of a front.
I do find myself avoiding anything he’s on these days but I’ll always like him for “A Bit Of Fry And Laurie.”
RubyBlue says
@ewenmac Yes, I would agree with that. I was going to post something of my own but you said it better, so I’ll just lazily agree.
man.of.soup says
A few random things that occur to me and which I’m vain enough to think are worth sharing:
– he used to be genuinely, howlingly funny. What happened?
– Re. HP’s post above, A Bit of Fry and Laurie may be as good as it got?
– Jim is absolutely spot on about his portrayal of Jeeves. Completely wrong.
– just as Brighton ceased to matter to me the instant it achieved city status, Fry ceased to be lovable the instant everyone began regarding him as a National Treasure. Kiss of Death in each case.
H.P. Saucecraft says
The National Treasure award is the personality equivalent of the UNESCO World Heritage site – immediately draining and neutering whatever it is bestowed upon.
Bingo Little says
I (briefly) came into contact with SF a few years back, and he was a complete and utter gent.
That said, like everyone else, I am heartily sick of the sight of him. Why on earth he hasn’t taken a couple of years off from being in our collective faces is beyond me, I suspect it would do all parties the power of good.
For me, the issues began when he became Apple’s most vociferous fanboy. It was just so grating. I also think that, in common with numerous other comedians (sad to say) he may have been funnier when he himself was less happy. Horrible observation to make, but there you go.
Incidentally, this is the funniest thing that’s had Fry’s name on it in years: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2912590/TOM-UTLEY-Neanderthal-actor-s-charms-d-thrilled-son-said-marrying-Stephen-Fry.html
I know you won’t want to click the link, so here’s the gold:
“When our 27-year-old son and his long-standing girlfriend announced their intention to marry, I felt I had a duty to fake surprise.
In fact, I’d known from almost the first moment I saw them together that they would end up at the altar, judging that they were made for each other and no other outcome was imaginable.
As for our other feelings, my wife and I had no need to feign our unqualified joy at the prospect of welcoming Lisa into the family. Pretty, clever, accomplished and sweet-natured, she is everything a loving parent could wish for in a daughter-in-law.
Which brings me to a surreal thought that has been haunting me all week. How would I have felt if our son had announced that he would like to present his intended . . . and into the room, blushing prettily, had tiptoed not the lovely Lisa, 32, but the gargantuan, shambling form of our official national treasure, 57-year-old Stephen Fry?”
Moose the Mooche says
I said this at the time but…. is Lisa a millionaire who can get you in free at the BAFTAs? I think not.
Jim Cain says
This is one of my favourite things ever. Seriously. I was walking through Leicester Square with a mate recently, and talk turned to Stephen Fry. To my surprise, my mate had never heard of Utley’s article, so I made him stop right there and then outside the Odeon whilst I read it out to him, in full, off my phone.
Bingo Little says
I think we can safely say that, while Wilde and Fry might not have contributed a great work of art, Utley most certainly has.
adman says
He is obviously a disgrace. Just like the Students. Thick, rubbish and a disgrace. I mean, what do they know? Nuffink. “The Liar” – that’s rubbish. All those undergrad dissertations clogging up the hard drives of Oxford and Cambridge? Rubbish.
Moose the Mooche says
@adman, earlier today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBGBh70KzbQ
adman says
@moose-the-mooche
Ha! (Could be my twin…)
Moose the Mooche says
Do you have those cool sidies too?
adman says
Give me a couple of weeks.
Junglejim says
Don’t mind Stephen Fry, but as others have said, he’ s patently overexposed.
Not sure if he should be blamed entirely for that ( obviously he could turn down work, but few entertainers like to). He’s a go-to bloke when someone who’s erudite, non threatening and clever is required.
The problem may be that there’s a dearth of people in public life who fit the bill, so he gets almost all of such work that might reasonably go to others.
I suppose because he’s bright & pretty well read, he’ s considered as an intellectual & one that’s happy to perform upon request.
Brainy people don’t tend to feature much on TV & the wide media in this country, & maybe it’s true that the British public at large doesn’t like them much – seeing them as smart arses or not really red blooded.
Fry is pretty adept at being elitist ( hanging out with royals) & an everyman ( an interest in footer) at the same time, which few figures can pull off.
I enjoyed his collected Telegraph columns published as ‘Paperweight’ which give a pretty insightful take on what he’s about.
However, if there’s any danger of getting gushy about him, 5 minutes of the horrific ‘ Peter’s Friends’ is all the antidote anyone could ever need. Genuinely nauseating.m
Jackthebiscuit says
I used to love QI, for me it was event TV, QI XL on series link, I couldn’t get enough.
Now, if I need to free up some space QI is the first thing that gets binned. Its not that I dont still like it, its just not as an essential watch as it used to be.
Things like chat shows & award programmes are not my thing, so I dont get to see him so much nowadays.
A couple of years ago I was given a box set of SF programmes. I watched & really enjoyed the documentary on Bi polar, but havent watched any of the others, so cant comment on them.
I read & really enjoyed his novel “The Liar”, havent read anything else – (there is a trend developing here isn’t there?)
As a non graduate who respects, admires & likes Stephen fry, I could be fulfilling the ‘thick persons idea of an intellectual’ school of thought WRT His wonderfulness, & to be honest I if people (The massive) were to think that of me, I would probably agree.
Now please excuse me, I am going to watch Peter’s friends again.
ivan says
You should give ‘Making History’ a read…I loved it.