2.00pm Daily
Cooks.
If anyone were a daily
cook you’d assume that person to be of the female gender,
wouldn’t you? Surely
the vast majority of wives and mothers out there are cooking daily -
sometimes
three times a day. Not on this programme.
Three fat men dominate
the proceedings and greatly enjoy sampling the fruit of their labours
(at the
ITV company’s expense, obviously). There was a
‘token’ woman who did not say or
do very much but declined when the choccies were handed round.
Good for her. But
then, she had before her very eyes,
three frightening examples of what over- indulging can do to a person.
Today’s challenge was to
produce a salad -
generally judged
to be ‘girly’ - which would appeal to men. They
were chuffed to have dreamt up
such a revolutionary idea, though you could say that a salad, however
manly, is
no proof of culinary skills.
The mind boggled at
seeing how much (in 50 minutes) they were getting out of it; the
‘salad’
consisted mainly of beef fillet - they really gorged themselves on that.
Painful to watch,
painful to listen to: bog-standard, estuary English, deemed by TV
bosses on top
of contemporary culture, to be the voice of the people. So why is it so
difficult to understand what is being said?
This was followed by a
repeat of an old Inspector
Morse:
more often than not in this genre,
women turn out to be the chief perpetrators of crime, especially
murder,
although this bears no relation to the actual crime statistics. (For
example,
in the quaint olde worlde village of Midsomer where you might
expect time to be standing still
and women to be mainly concerned with embroidering samplers and
jam-making,
there can be two or three psychopaths (f) lurking behind every
hedgerow). So here
we had three murders- a husband and two sons, nasty pieces of work -
carried
out by a ‘nice’ woman who works as a consultant in
the field of ‘family
relations’ (above suspicion, naturally) aided and abetted by
another woman,
wife and mother of the above; as the episode opens we are shown the
‘mousy’
wife as a victim of verbal abuse, cowed by her bullying brute of a
husband. She
had, it emerges, sought consolation in an affair with the brother of
the family
relations expert who was brutally done to death with the tools of his
trade (he
was a stonemason); a member of her family was responsible - an honour
killing, no
doubt - hence the motivation for the murderess (his sister). Yes,
it’s
complicated, but viewers would stop watching if they didn’t
have to concentrate
to keep up.
I was reminded of one of many such
murder mysteries shown last year when little Lindsay Coulson, former Eastenders
star,
Carol Jackson (mother of
Bianca et al) was supposed to have put to flight someone younger,
taller,
fitter and then bludgeoned her to death with a large metal crampon; the
second
of two murders, crimes passionels,
in a fifteen year span: the viewing audience appears to have an
unlimited
capacity for suspending disbelief and, naturally, the
industry’s chiefs are
happy to exploit this.
The above is yet another random example of what is beginning to look like typical female behaviour. Unfortunately, there is a sizeable section of the population for whom the line between reality and fiction on screen is blurred. Could the portrayal of women in this way be an attempt to provide meatier roles for the girls or just blatant misogyny?
Returning to July 3rd: switched to Wimbledon on BBC2 and caught a women’s singles match,(quarter final) every bit as exciting as the men’s; and, to reflect that (after a long hard battle) the prize-money is now equal.Next, The Simpsons, keeping up the good work: nine year old Lisa, indefatigable defender of women’s rights, decides to enrol in the military academy to which Bart has been condemned as a punishment for bad behaviour. We see total resistance to this initiative and she is bullied, ostracised and abused by the other inmates. Fortunately, though embarrassed, her bro sticks by her. She proves that a girl can do as well as a boy in an endurance test that is later deemed by the military authorities to be unsafe for cadets to perform. She sensibly decides she doesn’t want to join the army, anyway. You can rely on this programme to be ‘on message’ at all times. Lisa must be the world’s youngest fully-fledged feminist –and proud of it. We should send her a T-shirt.
6.30pm Emmerdale: couldn’t face it, sorry: watched some more tennis.7.30pm Now for my favourite: Eastenders,
which has recently
featured Sophie Thompson
as a throwback to that phenomenon
of the ‘40s, the Wicked Lady.
Although statistics
prove that abusers of children are overwhelmingly male, this popular
soap is
running a main storyline where Phil Mitchell, erstwhile thug and
wife-beater,
now a reformed (well, sort of) character in his new role of hands-on,
loving,
caring dad to Ben, is involved with Stella, an abuser. Ben
has recently
returned from South Africa, to which far distant place he had been
removed for
safety by his mother, Kathy, Phil’s ex-wife, now deceased. We
do not know
exactly why Stella self-harms or what part she actually played in the
death of
her sister, though we do know the parents hold her responsible.
It is important for the
final denouement that the
parents do not attend the wedding, apart from the simple fact that they
are
unlikely to bond with the Mitchells, or, indeed, anyone else in the
Square. So
psychopath or sociopath, probably a bit of both, Stella is terrorising
Ben
behind everyone’s back. It is never clear why she is so keen
to become Ben’s
stepmother or the fourth Mrs Mitchell. Perhaps she is just plain daft.
Nor Gordon Ramsay’s F-word - the kitchen, once more, a woman-free zone; try Men-U-Like Cooking and F****** as an alternative title.
8.0pm BBC1 Holby City .
To be fair, there is an equitable distribution
of the responsible jobs (a better balance than in real life, I
suspect).
Connie, a surgeon (of whom only 4% are actually female) is good at her
job and
(mostly) highly respected in Holby General (BRI), managing to combine
single
motherhood with a heavy schedule. She has her faults and, in this
episode, we
see her as a not very loving daughter who has not even told her dying
Pa that
he is a grandfather. At the eleventh hour she pulls a few
strings to ensure his
last hours are more comfortable, in her own hospital. Holby
City
does at least ensure that women are represented
at all levels, even senior management. Again, this may be a strategy
for
providing more acting jobs for women (a worthy motive) and adding
glamour to
what could be a very unglamorous workplace. I’m
always astonished at how far
necklines can plunge, especially when
practical, cover-up clothing would seem a must in the
context of a
hospital. On the other hand, it would do women a disservice and harm
recruitment if nurses and medics had a dowdy image.
The programme tries to
deal with contemporary problems and concerns, social, psychological and
emotional. There are some very nasty people out there who seem to talk
to staff
just how they want, which, we are told, reflects reality. Gender
equality is
followed through in that the women are quite as nasty, sometimes
nastier, than
the men.
9pm BBC2 Paris
A
truly feisty French
presenter, Sandrine Voillet, shows us a more interesting, alternative
side to
the City of Light. The majority of commentators on this type of
programme are
men, so it is good to see a woman doing the job so well. And
she’s got a big
nose!
10.00pm BBC2 Sensitive Skin
I read a review of this, by a man, who could not
praise it too highly. In my opinion it is pretentious rubbish, almost
redeemed,
but not quite, by the inclusion of some good actors. Joanna
Lumley is always
watchable; in this series she is somewhat untypical of the many 60+
lone women,
widowed or otherwise, who form a substantial part of the population, in
that
there is no shortage of friends and admirers looking out for her. No
wonder,
since she looks nearer forty and can afford the clothes, make-up,
beauty
treatments that are required to enhance the look. Maureen
Lipman , ‘guesting’,
plays a stereotypical, strident
feminist – American to boot - the sort that gives Feminism a
bad name. It
is made clear that it is she who wears the trousers in her household
and her
husband may just be getting tired of this. Oozing confidence at the
start, she
ends up cringing and kneeling on the floor practically licking his
boots, ready
to sign up as a Stepford wife if that will get him back. What does this tell us
about assertive
women? What is it trying to tell us about the
‘real’ nature of women?
I’m afraid this
was as
much as I could watch. Should have liked to see Star Stories:
Madonna The
Wife’s Life – a film by Guy Ritchie just to check that his films
aren’t as bad as they’re said to be,
but it was way past my bed-time.