You Know it’s Not the Same as it Was

Or how a night with Harry Styles, Wet Leg, Stanley Tucci and Liz Truss revealed the power of culture

One January evening my German husband (this is relevant as he has only lived in the UK for three years and is still learning things) says, “I just had an email from my bank. They ask if we want two tickets to the Brit awards and a debit card loaded with £500 to enjoy the event. What are the Brits? Do we want this?” To which I replied, “Yes, darling. We want this.”

And so, the following month, we rolled into the Brit Awards. Harry Styles, Lizzo, Sam Smith, Stormzy, & Wet Leg performed. It was eclectic and electric - no matter what one’s taste in music might be. Yet, it wasn’t the performance on the stage that held my attention, rather the culture of us playing out all around me in the arena (admittedly, Lizzo’s flamingo feathered Tudor style ensemble was rather eye-catching too. Bad bitch o’clock indeed!).

I studied history and psychology and then spent a decade working in ‘The Arts’. This notion of culture being something that we go to consume perplexes and, if I’m honest, disturbs me. I’ve never seen culture as the orchestra playing or the painting hanging on the wall. They are important cultural reflections and experiences, certainly. But more importantly, for me at least, they are part of a cultural ecosystem that is much, much bigger. Is going to the orchestra more culturally profound than instinctively standing in a queue? And could both acts possibly have a similar cultural root or meaning?

Cultures have evolved which make distinctions between activities and behaviours that are reflections of who we are and who we are not. Culture is also why one is motivated to go to a performance, what one wears to it, who one goes with, what one thinks and feels, why it is meaningful to them, who is there and who is not invited, what one says and to whom about it afterwards, and how it reinforces or alters their sense of identity and connectedness.  

Culture is an expression of our values and what we value and it is so much bigger than any single event we attend.


So, what story were the Brits telling? (for the sake of a short blog, I am avoiding an exploration of why the Brits are called ‘The Brits’. Well, kind of…)

We had great seats and a terrific view of the show. Part of that show was watching famous people below us eat and drink on the VIP dining floor. The first thirty minutes of my evening was spent watching Stanley Tucci eat dinner. I adore Stanley Tucci’s work and who he seems to be - could anyone be more effortlessly chic and charming? But, I gotta admit, it felt weird to be sat in an ‘inferior’ seat watching rich and celebrated people being wined and dined. I sipped a warm beer that I carted back to my seat from the bar as they had champagne poured for them by servers. Wasn’t there a scene in Titanic quite like this when Rose went below deck? I suspect it was just as odd for Stanley and his mates to be eating in the Centre of the coliseum.

I couldn’t quite make out who was partying in the VIP boxes, they had more privacy than the diners below. It seems the view was better from the stage. When Wet Leg went up to accept their award, they seemed to spot Liz Truss and directed a buoyant “F**k the Tories, long live rock n roll!” in her direction. 

That caused a stir in the crowd. I didn’t overhear a single sympathy for the Government, yet there were people being quite vocal about the fact that they thought Wet Leg ought to have behaved a bit more conservatively and kept their political views to themselves on a ‘family’ occasion. There didn’t appear to be many families in the crowd, presumably they were watching at home on TV? If so, I suspect most of those families are not strangers to political debate. Or, was it the use of the f word that irked? Or, was it a clear suggestion to shift the power structure that caused discomfort, even if subconsciously? 

The party that was the Brits was a big martini glass in which the cocktail of cultures - which when shaken or stirred become British - was at play. The class and capitalist divide was deliberate and part of the physical and psychological infrastructure. Hey, those of us who won tickets were there courtesy of the debt we owe to Mastercard, after all. We were all eating, drinking, enjoying the show - but some with more space and service and more expensive fizz. Did those different environments provoke different attitudes or behaviours?

We were all engrossed in the expression of identity, emotion, creative flow, and even the challenge to convention that can be musical performance. Wet Leg’s remark was pretty standard rock n roll. And yet, their challenge, in this environment, made some people uncomfortable. Meanwhile, I didn’t hear anyone saying they shouldn’t have been critical of the Government. Why does expressing disagreement make us uncomfortable? How else does democracy function? Or humans? It was clearly acceptable by those debating this to have disparate views, it was expressing them in this environment that caused discomfort. But, if not here, where? Where else are we all together, universally enjoying a sense of us? What is it that makes some things socially acceptable and other things not? And who holds the power to decide?

Each and everyday, in ways simple and in ways profound, we act out our values. Some situations and environments encourage us to be the best versions of ourselves. Others create tension and frustration that make it challenging to be the best versions of ourselves. But they’re all meaningful. Symbolic anthropologist Clifford Geertz once remarked, ‘Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.’  

I don’t think it’s possible for us to do anything that isn’t meaningful. Individually, we might not have laid the groundwork for what it is we think is fair, or why we hold our cutlery a certain way, or when we agree that it is best to hold our tongues and when to let it rip; but we’re all acting out our lives in a web of significance that has been woven in part by us, and in part by others. 

So, how do we make any sort of change happen? We pause and look at our culture and figure out if living within it feels comfortable. If it doesn’t, we think about why it feels uncomfortable and the answer is usually a clash with our values (which play a big part in our identity) and with intention, weave a new web that helps us to live life with a different sort of meaning. 

We’re hoping Together Culture can skill us all up to be armchair anthropologists and intentional meaning weavers. What result are we aiming for? Well, that’s the vision we’ll be writing together through our Story of Us Studio. For me, that’s what creativity is all about, Charlie Brown. (A cultural reference from my childhood. Few phrases can evoke a greater sense of clear kindness deep in my bones. What does it for you?)