Sir Paul McCartney, the last living Beatle and a man who once sang about letting it be, has now decided to let it be known that he rather admires a certain Irish actor. Cillian Murphy, a man whose face is as angular as his politics are unclear, has been lavished with praise from the Fab One. This, we are told, is a demonstration of British cultural soft power. But is it not, rather, a demonstration of how utterly confused we have become about what ‘British’ even means?
Murphy, you see, is Irish. He is from Dublin, a city that has produced more angry young men than a Sam Shepard play. He has played an Irish republican in ‘The Wind That Shakes the Barley’, a film that might as well be a recruitment video for the IRA. And yet, here he is, being held up as an example of British cultural influence. The logic seems to be that because he works in British films, because he speaks with an accent that is not quite English but not quite foreign, he is somehow ours. This is the same logic that once claimed that the entire Empire was British because we said so. It is a logic of annexation, of cultural colonialism dressed up as admiration.
Let me be clear: Paul McCartney is a genius. The man wrote ‘Hey Jude’. He is the very definition of British soft power, a man whose music has been played in more countries than the Union Jack has been flown. But when he praises an Irish actor, we must ask: what is he praising? The talent? Or the fact that Murphy has chosen to work within the British cultural sphere? Because if it is the latter, then we have a problem. It suggests that British soft power is no longer about exporting our own culture, but about absorbing the cultures of others and claiming them as our own. It is the cultural equivalent of a slow-moving annexation.
We have seen this before. The Victorians were masters of this. They would discover a foreign dish, call it ‘curry’, and then claim it as British. They would find a foreign garment, call it a ‘dressing gown’, and then wear it to dinner. The same is happening now with actors. We are desperate for any sign of cultural relevance, so we grab hold of the nearest talented Irishman and declare him a British treasure. It is pathetic.
But let us also consider the decline. Paul McCartney is 82 years old. He is a living relic of a time when British culture was genuinely dominant. Now, we have to rely on a man nearing his ninth decade to remind the world that we still have something to offer. Meanwhile, our young filmmakers are making films about superheroes, our young musicians are making auto-tuned pop, and our young writers are writing about their feelings. We are in a state of intellectual and cultural decadence, and we are papering over the cracks with the praise of Irish actors.
What would the Romans have thought? They would have laughed at us. They would have seen a once-great empire reduced to celebrating the sons of conquered provinces. And they would have known that the end was near. For when a culture can no longer produce its own heroes, it must borrow them from others. And borrowing is the first step towards losing.
So, let us not pretend that Paul McCartney’s praise of Cillian Murphy is a sign of strength. It is a sign of desperation. It is the sound of a once-great civilisation clutching at straws. And if we do not wake up soon, we will find that the only soft power we have left is the ability to say ‘thank you’ to those who deign to work for us.
