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A Robin Hood tax.
Sep. 29th, 2011 10:20 amAs a gift, the she-David lately bought me the DVD set of the 80's Robin of Sherwood. You know, the hippy one where Michael Praed demonstrates the efficacy of medaeval haircare techniques. I remember it from when I was but young as being completely ace - must watch telly - and it delights me to report that after 25 years it's still really, really good. There was a period in the 80's when the ITV companies put out a whole bunch of stuff with really high production values such as Brideshead or the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes*, but it surprised me just what quality they even imparted to kids Saturday evening telly.
Some gaps show, obviously. It's clear the episodes were made on a tight schedule, but the sets and costumes and acting are all first rate (especially an early showing from Ray Winstone playing Will Scarlett as a dangerous thug). What I liked most of all was the quality of the scripting. It has a confidence lacking in much contemporary television to take its time to tell a story; to allow characters to develop through dialogue and to pay the audience the compliment of assuming they're not so thick they'll switch off if there's not a scrap every couple of minutes. Compared to the BBC's recent vague attempt at a Robin Hood series, it's an order of magnitude better in pretty much every respect.
Anyway, enough about that. I was wanting to talk about the episode I watched the other night, which was this one, and how surprisingly pertinent it was to modern events. The plot of the episode was that the Sherriff of Nottingham, having borrowed far more than was sensible from moneylenders, decided to wriggle out of paying them back by raising the people against them and driving them out of Nottingham. Of course it all works out as Robin shows up, defeats the evil sherriff, and gets the moneylender his cash back.
There's no way this episode would get made now.
In the original series the episode was a parable of the Nazi's - the moneylenders are Jewish and Guy of Gisburne burns them out of their home with the immortal words "I'm only obeying orders", just in case you needed the point ramming home. However, the message the episode carries to contemporary eyes - the government raising hatred of moneylenders amongst the people to get out of repaying money they shouldn't have borrowed in the first place - carries a certain bleak entertainment value, especially considering how people with no particular grasp of economics are calling for a Robin Hood tax.**
Well, I thought the parallels were amusing, anyway.
*Note to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zenicurean: if you haven't seen this, I have a feeling you'd enjoy it tremendously.
**I'd always been of the notion that Robin Hood took money from the tax-gatherers (like the Sherriff) and gave it back to the people it rightfully belonged to, thus making the idea of a Robin Hood tax doubly ironic.***
***Someone I know once averred that a Robin Hood tax "could" raise up to £20bn in revenues to the exchequer. Then again, back in 2005 they told me there wasn't going to be an economic crash because Gordon Brown was a genius, so I wouldn't pay much attention to claims like that if I were you.
Some gaps show, obviously. It's clear the episodes were made on a tight schedule, but the sets and costumes and acting are all first rate (especially an early showing from Ray Winstone playing Will Scarlett as a dangerous thug). What I liked most of all was the quality of the scripting. It has a confidence lacking in much contemporary television to take its time to tell a story; to allow characters to develop through dialogue and to pay the audience the compliment of assuming they're not so thick they'll switch off if there's not a scrap every couple of minutes. Compared to the BBC's recent vague attempt at a Robin Hood series, it's an order of magnitude better in pretty much every respect.
Anyway, enough about that. I was wanting to talk about the episode I watched the other night, which was this one, and how surprisingly pertinent it was to modern events. The plot of the episode was that the Sherriff of Nottingham, having borrowed far more than was sensible from moneylenders, decided to wriggle out of paying them back by raising the people against them and driving them out of Nottingham. Of course it all works out as Robin shows up, defeats the evil sherriff, and gets the moneylender his cash back.
There's no way this episode would get made now.
In the original series the episode was a parable of the Nazi's - the moneylenders are Jewish and Guy of Gisburne burns them out of their home with the immortal words "I'm only obeying orders", just in case you needed the point ramming home. However, the message the episode carries to contemporary eyes - the government raising hatred of moneylenders amongst the people to get out of repaying money they shouldn't have borrowed in the first place - carries a certain bleak entertainment value, especially considering how people with no particular grasp of economics are calling for a Robin Hood tax.**
Well, I thought the parallels were amusing, anyway.
*Note to
zenicurean: if you haven't seen this, I have a feeling you'd enjoy it tremendously.**I'd always been of the notion that Robin Hood took money from the tax-gatherers (like the Sherriff) and gave it back to the people it rightfully belonged to, thus making the idea of a Robin Hood tax doubly ironic.***
***Someone I know once averred that a Robin Hood tax "could" raise up to £20bn in revenues to the exchequer. Then again, back in 2005 they told me there wasn't going to be an economic crash because Gordon Brown was a genius, so I wouldn't pay much attention to claims like that if I were you.
