You and Me, Us and Them - drama on R4

I honestly can’t think of a TV programme I would less like to watch

Boring
irritating
so so much other stuff I would prefer to listen to

Is it any good? The writer signed the letter in support of JKR I believe.

That was a very interesting listen. Very sympathetic to the TERF point of view and awake to the issues that surround wanting to transition with loads of issues present including young women trying to escape their material reality and their worlds, and class.

It would have been unthinkable to have expected to hear something like this on the BBC a few years back.

As a mark of pedigree, the director is Jessica Dromgoole.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0030n9v

Just listened to this while working at home. Thought it was really annoying. I can see they've tried not to demonise the mother too much, but did they have to have her defending flags and so on? Seemed like they could only put forward the gender critical position as a kind of forgiveable foible in an essentially good-hearted but not very enlightened working class salt-of-the-earth type. Like, we need to forgive people for being a bit reformy and a bit thinking sex matters: they know not what they do.

The daughter was insufferable.

Just as I imagined. Hence I dodged!

I'll take as a win that we're hearing things on the BBC that a few years back would have led to the staff embarking on a Butlerian Jihad against wrongthink.

I didn't find it as anger inducing as I thought I would, so that's a bonus!
As a PP said, this drama would have been unimaginable on the BBC even a year ago. Also think TARs would absolutely hate it, so another win there.

I didn't listen to the end but enjoyed it ...it sounded like the mum was voicing all the sensible opinions and frustrations of the writer, who had also done a good job of being sympathetic to the daughter (although I agree she was annoying) .

I switched on part way through in the car. I was waiting for the Mum character to have to repent but she went away to educate herself (as instructed) and became a Terf! Couldn’t believe R4 made and broadcast it.

Bloody hell! That's a monumental shift for the BBC to have made.

I can only assume that they're burrowing non-TWAW views into different places so that they can finally say..... "Ta da! We cover a balance of different viewpoints across all of our platforms".

Despite my cynicism, I welcome this shift. It's a positive sign that the adults have walked into the room.

Thanks I chose not to listen or record this.

But might now give it a go, even if it is only a slight shift on the dial of BBC's entrenched rainbow culture.

Huge improvement on the interminable "Just a Girl" 😖

I’d try to listen to it but have a long-standing aversion to all R4 drama.

As a hard line TERF I thought it was bloody marvellous.

Mum was a single parent working class, worked hard to open opportunities for her daughter.

It explored their relationship as the daughter got sucked in to the cult, they had the dead end discussions of diametrically opposed views.

the final statement by the daughter was a humdinger.

well worth a listen.

I watched one of the last episodes of 'Doctors' about a year ago (had nothing to do for half an hour) and it was the one where the terfy male doctor puts forward all the biological reality arguments and why transitioning young people is dangerous. It was rebutted, but the rebuttal was a bit feeble, all about people being hurt etc. Seeing as this (awful) series was entirely captured I wondered anyone dared to put the actual GC argument in even though it was 'rebutted'. I ended up suspecting that someone on the writing team was actually GC.

I thought it was very good indeed. The writer has done her research.
(Writer is Lucy Catherine, who's written heaps of stuff, including the Gudrun series)

I caught the 2nd half on the radio by accident while driving and I thought it was very good. I think your analysis in your followup post of 22:04 is spot-on @FlossieF - I was genuinely suspecting that the playwright would make the mum suddenly convert to "true believer" status in an explosion of rainbow dust and was prepared to just switch off if that happened but it didn't. I absolutely loved the part where the mum says she can't bring herself to call her daughter "Max" and her child says something like 'I can't accept being called "Marie"'' but they both agree it's ok if mum calls her child "Beautiful" - that made me well up a bit (though if the mum had run the thought past us on MN first I might have suggested an endearment with less overtone of femininity like "Lovely")

I agree that the event at which the mum was injured sounded mischaracterised but the clash of perceptions was I think the point - that mum described it as an event where women could speak and stand up and be heard, supported with butch lesbians providing security, made it clear that it wasn't the right-wing hatred rally that the other side described it as. I think the playwright was using this as a way to illustrate how the same thing can be perceived in totally different ways depending on your starting assumptions.

I did think the mum's social exile for coming out as GC was overegged, as was her descent into letting her flat descend into chaos because she had no social life. I don't think that's realistic, as general opinionis more GC than the rainbow people want us to believe, but I think it was an artistically valid over-egging in the context of the drama as it allowed an exploration of how inappropriate such over-reactions would be.

Thanks for the great summary.

I’m going to listen again and celebrate the BBC finally portraying the anger us GC women have rightly felt.

I've not listened to it yet but this thread has piqued my interest and I'm definitely going to do so. Your summary has helped me decide to do so, thank you. Re this bit:

as was her descent into letting her flat descend into chaos because she had no social life.

I appreciate the drama probably doesn't go this deep but my experience of being a mum of a girl who wasn't sure if she was actually a girl was very isolating in lots of ways. I felt like the subject couldn't be brought up. We had a lot going on with my daughter's mental health at the time and the worry about this extra layer of risk really got me down. It's fair to say that looking after the house to the same standards I had done previously became too overwhelming. I can see why a short drama perhaps didn't have the time to explore deeper emotions like this and maybe instead focused on the impact of feeling isolated and down for holding"controversial" views.

I liked it. I thought the class strand was well handled too.

The summaries by@FlossieFand@RareGoalsVergeare close to my experience of listening to this radio drama.

It's not perfect but it's definitely worth a listen.