I turned down the OBE because its not a club you want to join when you look at the villains whove got it. Its all the things I think are despicable: patronage, deferring to the monarchy and the name of the British Empire, which is a monument of exploitation and conquest.
Interpretation
Ken Loach rejects the OBE due to its associations with exploitation and questionable values.
In this quote, Ken Loach expresses his disdain for the Order of the British Empire (OBE), highlighting that it is often awarded to individuals who embody what he considers despicable qualities, such as patronage and loyalty to a monarchy that represents a legacy of colonialism and oppression. By refusing the honor, he critiques the values associated with the OBE and the imperial narrative it represents.
In practice
In a speech addressing inequality, one might quote Ken Loach to highlight the dangers of institutional honors tied to exploitative systems.
Film can do lots of things: It can produce alternative ideas, ask questions, just record the reality of what's happening, it can analyze what's happening. Of course, most commercial films are controlled by big corporations who have an interest in not doing those films.
A film has got to demand to be made. Otherwise - if it's just, 'Shall we? Why not?' - you shouldn't make it.
I think it's time British filmmakers stopped allowing themselves to be colonized so ruthlessly by U.S. ideas and stopped looking so slavishly to the U.S. market. It demeans filmmaking when they do that.
We have to defend the migrant workers and give them our support and demand that they have the rights that workers here have from day one, but absolutely hate the system that forces people to leave their country, leave their homes, leave their families, to go somewhere else to be exploited.
I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view.
There are no rules, no models; rather, there are no rules other than the general laws of Nature.
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. A person must possess himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law. - Romeo
In time we hate that which we often fear.
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