Life imitates art

Oscar Wilde said, “Life imitates art more than art imitates life.”

In the film Field of Dreams they said, “Build it and they will come.”

And Woody Allen said, “Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.”

There is a war going on that’s terrifying all of us. Russia has invaded Ukraine (which often seems to happen around the 20th of Feb, when the reality of frozen ports kicks in and a wistful remembrance of access through the Crimea kicks in.) 

Our nightly news reports from a besieged capital. Clive Myrie is shown, holed up in a Kyiv basement watching himself on Mastermind because the Ukrainians love the BBC, even if the Russians have infiltrated our social media to make half of the UK believe it is a costly evil. 

You have to be careful what information you believe.

Yesterday, someone on social media posted that the President of Ukraine was very convincing: a consummate performer, compelling to watch and just like a ‘real’ President. Someone else replied that the reason for that was because he was a comedy actor and was just very good at playing the part. Just as it was all about to get nasty another person chimed in to say that it was, in fact, true and not only that he had played the part of a teacher who had accidentally become President and sorted out the corruption and after it was so popular the TV company set up a real party with the same name and he was actually elected President and tackled corruption.

What?

That’s mad.

Check your sources.

Me, and every good journalist did just that. I don’t know where they looked but I went to IMDb and Netflix and sure enough Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine was the star of a show called Servant of the People.

Is your mind blown too?

The thing is, if life really does imitate art or even bad TV, can we start making things that make the world better? I would happily watch frolicking puppies all day long if it meant the end to war, death, destruction and pestilence.