Black and White Pirate Show

Black and White Pirate Show (The Eleventh Hour)

1987
52m

A detailed, richly illustrated documentary about the choppy waters and changing politics of pirate radio in Britain, featuring different sounds and DJs.

From the offshore stations of the 1960s to pirate radio in the inner cities, pushing different music and agendas, pirate radio's detailed yet compact story is the subject of this documentary. Birmingham Film and Video Collective cast their critical eye and implicitly offer thoughts on how music consumption and its politics had changed between the 1960s and the 1980s.

Veteran DJ Tony Blackburn is comfortable at Radio 1 but was previously with the 1960s pirates.His conservative views on the status quo and popular tunes clash with the modern alternative pirate radio shows where Lepke and Rankin' Miss P introduce new sounds and shake it up. As journalist and cultural theorist Paul Gilroy says here, the new Black music and DJs found a mix of Black and white audiences in ways that would be difficult to do in other contexts.

Punning on the title of The Black and White Minstrel Show, The Black and White Pirate Show highlights the links between racial injustice, power and notions of consensus by way of the choices that DJs make and the legislation that governs radio broadcasting. The highly informative, illustrative documentary, which gives equal weight to the different eras under discussion, includes much archive and contemporary observation footage - including, by chance, the documentation of a police raid following the 1987 Green Paper on radio which helped to facilitate the seizing of pirate radio equipment.

The Birmingham Video Collective, who received regular funding from Channel 4, the BFI and other bodies by way of the 1982 Workshop Declaration, used film to think through their interest in left-wing politics and alternative histories. Members Yugesh Walia had been important in making films about the black experience in the city and documenting the Handsworth Cultural Centre. Other members had attended classes led by seminal sociologist, black cultural theorist, and historian Stuart Hall.

The Kids Are Alright: Youth Culture on Screen

Teds, mods, rockers, punks, goths, ravers, hoodies, emos... The 20th Century phenomenon of ‘youth culture’ is a dynamic expression of identity, with its hands on music, fashion, language and generational change.

Since the ‘rowdy generation’ of the 1950s, teenagers and youth culture have been defined from the outside and from within. Young people proclaim their social identity through style, music and the spaces they occupy – which also makes them a visible target, and they become a bellwether (or scapegoat) for the state of the nation.

To the establishment, they are a source of anthropological curiosity and hand-wringing moral panic – as well as a key commercial audience, whether for consumer products, political movements or radio and television programming. An obsession with youth against mistrust and misunderstanding; attitudes towards the young are full of contradictions.

Today, youth culture is online, in a vast expanse of communities and identities. The internet has enabled a ‘pick n mix’ approach to music and fashion, while allowing local scenes to set trends globally, and giving young voices the platform to speak – loudly – for themselves.