Disabilities through the eyes (or not) of Tyneside adolescents with additional emphasis on artifacts of incorrect PAL decoding.
This is a video on Youtube of children’s television show ‘Byker Grove’ (1989-06 BBC/Zenith entertainment).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HQ7LCDLRwU&NR=1
The video is 1’46” long and has approximately 59,000 views. The clip follows a party at the the fictional youth club ‘Byker Grove’ shortly after character PJ is blinded in an illegal paintball event. The scene opens with PJ sat opposite a young girl and the pair are eating ice cream.
(0’1”) Pubescent girl eats ice cream suggestively
(0’2”) PJ is oblivious (ice cream soiling circled in red)
When PJ finally realises that he has ice cream on his tracksuit and this is what amuses the girl, PJ leaves in the modèle standard of a disgruntled blind person; shuffling around in rage and bumping into tables and chairs. There is obvious subtext of simulated fellatio and of PJ’s soiled tracksuit. Unusual though is ideas of shifting dominance, humiliation and perhaps the most erotic idea of all: Obliviousness. PJ has gone off down his own shirt and he doesn’t even know about it.
It’s important here that the quality of the footage ambiguates the age of the characters.
Next, PJ stumbles off out of the room prominently between best friend (Duncan) and father figure (Geoff) after colliding with what may have been a football table. Suddenly everyone in the room is aware of unrest.
(0’13”) Duncan reacting to situation with two onlookers
(0’14”) Geoff’s reaction shot with onlookers
The resulting dialogue resolves the misunderstanding.
(0’15”) Duncan: What happened?
(0’16”) Girl: He got ice cream on his top and never noticed.
(0’20”) Duncan: That’s because he’s blind!
We see through the girl’s reaction CU that she is no longer the sexual predator of ten seconds ago but a something more like the ‘Antisocial Deer’ caught in the headlights of the ‘Vigilante Young Mothers Squad Patrol Car Squadron Vehicle’. We should ask though, have her actions been immoral, inconsiderate or foolish? We would think not initially. This is the classic ‘creation of strife without a villain’ plot device that’s so suited to children’s television. A better question though is this: is it plausible that this girl shared an ice cream with somebody she was attracted to without realising his disability? Unlikely, so what are the implications of this?
For the second part of the video, we see PJ bursting through the doors and falling down steps into the car park. A Motorcycle can be seen in the foreground as the camera tracks right to reveal the action. “what sort of youth club has motorcycles outside?” “Somewhere pretty cool and not like the average youth club!” The childhood viewer would probably conclude.
Anyway, PJ collapses atop a car bonnet revealing Debbie and an onlooker. PJ recognises Debbie through her voice. If we look at Debbie’s appearance, we see no makeup, a sensible coat and traditional haircut (complete with bow or hairband). This is in strong contrast to the previous character.
(0’50”) Debbie: asexual and pious.
The complete dialogue:
(0’42”) Debbie: PJ? (pause) PJ?
(0’51”) PJ: Debbie? (pause) Hold us Debbie… Just hold us.
PJ’s incorrect use of the pronoun ‘us’ might be a colloquialism or hidden plea for affection for both himself and his disability. The two hold each other. We hear television tragedy music with unidentifiable brass or wind instument. Finally, the onlooker joins Duncan and they go back inside to leave the two alone. Title music fades in.
Like many television clips found on Youtube, this one has gone through a standard format ancestry.
Betacam (SP of DIGI) → VHS → .SWF format.
A process like this is highly undesirable because visual artifacts collected in the VHS stage consume the majority of the bandwidth available during compression. In this case, a futher error of the VHS decoding mechanism has meant that adequate blanking during the vertical flyback period did not occur. This issue is intermittent and around a third of the frames are ruined because of this.
(0’08”) Example of failed blanking during flyback
For the layman, failed blanking may be described as being analogous to the following situation: Imagine going to the toilet, urinating and then continuing to urinate after leaving. Imagine continuing then to urinate in the corridor, in the office and in the refectory until it is time to go to the toilet again.
In this example the penis represents the cathode, the electron beam is the urine and the period in the toilet represents the frame being drawn. The corridor, office and refectory represents time in between frames when nothing should be drawn.
The picture is being incorrectly displayed in 16:9 aspect ratio instead of the intended 4:3.
Because of these, the viewer may take this clip with both nostalgia and nausia. They may be reminded of that old 14” tv that they got to have in their bedroom without a decent aerial, of Zig and of Zag, of the sensuality of the textiles of the day, of now outlawed food colourings, of ‘Wolf’ from Gladiators (1992-2000, LWT) and of foolish encounters with things such as Gin. Degradation has reduced footage to shapes and suggestions but never the definite. Geoff’s iconic ‘Geoff beard’ resembles a diving swift in soft focus. The Grove itself might be some looming and terrible cathedral and the darkness might just be the bubbling Tyne.
The viewer is invited to recall their first memory pair it to a television format.
As the twig bends, the tree inclines
