Sometimes Not Everything Is About You

Recently The Guardian spoke to the movers and shakers of British theatre, asking them what they felt were the best part of the year's theatre.

A range of answers, but one that stood out. Ellie Hickson, author of Eight and Precious Little Talent, believes that what makes British theatre so great is

We're also losing our fetishistic obsession with diversity. About 60% of this country is middle class – we shouldn't be afraid of trying to reflect that on stage."

Yes, what this country needs is more middle-class theatre.

It is concerning that she describes the need for diversity (and it is indeed a need) as a "fetishistic obsession", rather than say, an interest. If Hickson means diversity as a passing trend hot season then I agree, but I suspect she does not.
The fact is historically, most plays are about the middle-classes, and not in a way that examines the class system, but rather one that takes it as a given. Hence why the post-war surge of John Osbourne, Shelagh Delaney, Harold Pinter et al were considered so vital.

It's important to remember that there is more than one form of middle-class - I considerd myself middle-class until I got to university - then I wasn't so sure. 60% of people may consider themselves middle-class, but that doesn't mean they share the same lifestyle*.

It is not a coincidence that Ellie Hickson is a thoroughly middle-class girl. Public school educated, working with a university-affiliated theatre group, she writes what she knows. This is the crux of the problem. Middle-class writers stem from middle-class audiences which stem from middle-class writers.

In the same article playwright Lucy Pebbble says

The reason British theatre is booming is that the people who go to the theatre – the upper-middle classes – actually have more disposable income than they ever have before.

It is the upper-middle classes who go to the theatre. The tautological reason for this is, casual theatre trips are part of the upper-middle class lifestyle, along with competitive schooling and buying aspirational cookery books. As such, being an audience member does not require a deep love of theatre, only an urge for social acceptable. Theatre becomes another way of keeping up with the Joneses.

Whereas theatre is not part of a lower-middle or working class lifestyle. If you are l-m or working class and in an audience which is not for a musical, it's because you're on a school trip or you are truly interested in theatre. And to gain that spark of interest you need to be drawn into it, most likely by an experience or situation you recognise, but now it is on stage, view differently. Working-class plays begate working-class audiences. But if we want working-class audiences to stick around after they've seen their one John Godber play of the year, theatre needs to accept that it must look beyond it's back garden. Or god forbid, even get some different writers.

Roy Williams understands this:

But I still want to see more diversity – black audiences who are not just going to see a black play."

Exactly. But how is this achieved? The answer is not merely through lowered ticket prices, although that can be a serious problem. We have to strive for it, not dust off our hands because our "fetishistic obsession" has come to an end.



* I could not find a source for the 60% Hickson states. The closest I could find was this article which claims 43% of the population identify as middle-class.

Link Dump

A selection of interesting articles from the past few weeks.

Corinne Bariley-Rae talks about the premature death of her husband and how music saved her

Susanna White talks about directing Generation Kill and her reputation for creating costume dramas

Jo Brand discusses her career and recent autobiography

The Force - Crystal Unit

Episode two of channel four's documentary series The Force portrayed the efforts of Crystal Unit, Portsmouth's dedicated rape investigation team, in their investigation of several rape cases.

Crystal Unit is the only dedicated rape unit outside of London, and the programme shows the initial six-month pilot study of the squad. Due to the time period The Force does not show any cases that have gone to trial, and nor does it deal with the victim support side of policework. This is a disappointment; although clearly victim confidentiality needs to be protected, more time with the victim support workers would have shown a different side to the investigations, which were notably absent of any victim input after the initial report. The one exception to this was the young woman who withdrew her rape claim despite a high level of evidence; the victim support worker advocated for her side, stating he couldn't make her talk to the police.

But Crystal Unit's efforts can only work with the crimes reported; there were no efforts mentioned to encourage rape victims to come forward, or to raise awareness of domestic and marital rape. If the police do not run campaigns against these sorts of crimes, who is supposed to?

Although the programme showed several investigations, the primary focus was of a woman who woke up in a hotel room with several men she didn't know. It is clear to see why this investigation was chosen: as the women did not know the suspects, the detectives had to gain information from the hotel about booking arrangements and identities, as well as investigating the noise complaint made about the room the woman woke up in. There was a level of suspense as one suspect was on holiday and could not be questioned straight away - he was arrested as soon as he stepped off the plane. But what sort of message does it send that the major feature of a documentary about rape investigation chooses a case which concludes with the victim having lied to the police and no crime was found to have occurred? As the initial narration places the Crystal Unit's existence in a wider context of disbelief about rape, do the programme makers not think this refers to them?

It is concerning that a documentary dealing with such an emotive subject should be considered entertainment. Yet this case, with the way it builds to what seems like a serious crime and then suddenly twists into a surprisingly benign reality, has clearly been placed to be as gripping as possible. It was unnecessary to show so much investigation footage when the makers knew it would amount to nothing.

The Force shines when it focuses on the bureaucracy of the police force: Crystal unit is a trial run, but it is already in danger when a low reportage rate leaves their detectives inactive for 49% of the time. The higher-ups get restless, and questions are raised not about how successful Crystal Unit is, but how cost-effective. The decision was made to close the unit - this was then reversed on the last day of operations, but with only 50% of the detectives remaining. Previously Crystal Unit were shown to be struggling with their workload under the initial staffing levels.

Thought socially outdated idealization of the musician/groupie dynamic had disappeared? Think again! The new Spotify/Doritos/Guitar Hero promotion positively revels in it.

Your aim is to win an all-expenses paid night in a hotel room, where you too can play Guitar Hero and eat Doritos just like a real musician! Or like you usually do on a Saturday night, just in a nicer room.

The way you do this? By signing up to their website, connecting it to your facebook and getting as many groupies as possible. And those groupies? People you know on facebook. Obviously the Spotify/Doritos/Guitar Hero triumvirate wouldn't want to be involved in any potentially illegal coercing, so it's all a matter of uploading nice benign pictures of people's underwear - unmodelled. But wait - do I see all male images of musicians and pretty frilly pink girly underwear as the groupie icon? yes I do. Sure, you can win by accumulating fans too - but when groupies gain you four points and fans a mere one, it's pretty clear how this is going to be won.

I've written to both Spotify and Doritos asking them why they've chosen to incorporate such sexist ideals into their promotion. I await their reply.

What's been missing from Saturday night television? Racism!

But it might be making a comeback.

Two incidents this week, from different shows, countries and circumstances. But one similarity: they didn't mean to offend, so they couldn't accept something was wrong.

Incident Number One.

In the aptly named "Red Face" segment of the Australian variety show Hey Hey It's Saturday a Jackson 5 tribute act performs, which has six incidents of blackface. Guest judge Harry Connick Jr is completely appalled.(Note: the link shows both Connick's reaction and the act itself).

After Connick awards them a zero, host Darryl Somers makes a hasty apology, not for the utterly racist spectacle, but because the show felt it had offended him. Not for cheerfully showing an outdated, offensive form of entertainment, but because they had offended their guest Harry Connick Jr (who again deals with it beautifully).

The next day Somers states "To most Australians I think it's a storm in a tea cup" .


Incident Number Two.

The hopelessly stupid dancer and tv presenter Anton Du Beke, who is currently appearing on Strictly Come Dancing, "jokingly" called his dance partner Laila Rouas a derogatory term for an Asian person after seeing her fake tan. Rouas is part-Indian and part-Moroccan. It is also rumoured that he asked if she is a terrorist.

Du Beke apologised. Both Bruce Forsyth and Len Goodman had outbreaks of Old White Man Syndrome, Forsyth telling everyone to get a sense of humour
and Goodman claiming things aren't like the old days.

The over-arching theme of these apologies (and later statements) is that what happened didn't matter,and to think about that is to linger unnecessarily on a subject that is closed.

Except this isn't just about tedious ballroom dancing and morons pretending to be the Jacksons. This is about blackface and acceptable language, and there is a history behind these things.

Calling an Asian woman a derogatory term is not the same as an American calling a Brit a "limey" because limey is not yelled at people in the street. Limey has not been written on the door of someone's home to intimidate them. Rambling on about how things are different these days does not help, because that is a good thing. Just because you are older does not mean you live in a bubble.

It is not acceptable to wear blackface if you are Indian: just because both African and Asian people are not Caucasian does not make them the same. It is not acceptable to wear blackface because you really love Michael Jackson. And it is not acceptable to show blackface on a television show. It is definitely not acceptable to show blackface on a reunion special when that act was originally featured in 1989. Not 1969, 1989.

The producers of the show seem to ignore this. It is not that an act was shown twenty years ago and they thought it would be nice to show it again. It is that a blackface act was selected and ok'd for viewing by several departments not once but twice, both in eras when such humour is not acceptable. At all. And once the initial apology has been made, the show's producer and presenter announces that "most Australians" wouldn't be bothered by it. Even the black ones?

We are not divorced from the cultures and history that created such slurs, even though we'd like to erase it from our collective memories. We can't pretend that individual actions don't count towards a wider consciousness, especially when those actions are broadcast.

Stephen Gately 1976 - 2009

Former Boyzone member Stephen Gately died on Sunday morning at the age of thirty-three.

Gately was the first boy band member to publicly announce he was gay, provoked by a former member of Boyzone's security selling a story to The Sun. Gately had good reason for keeping his sexuality under wraps: Louis Walsh later admitted it would have been difficult to have had an openly gay man in Boyzone, stating "It wasn't cool then to have a gay guy in the band".

Although Gately's reasons for publicly acknowledging his sexuality were less than altruistic, it cannot be denied that a young high-profile entertainer in a market aimed predominantly at young girls announcing his homosexuality paved the way for later performers ranging from fellow boy-banders Mark from Westlife and Duncan from Blue, to Will Young. Will Young advanced this by discussing his homosexuality whilst on the cusp of success, rather than in his decline.

Notably Gately not only announced his homosexuality but was willing to express it within his work, something Will Young has been reticient to do, by performing with a man in the Boyzone video for "Better"

Mika has yet to get around to either of those options.

Something That Shouldn't Need To Be Said

Thirty-two years after it occured, Roman Polanski was arrested whilst travelling to a Swiss film festival for the infamous rape of thirteen-year-old Samantha Geimer which led to him cowardly running off to Europe. He is now in the process of being extradited to the US.

So what better response could there be from the European film community than to create a petition demanding his immediate release, on the grounds that to arrest him at such a time is unfair? There is no clarification of what would be a better time for him - whilst celebrating a friend's birthday? Whilst eating a poorly-made omelette?

But the crux of their argument, that the drugging, raping and sodomizing of a child should be overlooked if someone makes really really good films is one being made elsewhere.

It is easy to imagine rapists as bad people who lurk in alleyways and have no existence outside of their crimes. It seems ridiculous to consider them to be people who are good, even exceptional at their jobs and hold respectable positions within society, even when these rapists are the most difficult to prosecute.

Polanski is such a person. A man considered an auteur, with a tragic personal life, his crimes are now being trivialised when any average citizen would be gracing the front page of The Sun with the headline SCUM underneath an unflattering mugshot. There would be mobs threatening to burn his house down.

The fact is Polanski abused his position as a director to take pictures of a child, ostensibly to help her career, with the intention of raping her. But this does not make his films any less ground-breaking. For some, admiration of Polanski is problematic. But perhaps if we were to accept that exceptional artists are capable of awful acts, that someone's emotional and moral character is not automatically reflected in their work, it would be easier to accept that such a person should not escape punishment. Even if it is thirty years later.

The Noughtie Girl's Guide to Ellie Levenson

Vaguely interested in feminism, but put off by the idea of “thoughts” and “ideology”? Does the idea of dismissing older feminists as bra-burners and man-haters sound good to you? Do you think the term ‘noughtie girl’ is an amusing and provocative term for a fresh new book about feminism? Then The Noughtie Girl's Guide to Feminism is for you!

Irritating pun aside, Ellie Levenson’s new book aims to be a guide to feminism in the 21st century, converting the sceptical and explaining away the less popular aspects of feminism. This is feminism for the post-ideological age. Nothing connects.

A hint for the book’s later chapters is revealed in the introduction, where she writes: “as I have no direct experience of many of the issues specifically concerning lesbians I have not attempted to cover these issues here”. [xvii] Yes, Levenson states that because she’s not a lesbian, she’s not going to write about them. And she sticks to that premise for the next two hundred and sixteen pages. If it doesn’t relate to her, it’s not here. Not only does this book not acknowledge any form of sexuality aside from heterosexuality, it does not deal with race in any way, shape or form. Not even in one tokenistic mention of feminism needing to deal with racism in addition to sexism. Classism is mentioned only in passing.

This is a book where all ideological roads point back to Ellie’s life, and how she dealt with such events. It is difficult to know that she only chose topics she had personally experienced herself – is the lack of discussion of eating disorders down to the fact she has not had one, or is it simply a matter of space? – because this is about as apolitical a book about feminism can be whilst still having a core ideology behind it.

What I do know is the details of Ellie’s first big journalistic assignment [39-44], how she and her partner organized their wedding [153-154], and the type of rape jokes she finds amusing[60-64]. I also know several far more unpleasant things about her, such as her views that consent cannot be withdrawn after penetration begins [65] , if women didn’t stop using contraception without having a discussion with their partners most babies would not be born [54] and women bosses are awful (but because they have to be!) [70-72].

As Levenson ignores the wider context of feminism, she also ignores any attempt at history, instead reverting to the classic anti-feminist activities of dismissing older generations of women as bra-burners and man-haters. This would be an excellent opportunity to discuss the myth of bra-burning, but Levenson merely states ‘you don’t need to know what steps we have made towards equality – you just need to know we’re not there yet.’ Whilst I agree that feminism does not have a required reading list, particularly in relation to the more academic branches of feminism, younger feminists need to be aware of what came before them. In the final chapter Levenson discusses the possibilities for the future of feminism, with the emphasis upon identifying as a feminist and acting upon that principle. But how is that possible without knowing what has gone before? For example, how can a ‘noughtie girl’ formulate her views on pornography and men’s magazines without considering the complex and varied feminist responses to the relationship between pornography, obscenity and censorship? I do not mean that any person who describes themselves as a feminist has to be able to cite chapter and verse from their chosen perspective, but rather we need to be aware of how previous feminist generations dealt with similar issues to understand what works, which laws were considered and discarded, and to be able to identify recurrent societal trends.

Levenson has chosen to focus on the smaller, more identifiable aspects of life as a British women in the 21st century; toe cleavage [124-125], engagement rings[149-152], society’s view of single women[166-168]. But she’s chosen to discuss them in equally small ways. Each topic gets no more than four pages, usually much less, and then it’s on to another idea, linked to the previous only by the thematic chapter. The worst offender is the ‘Play’ chapter, which encompasses chicklit, a brief (and pointless) discussion of Ellie’s entrance and exit in stand-up comedy, the lack of public toilets for women, binge-drinking, personal safety at night, women’s magazines and sport.
Many of those topics are worthy of discussion in relation to feminism, but they are barely covered. Take the chicklit section, “Don’t judge me by the cover of the book I’m reading”. Levenson discusses how chicklit books are known for their distinctive cover art – pastel colours, images of shoes and diamond rings. She goes as far as to say that she has intentionally made her book look like chicklit. She talks about how the content of those colourful jewellery-clad jackets is not considered serious fiction and that even the name itself is dismissive. But she doesn’t think about why that is. She doesn’t ask why all it takes for a book to become chicklit is a light colourful cover and a picture of some jewellery, or how such a genre came into existence in the first place. She simply states that she likes it, and she’s not going to be ashamed of that.

This is a disappointment, because there are many of her ideas which deserve to be expanded upon; her belief that public hatred of Victoria Beckham is largely misogynistic [12-14], her idea that the way to prevent the marginalisation of middle-aged women is for younger women to include them [20-23], her ideas on economic literacy and its importance to women.
But it’s not just that her ideas are brief, they’re also fragmented. She constantly shies away from anything that could be considered a systemic pattern of thought – the collection of poor public toilets, concern over binge-drinking and personal safety could lead into a wider point about discomfort with the thought of women being in public spaces and part of public life. But it doesn’t. This isn’t merely a matter of refusing academic theories of society – there is also a refusal to acknowledge that all the individual actions that Levenson asserts are fine to take or not take, are influenced and reflected by the wider society in which we live.
Take her assertion that a friend of hers can take pole-dancing classes and still be a feminist, because she has chosen that herself, and has not been pressurised into it by a man. I am happy to accept this assertion. But there is no questioning of why pole-dancing classes have so recently become both possible and desirable, whilst sex workers of many kinds are still looked down upon and NIMBY campaigns to keep strip clubs out of affluent neighbourhoods persist. There is no acknowledgement that there is a connection between personal actions and the wider societal context. Not so much a matter of the personal is political, rather the personal is personal and you can’t judge that, ok?

Aside from one curious point. Although time and time again Levenson stresses that the essence of being a ‘noughtie girl’ is the confidence to choose our own lives and embrace the contradictions of modern-day feminism, there is one topic where she goes out on a limb and uses the dreaded term ‘anti-feminist’. In relation to single-sex schooling. This one point is where she ignores everything she’s stated up to this point about individual choice, and finally connects each person’s actions with that of the world in which we live. Her justification? “Life isn’t single sex, and sooner or later [our daughters] are going to have to deal with that.”


The Noughtie Girl’s Guide to Feminism is a book that does not ask difficult questions, when it asks any at all. It is primarily concerned with making feminism non-threatening and accessible, two things that feminism as a movement has difficulty conveying. But there’s relating feminism to the everyday, and then there’s justifying your own actions without serious consideration. The main thrust of Levenson’s argument in this book is that ‘noughtie girls’ can take on whatever forms of feminism they like, yet the vast majority of examples in this book are from her own life, or people she knows who inevitably have similar lives to hers. This is the biggest problem in this book. It claims to speak for a generation, yet the ‘noughtie girls’ it speaks of are middle-class white women; exactly the same legacy of feminism that this book positions itself away from. .

La Roux enjoys dressing the way she likes, dislikes it when others do the same

Elly Jackson of La Roux seems to have made a bit of a cock-up in her most recent interview , and declared that women become entangled in abusive relationships because they dress in a way that attracts violent men:

I know that there's far more ways to be sexy than to dress in a miniskirt and a tank top. If you're a real woman you can turn someone on in a plastic bag just by looking at them. That's what a real woman is, when you've got the sex eyes. I think you attract a certain kind of man by dressing like that. Women wonder why they get beaten up, or having relationships with arsehole men. Because you attracted one, you twat.

Not only does this assume that a) violent men can be easily detected, and therefore easily avoided, and b) that women bring such attentions upon themselves, but it also tells us the kind of woman that Elly hates.

It is no secret that due to her androgynous image, Elly had a difficult time at school, much of which I have no doubt was at the hands of other girls. It is understandable that in an environment where "male attention was prized", a level of contempt will arise when you see your peers indulging in behaviour you deem degrading. But it is foolish to believe the wider world is exactly the same as school.

The women running down the high street on Saturday night in stilletos and miniskirts are not necessarily the same girls who were awful to you at school.They do not necessarily have low self-esteem. And nobody goes out hoping to become involved in an abusive relationship.

It's clearly a great and wonderful thing when someone chooses to subvert standard conventions of beauty, particularly whilst still a teenager themselves. But why such scorn towards those who don't? Why the need to draw lines along body types and fashion? Why are such women the enemy?

We find people who look like us appealing, and it is a comfort to know - particularly if we feel to be an outsider in a situation such as Jackson was- that there are others who personify the values we hold. And it’s great that Jackson can be that person for young girls who feel alienated because of their looks. But this does not mean she gets to denigrate women whom she associates with an oppressive standard of beauty as if they themselves created it.

We all try to negotiate the unfair social signifiers that come with our natural look (that curvy women are sexy, that blondes are universally attractive, that skinny girls are fashion plates, that East Asian girls are either dainty dolls or sexy geishas). And each different look brings different connotations of values and behaviour along with it.

The tanned girl in the push up bra, the Cheryl Coles, the glamour models, the Megan Foxes, are labelled as being about sexuality first. They are considered lower-class, they aren't known for their education; women may mistrust them because they are supposed to embody a certain male fantasy.
When compared to the women that schoolgirls wish to emulate, there is a level of over-lap. Essentially the look is user-friendly, more down-to-earth, more accessible to both emulate and admire, and with that comes along the ‘High-Street Honey’ image promoted by FHM and aped by its younger brothers Nuts and Zoo. It becomes easy to equate the two. But women have a limited control over their appearance: pale girls can tan, but it doesn't work the other way round; I wish I could channel Audrey Hepburn but that's just not the way I look. Therefore, we become attuned to social signifiers- a vintage 80s dress or something by Gareth Pugh is tough and sexy in the right way- it's art. A short skirt from Jane Norman isn't.

Whenever a woman is spiteful about “sexy” girls, she reinforces the paradigms above. We don't choose our bust size, and a tan is not a signifier of someone’s sexual behaviour in itself. Flat-chested, pale girls can be just as sexy as the former, but it doesn't have to be one or the other.

Jackson is constantly interpreting the looks of other women, positively or negatively according to her own standards, but she doesn't like it when the same is done to her. La Roux falls in to the common trap- denounce and denigrate what you aren't, without trying to fully understand another's perspective. Exactly what was done to her.

Co-written by Rosemary and Aqsa