TV

I Loved Hearstopper But…

RobertLeave a comment

Big spoilers ahead. Without caveat I loved Heartstopper, the queer teen romance taking Netflix by storm. It centres on gay and out 15-year-old Charlie Spring (played brilliantly by Joe Locke) falling for the could-he-be-gay 16-year-old Nick Nelson (played equally brilliantly by Kit Connor). Turns out Nick’s bi and, eventually, the two finally get their romance. They’ve got epic friends as well and the series offers a true diversity of identities – lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans – and so many races beyond white. There’s also a teacher who wears a Pride Progress badge and offers the sort of sassy support all young queers deserve and there are even some parents who seem pretty okay with having queer kids. The show made me laugh, cry and cheer, I loved it. And while it did make me think of my adolescence and how I would have killed for a series like this, I’m just glad it’s here, now.

Thinking of my youth, when I was a teen I had Big Brother’s Anna Nolan (the gay ex-nun) and Brian Dowling (the gay flight attendant). I loved that show so much, especially as it introduced me to a world of diversity my boarding school lacked. What my boarding school didn’t lack was prejudice, homophobia, toxic masculinity, bi-erasure and bullying. I also didn’t have sympathetic parents or teachers I could turn to for support. I fought those battles alone. I also remember Queer As Folk, which was definitely not the family-friendly sort of show Heartstopper is, and Angels In America, which blew my teenage mind. Gay guys cropped up in Eastenders, Hollyoaks and Dawson’s Creek but something like Heartstopper, which is incredibly PG and lacking in violence and tragedy, just didn’t exist. What’s more, I don’t think a show like HS could have existed in my time. I can just imagine the backlash from the cis & straight majority. A majority hell-bent on educating queerness out of the youth (via Section 28) and stopping us having sex (the age of consent for male homosexuals was equalised with straights in 2000). I shudder at the thought of the hate-filled articles in The Times (just like the transphobic ones being written today) and all the ‘concerned’ parents speaking out on behalf of the ‘safety’ of their children. Furthermore, as a writer I couldn’t even have imagined writing a story like HS back in my teens. Gay-ish characters cropped up in my Soul Calibur and Final Fantasy fan fic but it wouldn’t be until much later that I created my first exclusively queer play, aka The Cluedo Club Killings.

But. Just because Hearstopper exists now and paints a nice (enough) picture of the queer teen experience, it doesn’t mean everything’s ok – far from it. There’s a review by Amanda Whiting in The Independent titled, “Heartstopper’s sunny vision of school queerness is a fantasy – but that’s OK”. Whiting comments on how predominantly great the school is in the show, a place where “a gay highschooler’s romantic experience isn’t significantly more traumatic than the regular highschooler’s romantic experience.” Whiting states that this isn’t realistic as the realities are often far more worse. But I’d argue that the vision of the school in the show is far from sunny – Elle Argent (played by the wondrous Yasmin Finney), a teenage trans woman, had to move to a different school because of transphobic bullying; Charlie is bullied for being gay (even though we only see a bit of this in the show); and the teacher who provides support does so in the privacy of his art classroom and there’s little sense any of the other teachers have anything to say. This isn’t sunny, it’s just less stormy. It’s also worth noting that a few people commented on Whiting’s review saying their experience of school is actually better, which fills my queer heart with joy. This is also why I’m being careful in this post to not generalise my experience of school to other people’s. Meanwhile, people are praising the character of Sarah Nelson, Nick’s Mum, played by the iconic Olivia Colman, for being “the world’s biggest and best ally“, mainly because she isn’t a massive bi-phobe when Nick comes out. But, again, I’ve got notes. For 16 years Sarah has assumed her son is straight until he tells her she’s not. That’s not allyship, that’s bad parenting. He’s the one who has to come out – which is a huge amount of emotional labour to expect of any teen and itself a product of oppression – while she’s done nothing to hack down the closet she and the rest of society built around him. She then makes a quick apology which, as far as I’m concerned, ain’t enough. I know Sarah Nelson is played by Olivia Colman but we can’t forgive her characters everything.

These observations are not criticisms of Hearstopper which I’ve made clear I lurve! They are criticisims of our relentlessly queerphobic society, which has fought against the creation of shows like HS for years (oh, but huge shout out to G.B.F. of 2014). And because queers of all ages have been dying for a show like this (and literally dying at the hands of said queerphobic society) it’s unsurprising we’re over the moon. I know I am. And because queers like me are so used to lowering our expectations and being grateful for whatever minor visibility we get (such as Scar in The Lion King), when we do finally get better representation it can seem like the weather is sunny when it’s actually still overcast. But Heartstopper isn’t trying to present a utopic view of school, instead it celebrates a diversity of queer loves and characters, and it does this perfectly. Five stars from me.

*

On the topic of utopias, if we want a truly sunny vision of a school then I want it to be a school without bullying, without enforced toxic masculinity, without transphobia (and with more sports than blooming rugby which I know far too well from all my time at all boys’ school). When we imagine utopias we liberate ourselves and we uncondition our imaginations. We can dream as big as we want to (and then bigger still). And just because we can’t live in our fantasies doesn’t mean they can’t inspire us to make changes, even very small ones, in our own lives. I know, from personal experience, how painful the gap between reality and fantasy can be, especially if you’ve got a strong imagination, but I’m learning that our ideal places such as Queertopia or Heaven or Truham Grammar School for Boys are there to inspire us. These places exist within our hearts and minds, and they exist to liberate them too.

The Boys Don’t Like Anal

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As someone who has seen way too many Marvel films and TV series I thought The Boys would be a nice antidote to the predictable three-act structure with the dubious final fight scene and  limited morality. The superhero world needs some cynicism and not just Batman’s grumpy malaise but something with wit. The Boys has been praised for doing just this – making fun of and deconstructing the genre while offering bloody violence and intrigue. A lot of its satire is very funny with some stellar performances from the likeably unlikeable super “heroes”. But four episodes in and I was becoming uncomfortably aware that the violence of the series also included a morbid and violent fascination with and disgust for the anus and anal sex.

Take episode 2, the superhero Translucent has been captured by the show’s group of unpowerful vigilantes. His skin is made of a carbon metamaterial which makes him both bulletproof and able to turn invisible. For the life of them the boys cannot figure out a way to kill him. Cut to Frenchie, one of the vigilantes who is…French, spotting a tortoise on TV. He watches as it retracts its head into its shell. I knew exactly what was going to happen next. Yup, they drug Translucent and insert a bomb up his anus. Hilarious, right. They want to use it to keep him under control but it’s not long before he gets blown to pieces. Like a lot of graphic violence this is played for laughs and the fact that Translucent has something forcibly inserted into his anus when he’s drugged is part of the joke. Cut to another scene in which the superpowerful Popclaw, high on drugs, is straddling a man’s face. “Eat my ass,” she screams but it’s not long before she crushes the guy’s skull with her bum. Hilarious, right. Come episode four, Frenchie and another of the vigilantes, Mother’s Milk, are having a row about a superpowerful and violent women they had tried to capture but who got away.

Mother’s Milk: So where’s the girl, Frenchie? Since you’re the psycho chick whisperer all of a sudden.

Frenchie: Maybe subway. Maybe she wants to find a train, no?

Mother’s Milk: Oh, yeah? How deep up your ass did you pull that out?

Frenchie: Well, it depends. How deep does your tongue go?

Witty dialogue, right? I mean the thought of Frenchie having a subway train up his bum, lol. And the thought of Mother’s Milk rimming Frenchie with a really long tongue, gross! A few moments later and Frenchie says, “I understand it’s hard for someone who’s anally OCD to understand.” Another anal joke mixed with a mental health one. Hilarious!

Nope. Anal sex is not gross and is often amazingly pleasurable for the people involved. Yet The Boys treats the anus as a site of ridicule, disgust, and violence. Anilingus between guys is referenced as something gross, thereby ensuring the series is mega-homophobic. Meanwhile, a guy getting a bomb forced up his anus and a woman crushing a guy with her buttocks are played for laughs, while the sexual violence, homophobia and sexism of these jokes are completely ignored. Add to this that the protagonists’ of The Boys are pretty much all male. The heroes we’re meant to root for are the guys cracking jokes about anal violence, which means there’s no way the series can step back from the homophobia and anal-phobia (for want of a better word) and critique them. They’re treated as normal. Of course, what we’re really looking at is toxic masculinity within patriarchy predicated on, amongst other things, homophobia, sexism and an utter fear and disgust of the anus. These are what make boys men and we’re supposed to laugh along with the joke. I don’t think it’s funny.

But what if one of the male protagonists enjoyed anal sex and it wasn’t treated as a joke or something to be ashamed of? Perhaps he uses a dildo, perhaps his girlfriend rides him with a strap on, or perhaps he just uses his finger. Or what if there is a male character who sleeps with other men and enjoys it and we can understand the pleasure and empowerment he gains from it? The only male character I saw in the show who gets with other guys was a total creep #herewegoagain. A show like The Boys is totally ill-equipped to present male liberation, leaving its characters to no-homo each other and make anal sex/rape jokes instead. Not for me, thanks.

The Trouble With Sex Education’s Eric, Part 2

RobertLeave a comment

Content note/trigger warning: sexual assault and rape.

There’s a scene in the final episode of Sex Education season 1 (spoilers) which sees Eric, a fabulous, black, gay and queer guy, in detention with Adam, who has been homophobically bullying Eric throughout the series. The bullying continues and Adam shoots mushed up bits of paper through a straw at Eric’s face. They then fight over a music stand and Adam violently shoves Eric. Eric shoves back. The shoving continues until Adam overpowers Eric and pushes him to the ground. Eric, in self-defence, spits in Adam’s face. Adam does it back, asking: “How do you like it?” Eric says, “I don’t” to which Adam replies, “Yeah, didn’t think so.” There’s a pause as the two look one another in the eye and Eric raises his head a fraction (a tiny fraction) and then Adam kisses him before going down on him. You can watch the scene here (but you probably don’t want to) and you can reread a blog post I wrote on this last year. My biggest concern is that we’re being led to believe that violence between men isn’t problematic and that the ending of a storyline of physical and psychological abuse with barely-consented-to sex is somehow a happy ending. As the series creator, Laurie Nunn, said, they were “telling a love story through bullying.”

I want to make it categorically clear that it is impossible to tell a love story through bullying. Bullying and any form of abuse is the opposite of love and if it results in sex the likelihood is that the sex involved is actually rape or sexual assault. Naturally, I was all for not bothering with series 2 given I’d felt so let down but after a number of friends started singing its praises I decided to watch some of the episodes. Regarding the Eric and Adam plotline, Adam has been shipped off to military school and Eric begins a relationship with the epic and loving Rahim who is kind, compassionate, loving and all the things someone might want in a partner. But. Adam returns and surprise, surprise, Eric starts to fall for him again. Otis, Eric’s best friend, has a go at Eric for wanting to return to Adam: “…this is about you being so self-hating that you’d let yourself fall for someone who literally treats you like shit.” But Eric fights back, defending Adam and saying that he’s changed. We do witness a little of this change as Adam struggles with a lack of friends and his bisexuality but as for how he treated Eric, while he claims to now realise that he treated him very badly he doesn’t ever say sorry. Come the final episode and Adam interrupts the school play and makes a grant gesture to Eric, asking to hold his hand. Eric consents. It’s not long before he dumps Rahim and Eric’s family are delighted because apparently being with an emotionally sensitive man who didn’t attack and abuse him was a bad thing but getting with one’s aggressor is to be celebrated.

There are many things that Sex Education gets right but I don’t think this storyline is one of them. It glamourises and romanticises abuse and violence between men encouraging us to champion the dysfunctional and previously violent relationship between Eric and Adam. The sexual assault of series 1 gets zilch reference precisely because we’re not supposed to see it as sexual assault (likewise in real life) and men attacking men and finding romance through bullying is supposed to be sexy and the stuff of happy endings. The issue is infantilised and treated as a will-they-won’t-they sort of tease rather than a nuanced story exploring shame, self-loathing, violence and sexual violence between men within and without the LGBTQ+ community.

Badly Drawn Gays: Colin Firth & Sex Education’s Eric

Robert1 Comment

There’s a lot to celebrate about increasing diversity in TV shows and movies, particularly with regards the showing of more genders and sexualities. Studio execs know there’s an appetite out there, especially from younger audiences, and studio execs know there are bucks to be made. Sometimes this representation is done well and sometimes it’s done badly. So here’s a post about some badly drawn gays.

Firstly let’s take a look at Colin Firth in the Mamma Mia movies. In the first one it’s not 100% clear his character is actually gay. I mean, he’s one of the possible fathers having slept with Meryl Streep’s character during that fateful summer. Sounds pretty straight to me. But at the end of the movie he comes out…well, by coming out he says that Meryl Streep was the last woman he slept with and then meaningfully looks at another man. Later on when all the cast are dancing in a big fountain and kissing one another Colin’s seen dancing with said man. It’s vague, it’s unclear, it’s all 2008 was going to give us. Moving on to Mamma Mia 2 and now Firth’s a lonely businessman whose only proud achievement in life is his daughter. You’d hope that by the end of the film he’d finally have someone to hook up with like all the other characters including Amanda Seyfried, Dominic Cooper, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Stellan Skarsgård, Andy García and Cher. But no, he’s still single. He also seems pretty unimpressed with his younger self played by Harry Bright and what could be a nuanced point about shame and internalised homophobia gets blasted over with the cast’s rendition of Super Trouper. Having said all that, the movies get some great comic mileage out of Firth’s character because, hey, isn’t gay male loneliness and isolation absolutely fucking hilarious.

Meanwhile,  Sex Education’s Eric, played brilliantly by Ncuti Gatwa, is out, proud, and dealing with the shit you get for being gay. He blasts through tokenising plot devices and stereotypes and as this Junkee article makes clear, breaks through a lot of barriers regarding being black, Nigerian-Ghanaian, gay and queer. Furthermore, his plotline shows what happens after someone has come out and, often, has to keep coming out to reinforce and reclaim their identity, so often stolen from them. He also gets a nuanced and, ultimately, heart warming relationship with his Dad. But. It’s the bullying strand I want to pause on. Some douche named Adam spends most of the series threatening and harassing Eric. He even covers his Dad’s car in dog poo (yup, you guessed it, they’re gonna make out). Come the final episode of the series the two are in detention together and they start to argue. Things get physical and they fight with Adam pushing Eric to the floor and mounting him. They then spit in each others’ faces before pausing and then kissing. Adam goes down on Eric and gives him a blowjob. We don’t actually see this happen, instead we just see Eric’s eyes roll in what is presumably pleasure (whereas we have seen full-body sex scenes between straight couples and one female couple). Something not dissimilar happened in an episode of Skins yonks ago and it seems this gay-gets-with-their-bully trope is still going strong or as series creator Laurie Nunn put it, “telling a love story through bullying” (lovely). There are nuanced points here to be made about violence between men, men’s repression of their sexuality and the trauma they inflict on one another but those points don’t get made. Instead, no clear consent is given and we witness Eric be follated by the man who was just attacking him. As someone said to me the other day, “yeah, but it’s hot”, and that’s kinda worrying – that violence between men and sexual assault are being depicted as hot. Nevertheless, Eric is smitten only to see Adam shipped off to military school by his tyrannical father, leaving us with, you guessed it, more lonely gays. There are plenty more examples, in the meantime, here’s Cher.

Theresa May: Shante, You Stay or Sashay Away?

RobertLeave a comment

RuPaul and his panel of bitches have the final say on Theresa May.

Michelle Visage: “Lady, you’ve been strutting it up and down the runway for nearly a year now and we know you can work shoulder pads, angels and chunky earrings but why red? I mean, your colour’s blue and here you are striding out of Number 10 wearing red, that was a faux pas.”

Ross Mathews: “Theresa May! I’m like you gurl, I like my men strong and stable, if you know what I mean.”

Michelle: “We all know what you mean!”

RuPaul: “The shade [giggles].”

Ross: “The Iron Lady throwbacks just rocked my world but I feel that behind all your looks there’s no substance. For the whole season we’ve been asking to see the real Theresa May and she just hasn’t emerged yet. Don’t get me wrong, I would lurve to frolic through a field of wheat being chased by a big hunky farmer but I have bigger aspirations than that.”

Michelle: “Getting banged three ways from Sunday in Hula Bar’s dark room.”

RuPaul: [cackles]

Carson Kressley: “Let me square it with you Theresa, I was gunning for you when Davina Cameron sashayed away. Michelle Gove was a tart, Andrea Gimme-Sum just couldn’t do make up for sh*t, Liam Foxy…who?…and the less we talk about Borissima the better. But your relationship with the runway has been vexed to say the least. The odd U-turn to show off that fab bum of yours worked a treat but you turned one too many times. And your cutting has just ruined those hemlines not to mention all those furs.

Michelle: “We don’t do dead animals anymore, hun.”

Carson: “And when you came out with those hunky police men we wanted tens of the well-hung fellas but we only got three. Also, that dementia themed dress…”

Ross: “…forgettable.”

Michelle: “And when we did the Broadway episode your Human Rights Act was not a class act.”

Theresa: “I just want to say that while I may subsist on a diet of cardboard and vacuities I have always done my best. Corbynina, Sturgoon and Caroline ‘The Queen’ Lucas may have big personalities…well, they may have personalities, but I have stood my ground even if I didn’t always get it right.”

Michelle/Ross/Carson: [stoney, unimpressed silence]

RuPaul: “Silence! I have pretended to listen to the judges for the last five minutes and regardless of everything I didn’t hear them say I have made my decision. But before I reveal it I want to level with you Theresa. Here on RuPaul’s Drag Race everyone is a winner, even the losers. Even the people who preach prejudice, exacerbate inequality and don’t always vote in favour of the gays. Because the Rupaul family knows that everyone, even the most hateful, needs some good loving. And, Theresa, apart from some good hard lovin’ you’re also gonna need to wrap up warm because your blue-faced fanboys are about to throw you some serious shade. They’re gonna smear your make-up, tear your dresses and scapegoat you for all the larger failings of a party that forgets to put 99.9999% of the population on the guest list.

“All of us on this show have faced shit times: we’ve been bullied at school, ostracised by society, isolated to the point of self-harm and for some, suicide. But despite all this we’ve kept our hearts and now it’s your turn, Theresa, to go find your own. Because if you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna lead our country into a sustainable, equitable future?

“Now, whether it’s Shante, You Stay or Sashay Away it’s time you got lip-syncing for your life because we all know a good politician just mouths the words to someone else’s tune. Whether it’s the tune of neoliberal, corporate capitalism or the beats of the people. Either way, good luck and…

…DON’T FUCK IT UP.”

The Replacement: Worst Maternity Cover EVER (spoilers)

RobertLeave a comment

Women regularly have it tough in the workplace. Sexual harassment, lower pay, the glass ceiling, general misogyny and the tricky fact that many women can get pregnant. Yup, even the miracle of childbirth can be used against women to deny them jobs, get them replaced and ensure they don’t return to work. Naturally, the BBC thought it was high time to sensitively delve into this issue and what we got was The Replacement. Ellie is a successful architect (cue the odd reference to ‘sight lines’ and sky lights) working on a fancy, new library when she becomes pregnant with her first child. Her employees are more or less thrilled and help Ellie find her replacement. Enter Paula. She’s nice. So nice. Like, really nice. All pearly, white smiles and over zealous efficiency. She does work ahead of schedule, makes friends with everyone in the office super quickly and is just so darn friendly. Naturally, everyone thinks Ellie’s a little mad when she suggests that maybe Paula is out to replace her for good. That is until Paula kidnaps Ellie and tries to get her to kill herself so she can take her baby to replace the daughter she tragically lost in a car accident even though she was pretending her daughter was still alive. Who knew maternity leave could be so dangerous!?

Now, don’t get me wrong this was really well acted and it had me compulsively clicking ‘watch next episode’ until it ended (ok, I was recovering from a virus, that’s my excuse) but I couldn’t help but feel we’ve been here before. Two women go head to head in mortal combat to prove who is a better mother and colleague. Sure, they’re being defined by their motherhood and ability to function as a decent capitalist worker but I feel the show knows that. It must be aware of the constant hum of sexism throughout the episodes given that the men in this show are just awful: Ellie’s husband turns on her, tries to take the baby away and nearly ends up with Paula. Ellie’s boss, also wooed by Paula, reveals that on the night his wife, Kay, supposedly committed suicide she’d accused him of having an affair with Ellie which he didn’t deny (even though it wasn’t true) but he did tell Kay that if he’d been with Ellie at least he might have had a child. Good news is that this didn’t actually lead to Kay taking her own life because it turns out Paula killed her because Kay wouldn’t stop going on about the fact that Paula’s daughter wasn’t actually alive anymore.

If this all sounds quite farfetched and just a little silly that’s because it was (and don’t get me started on what the library ended up looking like..there weren’t even that many books in it and it was super kid unfriendly, or the bit with the baby basket being left on a window ledge, or the bit when Paula clearly hasn’t researched her effective poisons etc). Yet this steady patter of sexism was never really commented upon because what we ultimately saw was two women coerced and conditioned by patriarchal capitalism forced to fight each other to the death. It proved entertaining(ish) but I did feel the team behind it may have just thought “Girl On A Train in an office” just like those behind Apple Tree Yard probably thought “middle-aged Gone Girl“. So whilst the programme does showcase some epic acting from Vicky McClure and Morven Christie and passes the Bechdel with flying colours this doesn’t classify it as novel or even offering something verging on feminist critique. It doesn’t need to (I hear the defenders of the status quo cry) but just because Thelma and Louise drove off a cliff and the 9-5 crew got their happy endings doesn’t mean more women can’t take on the patriarchy in style. There was scope here to see something interesting done with the genre and have Ellie actually try to team up with Paula (ok, minus the whole Paula-murdering-Kay bit, which really didn’t make sense given Paula ends up telling loads of people her secret anyway) and have them transcend the patriarchal binds of the work place. But instead they were forced to endure the limited plot devices that their hackneyed characters had to offer. So whilst The Replacement could, at a push, be critiquing our culture’s obsession with defining women by the children they may or may not have I feel it’s just cashing in on this trope and maybe even making matters worse especially as just after Ellie’s shut the door in her dire husband’s face her boss appears in the background implying that maybe, just maybe, they’ll get together because heaven forfend Ellie be a single Mum.

“Why Don’t People Like Vegans?”

Robert3 Comments

I tried to be vegan for a bit but then I ended up working in a restaurant where I got given leftover food at the end of the day and that included really tasty meat. It was a slippery slope back to a pretty meaty diet. But I shan’t bore you with my personal history instead I want to flag up a documentary of epic proportions called Simon Amstell: Carnage. It’s over on the BBC and Amstell the comedian wrote, directed and narrated it (his name in the title might be slight overkill though) and it is fuming hilarious. The blurb reads: “It’s 2067, the UK is vegan, but older generations are suffering the guilt of their carnivorous past. Simon Amstell asks us to forgive them for the horrors of what they swallowed.” And whilst it’s largely fictitious and the talking heads tend to belong to people who don’t exist I think it’s one of the best arguments I’ve come across in favour of veganism.

The show speaks for itself so I think the simplest thing to do is just watch it. However, for me, what it did was brilliantly re-present the argument by showing it the other way around. Rather than have lots of meat eaters make fun of those silly, vegan hippies it had those highly intelligent, compassionate vegans boggle over our manic, meat and dairy eating habits. It flipped the narrative and revealed our obsession with torturing and forcibly impregnating livestock to be pretty messed up. It made me sympathise more with cows, pigs and chickens. So now, when I go into a supermarket and see that pack of smokey bacon, yes, I’m thinking how blooming tasty it would be in a sandwich but I’m also thinking that those slivers of meat are basically the product of suffering and torture, rashers of pain if you like.

However, there is still one very important question that needs answering: “Why don’t people like vegans?” Kirsty Wark, non-fictitious presenter, asks it during a faux Newsnight interview in Carnage and it’s a good question. Perhaps it’s because their lifestyle appears to be a threat to ours and when they talk about soya milk we start to feel a latent guilt related to animal suffering that we’d rather deny. Maybe it’s because some people think veganism is a cult. Maybe it’s because we work in the dairy industry. Or maybe we should just live and let live, and realise that should include the lives of animals too. Cows, pigs and chickens don’t need to die for our gustatory pleasure when there is just so much other ace food out there. And I’m not saying this to be moralistic or judgemental because one thing I certainly am not is a vegan but I still feel pretty terrible about all that slaughter. And let’s face it, vegans aren’t the threat here, especially as they’re not the ones running an industry that kills millions of animals, pollutes waterways and is a huge contributor to climate change. So, go on, try some nut cheese, it’s much tastier than churned up cow pus.

Meaningless Millenials: Clique & Search Party

Robert5 Comments

Life can seem quite meaningless for millennials these days as we’re forced to jump through the increasingly outdated hoops of school all for the sake of one day getting an adult job. However, much debt later and those dream jobs tend to be unpaid internships or going the way of automisation. Meanwhile, Trump, Brexit, climate change etc etc…what do we do!? It’s no surprise then that this nihilistic turn ends up influencing popular culture. Two examples include recent mystery based dramas with Gen Y protagonists, Search Party (TBS) and Clique (BBC). For the former think Nancy Drew meets mid-twenties millennial malaise with a side of Gone Girl and the latter is a less funny Mean Girls meets The Secret History with Scottish accents. Both have meaninglessness at their hearts but for two very different reasons. Oh, and head’s up, there will be spoilers.

Search Party tells the story of Dory, not the forgetful fish, but a 20s something woman living in New York who lacks direction and purpose in life. Naturally, she goes looking for this by going looking for Chantal – an old college acquaintance who is now a missing person. Cue hunting for clues, curious suspects, intriguing red herrings and a whole cast of amazing characters – from her endlessly self-absorbed rich friends to a cult-load of ‘wellness-seeking’ weirdos. Dory’s 21st century world is exceptionally bleak but also very, very funny. Clique takes itself a little more seriously as young students and lifelong friends, Holly and Georgie, fall out over getting in with the in-crowd: four conventionally beautiful young women who have looks and banking internships to die for (literally in the case of one of them who kills herself in episode one). The characters here are familiar clichés: the charismatic lecturer who lures the impressionable young women in with her force of character (and questionable brand of feminism) and the attractive people who do glamorous things (e.g. take drugs, jump into swimming pools with their clothes on, have chauffeurs etc) but aren’t actually that interesting. However, what’s great about Clique is that it’s going all out to fail the Mechdel test – the male equivalent of the Bechdel test – as the guys are left to be annoying, peripheral characters and the occasional bare butt shot.

So both shows are full of selfish and sometimes vacuous characters, however, I’d say Search Party is knowingly presenting them as such in order to skewer them in parody. It takes a mirror to Gen Y’s obsession with selfies, celebrity and self-promotion, and reminds us that it’s all paper-thin (whilst also mistressfully weaving this trope into the denouement). Meanwhile, I feel Clique is being a little more earnest in its vacuity and trying to convince us that, like Holly and Georgie, we really should want to join the clique of coke-snorting, unpaid yet highly attractive interns who don’t say much of interest and are forced to work for/with complete chauvinists. But that’s the thing with cliques – cool from a distance but kinda disappointing once you’re inside. Although I’m not convinced Holly is all that convinced of the clique either so, with three episodes to go, there’s still plenty of time for biting, poignant cultural critique a la Search Party.

Interestingly, one thing lacking in both these tales of millennial woe are significant adult figures. Search Party has the odd wellness guru and disinterested, rich parent, whilst Clique has got the over-zealous lecturer and her weird brother but I feel both series are missing a trick because without adults who can the Gen Yers blame for all our problems? Let’s face it without the baby boomers we millennials wouldn’t be here. Without their inventions, businesses, advertising agencies and super-charged model of consumer capitalism where on earth would we go to struggle to find meaning and purpose? I mean if they’d invested in sustainable energy, steady-state economic models and put community before profit then Dory and Holly probably would have already found themselves and wouldn’t need to go on dangerous mystery adventures. Likewise, their friends would probably spend more time looking out for one another and not wasting so much time setting up faux-charitable initiatives to boost their fragile self-esteems or chasing the next high-functioning sociopath with a six-pack. And nor would everyone be stone broke and forced to pay too much rent because we’d have caps on renting or, who knows, maybe all housing would be social housing. And freaky wellness cults run by overly charismatic yet dubious people who wear too much expensive jewellery wouldn’t need to be invented because we’d all probably be quite happy sharing stuff and looking out for one another. Who’d need an exclusive clique when we’d all have community. Anyways, just a thought. Now quick, back to Instagram!

Murdering Nostalgia With Agatha Christie And The BBC: The Witness For The Prosecution

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The words ‘Agatha Christie murder mystery’ might conjure up images of posh people gathered together in a chintzy drawing-room sipping tea whilst some sleuth – normally moustache twirling Hercule Poirot or knitting Miss Marple – runs through all the red herrings before revealing whodunnit. These are cosy affairs where murder doesn’t involve much blood and good always conquers evil (normally after two or three deaths). A sepia toned view of the 1920s and 30s in Britain where the Empire is represented by a gruff colonel type who might drink a little too much and everyone else is having a whale of a time (apart from the corpses). All this changed last night when the BBC gave nostalgia a cup of poisoned tea and watched it die a grim and bloody death (spoilers ensue).

The writer Sarah Phelps adapted the Christie short story and play The Witness For The Prosecution for the BBC. It was a Christmas special except the only thing special about it was its relentless misery. The smiling, diamond encrusted mask of 1920s London was peeled back to reveal a world of grim austerity, inequality and chest infections. A world in which murder is a desperate and unhappy thing committed by desperate and unhappy people or, in this case, unapologetic sociopaths. The moral core of this story was a rotten one as people were left reeling from the effects of the First World War. Lovers, Romaine and Leonard Vole, were so scarred by the atrocities that they didn’t bat an eyelid when it came to committing and covering up the murder of rich heiress Emily French (played by Kim Cattrall  from Sex and the City!). John Mayhew, the coughing solicitor, guilt ridden after the death of his son in WWI, is spectacularly duped by the murderous couple (as are we the audience!) and proves key in letting them get away with it. He even gets Emily French’s maid hung for a murder she didn’t commit even though she did drown Ms French’s cat. Naturally, when he finds out what has happened he walks off into the sea. This adaptation reveals nostalgia to be a lie – the First World War was not great, wealth does not buy happiness and there’s often lots of blood when someone gets bashed on the head. Personally, I am glad the BBC killed nostalgia because it can be a dangerous thing.  Conniving politicians regularly use it to justify prejudice – if we vote Brexit we can take back control and Britain can be Britain again, free of foreigners and full of tea, oh, and wasn’t the Empire great despite all the slavery and oppression. Or we can banish the Muslims and make America great again. But the nostalgic myths they play on of bygone golden ages are just that – myths – half-hearted stories based on lies and a sprinkling of selective history. The past is no halcyon era of smiles and good fortunes it was often dangerous and unhappy.

However, it’s not just nostalgia that Phelps and the BBC killed it was also hope. The victims die painful and bloody deaths, the villains get away with it and the goodies get hung or drown themselves. There will be no saviour on a white horse or twiddling his little Belgian moustache. The closest we get to redemption is the brief smile on Mayhew’s face as he walks off into the sea, perhaps he has found peace after all, asides from the fact that he will soon be dead. However, there is one brilliant moment before killers Leonard and Romaine drive off into the sunset. Leonard mentions to his newly married wife that he’s worried she might get bored of him now that they’ve got all the money. “Don’t be tiresome, Leonard,” she replies curtly, leaving him with a worried look on his face – yup, the lives of murderous sociopaths might end richly ever after but I doubt they’ll end happily ever after. It seems this Yuletide adapation has a lot to teach us about our own times – 2016 was a hopeless year for the goodies and it really seems as though the baddies are going to get away with it. And I’m not sure 2017 is shaping up to be much better. Yet it is one thing to tear up our nostalgic views of the past but it is quite something else to offer any hint of a different future, a future in which there will not be wars, inequality will be no more and the villains might be held accountable. I feel this is beyond the scope of Sarah Phelps and the BBC, which is why we cannot let them get away with murder.

These Are The Christmas Adverts!?

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It’s that time of year again, still pretty far away from Christmas but our economy’s on the rocks and we need to get people shopping pronto. The lights are up in the streets, Paris is ordering another giant, green butt-plug and Black Friday is looming. To fuel this pre-Christmas consumption extravaganza the propaganda machines, I mean televisions, are doing their best to spew out an array of emotive adverts to get us racing further into debt. Here are some of the highlights (well, lowlights).

Sainsbury’s and the 4th Industrial Revolution: this Xmas ad is a simple one, an overworked Dad who works in a toy store (as if we have those in Britain anymore) gets worried he won’t be able to spend enough time with his family at home. As stresses mount and this unforgivably long advert unfolds the Dad’s solution is to automate himself, yup, riding the trend of replacing humans with robots he gets a drone to do his shopping, machines to run the factory production lines and a nodding dog to do his ‘yes-manning’. This radical transformation of our society is being heralded by the World Economic Forum (self-important 21st century Adam Smith types) as the 4th Industrial Revolution but to those of us who aren’t super rich and who don’t work in think tanks it heralds loss of jobs and increased social atomisation. Thus, rather than an uplifting advert this is actually a bleak prophecy of things to come, worthy of a Black Mirror episode, but Sainsbury’s do give a great nod to diversity in British society as people of colour and different faiths appear in this advert, of course, the protagonist is still a white guy proving that the supermarket will go some of the way but not all of it.

Lidl/Aldi: Nostalgia and the Dangers of Anthropomorphising Vegetables: at least these ones are short. Lidl’s is called Homecoming (yup, it has a title) and is about a family redecorating their Grandad’s old cottage out in the countryside in time for Christmas day. This is a blatant play on British nostalgia for the countryside and ‘family values’, which today are, of course, being trashed by urbanisation and rural poverty, which are both exacerbated by supermarkets taking jobs away from farmers and forcing them to engage in unsustainable farming methods. This advert is effectively a nostaligc lie about what our past once was but probably actually wasn’t. Meanwhile, Aldi’s advert (Aldi is another German superchain and Lidl’s top competitor) shows a carrot running across a Christmas table laden with food – he runs past the corpses of other carrots, the mashed remains of dead potatoes and even gets the skin of his back grated off – all so he can reach the plate by the fireplace with a mince-pie for Father Christmas on it. The carrot gets its wish and, unlike all his dead and eaten friends, ends up caught in the antlers of a reindeer at the front of Santa’s sled, perhaps a subtle nod to the idea of the carrot and the stick, and this time the carrot is incentivising us all to eat loads and buy even more. Whilst funny this advert does highlight the dangers of anthrompomorphising vegetables because, ultimately, we kill, cook and eat them.

M&S Does Sexism: I would mention the Waitrose and John Lewis adverts but their over-reliance on creepy CGI animals and their unrealistic plots really let them down this year (a normal robin would not survive that journey and besides the fact animals don’t use trampolines they also don’t get on that well: the badger would attack the foxes, the foxes would eat the squirrel and the second the hedgehog landed on its back the foxes would be eating that too). Although, this US election result take on the JL advert is inspired and depressing! Instead, it’s M&S, which shows Santa Claus heading off to do the rounds leaving Mrs Claus at home. Not only does she lie to him when he asks if any “last requests” have arrived in the post and she says “no, just bills” – actually, there was a letter addressed to her and unless her bank uses crayons it’s pretty clear it’s not a bill. It turns out a young boy threw his sister’s trainers at a dog and she cried a lot (typical girl, amirite) so could Mrs C sort this out. Sort it out she does: changing into a highly impractical dress given the weather, getting on a jet-ski, into a helicopter and flying half way round the world to add a final present to the pile her husband will have just put under the tree. She even has a cheeky bite of mince pie but not a big one because women have to be dainty in their eating behaviour, amirite! Naturally, the sister is overjoyed because all girls care about is clothes and shoes, amirite! So, not only does Mrs C do the dirty work of a young boy too lazy to buy his sister a present but just before Mr C gets home from his worldwide trip she hides all the evidence: her secret HQ (think bat cave meets festive cheer), her cool dress and even the letters she receives from kids all vanish behind the wall. She even pretends to have fallen asleep whilst reading a book called ‘Fifty Shades of Red’ (because women only care about sex with sociopaths, amirite) and when Mr C asks how her night was she says, “oh, you know, quiet.” Um, not true! So why is she lying? She tells her husband it “wouldn’t be fun if you knew all my secrets” whilst giving the audience a knowing look and she’s basically asking us to collude in patriarchy, where men’s egos are so fragile the thought that a woman can contribute to the working world is just too much. Mrs C would rather weave an incredibly elaborate web of lies and deceit rather than have her husband know quite how resourceful and independent she can be. Talk about #masculinitysofragile. Either that or she’s just very bored of her marriage.