For this week’s edition of ‘Nimby Watch’, we’re looking at a newly released film which celebrates Nimbyism and demonises developers…
Where are we off to today? The woods.
Any woods in particular, or-? Well, they’re in Wigan.
Oh, up North! Or possibly St Helens.
Sorry, what? Or maybe Cheshire? I dunno, somewhere in the North West.
What are you talking about? Would it be easier to say ‘a living room near you’?
I’m not sure that it would. Enlighten me as to who wants to build what in some woods in a living room near me? A heroic property developer by the unlikely name of ‘Clipboard’ is trying to turn some wasted land at the end of a cul-de-sac into a much needed ‘leisure facility’. In her noble crusade to provide her community with the built environment a thriving town deserves, however, she must first defeat a troupe of winsome but selfish children, led by an 11-year-old named Robin – whose gang, inevitably, are known as ‘the Hoods’.
Ahh, kids TV show, is it. Well, a TV film, from Sky Cinema (which is, ironically, happy to distract kids from the joys of the outside world through whatever black rectangle they happen to have to hand). But yes, the point here is that Nimby propaganda has reached our TV screens, and is now being repackaged as entertainment for a generation which does not yet realise the crushing effect Britain’s dysfunctional planning system could have on them. Here’s the description from the Guardian’s review:
Robin (Darcey Ewart) is the bright-eyed leader of a group of children, the Hoods, who love to play fantasy games on a patch of land they call the Kingdom. Their biggest concern is a rival gang looking to take over their domain until plans emerge to turn the area into a new leisure facility for their town.
A tale as old as time. In the trailer, incidentally, Clipboard rightly points out that the ‘kingdom’ is an eyesore. And when Robin tries the old ‘there might be endangered species in there’ trick, the mayor – an unlikely Yimby hero, played by Mark Williams – accurately notes that that feather could have blown in from anywhere.
Ooh, is Mr Weasley in it? Not just him either, it’s a pretty good cast. ‘Ruthless property developer Clipboard’ is Naomie Harris, in a ‘delightful panto-esque turn’. Gwendoline Christie plays some kind of witch. Morgana Robinson’s in there somewhere, too.
‘Clipboard’! Ha, I just got that. There are a number of annoying things about this. The iconography of Robin Hood immediately and obviously suggests someone who robs from the rich to give to the poor – who fights overweening authority on behalf of the little guy. Clearly our sympathy is supposed to be with the whinging kids, not the heroic and hardworking property developers.
Actually, though, as with all Nimby campaigns, you can argue that this is incredibly selfish. That leisure facility would be of use to kids from right across the town – but Robin wants to preserve it for her and her mates who already live on their cul-de-sac. For all we know, other children, who don’t have Robin’s platform or free time to campaign, are suffering from the absence of leisure facilities. Who are the real heroes here, really?
Okay, but the trailer shows the kids fighting with knights on horseback and Naomie Harris with fangs, transforming into a flock of birds. It’s just possible you’re overreacting to a kids’ fantasy film here. And another thing, sure, we all love nature, kids should probably play outside more like they did in my day, a properly functioning planning system would give them access to nature as well as the built environment the economy needs, blah blah blah.
But it’s weirdly propagandistic to imply that development is in and of itself a threat to childhoods. Do these children not live inside? Do they not attend school? Would the filmmakers prefer them to be sleeping in wooded grottoes, attending mother nature’s classroom, existing in a state of nature like a bunch of latter day Jean-Jacques Rousseaus? And if they do not think that, then why would they object to others having access to the same things they do?
I don’t think Robin is the only one who should go outside. Apart from anything else the Guardian said it looks quite good. Yeah well the Times described it as ‘predictable and unconvincing’, so there.
Can we go back to writing about real people next week. I promise nothing.
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