MINDLESS MUSINGS

Pump Up the Volume (1990)

***SPOILER ALERT***

Hard Harry is the alter ego of Mark Hunter, a high school student in small town America. Mark is an intelligent introvert who goes about not being noticed. Hard Harry is the rebellious DJ of a pirate radio station who tells it like it is. The station theme song is “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen (the first time I ever heard him), so you get an idea of his outlook on things.

Harry becomes an enigmatic symbol for the disaffected youth in this little town. As his popularity grows the parents and teachers decide he is a bad influence that needs to be stopped. You know the story: Every angry, angst riddled generation produces a bunch of variations on “Hard Harry”. It keeps being repeated because it strikes a raw nerve in this demographic, but this is not a critique of that formula.

I will just say that this movie resonated with 17-year-old me. The cynical, yet compassionate Harry hit a lot of contemporary issues home. Harry’s anonymity gave Mark the courage to express himself in a blunt and vulgar way that a lot of teenagers would love to do – hence the loyal listeners.

Eventually the uptight old fogeys (that’s probably my generation now) close in and capture the young upstart – the bastards! As he is being loaded into a police van, he turns to his adoring fans/peers and yells “talk hard!”. A battle cry for the youth to stand up and be counted! To not be silenced by the tight ass older generation.

As the screen fades to black we hear a flurry of voices as students introduce their own pirate radio shows. The last thing we hear is a female announcing, “turn on the truth!”. The revolution has begun!

Or that is what we’re supposed to think. Even at 17 this never sat well with me. So what happens now? Every Tom, Dick and Harriet is going to spout their own ‘truth”? Is anyone going to listen? Or is this gunna deteriorate into a screaming match? This was 1990 remember, so access to equipment to run a pirate radio station places severe limitations on who can pull it off, but still the idea fell flat with me. So only people wealthy enough to do it would get to “talk hard”.

Just one more thing before the internet comparison. Hard Harry was fucken good! He was cool and thoughtful at the same time. His message was rebellious, but not totally anarchic. Hard Harry 2.0 could turn out to be a nihilistic agitator who wants to watch the world burn.

Okay, settle down. The most probable outcome would be all of these ‘inspired’ youths get on their mics for a while and realise they haven’t really got that much to say after all. Or if they do, they could find that nobody wants to listen to them. Once the medium becomes saturated how do the new and improved Harrys or Harriets get heard over all the noise?

It was a good ending if you didn’t overthink it, like so many movies. I suppose it is harder to let go when you really enjoyed the movie. Or maybe when you went with it at first and the awkward questions just popped into your head days or weeks later; almost like “hey, they fucken tricked me!”

So here we are 35 years later and anyone with a few simple gadgets can launch their own, so much more advanced, pirate radio station. A YouTube channel, a podcast (audio with or without video) and a multitude of other options. Never before have so many people had so much to say!

Sure, a lot of people are just having fun. Others have created awesome communities talking about something really niche and connecting people who thought they were ‘the only one who was into that’. Then there are the rabble-rousers. Those that love to stir the shit pot. Some are pushing an agenda; others just enjoy the instigator role.

I can hear that final line of the movie “turn on the truth!”. It captured the spirit of Hard Harry so perfectly and it was unmistakenly meant to be a galvanising declaration. A few days or weeks later though even a 17-year-old me had an inkling of the way that inspired proclamation could become perverted. A feeling of elation subtly being tainted by unease.

There are probably a few posts about that coming up in the future. I’ll conclude with a simple question I’m sure so many of you have pondered: If everyone is talking? Is anybody listening?