The Rest Is Entertainment - Is Trump Trying To Kill Hollywood?

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

US President Donald Trump has turned his tariff agenda towards the movie business by promising 100% tariffs on films made outside America. Is this going to save Hollywood or only hasten tinsel town���s demise? Irish hip hop trio Kneecap have found themselves in hot water after a string of controversial statements shared at their gigs have been unearthed. They are now facing an investigation from the Metropolitan Police’s counter terror unit. Richard and Marina explore the arguments for, and against, silencing the musicians. The Rest Is Entertainment AAA Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to our Q&A episodes, ad-free listening, access to our exclusive newsletter archive, discount book prices on selected titles with our partners at Coles, early ticket access to future live events, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestisentertainment.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestisentertainment. The Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Visit Sky.com to find out more For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Assistant Producers: Aaliyah AkudeVideo Editor: Charlie Rodwell + Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Producer: Joey McCarthySenior Producer: Neil FearnHead of Content: Tom WhiterExec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Sky. And when we say friends, we mean friends with excellent taste in television. Absolutely. And diving into my never ending TV list is so seamless. Sky does all the hard work for me by bringing whatever I want to watch across all my apps and channels into one place. Now let's not forget the blockbuster shows they bring us, Gangs of London, Day of the Jackal. All the different apps all in one place. I like to say effortless input, exceptional output. Do you like that? Love it. They keep us entertained and give us plenty to talk about. They do. And let's

be honest, we love a good chat. We do, Marina. That's why I love voice search. It's like having your very own TV assistant just say what you're in the mood for and boom. I've just got into the habit of saying Glenn Powell into my remote and Sky will pull up everything he's in. It's like magic. Yeah. If I know Sky in a few years, Glenn Powell will literally walk into your room. So be really careful what you say. You know Glenn Powell, he will. Yeah. For now, stick to Telly Discover More at sky.com. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde.

And me, Richard Osborne. Hi everybody. Hi Marina. Hello Richard. I'm devastated because you're not with me. You're in Richard Osborne. Hi everybody. Hi Marina. Hello Richard. I'm devastated because you're not with me. You're in an undisclosed location. We are well, listen, I can disclose it. I'm in Morocco. By the time this goes out, I'll be back in England, but currently here. So it's a Rises Entertainment International today.

Yeah. Well, we've got plenty to discuss. Haven't we just? We're talking about a developing story, which is Trump's overnight announcement that he is imposing 100% tariffs on movies made overseas or in foreign lands capitals, as he puts it. We're both in foreign lands at the moment. You're in the UK. I'm in Morocco.

Yes, we're very much in foreign lands. And I think we're very much in uncharted territory as to what this would actually mean for the film industry. We're also going to talk about the Irish rap band, Kneecap, who've got themselves into, let's say, hot water in sort of a throwback scandal of a punk band saying unacceptable things and the whole of parliament going crazy about it. But it's slightly different, slightly more interesting than that, I think. Shall we start with Donald Trump? As you say, he's announced these tariffs 100%, but what does that mean and how might it work, were it ever to actually happen?

Well, the only thing we know, because we're recording this on a Monday morning and it's happened overnight, is what he has posted. He said, the movie industry in America is dying a very fast death. I bet he's devastated about that. Other countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood and many other areas within the USA are being devastated. So he says he's instructed the Commerce Department to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% tariff on any and all movies coming into our country that are produced in capitals foreign lands. Now he says we want movies made in America again.

He loves movies made in America. Oh, he loves it. He loves Hollywood. Loves Hollywood. He loves them this much. This is how much he loves Hollywood, I think is probably the top line on this particular story. Instead of giving them a tax incentive like every other country does, instead he's going to over tax everybody else.

Yeah. That's an idea. You can call it a policy. Now it's interesting because there's lots of things that we should talk around before we kind of get into it. But one of the things that when Trump came to power, actually, lots of people in Hollywood were sort of covertly excited and probably supportive, because I think that they felt

there'd be more scope for M&A activity, less regulation, which they feel they need in order to survive, they need to consolidate in different ways and they need to be able to do things in less regulated manner that can help them if not to grow, then at least to kind of maintain or stay where they are rather than being in this kind of decline that occasionally looks like freefall. And when he started announcing tariffs on other things, I suppose there was a sort of, you know, I don't know whether we maybe talked a tiny bit about what that would mean, you know, which entertainment companies would be more

affected by tariffs on goods because someone like Disney needs a lot of steel for parks and cruise ships. And remember, that is by far the most profitable sort of division of Disney much more than the entertainment. Well, if he does this, the answer is all of the companies will be very affected except strangely TV production. We'll get to that because you notice there's no mention of television in this. I know, which is the sort of canary in the coal mine. Well, it's interesting. Now, obviously, various people in Hollywood have, I don't want to say they've lost their minds overnight because it may be a very rational response to this,

but many people are saying, oh my God, this is like a service tariff, which by the way, I don't think it is. It's slightly more complicated because this isn't like a car or whatever, but even that as we know is complicated. They're different bits of the chain are made in different places. Yeah. So can you explain how it works with an example of that? Even if you've got a mission impossible that is shot largely over here, lots of post-production is done over here. Bits of it are done in the States.

The actors are American. A lot of the money is American, but most of it is shot over here. Does that, as a finished project, count? Not only can I not explain how it works, but I don't think Donald Trump can explain how it works. A movie is not a commodity in any sort of very simple, meaningful sense. Some people would say it's an intangible asset and others, and I don't think this is necessarily right, they're saying, oh, this is the first service tariff because everything now has been on good. Because in some ways a movie is a collection of services that are sort of patchworked together

from multiple locations, you know, maybe getting the post-production done in India, maybe you're doing, you're filming in Hungary, maybe you're also filming partly in the United States. There are areas of geographical specialism, uniqueness, whatever. And at all times in that production, these services flow digitally around the globe. I mean, you can't impound some pixels at the border, Okay. You can't say that's not coming in. You can try. You can try. Imagine the size of the wall you'd need.

Well, I know, but to some extent, speaking of walls, okay. You know, remember his plan to get Mexico to pay for the wall. To some extent, foreign governments, lots of US studios make movies in places like, I don't know, it could be the UK, it could be Eastern Europe, it could be anywhere around the world, but they make them there because the governments have made local tax incentives. But the profits of those films are taken back to the US. So in many ways, this is like getting foreign governments to pay to build your wall. And this is, again, unlike lots of the industries he's tariffed so far, this is not a deficit

industry. Okay. This is in America, a rare surplus industry. I think they produced 22 billion in exports in the last reckoning, which is probably 2023 now and 15 billion in surplus. Okay. So foreign governments support this with their tax incentives. So let's do a little history lesson.

Okay. Once upon a time, all movie production or most of it was in LA, apart from obvious stuff that you needed locations for, you're going to South of France to film Catch a Thief or whatever it is. Remains of the day was probably not on the lot. Obviously they didn't have any houses built before 1985. So it was very difficult to film that one there, but you know, God knows otherwise they might've done. Okay. And even in the last decade or something, production in the US is down like 40% and hardly anything as we saw from when the fires hit in that awful event, not that much was stopped because not that much is even being made in LA, which is supposedly

the center, right? Now there's reasons that it's moved out. Remember American entertainment is so heavily unionized and it is consequently very expensive. It's also expensive because wages have to be very high because they don't have universal healthcare, they don't have a federal pension, they don't have things like that. So you have to keep wages high. Now what initially started happening is that the various states within the US started offering incentives and saying, oh, you can make your stuff much cheaper here and we'll give you all these taxes to move basically out of LA. And this is

why you get centers like things building up in Atlanta and huge industries like that building up in areas where which traditionally didn't have anything like that, because the states offered incentives. But ultimately, more and more of it moved overseas because that opened up a whole world of lower cost crews with far fewer regulations who can work longer hours or different hours and do many, many different things they can't do in the US. And in the high end, the sort of Anglophone world, Australia, the UK, lots of expensive stuff came here. Medium, lower budget has a huge amount being made in Eastern Europe.

By the way, there's lots of high-end stuff being made there as well. But all of these things have been possible because of these tax incentives offered by other countries. Now, if we move on now to the state of the industry, obviously the industry is an extremely delicate state as we know in general. Now, even at the best reading of this Trump post that it doesn't actually happen and it's a way of scaring people or whatever it is, the best reading is that it injects massive uncertainty into a business that basically is beleaguered

and very sensitive. And uncertainty is obviously, I know he's such a great genius businessman, but uncertainty is terrible for business. We know the box office is down. We know there have been the fires in LA. It's interesting. You remember his only other move to do with Hollywood so far has been that he appointed

the three czars who I don't think knew they were being appointed. Sylvester Stallone, John Voight, and Mel Gibson. Now I wouldn't have had it down that John Voight would be the only one to get his arse in gear and actually do something. But as it turns out, John Voight has been going around and he's been taking lots of meetings and talking to people. And what a surprise, he's come up with the exact same thing really as the California governor Gavin Newsom, which is maybe we should offer these industries incentives to stay

in LA. And what the business class, the executive class, and the people who run this industry want is incentives and tax breaks to shoot in LA or to shoot in the US or whatever it is. The reason they're making something like Avengers Doomsday, Marvel and Disney are making Avengers Doomsday in the UK is not because they're just trying to throw us a bone,

it's because it is too expensive and we, the UK, offer great incentives and that's why they're doing it. So essentially, if you want to throw Hollywood a bone and if you want to increase things being made in America, you offer those tax incentives. That's what you do. That's why we've got stuff in the UK, that's why they have stuff in Hungary. What he's actually done is said, I'm going to make it too expensive for you to make a film abroad because of the tariffs I'm going to charge on your final project, but it is still too expensive for you to make a project in America. So actually it's going to be too expensive for Hollywood to make a movie anywhere. They

can't make them in Hollywood because historically it's too expensive. They now can't make them abroad because any tax incentives they're given is offset by this tariff. So it's actually puts Hollywood in a position where they can't fund or finance anything and they can't really release anything. He hates Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And as you say, listen, it's a, it's a message on truth social and we've seen a

million of those and at the moment, this is a mix between, you know, the rest is politics and the rest is money and soon it might be the rest is history, but you wouldn't put it past him to try and force this through, though it feels like almost an impossibility given the forces who are on the other side of it for once. It might be slightly too difficult for him to pull off if he really means it. It's interesting the reaction to it. Obviously the people who are high up are furious about this. And as you say, you know, ultimately people will want to consume entertainment and they will, and as we've seen, look at the explosion in non-English

language or whatever, people will consume stuff from wherever. I have to say that, um, obviously companies who are struggling, this is a night in studio, lots of studios are struggling to some degree, even places that are thriving like Netflix, half of Netflix original movies are made outside of the US. What are you going to do about that? Are you going to put a hundred percent tariff on that? It's sort of fascinating because just to use that Avengers movie as an example, Avengers Doomsday, it's going to cost, I don't know what it's going to cost, let's say 300 million. We're now making a $600 million movie,

don't be ridiculous. And also if you're a movie company, then someone has to define at some point what a film is, if that makes sense. And so you suddenly go, well, we'll still make it, but we're not going to release it theatrically. And you know, we'll find different ways of reaching people. Yeah, you have to determine what percentage of the asset is made outside the US. That's a very, very difficult question. That's a real question you could get in the long grass over. Yeah, exactly. Star Wars has to shoot in the desert and they don't have an appropriate

desert in the US. Some vehicles have to shoot abroad. It's an absolute impossibility not to. And whenever there are these tax incentives, you know, there's things like when there are nations and regions over here and things have to be made outside of London, at some point you have to define what that is. So I think briefly it was anywhere outside the M25 or so. Suddenly Pinewood, which was just outside the M25 counts as a regional production. You know, Hollywood producers are very good at working their ways around these types of things because there are so many moving parts in a movie production. It feels like they could kick this, as you say, into the long glass for so long

by obfuscating and little opt-outs and how they're defining films and things like that. It doesn't feel like a clear-cut one, like, one, like a tariff on widgets. Well, no. And even the supposedly clear cut ones, things like prawns that are caught in the U S and then they go to Canada to be washed and then they come back into the U S, you know, at what point is that an American good? Is it a tariff has been put on that as it turns out, because the service has been done in Canada.

But anyway, lots of things interest me about this. Some of it I find quite sort of sad and it is very difficult for people, particularly crew in the business, who have to live somewhere. And for obvious historic reasons have tended to live in LA. Now nothing's being made in LA. With the exporting of lots of production to other countries, they feel that a select few of them go and effectively train local crew to be as good as them. And then they've kind of colluded in the outsourcing of their own jobs.

Now, I don't feel that this is going to bring lots of production back to LA because for a reason of those costs that are not going to change the costs of unionized labor, the costs of various things like that. It just means that most low and medium budget things will just become impossible, as you said. So how many jobs will be lost to that? It's incredibly destructive. The difference is that people will still lose their jobs, but there'll be half an industry left. It'd be a very different industry because really the only way, if you're suddenly going to have to add all these extra costs to your business plan over the last five years. What's the cheapest way to deal with that is AI. I mean, it's just outsource

all those things to a computer. It's just outsource those things to much cheaper technology, outsource the editing process, outsource, you know, DOP process, all these things that are going to be possible. If you're a Hollywood studio and they are not charities, I don't see that that's not a way that they would go. If now it only becomes commercially viable to produce films in the States, that will be the first thing they do. I think that would absolutely decimate the industry and whether that's something Trump wants or not is open to question, but I can't see another way around it. We haven't even talked about retaliatory tariffs. What if, and certainly they will, even if

it is, he's a friend, Victor Orban, what about retaliatory tariffs? If if, and certainly they will, even if it is his friend, Victor Orban, what about retaliatory tariffs? If a company like Disney, where their global box office is much bigger in terms of percentage than their US box office, that's not the case, by the way, with everybody. But if there are tariffs imposed on their products, retaliatory tariffs, then they're in a whole lot of trouble. That's very, very difficult to deal with. I do think the point about TV not being in it is so kind of enormous because obviously we know TV, so much of it happens overseas as it were from the US. TV can't get made without foreign sales. So half the budget comes from foreign sales and lots of different shows. Is it just

a sort of random oversight and he's suddenly then going to say, and now I'm adding TV, which he could easily do. And you know, then we have to think about the Four Seasons Detroit as the next setting for the white lotus or whatever. But also what next? I mean, books, books are produced overseas. Are you going to put a tariff on books? I suppose for me, the fear under all of this is, is there a sort of cultural nativism underneath all of it that you know we want things made in America, we want shows about America, we want things all the sort of globalizing of things which has actually opened up in a really interesting way and that

anyone who would never have watched anything with subtitles 20 years ago now does it routinely several times a week, and by the way, watches subtitles on programs in their own language as well. But is there a sort of thing where you're saying, well, if movies, then why not books? Yeah, books are an industry that has troubles of its own. And why not? It's not like the book world is a particularly friendly world to Trump. You know, it's not like a lot of his supporters are gathering there. It's tricky though, because movies and books, whatever the right may say, there are plenty of right-leaning pieces of art out there and there are plenty of middle American, especially

TV shows and films and books out there at the moment as well. So it does seem to be cutting a few noses to spite your face almost to sort of punish the industry as it existed 10 years ago and the trouble is it will get rolled back. It's just, it's just an awful lot of work for everyone now. You know, it's uncertainty and you know, the movie business, you have to invest a huge amount of money so you immediately stop investing because you know, you can't and yeah, it's just, oh, we've got to deal with this now.

Have we? This is a production's a poised to sort of sign the paper this week to begin pre-production in Eastern Europe. Would you do it? No, you're going to have to wait now. Everyone's going to have to just wait to see. And it just makes things very, very difficult for an industry that is already struggling.

You don't get this problem in Morocco. I'll say that and everything very, very chilled. I'll have a little glass of lemon juice with mint, um, sit down and talk about it. So for the UK, I think it's a really difficult situation because there's so many things that all those big studios, you know, Pinewood, Leavesden, Shepparton, all of these things that are filming for the US. And if that goes already, by the way, half as much is being made now as was before the writers and actors strikes and lots of it's being made in the UK. But if that ends up going because it's just too expensive and if it, by the way,

if this widens to television, then that's a huge thing. Yeah, we're in huge trouble if that happens. I mean, TV really is in trouble. And one of the bright spots for creatives, especially for creatives behind the scenes, is the movie industry and the fact that actually most of the big studios over here are expanding, you know, opening new studios.

It's been a huge success story for Britain and a sort of red glimpse of light in an industry, because the TV industry and the film industry really intersect in lots of different ways. This is not completely porous, but you know, a lot of the skill sets are the same. If this were to happen as well, well, those big studios can't rely on TV production anymore. They can't rely on big Hollywood movies coming over because of the tariffs. They can't rely on content that's being made by YouTubers and TikTokers and

Instagram because they've already got their means of production and it's very, very different. So what are they enormous empty buildings? Yeah. Definitely if these tariffs extend to television, we're in big, big, big trouble. I feel that as you said before, actually television is one of those industries where America makes an awful lot of money. And you had to hope that Trump's law of ordeal would let him understand that there's people making huge profits for America. And there's ways of telling that

narrative if you are Hollywood that would could reach the American people. But yeah, if he is serious and if you aren't putting a tariff on films, absolutely no reason why you wouldn't put a tariff on television. If he is serious about that, then the repercussions will be felt in the UK industry immediately. Projects will be canceled immediately. Studios will be left empty immediately. And for the first six months, they'll get insurance on that. But after that, they're empty and

there's nothing there to fill them. Empty studios and there's already a lot of lower and medium budget stuff has fallen away. I mean, you do get these big huge things that come in for the US. But if there is uncertainty such that people pause things or withdraw entirely, then that is really, really bad for our own creative industries. And by the way, if I was an American, listen to this and I'd be thinking, yeah, good, because that means that our industry will be boosted. And that's what we should be doing.

That's what our government should be doing. I think as we have said, it doesn't actually massively help Hollywood either. It doesn't massively help LA either. Not at all. They won't make it. It doesn't massively help LA either. Not at all. They won't make it. That it just won't be made. So not only will you still lose your jobs, but you'll come back to an industry, half the size of what it used to be.

And it's interesting because next week, I think we're going to talk about Eli Roth, the horror movie, O'Toole made cabin fever and hostile and has made an awful lot of money in movie production. And he has an entirely new way of financing film, which is really, really interesting. We're going to talk about that and it might sort of show a way forward for Hollywood, but certainly, um, because tariffs are going to make it very difficult for any mode of film financing to get off the ground, I think. That's the real, the full spectrum horror show. Yeah. Oh my God. Don't go into the house. There's tariffs in there. Now, shall we go to a break after which we will be discussing kneecap?

Yeah. On a lighter note, kneecap. This episode of The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Sky, where you can catch up on brilliant shows, including season one of Poker Face before season two arrives on the 8th of May. I think I went on record in series one of this saying it was my favourite television series of the year. You loved it. Absolutely, I loved it so much. Well, it stars Natasha Lyon from Russian Doll and Orange is the New Black as Charlie Kale, a sharp-tongued drifter with an instinct for knowing when something or someone doesn't

quite add up. She also has an unfortunate tendency to gravitate towards murder wherever she goes each episode is standalone investigation, very much in the spirit of Colombo. It's like a real homage to Colombo, even with the same graphics and all sorts of things. It's full of twists, dodgy characters and strange corners of America. It really has been every new episode she turns at somewhere new. You think, oh yeah, this is going to be great. And there's always been huge guest stars on it as well. This series, they've got Cynthia Erivo is on it,

John Mulaney is on it, Katie Holmes, Gianluca Esposito, they're all making appearances this season. Catch up on season one now before the brand new season of Poker Face premieres on 8th of May, only on Sky. Hi there, I'm Ryan Reynolds, and I have a list of things I like to have on set. It's just little things like two freshly cracked eggs,

scrambled with crispy hash browns, sausage, crumble, and creamy Chipotle sauce from Tim Hortons. From my rider to Tim's menu, try my new scrambled eggs loaded breakfast box. From early morning workouts that need a boost to late night drives that need vibes, a good playlist can help you make the most out of your everyday.

And when it comes to everyday spending, you can count on the PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard to help you earn the most PC optimum points everywhere you shop. With the best playlists, you never miss a good song. With this card, you never miss out on getting the most points on everyday purchases. The PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard, the card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. Welcome back everybody. Lovely to have you still with us. Marina, the story of Necap, who are an Irish rap group. They rap in Irish. Two of them are from West Belfast. One of them is from Derry, who have been around eight or nine years, something like that. Started popular, became wildly popular, had a movie made about them last year. But in the last week or so, they found themselves in the heart of a good

old fashioned punk rebel band controversy, the sort of thing that has echoed down the ages. It was a little bit more than a week ago because it's been rolling and perhaps snowballing, shall we say. So they were at Coachella. Which is the big US festivals, like Glastonbury in the desert, Coachella essentially is a huge sort of cultural phenomenon over there. It's the biggest festival in the States pretty much. Yeah, I mean, it's like a sort of mega corporate kind of turbo capitalist version of some hippie

dream. I don't know. Anyhow, but at this festival this year, they led the audience in an anti-Thatcher chant. And so their live stream got cut, which was I think the initial controversy. Then they had very aggressive messages about Israel and free Palestine, whatever it was, maybe project on their back projections. Sharon Osborne got involved. You know you're in trouble when Sharon gets involved. Yeah. And then since that, the right, which hates offence mining, of course, has done the full trawl of any footage available anywhere. And they have dredged up some gig footage from some time ago where they shouted, kill

your MP and the only good Tory is a dead Tory or something like that. And some chants in support of Hamas and Hezbollah. The surviving family of Joe Cox and David Amis, the two MPs to be most recently murdered, said, you know, you can't say this. And became very angry. It's become a sort of big sort of skirmish and lots of politicians have got involved. kneecap have made an apology, which sort of sounds like all of the boilerplate platitudes of the age, I suppose, to the family,

saying to the Amos and Cox families, we send our heartfelt apologies. We never intended to cause you hurt. Neekat's message has always been and remains one of love, inclusion and hope, which is sort of like, I mean, everyone talks like this nowadays, don't they? I mean, I have to say- So basically, it sounds like Nat West. It could be anything. They could literally be apologizing for anything. I just take that and put it in your back pocket. Have that written in your wallet. Just use it if you get a speeding ticket. Just use it for anything.

We apologize about the Sausage Roll incident, say Gregg's. Our creed, there was always one been one of inclusion and hope. Anyway, I mean, obviously lots of those messages are really difficult and offensive or whatever. I have to say certain things have started happening to them. You know, like their gig at the Eden project has been canceled. Yes. There's something about this stuff that I read it and I think, oh, you're so hardcore. You were doing a gig at the Eden project.

But the first, that Coachella thing, the anti-Thatcher chant, I was thinking about it and I was thinking, but she left office in 1990. That was like 35 years ago. Okay. In 1990, this is like public enemy leading the audience in a chant against Eisenhower. Okay. I mean, you know, I'm sure he did some bad, you know, but I think she would

have rather approved of Coachella Thatcher. I mean, I can't see her in the sort of native American headdress and hot pants, beloved of the corporate influencer community that populates it. But the sort of sponsorship heavy ethos of that particular festival. So, you know, the film about their life and roots, which I have seen and is great, is sort of great fun and people really liked it. And it did, it did well for something they star in it. And it's kind of slightly sort of madcap. One Bafters and all sorts of things. Yeah. Again, it has the meeting at a Belfast police station when I think they actually met at

an Irish language cultural festival. The inciting incident to the film is one of them getting arrested and refusing to speak anything other than Irish, which is something that happened to a friend of theirs that didn't happen to them. But one of the interesting, I'm going to present the case for the defence. We will get on to the case for the prosecution, I'm going to present the case for the defense. We will get onto the case for the prosecution. I promise. And all of this couch in terms of, of course it's ridiculous that we are

even talking about them in one way. So there are a very, very interesting bunch. They are Irish nationalists and they're called kneecap, which was the IRA. Um, this sort of favorite method of punishment. One of them was a bad o' clava and I think you know for certain communities in Ireland you can buy off their merchandise shop yes exactly again so but but for us and for our generation those feel like very very loaded symbols but you know that's where they grew up that's their culture that's you know they they they ceasefire babies. They grew up after the Good Friday Agreement, which are very interesting and unusual time to grow up in

Ireland. The peace dividend that they were promised is perhaps not paid off, but certainly there's less violence than there was, but the culture remains the same. The folk memory remains the same, and they play with a lot of the iconography of the IRA and of the Irish nationalists. Now they're also very careful to paint Irish nationalism, the IRA as buffoons and venal in the film they do that particularly. So they're not one note, they're taking, we are what we eat, aren't we? And they grew up in a certain community at a certain time, their families grew up in that same community at a very different time. So there is humor, there's humor, whether it's to your taste or not.

There is a sort of a satirical element to a significant amount of it. A lot of humor, a lot of irony. They rap in the Irish language and that's very important to a lot, to lots of people in Ireland and also, you know, creates a sound that is unlike lots of things that are out there. So artistically, they've always been a very, very interesting proposition. They've always been funny. They've always had the courage of their convictions, but they are playing a game. There is an element of childishness here that I feel I cannot go uncommented on. This is, listen, we are going to get onto the case for the prosecution. I absolutely promise you.

I'm just saying that where they're from essentially, and you know, they've, they've grown this audience and they've grown it massively. And they got to the stage where suddenly they're at a slightly different part of culture and the most interesting thing, I think there's this expression taken out of context and when they said, you know, kill a Tory, kill your local MP, they said, our amounts are taken out of context. And when they said, you know, kill a Tory, kill your local MP, they said, our amounts are taken out of context. And so Brendan Cox, Joe Cox's widow, quite right. He said, look, I've seen the film, I know who they are, I know what they do. I went and looked at the footage and I don't think it has been taken out of context. Now, our understanding generationally,

if someone has taken out context would be at the gig, they had said, we are not the sort of people to say the only the Tories that did Tory kill your local MP and someone had clicked it. So they just said, kill your local MP, right? That would be out of context. And that is not what happened. And Brendan Cox said, I read it. I saw it. I watched the footage and it's, and it's in context. I think what we mean by context here is that they said it to an audience they understood. And they said it to an audience who understood everything that was signified and everything

that was signified. And there was a sort of, we're amongst friends. We're in this room. Anyone who's listened to any punk band in the last 30 years has heard those things time and time and time again. But unfortunately we live in a stage now, we live in a context because of our culture where everything you say, you are saying to everyone all the time. Because of digital culture.

Because of digital culture and these things still exist. And so it's all well and good to say, no, but we were with an audience who understood exactly what we meant when we said that they, you know, they know we don't mean really go and kill your local MP. They understand what we're saying. You can, well, listen, that's all in good. And I'm sure they're right. I'm sure no one in the audience would have gone and done that, but that's not the

culture we live in, you know, when, when, when the pistols were singing, God saved the queen, shade, no human being. And there I'd be fascinated to know the numbers on people who once poked around the living room singing that. And then a few years ago were crying when the queen died. And I mentioned there'd be a huge amount of them. And you know, how many people are there who screamed along, you know, to kidding in the name, fuck you, I won't do what you tell me and now work for Goldman Sachs. I mean, it's loads of them. I mean, the, the, mean, the energy we have,

the raw energy and the way we want to change the world in our teens and our twenties, which is incredibly necessary for all sorts of cultural reasons, is not who we are as human beings. You know, there is a context there. But I would say that kneecap grew up in that tradition. Don't forget also there from the tradition of, you know, Irish rebel songs and all these things. Any artist is an accumulation of so many different things. And so if kneecap have only just appeared on your radar and they seem like this extraordinarily constructed thing, I would say actually a lot of who they are, you can trace back who they are to a genuineness in their culture. Now that would be the case for the defence. However, I think in this particular instance, they are wrong. They're wrong about what they said.

What should happen next is a moot point. But let's move on to the case for the prosecution for a moment as if this is something that needs to be prosecuted. Well, of course, let me tell you, I mean, honestly, this is the most cringe-worthy part of it all. And I'm talking about, you know, as I said, people in their thirties being that childish, so two of them are in their twenties, to be fair. Okay. Two of them are in their twenties, but it goes some, it's quite impressive that the most cringe-worthy thing in lots of ways about this is all the

politicians who've got involved. I mean, there was a debate in the house of commons about this last week, a debate, a debate and you know, what's on earth?, a debate, a debate. And you know, what's on earth? Okay. First of all, I mean, there were things like Dan Jarvis, who's the security minister. I mean, hopefully, I didn't, hopefully nothing's happened to do with like Iran and security threats in the last few days, because there he was standing there. I mean, really quite sort of well attended House of Commons saying, I will not say the band's name out loud. And I just thought, oh my God,

you know, this is this, this tip, you see, it's such a period piece to some extent, Richard, didn't you feel when you were reading this whole story? Richard Lundgren It really is. Elie Wintory Oh my God, I'm back in the 80s. I am back because we're this old, you see, you're back in the 80s, you're or maybe even the 90s. And you're hearing all these people say these things. People won't remember this, but Sinn Fein, the political wing of who was widely regarded or described then as the political wing of the IRA, their politicians were not allowed to speak on camera, on British news programs

at all, and therefore they had to be ventriloquized by an actor. I know that sounds mad, but it was the case. And I remember, you know, in the early 90s, and they used to have it, the day to day used to have a sketch where Steve Coogan, who would play a Sinn Fein politician, and there was one of the sketches, Steve Coogan used to play a Republican politician. Every time before he said anything, he would just take a drag off a massive helium balloon. By that point, it became so completely ridiculous. And all of these things, I honestly felt when I was watching this debate, to watch someone

like Mark Francois even be talking about the Glastonbury line up and saying they've got to be removed. People are going, they need to be removed from Spotify and iTunes. I was like, what's iTunes? Is that Apple Music? Everything about it is embarrassing, right? Kemi Badeno, oh my God, she's gone completely nuts about it. Again, all this does is amplify it.

And for people who say, particularly on the right, who say, oh, we don't believe in all this. We believe in freedom of speech in this case, as you say, has gone too far, whatever it is, but all this sort of offense mining. You know that Tory donor, Frank Hester, who I think it was last year, they found that he'd said, looking at Diane Abbott makes you hate all black women and that Diane Abbott should be shot. He's their biggest donor of the Tory party. Can you better not describe that as trivia? Well, I mean, if that is, then so is Niqab, okay?

And again, by the way, he said that in front of a room of people who were his people. And he thought, well, of course I can say whatever I want because that is the context in which I'm saying that is this group of people who will understand the context in which I speak. And that's what NECAP did. They were doing in front of a group of people who were, you know, in that room expecting to hear that sort of thing from that sort of band. That's context, but you either have to accept context or not. And if you don't accept it, then you have to take Frank Hester and NECAP with equal seriousness. I spoke to a couple of people in the music industry this weekend and I was saying, so

what's the sort of vibe about all of this? Because by the way, lots of artists have written, we should say that, lots of artists have written an open letter saying, you know, this is censorious and I have to say, you do slightly feel that the bit they're not saying is we have to support people's freedom to be complete childish twats as well. And there is that sort of element of that. I spoke to people in the music industry saying people are taking this quite, you know, they're so ethical and courageous in the music industry, famously, Richard, famously. So they're saying, oh, don't have anything to do with them. Where possible, don't put your artists on the same bills as them. And there's lots of that behind

the scenes being said at the moment. Now, another thing that reminded me of, made me feel like it was a real period piece is that that there's something about it that is that 80s kind of ludicrousness that, you know, remember Tipper Gore's thing, you know, when you see a parent explicit lyrics, all this warning about the corrupting nature of music. And Tipper Gore, who was Al Gore's wife, she was a second lady. Now she started this thing called the Parents Music Resource Center, and it was about explicit lyrics because she'd heard her 11 year old

listening to Darling Nikki by Prince. And she was so appalled that this sort of thing could be sort of said, and the result of this was that those parental advisory lyrics stickers that you used to see on things physically, but now virtually, were really all down to that lobby group. But there were huge numbers of people who talk really interestingly now about how that censored or restricted access to artists who were quite political and whether, and a lot of that was racial politics in the United States. In other ways,

the Dixie Chicks were effectively cancelled or banned for criticizing George Bush. A lot of this is, I find it really, I do think it's part of a sort of a form of censoriness or a form of just not giving the same benefit of the doubt that you would expect given to your donors when they speak in their context as you quite rightly put it. And it reminded me, funny enough in that upcoming Adam Curtis thing, this thing called Shifty, he mentions the idea that in the 90s, liberals kind of retreat from politics because they no longer feel they can sort of change things and that money is the sort of dominant power and they retreat from it into culture. And I suppose he doesn't talk about this, but I'm talking about this now in the context

of this is that the culture wars all sort of come from this and people are fighting about things. It's almost that they're fighting about this stuff because they don't know what to do about the bigger stuff. I'm sorry, I mean, you know, I don't believe that some idiot thing that some band said on some stage that just happens to have turned up on YouTube and that some journalist has spent ages trying to watch every piece of footage till they find it is more important than the much bigger things. And yet you see all these MPs lined up to talk about it because they feel like it's an easy gimme. Maybe they think that clip of them, Richard, to again talk about the context of things, I can use this clip of me saying this, this will play well with my constituents. It's all this kind

of industry of creating something, but it's not about doing anything meaningful and anything important. And the one thing I would say is that kneecaps fan base, their streams I think are up 14, 15% over the past four weeks. So no one's emerged with any glory. No, they really haven't. And I read a piece by Trevor Phillips yesterday who said, well, I guess kneecap have got what they wanted, which is publicity.

And I think it's probably not fun to be in kneecap for the last couple of weeks. I don't imagine they're enjoying this very, very much. And I do think it's, there's some pump bands have done it forever, the thing of Tories and that trape and Thatcher. And certainly if you're Irish culturally, you know, something you've absolutely grown up with, I do think it's a sort of indefensible thing to say, in the context, I get why you say it, I get why nobody would complain in that audience. So do I. And I think putting, you know, fuck Israel up on your backdrop at Coachella, you obviously are wanting them to pull the live stream and you are obviously wanting them to censor you. You are obviously wanting that. That is very calculated.

The other stuff I think is, it's hard to know, as you say, context is, there is a context and it's not, we don't all mean the same thing by context anymore. I spoke to my old pal, Professor Anam Finlayson, who's one of our great sociologists and is amazing about context. He said, it's all very well saying you said in context, but someone is able then to click that and show it to Katie He said, it's all very well saying you said in context, but someone is able then to click that and show it to Katie Amos, who's David Amos' daughter. And once that happens, then, you know, Context is absolutely no defense. That's a real thing that you've said.

And there's been shown to someone who was deeply, deeply affected by, and of course, in that context, it is deeply offensive. And as a band, you have to think about that. And I think that kneecap, I think the real kind of judge of what's going to happen is what do they do next? Because if they're true great artists, this is something they will think about, learn from, or maybe come back with something very interesting. And maybe they'll be able to actually add something to this debate about what we are and what we aren't allowed to say what we should and what we shouldn't say What's the culture we live in when?

One level we're completely siloed and then on another level everything we say is available to everyone You know if they come back in six months time with you know, some incredible work about that Then I think that would be very interesting But at the moment is one of those things that you can see the car crash in slow motion See every single thing was added up to it every single bit of the jigsaw that was there and then they all slotted into place. But around it, around the nugget of truth at the middle of it, which is probably it's not the smartest thing to have said and their apology, what it hasn't really

been accepted is I think they probably do understand that it wasn't a smart thing to say and I think they probably do feel uncomfortable about any hurt they've caused and they've always espoused pacifist causes. They've always played with the idea of nationalism and sectarianism, all those things, but they seem to be deeply pacifist in their way. What happens next will be interesting from them as a band. And as you say, they're not in their early twenties, they're late twenties and mid thirties.

So, you know, they've got a few miles under their wheels and maybe they'll come back with something interesting. But at the moment we're in a, I was talking to, um, uh, uh, an Irish friend yesterday, uh, and he was saying just this idea of politicians saying that kneecap need to tell us what this stance on Hamas and Hezbollah is like asking scouting for girls what their view of the gut trade talks are. I mean it isn't a thing, they're a band, they have a certain cultural job and their job is not to talk to Keir Starmer. Any politician who spends one nanosecond more of their time on the public purse discussing this in any way is wasting the public's money and has charges

towards themselves. Spend your time on Frank Hester, spend your time on donor money coming into politics that says that if you have to spend it on that sort of thing. And this is so counterproductive. I can't even explain to you, as I say, you know, they've had a boost in streaming and what have you. I genuinely think that that thing that they've had a boost in stream and this is good for them is not right.

I genuinely think that this has been chastening for them. I think probably they'll emerge from it slightly differently and will emerge from it thinking about who they are and what they do slightly differently and thinking about the platform they now have that, you know, because that's the thing with bands and the thing with TV stars and anything, you start off doing anything to get attention and you don't realize when you've reached the tipping points that, Oh no, we've got lots of attention now. And sometimes you keep using the same tactics you use to climb up the pole when you're at the top of the pole and you can't. And I think if NiKAP work that out and tell us something intelligent about it and are

genuine in their apologies for some of the things they've said, I think that it can be healing for everybody. But you can very easily see how there is pressure clearly. And it's because politicians are focused on small and irrelevant things because they can't make the big things move. You can see how there will be pressure put on the Trump administration to say, you know, you've got to cancel their work visas and they can't cut, they've got to sell out US tour I think.

And you can see how something like that would be done. But these are kind of meaningless wins in a war where we're facing much bigger losses. The world is in a very, very difficult place. And I honestly think if you retreat into these tiny cultural skirmishes, then you're admitting defeat on the much bigger stuff. Now, Richard, have you got any recommendations? I do indeed. The assembly, which we talked about before when they did a one-off version of it on the BBC,

which is it's a chat show. We have one guest and all of the interviewers are neurodivergent. And it's just a brilliant way of interviewing someone because there's no filter. The filter is completely off. Sheen did the one on the BBC. ITV have now picked it up as a series of genuinely shocked that the BBC, David Tennant did the first episode, which is great. Jay Thur was just on one as well. I think Gary Lineker is coming up, but it's just a really, really lovely bit of television that not only gives you something completely new, but also makes you feel a little bit better about the world and gives you more information about guests than you might get on other shows.

I hate that I'm doing this because I've got something that doesn't make you feel better about the world. Two documentaries that were really interesting. I will have to say that Groomed, a national scandal, which is the Anna Hall documentary about the grooming gangs, the rape gangs story, which is on channel four, is extraordinarily tough and I think it's very important and I think remaining focused on that story is very important. So I would recommend that. I also would recommend Bad Influence, The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, which is about the story particularly of one child YouTuber and her exploitative mother, Piper Rockell, and her so-called squad. I mean, it is utterly grim, the sort of life in the content minds of YouTube, particularly for children. And

I'm afraid I made my children watch this with me, even though there are aspects of it which you might find very unsuitable for your children. But it is the reality behind the kind of perfect sunny smiles of being a YouTuber. I mean, really very grim and a really interesting and unregulated world. I mean, it's an incredibly compelling story that I'm afraid because I don't watch child YouTubers, I just wasn't across and this kind of scandal and how it unfolds is really interesting. So I'd recommend that that's on Netflix. Marina, thank you. People only not need to know that my internet dropped about 19 times during that.

So it's been a struggle, but thank you. Your only not need to know that my internet dropped about 19 times during that. So it's been a struggle, but thank you. Your struggle is real to me always. I will see you on Thursday. See you on Thursday for a Q&A. Of course, anyone that whoever wants to sense a question, they can do that. At The Rest Is Entertainment at goalhanger.com. On Friday, we're going to have a bonus episode for our members club, which you can join at therestisentertainment.com. It's 50 years since the launch of Monty Python. And we're going to have a little bit of a series exploring where that moment of comic rock and roll went. Where it came from and where it went. Thank you Marina. See you on Thursday.

See you on Thursday. Well, that brings us to the end of another episode of The Rest Is Entertainment, brought to you by our friends at Sky. I have been catching up on The Last Of Us recently, such a gripping watch. Absolutely right. The critics are fairly unanimous. It's dark and intense, brilliantly done, they're all saying, especially on your Sky glass with its high quality screen. Even those very low lit scenes, every flicker, every detail, it really pulls you in.

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