I move we censor bagpipes. Like touchdown celebrations, the use of the once understandable, even appropriate, piping had become uncontained, unbridled in its fervor. I refer in particular to the sound of bagpipes being used in cinema and television as the theme for the beautiful-warlike-melancholy-male. It is as if the instrument can only play mournful war ballads.
The sound is now used as a convenient way to elicit the aforementioned Braveheart emotion. Why bother writing decent dialogue or presenting moving imagery when Hamish McHamish can set his bag to “archetype” and bring on the tears for a lot less capital?
The problem is that this doesn’t work. Despite the best efforts of the entertainment industry, we haven’t yet become Pavloved enough to paint ourselves blue every time some red-haired cannibal breathes into a Hoover. So stop it. Enough already. Save it for something actually Scottish.
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