The Language of Boris Johnson

I feel compelled to write this post about the language our alleged Prime Minister Boris Johnson uses to deride his male rivals speak volumes. 

Whilst the term 'surrender bill' has rightly been condemned, I'm sorry to see that some of his other choices have been overlooked. In the last week alone Johnson has chosen to call the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, a 'big girl's blouse' in the Commons, whilst a leaked, handwritten note referred to former PM David Cameron as a 'girly swot'.

What does this language tell us? Well, it tells us exactly how little respect the twice-married, serial adulterer has for women. For these terms reveal to us that Johnson believes women are pretty poor and inferior beings. Worse, he believes that the patriarchal society he helps to prop up believes this to be the case too. 

Can the 32 million women who make up half of the UK's population prove him wrong by voting anyone but Conservative come the next election? I hope so. This sexist, overgrown schoolboy bully needs to learn a lesson. He needs to learn that words have repercussions. 

Change Perceptions, Not The Game

As regular readers will know, I'm a big fan of women's football. So I'm in my element right now as it's the World Cup in France. The BBC have really gone to town this year, broadcasting games on the prestigious BBC One as opposed to the usual out-of-the-way screenings on just BBC2 or BBC4. This, along with their slogan for their coverage 'Change the Game', suggests that they are heavily committed to giving both the incredible Lionesses representing our country and women's football itself the attention and recognition that both they and it deserves.

Unfortunately, I fear it's a case of changing perceptions that is really required, rather than changing the game. After all, the game is perfect - far better than the men's in fact - so, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. No, what irks me is the lazy stereotypical humour I've heard on the BBC since the tournament commenced. On Mock the Week last week, the panel wondered if, seeing as the England team are called Lionesses, they change the badge on their shirts to incorporate eyelashes. Really, we're still doing that kind of gag? Whilst Romesh Ranganathan on his show The Ranganation joked that no one was watching or indeed interested in the 'scrappy' performance of our ladies. Meanwhile social media is full of Neanderthal blokes 'joking' that these women should be at home making the tea rather than playing football. Even the BBC's main commentator, Jonathan Pearce, couldn't resist referencing England's last World Cup win in 1966 within the opening minute of the very first game.

It has taken the BBC years to wake up to the fact that there's been a steadily growing interest in the women's game. Such a shame that their 'talent' elsewhere haven't realised that fact yet. What's the betting that will change should England continue to do well in the tournament? 

Woman or People?

Yup, that's apparently the big news today. Did Jeremy Corbyn say 'Stupid woman' during PMQs in relation to Theresa May, or did he say 'Stupid people' as he claims.

Right now the government's flagship propaganda daily sneer, Newsnight, sees a gloating Emily Maitlis discuss this 'important' news item, asking what people think he said. The real question of course, is why is this actually news? What is this faux outrage from the notoriously misogynistic Conservative government (they readmitted sex pest Andrew Griffiths and alleged rapist Charlie Elphicke back to the party just last week, they kowtow to Saudi Arabia and they had no concerns with the filibustering of Christopher Chope and Philip Davies when they nixed the upskirting bill and domestic violence legislation respectively) deflecting attention away from? Right now, the Tories are so up to their necks in Brexit they're happy to seize upon any muck to sling Labour's way. The anti-semitism angle seems to be coming back into play on Twitter but, as an extra insurance it seems, they're hoping to run with Labour are women-haters too.

It's all exceedingly tiresome and I nearly didn't blog about this non-story because I don't believe it deserves anyone's attention. For the record though, it looks like 'people' to me, and it does to a deaf lip reading teacher on twitter who has written a very interesting thread explaining why she believes this is all 'fake news'. The one thing to take from it is, as this lady says, a greater understanding of the issues faced by the deaf and hard of hearing in society. It won't be taken though, the media are too happy spreading shit at the beck and call of their Tory masters. 

And lastly, even if he did say 'stupid woman' so what? It's what we're all thinking about Theresa May anyway, as she is a woman who is acting very very stupid. 

Out On Blue Six: The Beautiful South

Broadcast last week, the excellent Paul Heaton documentary From Hull to Heatongrad revealed much about the genius songwriter, including how disappointed he is by one particular track from the 1992 album 0898.

36D was a track written about tabloid Page 3 girls (such as Samantha Fox, pictured above), Heaton's intention was to attack the glamour industry that belittles and sexualises women, reducing the appeal of the opposite sex to their vital statistics ("36D, So what is that all that you've got?") Unfortunately, the intention was rather mixed in the song's lyrics which presented the models themselves as the primary object of Heaton's scorn. 

"We all agree that we should have targeted the media as sexist instead of blaming the girls for taking off their tops. It was a case of rushing headlong into the recording of the song" Dave Hemingway, whose vocals feature on the song, explained in 1997 to the Chicago Sun Times. But one of the band's vocalists, Briana Corrigan, was conspicuous by her absence on the track: she disliked Heaton's sexist lyric and it's decision to lay the blame at the models themselves. When Corrigan decided to leave the band for a solo career, the direction some of Heaton's songs (including Mini-Correct and Worthless Lie which would both appear on 1994's Miaow, performed by new vocalist Jacqui Abbott instead) followed seemed to be one of the deciding factors; "My reservation about some of the lyrics became like a trigger to spur me on" adding that she felt "As a woman in this business you're always in a much stronger position if you perform your own stuff", something that was not really an option in a band dominated by Heaton and songwriting partner, Dave Rotheray.

"If you're gonna offend a feminist like Briana it's always worth looking at your lyrics and looking at yourself again," Heaton said in last week's documentary."And looking back, I was right about Mini-Correct and she was right about 36D. It sort of blames the industry but to lay any blame at the Page 3 model, that's blaming the workforce. And she's right to say that wrong as a song. I've not played it since"

Heaton and Corrigan in happier times

Now, I totally agree that the sentiment behind 36D is a deeply flawed one, but I still like the song itself. That said, it wasn't as popular as some hits from the band, reaching number 46 in the UK charts in the autumn of 1992, spending two weeks overall in the Top 75, with many suggesting that the sexual connotations within the song itself led to its poor performance overall.

End Transmission

Hoffman (1970)

"Night thoughts, Saturday October the 3rd. Every girl is a flower garden...with a compost heap at the bottom. And many a noble man has had to drown his dwarf wife in a zinc bath or strangle an idiot girl on a muddy common in order to draw attention to himself. Reality betrays us all"

Hoffman is a 1970 'comedy' about a middle-aged man whose obsession with an attractive young work colleague leads him to blackmail her into spending the week with him. That it proved a box office flop is perhaps no surprise. I don't think it's just because billing it as a comedy was perhaps false advertising either (these days the term dramady would be used and audiences would be more familiar with such a style) I think the reason Hoffman alienated viewers is clear to see; for women it perhaps confirmed their suspicions about men. For men it perhaps spoke a little too truthfully about the things we try to hide.

Its star is Peter Sellers, who has fascinated me since childhood. It was his films as Inspector Clouseau that probably put him on my radar and I find them very funny. From there I discovered The Goon Show (and would get tapes bought for me for Christmas and birthdays) and a raft of other films. I even had a video that was a compilation of his many screen appearances (tellingly, only one brief scene from Hoffman was included; the moment where he teaches his co-star Sinéad Cusack how to play 'Chopsticks' on the piano). But my fascination didn't end there and, because I was a strange child, I became fascinated by his complex personality too and I was soon reading everything I could about him, including biographies by Graham Stark and his son Michael Sellers and eventually Roger Lewis' sobering book, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. 

The key to understanding Sellers' chameleon-like talents is the tragic fact that he felt he had no personality or identity of his own, that it had become lost behind the funny voices. Stories such as his emotional breakdown at the end of trip down memory lane with some fellow ex servicemen ("Whatever happened to LAC Sellers?" he is said to have sobbed at the recollections of his pre-fame existence), his fear of stepping onto the stage of the chat show Parkinson as himself, because he claimed there was no Peter Sellers (he opted instead to arrive dressed as a Gestapo officer and perform an impromptu comedy routine before being coaxed into the interview itself), and this comment on (of all things) The Muppet Show, “I could never be myself. You see, there is no me. I do not exist. There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed.”; a seemingly glib comment that reveals a little too much about the emptiness within him.

This emptiness haunted his private life and was rarely seen on screen, as so many productions relied upon his gifted comic abilities and mimicry. But that's not to say that some of his film performances hinted at the man behind the mask. His decision to play his role in the 1967 spoof Bond adventure Casino Royale dead straight as part of his desire to convince as a romantic comedy lead proved to be a mistake he soon turned tail and ran from - literally, leaving the film mid-shoot and refusing to complete his part - perhaps because it highlighted the vacancy behind his eyes. This was a lesson he failed to learn when, just three years later, he took the titular role here.  So aghast was Sellers at what he believe it revealed about him personally that he fell into a deep depression after filming concluded and petitioned his friend Bryan Forbes, the then head of EMI, to not only ban the film from being released but also to let him buy back the negatives so that he could destroy them to put an end to the film and secure his secrets in one fell swoop. Though Sellers didn't get his wish, Hoffman - which he subsequently dismissed as a disaster to anyone who would listen - wasn't screened in New York for over a decade (and after Sellers' death) which suggests that perhaps he did have some influence in burying the film to some extent.

Rather like those cultures who believe having their photograph taken somehow robs them off their spirit, Sellers was terrified at the thought that the void he believed lay at his core was now captured and committed forever to celluloid. I can certainly understand why Sellers feared what he brought to the screen here, because there's just nowhere for him to hide. Granted his inauthentic, much cultivated RP accent is on display, but the rest of him is arguably the purest Sellers - the emptiness he tried to disguise laid bare. Not only that, there's the fact that, as I alluded to at the start of this review, the misogyny that exists in man is also revealed for all to see and, for someone as self-loathing as Sellers, the repercussions of that must have felt even greater to him. As Hoffman, Sellers is the epitome of misogyny; the kind of man who idolises women, yet hates them too because they destroy his fantasies when they reveal they are human just like him ("Reality betrays us all" indeed). Once the object of his desires, the seemingly porcelain doll like Miss Smith (Cusack - and it's telling that he only ever refers to her as 'Miss Smith' because to use her christian name would, he admits, identify her as a person to him), does just this with her litany of all too common, human ailments and her overall inability to see things his way, he is quick to dismiss them as 'idiots'. He goes on to share caustic, disturbing thoughts about them into his dictaphone (see the quote at the head of this review) and ultimately describes them, as one memorable line puts it, as ''Fallopian tubes with teeth''. It's an ugly, candid display of woman-hating misanthropy, but perhaps not as ugly as his enamoured state; which sees him stalk after Miss Smith like a vampire, proclaiming that her youth is wasted on her, using metaphors that refer to her as something to be devoured, and literally sniffing at her clothes and hair. “Please make yourself look as if you want to be fertilized,” he (would-be) purrs at one point. It's repellent and nakedly lustful behaviour that lays a portentous tone of potential violence upon the proceedings, which is further enhanced by the mystery Miss Smith slowly uncovers surrounding his previous marriage. Whilst the events of Hoffman never actually stray into the realms of horror or thriller, the fear and apprehension that underpins every moment makes it as disturbing a watch as any from those genres. 

Essentially a two-hander in the main between Sellers and Cusack, Hoffman was adapted by Ernest Gébler from his own novel, Shall I Eat You Now?, which itself had been based on the 1967 TV play Call Me Daddy starring Donald Pleasence and Judy Cornwell. Like that play, the film is directed by Alvin Rakoff and he pitches the battle of wits between his two stars perfectly, all set to a fittingly haunting and intriguing score from Ron Grainer. Whilst the ending is a little unconvincing, especially in relation to Miss Smith's character and motivations, the film remains strong thanks to Sellers' incredible performance in the lead role. Ultimately, it's hard to truly hate Hoffman, but it's just as hard to pity or sympathise with him too. Whilst many will say Sellers only ever really played it straight in films like the Brit Noir Never Let Go and the POW flick The Blockhouse, I actually think he gives his best dramatic performance here - it's just a shame that Sellers himself could not find peace with what it revealed.

Death Wish II (1982)

Michael fucking Winner. A repulsive tyrant of a man who couldn't direct traffic, he reached his nadir (or found his level, depending on which way you look at it) with the Death Wish movies - films that allowed his tacky impulses and base crude desires to run wild.

The original 1974 movie Death Wish was based on the novel of the same name written by Brian Garfield some two years earlier. Garfield's inspiration came from his own brushes with crime; his wife's purse being stolen and his car vandalised. On each occasion, Garfield's immediate response was a desire to kill those responsible, but he quickly brushed such thoughts aside as the primitive impulses they clearly were and decided to write instead about a man who not only succumbs to those initial thoughts and impulses but who finds he's unable to escape them once he's exacted his revenge. The novel was released to favourable reviews but was not a bestseller. Despite this, film producers Hal Landers and Bobby Roberts showed an interest and purchased the rights for a big screen adaptation. Their original plan was for Sidney Lumet to direct and Jack Lemmon to star as the vigilante, with Henry Fonda co-starring as the detective on his trail. 

Let's just pause for a moment to think how brilliant that would have been. 

But it was not to be. Lumet chose to direct Serpico instead and the project went to Winner, who immediately cast Charles Bronson. The veteran tough guy thought he was miscast, suggesting instead a "weaker kind of man...(like) Dustin Hoffman" (presumably he must have just seen Straw Dogs?), but was drawn to the premise of the film because he too admitted to a secret desire for vigilantism. It proved to be a massive boost to his career and, thanks to the sequels, kept him in work for much of the 1980s despite really being, in the words of 80s hero Roger Murtagh, 'too old for this shit'.

Garfield himself was appalled by Winner's take on his story, arguing that it advocated violence rather than condemned it. "They made a hero out of him. I thought I'd shown that he'd become a very sick man" he said, immediately penning a follow-up novel entitled Death Sentence to repent for the sins of the film adaptation. A loose adaptation of that novel would eventually see the light of day in 2007 with Kevin Bacon in the lead. But it was in 1982 that Death Wish got its first official sequel, thanks to the persistence of Hollywood's most outspoken outsiders, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus of Cannon Films, who were hungry to capitalise on the market potential of a movie franchise.

The story is pretty much a retread of the original film. Now residing in LA, architect Paul Kersey decides to dole out his own brand of hard justice once again following the rape and murder of both his housekeeper and his daughter, the latter of whom was still catatonic from the rape she endured in the first film. So we get a wide-eyed, mute Robin Sherwood staring directly to the voyeuristic camera whilst she is gang-raped in unflinching detail. Cheery stuff hmm?

Winner, who sickeningly proclaimed "rape doesn't date!" when promoting the production, immediately fell foul of the British Board of Film Classification thanks to the unsettling voyeuristic and salacious male fantasy tone he brought to the the two rape scenes. The BBFC censor edited James Firman described the film as being "about as irresponsible a filmmaker could be about the treatment of rape for purely commercial ends. This director is simply trying to stir up as much controversy as possible because he's in desperate need of a hit". Four minutes were subsequently edited from the film for its release in the UK and this edited version is still the only one available in the UK (though the previously censored rape of the daughter is shown in the Cannon Films documentary Electric Boogaloo to highlight the film's trouble with the BBFC. It is, as you would expect, sickening; the film's original screenwriter and Cannon scribe David Engelbach described, in the same documentary, Winner's directorial choices when approaching rape as simply there to "to get his rocks off. The script did not need it" Needless to say Winner had heavily revised Engelbach's screenplay prior to the commencement of shooting). It's interesting to compare how censorship differs in the US and the UK; here censors are more mindful of violence whereas in the US, the MPAA get the scissors out for sex. However, in regards to this film, they clearly found sexual violence less of a problem than they might have done with consensual sex. I find that quite disturbing really.

Repugnant, exploitative, sleazy and grubby, Death Wish II no doubt achieved everything Cannon and Winner wanted. After all, neither producers or director ever seemed to aim for greatness, preferring instead publicity, notoriety and money.  The offensiveness doesn't just stop at the premise and the action on display either; the screenplay never once gives any attention, insight or motivation to Bronson's character, which means there's a huge void at the core of the film. This lifelessness carries over into Bronson's lethargic acting style and Winner's sleepwalking direction, which only ever comes alive when some poor actress is made to strip before the camera ahead of being brutalised. Perhaps tellingly, Winner never once shoots his leading lady, Jill Ireland, in the nude - why? Because Ireland was Mrs Charles Bronson and he'd have clearly done some violence for real if Winner ever suggested she disrobe in such a distasteful, disturbing scenario.

Oh and let's add something else to the litany of unsavoury things Winner was - lazy. Isaac Hayes was recommended for the score to this film but Winner chose instead Led Zep legend Jimmy Page. Why? Because Page lived next door to Winner. Page's score was subsequently nominated for a Razzie, but let's face it the whole stinking film deserved to be put in the incinerator.

Malicious (1995)

Malicious is story of a college student whose long term girlfriend won't put out in the public library. Annoyed, he decides to fuck the next woman he talks to (in her open top convertible, in a rainstorm, on a baseball field - don't you love the 90s?) A little while later (and another fuck later, this time on a boat - 90s!) the girlfriend decides she should put out in the library after all, and the guy realises what a mistake he made fucking the other girl. Unfortunately, the other girl isn't the type to accept she was just a piece of disposable ass to him (what is she, one of those feminists or something?) and decides to get revenge in your standard bunny boiler way of killing a household pet, attempting to murder his mother, framing him for assault, to name just a few. And to think, none of it would have happened if his gf would have just put out in the first place. Tsk, wimmin huh?

I guess the moral of the story is in two parts; the first is there are two types of women in life, the frigid sweetheart and the hot psycho, and the second is it's so hard being a man and having a cock and stuff. Boo hoo hoo.

By rights I really should hate this kind of offensively sexist Fatal Attraction knock off  but I enjoyed every cheap and tacky 1990s TV movie moment of it, thanks in no small part to the genius casting of former John Hughes princess Molly Ringwald as the woman scorned. 

Ringwald is clearly relishing the opportunity to play a role that is hot temptress one minute and deranged villainess the next. You can see why she signed on for it, affording her the chance to step away from the teen movies that made her name - a move that is best exemplified by her decision to go topless in one of the film's sex scenes (a gorgeous sight to behold I might add) - but the sad truth is that she outshines everyone else on screen, barring perhaps John Vernon in a very small (though nonetheless second billed) role. The weak goatee'd Patrick McGaw is the weak willed man and is so dreadfully wooden, he makes Keanu Reeves look like Olivier, whilst Sarah Lassez has the thankless role of his virginal girlfriend.

It's not just the poor acting and the sexist nature of the storyline that stick in my craw about Malicious, there's also the way in which it uses child abuse as the reason why Ringwald's character is the way she is. Despite the revelation that her father abused her, the film refuses to offer a shred of sympathy for her character, because sympathy is of course solely reserved for the man who thinks with his prick and treats women like shit.

Molly Ringwald, the Breakfast Club and #MeToo

Last week, Molly Ringwald wrote a really thought provoking article in The New Yorker about John Hughes and her experiences of not only making the films The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink with him, but of revisiting them today as a parent. This article manages to remind us how Hughes really spoke for the teen generation when popular culture refused to acknowledge them as three dimensional characters, but at the same time it points out an alarming blind spot Hughes had about the characters he was so adept at presenting - a blind spot that is all the more visible in the present day.

It reminded me of a previous story that had come to light about the making of The Breakfast Club, and I guess the thing we should take from it is that Hughes was open to others poitning out when he'd overstepped the mark. It's a fascinating opinion piece by Ringwald and you can read it here

Tories Love To Smear Labour as Anti-Semitic, But They Should Look at Their Own Party

This brouhaha over alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour Party (conveniently raised ahead of May's local election to discredit Corbyn and dint his support) has, unsurprisingly, been a boon to the Tory Party who once again are trying to paint themselves as the nice guys and the Left as the real 'Nasty Party'

But if the Tories really are serious about being nice and finding the notion of anti-Semitism and racist prejudice so abhorrent then why do they insist on keeping so many homophobic, racist, sexist and Sectarian councillors and MP's in their party?

How's this for a rogue's gallery?

A Walk in the Woods (2015)

What an odd film. The standard trope of this kind of story is that our characters go on a dual journey; the journey they're actually making in the literal sense and the journey of self discovery and contentment they make in the figurative sense. Not so with A Walk in the Woods, a very loose adaptation of a Bill Bryson memoir. 

Right from the start, the movie version of Bryson (Robert Redford) is depicted as -  though frustratingly never called out for being - a privileged blowhard of a man who, not only feels it's an injustice that he has to go on talk shows and answer questions in his professional life, but feels a similar sense of injustice in his personal life, most notably at the prospect of having to socialise with a grieving widow and others at a friend's wake. 

Convincing himself that he must undertake one last adventure (perhaps to get away from the stiffs who have the misfortune to not be him) he decides on walking the Appalachian Mountain Trail with his decrepit old friend Katz (Nick Nolte), but he's clearly not given this much proper thought because that's a prospect which will naturally see him coming across various people along the way. Given this opportunity of interaction is on the cards, as an audience we expect his curmudgeonly demeanour to dissipate, but no - instead the film goes out of its way to depict everyone to be the kind of twatwaffle Bryson has long suspected other people to be, and all the journey does is strengthen his bond with the likeminded Katz. That these other 'Non Bryson, Not Katz' unfortunates are all considerably younger (well c'mon, they're hardly gonna meet anyone older than them are they? Not unless those fossils come to life!) and are also in the vast majority female, gives the film a worryingly misogynistic and bitter air that really doesn't cut it today.

Basically if I'd wanted to watch a couple of leather faced old baby boomers trying to prove they can still get it up as they sneer at the energy, optimism and enthusiasm of the youth of today, I'd have revisited those depressing TV debates between students in the Remain camp and elderly Brexit voters in the run up to the EU referendum.

That said, I watched it with my mum who chuckled quite a bit throughout it, and a couple of Redford and Nolte's Last of the Summer Wine style antics did occasionally raise a wan smile from me, but overall this is one trek I'd pass on.

A Walk in the Woods? More like A Wank in the Woods.

The Good Father (1985)

Adapted by Christopher Hampton from the 1983 novel of the same name from Peter Prince, The Good Father is a 1985 film directed by Mike Newell from the early days of Film Four. It stars Anthony Hopkins as Bill Hooper, a man who has become so embittered by the fact that his separation from his wife (Harriet Walter) has meant that he is only allowed one day a week with their infant son, that he's effectively lashing out at the world around him 24/7 - indeed, even the merest turn of his head is delivered with a whipcrack intensity. It's the perfect role for this mid career Hopkins and it tackles it with an overwrought relish, but his dissatisfaction means he is far from a likeable character: you see, he's the kind of weekend dad who now loudly proclaims  all women to be 'bitches', whilst wailing repeatedly at the injustice of a society that dares to take the rights of women into account. 

This attitude is in stark contrast to Bill's radical youth some twenty years earlier which, by his own admittance, saw him both supportive and involved in the cause for greater equality (although his memory of these times are recalled with a notable, sour jealousy at the fact that he was making tea whilst the women chatted, argued and laughed - kind of missing the point there Bill, you can't complain of feeling briefly left out when the women you were allegedly supporting had been left out for centuries) but now, wherever Bill's caustic eye looks, he sees a society full of lesbian activist feminazis who view men with scorn (in one scene his liberal lawyer friend played by Miriam Margolyes - who else? - is en route to a CND march  wearing a T-shirt which proclaims that 'All Men Are Rapists') and support the theory that the male of the species is somehow subhuman and surplus to requirements. 

In short, Bill Hooper's a man on course for a meltdown and Hopkins plays it for all it's worth. If you told me at the start of the film that The Good Father was actually about how a misogynistic divorcee seeks some twisted revenge on womankind by killing every one that he came across I wouldn't have been surprised! Thankfully though, that isn't the plot. The plot comes in the shape of Jim Broadbent's rather sweetly pathetic teacher Roger, who Bill meets at a party one evening. Roger reveals that he too is separated, his wife having left him for another woman (Bill sniggers up his sleeve at the very thought of a lesbian love affair, another ugly misogynistic trait), and announced her plans to take their son to Australia. Appalled to hear about this, Bill rallies to Roger's side and advises him to sue for custody, paying for his legal fees into the bargain. 

It becomes clear here that Bill is vicariously living his own desires through the easily malleable Roger and his newly galvanized state actually, rather ironically, allows him to experience life once more instead of existing on the fumes of bile and hatred. He starts a relationship with a much younger colleague, played by the go-to '80s siren Joanne Whalley (his boss by the way is played by Stephen Fry in his big screen debut), which helps him begin to see the error of his ways, and when he is confronted by two even bigger misogynistic shits than he is - in the shape of Roger's Thatcherite elitist lawyer played by Simon Callow, and Clifford Rose's reactionary judge who possesses some prehistoric, conservative views on lesbianism - he comes to realise how ridiculous and unfair his prejudiced, hate-filled mindset had been. More, he pieces the jigsaw of that mind together and realises the sobering truth at the root of all his problems: that he was the one to walk out on his marriage because he grew jealous of the love and attention his own child was getting - the very child he now feels it unfair to be kept apart from. 

I'm quite glad the film explored the facets of Bill's character to show that he was responsible for his own anger and that his sense of injustice was ultimately misplaced but, even with that revelation, he is still a long way from redeeming himself as the credits go up - and he, a pointedly solitary figure seated in the back garden of his new bachelor pad, is sure to know that. What would become of Bill? Well, I must admit to thinking he's probably one of those once liberal minded baby boomers who voted for Brexit.

Wanker of the Week: David Walliams

It's been a week of stiff competition really. Phil Neville who - despite having zero managerial experience -  has somehow been given the top job with England Ladies, could easily have walked away with this dubious honour after misogynistic tweets came to light in which he joked about feeling better after he 'battered the wife' and suggested a woman's place was in the home, tidying up. I await results of his coaching with great interest.

But no, the absolute wanker of the week has to be David Walliams. The odious 'comedian' has had quite a week: from the highs of winning an NTA, to the lows of being embroiled in the Presidents Club scandal.

His defence that he was at the event as a host, that he left as soon as his duties were concluded at 11:30pm and that he saw nothing of the allegations that have subsequently broke, is very poor indeed and I for one am not buying it. You were hired to host an evening's entertainment which was men only and whose atmosphere was blatantly misogynistic and unsavoury. You would have to have been blind and deaf not to notice that. Given that Walliams likes to pride himself on having an eye for the ladies, I'm sure that the young girls forced to wear skimpy outfits as they performed their waiting on duties would not have gone unnoticed by him either - especially as they were there long before this 11:30 departure he's at pains to point out. If that was the case and he had eyes in his head, then surely he would see the groping they were subjected to (or did the businessmen and politicians attending the event resist their lascivious urges until this 11:30 cut off point? I doubt it!), and if he head ears too, then surely he would have heard his co-host proclaim how plastic surgery, one of the prizes on offer for the highest bidder, could 'spice up your wife' Walliams would like us to believe that he didn't observe or comprehend any of this, that he was naive to take part. But he's banking on his fans and the general public to be even more naive to accept this bullshit. Just like everyone involved in this scandal, he must pay the price.

The reaction to his involvement is only really starting to take shape. For Walliams himself, he is carrying on as normal after his mealy mouthed public statement on Twitter. However with the news that some bookshops have removed his successful children's titles from their shelves, I hope that his career takes a significant blow which he may not recover from because he no longer has the right to inform the minds of our next generation. As the folk singer Grace Petrie reminded us on Twitter this week, Walliams is not a nice person: "You've got a comedian who has made obscene amounts of money from stereotyping and degrading gay, trans, disabled, working class folk and then you find out - out of the blue - that he's an absolute bellend. Well, knock me down with a feather"

Moff's Misogyny

Regular readers of this blog might be curious as to why I haven't mentioned the recent series of Sherlock. 

The answer is simple; I gave up watching the show 20 minutes into the first episode.

An even simpler answer? Like Doctor Who, Steven Moffat (and Mark Gatiss) have ruined Sherlock.

The writing has long been on the wall. Indeed, the show hasn't done anything of merit since Sherlock made his unexplained jump off the roof in the series two finale. Series three jumped the shark something terrible when it ended with Sherlock fatally shooting his enemy at point blank range. Then we had the 'special' which suggested women were the enemy, whilst still allowing them to stand meekly and silently whilst Sherlock explained that to them all. From what I've heard this latest series has got far, far worse and Moffat's role really is no longer tenable.

This latest series has come in for much criticism (look at the Guardian reviewer who dared to suggest the show had lost touch with its Conan Doyle roots, only for Gatiss to reply in verse. The fact that the reviewer then subsequently replied with valid reasons in his own verse wasn't picked up by the press in the same way Gatiss' retort was) so I won't go on at length about how the show is now absolutely nothing to do with Conan Doyle's hero, or how it 'sexes up' a genuine condition like Aspergers in a crude way, or even how watching just twenty minutes of it felt like standing on the sidelines of the most irritating, smug clique. Instead I'll just point you all to this recent article from The Independent.

In it, Moffat answers his critics cries of sexism and misogyny inherent in the Sherlock/Molly relationship and the fact that he chose to ignore her own personal response to a crucial scene in the most revealing of ways.

"She's a bit wounded by it all, but he's absolutely devastated. He smashes up the coffin, he's in pieces, he's more upset than she is, and that's a huge step in Sherlock's development"

What about Molly's development? It's clear he doesn't care. All he's interested in, indeed all he can see, is how it affects The Man. The Woman simply doesn't matter in this situation - she doesn't even feature on his radar at all.

"She probably had a drink and went and shagged someone, I dunno. Molly was fine"

Quite apart from the fact that we have someone professing not to know what a character he created is likely to think, feel or do, Allow me to play psychologist for a moment - doesn't this smack of the repressed feelings of a man who was always the dumped party rather than the dumpee? This creative outlet seems to be Moffat's revenge; he's thinking back to those times when, brokenhearted, he's returned home to wallow in self pity and lick his wounds whilst it appears to him that the woman carried on with their life. To Moffat's mind that is proof that they don't really care, and that it is the feelings of The Man that he must preoccupy himself with, he doesn't understand or comprehend that a woman can hurt too, but that some of them actually pick themselves up and carry on functioning, hiding their own emotions for fear of being criticised or undervalued in the patriarchy. 

Moffat doesn't know what his character would have done, because he cannot put himself into her mindset, nor does he even want to.

Moffat forever bangs on about how he loves women and how the sexism charges are unfair, but they're no longer the elephant in the room; they've charged their way through the walls and they're out in the open for all to see.

And writing a woman as a gun-toting super-spy and highly trained assassin is NOT a sign that you are a feminist; it's the kind of fantasy figure the immature Jeff from Coupling (the highly entertaining sitcom Moffat wrote many years ago) would create for his own wet dreams. It's a clear sign that you really can't write women because you simply do not understand them. You think women are somehow different to men and that is why, when you had the opportunity to explore their own feelings, you blew it.

So shit, Sherlock.

Let's Not Kid Ourselves About Trump

In the aftermath of last week's astounding election result in the US, I've seen an awful lot of people try and justify Trump's eligibility for office by pointing out the good things he's said, claiming that he's not as mad as we may have perhaps thought or saying that the more outlandish things he campaigned for won't become a reality because 'the most powerful man in the world' isn't actually all that powerful. 

It's understandable to do this, it's a sign of people trying to come to terms with what has happened, be optimistic and soften the blow. 

But we cannot just strip away or overlook the xenophobia, the racism, the misogyny, the disability discrimination, the jingoism that Trump has so flagrantly displayed and focus solely on his supposed good qualities. It is the attributes, both good and bad, that makes the man that is Donald Trump and we should never forget, ignore or condone the very worst aspects of his character because he may have said or done something tolerable to us. Even the very darkest hearts have some light.

After all, Hitler loved his dogs.

So Are You An Anti-Semite, a Misogynist or Just Someone Who Wants The Truth?

Yesterday I spoke about a petition on 38 Degrees which was asking for the sacking of the BBC's first female political editor Laura Kuenssberg on account of political bias, but 38 Degrees removed the petition on account of several offensive and sexist comments being made in relation to Ms. Kuenssberg which they, quite rightly, would not tolerate.  

In the wake of this news, David Cameron took a moment to stop slagging off the governments of other countries at Buck House to condemn the 'sexist bullies' attacking Kuenssberg, whilst it was suggested that the claims of bias were invented by dissatisfied members of the left, Corbynites and members of Momentum, who clearly have worrying misogynistic mindset regarding a female political editor. Claims of misogyny are damaging enough at the best of times, but this really is quite a body blow to the left in the wake of the Livingstone/Shah anti-semite row and the suggestion that such a negative view of Judaism and Israel is rife within the pro-Corbyn camp.

Author, former Ambassador and human rights activist Craig Murray (he of Murder In Samarkand fame) has been following this story in great detail and discusses it on his site, where he has managed to get hold of a data link which shows us all the comments left by those who signed this petition. You can read it all here

Given that no real sewer of misogynistic abuse can be found on the now published data link (other than two instances of her being called a 'witch' and one which suggests she has a thing with Cameron - they're the ones I've spotted anyway) 38 Degrees have claimed (backtracked, rather) that the abuse was done on social media in relation to the petition, rather than on the petition itself. But, as you can see from Murray's excellent site, he has so far found one tweet that is misogynistic towards Laura Kuenssberg, and that tweet comes from someone who is clearly, most emphatically not a Corbynite.

So, what's really going on here?

Well it seems to me that 35,000 good people concerned by the political bias at the heart of a public broadcaster have been grossly and unfairly tarred with the misogynist brush. Just like the anti-semite row, it appears you cannot criticise anything without being labelled something even worse. Why just yesterday I was told anyone wanting to support a petition against the BBC would be doing John Whittingdale's dirty work for him.

But what's more worrying is the fact that 38 Degrees, a not-for-profit political activism organisation for the people, has clearly been told to remove this petition at all costs. They've effectively been spun and in turn are now spinning a blatant lie regarding misogyny, simply because it benefits those who wish to discredit the left and Jeremy Corbyn - the Tories, and those Blairites still within the Labour Party - to keep political bias at the BBC.

Such is democracy eh?

A League Of Their Own (1992)

This adorably sweet sports movie from Penny Marshall boasts a feminist take on the genre that still has an important message today - especially when one considers the growing interest (and about time too!) for women's football here in the UK in light of their successful World Cup campaign this summer. 

A League of Their Own tells the story of the All-American Girls' Professional Baseball League, which was founded in 1943 to keep the sport alive whilst the men's game became a casualty of the Second World War. When the war ended, the men returned home, baseball resumed and the days of the women's game were numbered; they eventually shut up shop in 1954.

In rural area of Oregon, a wisecracking scout played by Jon Lovitz spots two sisters, Dottie and Kit (Geena Davis and Lori Petty), one who can catch and hit, the other who can throw but whose Achilles Heel are the high, fast balls. He sees some merit in the pair and brings them to Chicago for tryouts with a lot of other aspiring ball players, including Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell and Megan Cavanaugh, hoping to make it on the team managed by former golden boy Tom Hanks, now a washed up alcoholic with a dodgy knee.

The Hanks character represents initially the general disinterest the American baseball crowds feel towards these girls, viewing them as little more than an amusing distraction at best and, at worst, women who simply do not know their place. But slowly and surely he's won over by the commitment and talent these girls have for the game and soon the crowds too are bewitched. It's also interesting to explore here how his character is a man who naturally had every skill and every opportunity at his disposal but wasted much of it through a fug of alcohol, whilst these women never had such an opportunity to waste at all until now and are shown to be unlikely to ever go down the same route.

Marshall's film may follow the tropes of the sports movie genre and may suffer from a certain level of stock-characteritis, but what's undeniable here is the important feminist stance it makes. During WWII women were suddenly recognised as a crucial part of the wear effort and the home front, their participation a necessity. It got them out of the kitchens and shattered the image of the docile domestic housewife and home maker, replacing it with the truth of strong, independent women. The film effectively tells us this tale of transition, about how it feels for these characters to suddenly find themselves in situations which offer them new roles and a sense of freedom. And it's bittersweet too, as we see in the present day scenes which bookend the main action just how this burgeoning liberation was all too sadly swept aside. I'm not totally convinced by these scenes but I do believe they were much needed; their reunion is a touching acceptance of their trailblazing nature - and a reminder, to our shame, that they blazed so brightly but all too shortly.  It's not an uncommon tragedy either; women's football here in the UK could have eclipsed the men's game after the First World War where it not for the FA banning it outright in 1921, a ban that was not lifted until fifty years later and largely ignored until this year.

But A League of Their Own doesn't beat you around the head with this message, not does it challenge the audience, provoking them into tut tutting at the reach of the stifling patriarchal society into the world of sports. It just tells its story through engaging characters and believable scenarios and winningly, leaves you asking the question for yourself; was this fair? Watching those real women of the AAGPB play once more, now old but not lacking in spirit, over the closing credits (accompanied by Madonna's touching This Used To Be My Playground) I defy you to think that it is.

The Breakfast Club Rebellion

This is just a post to flag and share an interesting article about one of my favourite movies, The Breakfast Club. It reveals some behind the scenes facts I didn't know about at all including a petition from stars Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy along with co-producer Michelle Manning to John Hughes over sexism and the hiring, and firing, of Rick Moranis. Read it here

Am I glad they saw sense and got rid of both!

Stripes (1981)

It's sometimes hard to revisit an old favourite from childhood as their previous appeal tends to get lost in the intervening years and I'm sorry to say that Stripes is one of those experiences. An anarchic spoof of military life this could be best described as a Buck Privates or even a Carry On Sergeant for the '80s, but Stripes is very much a 1980s movie complete with the nudity, sleazy humour and cliched stereotypical and somewhat offensive characterisation that populated that era.

Yes, Stripes has dated rather badly.

Stars Bill Murray and Harold Ramis would, along with director Ivan Reitman, go on to score BIG in 1984 with Ghostbusters, but Stripes - a surprising hit of 1981 in the National Lampoon mould - certainly paved the way for that subsequent success taking them from SNL to Hollywood as well as helping to shape the Police Academy series that certainly mimicked the themes and humour explored here. 

Bill Murray stars as the slobbish John Winger who, on something of a whim, decides to enlist and persuades his somewhat wimpy but dryly funny friend Ziskey (Ramis) to join up with him in a platoon that includes a hard as nails grunting cameo from the legendary Warren Oates as the drill sergeant, the ever funny John Candy, gawky Judge Reinhold, a pair of female MP's played by PJ Soles and Sean Young who are saddled with the eyecandy roles rather than any realistic depiction of women in the military - seriously, no offence to either of them, but the film makes them act like giggling, jiggling shampoo models rather than military police officers and it's indicative of the script's attitude towards women that Soles' character's eventual fate after becoming a military heroine is to pose for Penthouse magazine.

Stripes also struggles from being a movie of three parts; the slacker opening which presents Murray's Winger as a down on his luck cabbie dumped by his girlfiend and Ramis attempting to teach English to immigrants, the middle half which is essentially boot camp and ends in a classic passing out parade  and the final act which becomes a ridiculous behind enemy lines (America, Fuck Yeah!) rescue mission that turns our unlikely, anarchic soldiers into revered heroes. In many ways I would have actually preferred Stripes without its main military plot and, for a film about life in the army, that's got to be a serious flaw.

Stripes gets three stars out of five simply for the talented cast and some lingering affection, but if I'd seen this for the first time today I think I'd struggle to give it a two and a half.