A bad plot is contagious

While Yuri Dud enlightens people, Russian TV jokes about epidemics

The coronavirus epidemic has swept the entire airspace of Russian TV. Last week, host of the Vremya program Kirill Kleimenov, turning to etymology (the science of the origin of words), saw a connection between the word “corona” in the name of the virus and the crown that US President Donald Trump awarded the winners of the Miss Universe contest.

And it soon became clear: Kleimenov, like the author of the story on this topic, Kirill Brainin, deigned to joke. But the audience, for the most part, did not appreciate the refined humor of the host of the main information country and took everything at face value. "Well, stupid-ee!" - as the humorist Mikhail Zadornov said (also jokingly), characterizing the Americans.

And Kleimenov had to explain himself on the air with his dull audience, as well as with those representatives of the media that he did not name, who reacted with bewilderment to him, Kleimenov, and his witty colleagues saying: “In short, I received a message: “There was a story about the coronavirus, which claimed that the virus is man-made, it can be a bioweapon and is associated with the President of the United States, as it resembles a crown ... Tell me, do you believe in this? … First, it was. There was a story by Brynin under the heading “Coronavirus. Conspirology". And at the end of it, this statement was made in the form of a joke. Even as a hyperbole. Grotesque exaggeration. Something that can be negotiated. Secondly, most importantly: I believe! Of course I believe. I believe in Trump's crown. In Pompeo's space suit."

Kleymenov shifts the responsibility for the “wrong” reaction to his joke to the viewers themselves: “My friends, a little older, told me: bags of letters came to their newspaper every day.

Two of the three have a return address and are stamped “Local Madhouse.” And they had to respond properly to everything. For the first time, I felt like I was in their shoes.”

That is, according to the logic of the joker Kleimenov, it was not the TV people who went crazy, launching a vulgar “duck” into the information space (although it fits very organically into the general context of their news), but the audience, who did not catch the subtle humor and banter.

Kleymenov, by the way, is a great master of the artistic word even outside the “conspiracy” plots. For example, he opens one of the episodes of the Vremya program this week like this: “To whom is the coronavirus, and to whom, as they say, the crown is the bride.” This is a lead-in to a story called "The Foolish Prank Virus" about a prankster who really made an idiotic hype in the Moscow metro. According to Kleymenov, there is a difference between jokes and jokes: “If pranksters are just having fun, “grandmother is joking,” as Irina Muravyova said in the legendary film, is one thing. And if the grandmother is not joking, but, let's say, deliberately scares people in order to cause riots? Do we have a law that can be effectively applied in this case? As far as I know, no. And it should be."

It turns out that if the right “grandmother” is absurdly joking on the air of a federal channel, the law is not written for her, but for malicious “grandmothers” - pranksters - it must be written so as not to sow horror and panic among honest citizens. In the finale of the program, announcing the premiere of the series "Trigger" (where the main character is a psychologist), Kleimenov again returns to the topic of social madness:

“I realized one important thing. The psychiatrist has a lot more clients than it seems at first. They are all around us, these customers.”

Having counted among the clients the American journalist from CNN television company Matthew Chance, who, like many of Kleimenov’s Russian “clients”, took the nonsense about the connection of the coronavirus with President Trump at face value, he, Kleimenov, generously forgives him: “To live and feed his family you, Matthew, need to tell all sorts of nonsense about Trump, China and Russia. And now the turn has come to me, a sinner ... I'm not offended. Like the hero of "Trigger" never takes offense. It’s strange to be offended by customers.”

Another full-time wit of the First Channel, Artem Sheinin, invited his audience to charge water from his program “Time Will Show”. “The doctors,” he joked, “decided that this was the only way to fight the coronavirus.” It is curious how many gullible viewers, remembering the method of Alan Chumak, fell for this joke. Well, crazy. What will you take?

And while TV people are joking, and then making excuses for their stupid jokes, and again playing the fool, multiplying the number of “clients” who are really crazy from TV, Yuri Dud, YouTube idol, releases on his channel the film “HIV in Russia: an epidemic about which do not speak". In just a couple of days, the film is gaining about 8 million views, and their number continues to grow. In less than two hours, he, along with his heroes, talks about the fact that there is a real HIV epidemic in Russia:

“Many thought that this disease remained in the 90s and definitely did not make it to the era of ultra-high-speed Internet. But it's not. More than one million people with HIV live in Russia.”

According to the statistics of diseases, Russia is comparable to some African countries. But in addition to these terrible data, there is another problem: “People living with HIV in Russia are constantly discriminated against, they are embarrassed, they are avoided, they are disdainful.” And all this is from ignorance. “The issue that you are about to see,” says Dud at the very beginning, “was made to reduce this ignorance. This is an educational program for those who are not in the subject.

In the course of the story, the author and his characters - HIV-positive themselves, their relatives, doctors, activists - consistently expose the myths and prejudices that have developed around HIV: “If you use therapy, you will live happily ever after, give birth to healthy children,” says Yuri Dud and his interlocutors, who, having gone through public censure and isolation, are ready to provide moral support to those who do not know where to go with their problem. At the same time, Dud does not flirt with his audience, does not entertain them with all sorts of jokes and nonsense, does not slide into yellowness or obsceneness. He speaks calmly and naturally about the most delicate things, and his characters hold and speak the same way during an interview.

Dud himself is being tested for HIV in front of the audience and convinces people not to be afraid of this procedure. By the way, after the premiere of the film, according to Afisha.Daily, the number of requests about HIV on Google increased by about 10 times, and requests to buy an HIV test - as much as 40 times.

And it turns out that one such Dud does more to educate the population than all the powerful and all-encompassing TV, where “clients” are either frightened, or distracted, or entertained, believing that no one is interested in serious educational programs. They judge by themselves, what will you take from them?