Men Behaving Badly- Dear God, was it always this horrible?!

[EreLongDoneDoDoesDid]

A Tier 4 Christmas has caused DH and I to turn to the TV for some telly comfort food.

A few nights ago we started watching Men Behaving Badly on Netflix. This was a show that I remember with a lot of affection from my early teens and DH felt the same way. Aside from the Christmas episode- which I stand by as being a great slice of Christmas comedy- we hadn’t watched any of them since the early noughties.

For reference MBB began in 1992. I was 12 and didn’t watch the early series, coming in at around the series 4 mark (although I did see the earlier series later, probably in my mid to late teens). It ran for a total of six series and there was a Christmas special in 1997 and then a trilogy which ended the whole thing off in 1998. It launched the careers of Martin Clunes and Caroline Quentin and brought Neil Morrissey and Leslie Ash to prominence after some years in minor roles. Harry Enfield was also in the first series and my understanding is that he was pretty well known comedian and added a bit of a star turn to it.

In case you’re not British or were living in a hole during the 90s it was a bawdy, un-PC half hour BBC comedy (actually, it started out on ITV for the first two series) and the premise was that Gary, a 30ish year old security sales manager, lives in a flat in London with his flatmate (and friend from uni) Dermot. They’re both immature misogynists whose passions are drinking down the local (grotty) boozer, drinking cans of Stella at home and talking about women they’d like to shag. Gary has a girlfriend, nurse Dorothy, but Dermot doesn’t have a regular girlfriend, instead chasing largely unobtainable women, including the woman who owns the flat upstairs, Deborah. Gary owns the flat and has a steady job, Dermot pays him rent (or more often doesn’t) and is in and out of work. Dermot leaves after series 1 and is replaced by Tony, but Tony occupies the exact same space as Dermot, just with a northern accent. So far, so The-Inbetweeners-15-years-on.

But it’s just awful. Really awful. By the time the show ended I was in my late teens and I don’t remember the world being this....unpleasant nor the show being so broad and offensive. The men are just... idiots and the women shrill and nagging, hen-pecking the men and seeming to not like them at all. The language is really offensive, with the women referred to as “bints”, “bitches” and “slags” and constant references to sex that also border on being unacceptable.

The central romances between Gary and Dorothy and Tony and Deborah are horrible in their own quite different ways: Dorothy seems to despise Gary, and who could blame her because he’s knob. But equally he doesn’t seem to like her at all either, doing everything he can to avoid any kind of real commitment to her. Their relationship is depressing: They constantly argue, seemingly only getting along when it comes to sex (though Dorothy spends much of her time rejecting Gary’s advances). The relationship is quite parental, with Gary as the naughty school boy and Dorothy the mother who just spends her whole time telling him off. They aren’t really ever that nice to one another, and although the message is clearly meant to be that they’ve got each other’s backs when the chips are down, that isn't as clear here in 2021 as it was obviously meant to be in 1995. They also both cheat on one another more than once. Dorothy even sleeps with Tony, which Gary hardly seems to care about.

Tony and Deborah’s romance is equally depressing in a different way: Tony is a sad, sex-obsessed and mopes around the flat all day, drinking lager that he buys with his JSA. He pines over Deborah in the flat and she spends all her time knocking him back and going out with other people. Until the last series when she’s reached her late 30s and basically goes out with him out of desperation. They’re also not very nice to one another but with Tony being more thick bloke who pines and her being slightly less acid-tongued than Dorothy.

There are also some questionable running themes: marriage is often discussed negatively by Gary and Dorothy in a way that maybe was meant to feel modern because she wants it no more than he does, but they do end up almost marrying and later having a baby and you don’t get the feeling that either of them really wanted to (they were just out of any other options). The women as killjoys theme has been discussed and is weaved into the very fabric of the show, whilst the men act like teenagers and avoid the women’s attempts to spoil their fun. There is also a really unpalatable theme about very young girls being fair game throughout the show... Gary makes reference to his desire to shag his 17yo niece several times, at one point saying that she has “buttocks like a racehorse”. Watching it, me and my husband literally shouted “Christ no!” in unison. So bad!

We were also shocked at how much the characters drink and smoke. Culturally the world seems hugely different to now, much more different to how I remember it. Drinking and smoking is done constantly and without question. We also have a good laugh and how rich these characters are. Both Gary and Deborah are 30/31/32ish at the start of the series and both own the 2 bed flats that they live in (that seem to be a conversion of an older house). They live in Ealing and such a flat there now would cost circa £500k. No conceivable way that a middle manager of a security firm and a restaurant manager (which is Deborahs job) would be able to get mortgages, alone, on these properties now.

So my question is this- for someone who was a child and then a teenager throughout the run of this show... were things really this different? It looks like a different world to the one we are in now to the extent that it’s hard to believe it was only 30 odd years ago.

Is this how people felt in the 90s when repeats of beloved 60s and 70s sitcoms were shown? Will we feel like this about the big sitcoms of the teenies like The Inbetweeners, Him and Her, Friday Night Dinner and People Just Do Nothing? Or was this show actually really horrible at the time, I just didn’t notice because I was so young?

Most comedy is of its time as it relates to life at that point.
Even the stuff which doesn't (someone mentioned Only Fools and Horses recently) are those where the characters and relationships are central but even there the surroundings and things going on around date. Just think of Del and Trigger in a yuppie wine bar

I liked many comedies in their day and find the fact we have no decent comedy now more sad than the fact that these have dated.

I was in my mid twenties when it was on and tbh I always loathed it. The men were sexist idiots so not surprised it has aged badly. Though it was a reflection of the times and the laddish culture that dominated the 90s and where sexism was seen as 'ironic'

@GreenWheat

Almost all comedy is of its time and doesn't age particularly well. I enjoyed it at the time but can't imagine watching it now. Ditto almost every other comedy of the same era. You should try 1970s comedy for a real eye opener though!

This

There are also bits in my beloved Blackadder, OFAH and Father Ted that make me cringe nowadays

@TheLevyEyebrowsFancIub

The Inbetweeners only ten years old but has already aged badly (Jay is meant to be all talk but inexperienced but nonetheless clunge etc jars, as does a lot of the homophobic material). The films were successful a few years back but by the time of the reunion chat shitshow last year, not sure how funny the joke was anymore?

Agreed and I love the inbetweeners as well

I wasn't overly keen on MBB to start with and not surprised it hasn't aged well.

An old comedy that has surprised me though was Allo Allo, saw an episode recently and both DH and I were howling with laughter. I was amazed as I loved it as a kid in the 80's but just assumed that I wouldn't find it funny anymore in common with so many older comedies.

Looking forward to some more episodes of ridiculous parodies and ze fallen Madonna with the big boobies to lighten up the pretty shite looking next few months.

It was hideous back in the 90s as well. I was in my early twenties, and it seemed like something from the ark.

But that was a time when subculture vastly outpaced establishment culture, so terrestrial TV always felt very out of date in terms of attitudes and styles. The only thing that remotely interested people across generations and subcultures was probably The X-Files.

@DodoApplet Do you know about this....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steptoe_and_Son_in_Murder_at_Oil_Drum_Lane#:~:text=Steptoe%20and%20Son%20in%20Murder%20at%20Oil%20Drum%20Lane%20is,was%20first%20performed%20in%202005.

I sometimes speak like the English policeman in Allo Allo at home and dd13 picked it up and does the same sometimes. Lockdown has probably sent us a bit nuts

I haven’t watched it in years but it was of it’s era. I remember finding it pretty funny at the time but it wasn’t any kind of lifestyle manual, like the Inbetweeners you know these guys are idiots.

I rewatched all the Blackadders recently and I still find them funny, Rowan Atkinson is one of the best comedy actors ever, but the constant violence towards Baldric, albeit in a slapstick way felt wrong, and I wonder if it because it is less acceptable to punch down now.

@Burnthurst187

If you don't like it, don't watch it

That's your response to a really interesting, well thought out, entertaining post?

What is it actually like living in your head?

I remember watching that series as a teenager, and thinking how horrible the men were at the time. I half wondered if future relationships would mimic mbb, I'm glad to say that it didn't!

I loved George and Anthea in MBB, they were so understated and funny.
I also watched it as a teen and just thought “I must not end up with a loser like these blokes”. Luckily I didn’t

@AlannaOfTrebond

I wasn't overly keen on MBB to start with and not surprised it hasn't aged well.

An old comedy that has surprised me though was Allo Allo, saw an episode recently and both DH and I were howling with laughter. I was amazed as I loved it as a kid in the 80's but just assumed that I wouldn't find it funny anymore in common with so many older comedies.

Looking forward to some more episodes of ridiculous parodies and ze fallen Madonna with the big boobies to lighten up the pretty shite looking next few months.

www.antiquestradegazette.com/news/2018/famous-fallen-madonna-with-the-big-boobies-painting-from-1980s-comedy-allo-allo-has-sold-for-15-000-at-a-bristol-auction/

Listen very carefully I shall sell this only once.

I love that it’s actually become a ‘real’ masterpiece 😂

Little Britain was off from the get go. The most viciously misogynistic thing I have ever seen on TV post 2000. The only characters that had with any warmth were men. All the women were horrific caricatures. I cant stand Walliams or Lucas, I find them both deeply creepy and very very very unfunny, Bake Off is only barely watchable.

I had to explain on the Formula One thread on here why I call the F1 driver LeClerc "It is I!"

I was in my early 20s when MBB came out. I grew up it London, and parent still lived there. It was fairly normal to own a flat by the time you were thirty. My brother was 26 - his wife was a nurse!

Even at the time, MBB was meant to be pretty extreme in his the characters behaved - hence “badly” in the title - but also not that far from the truth IME. In the days of 4 tv channels and no internet, pub culture was massive. Not gastropubs/Yates’s wine bar etc, But actual local public houses, with cigarette machines, landlords, grotty carpets, elderly regulars established in the corner and beer. Alcopops/WKD etc were not a thing, wine was unusual in pubs.

MBB reflected an amplified version of culture at the time, but was rooted in reality. The girls, and Lesley Ash’s character in particular, were better at standing up for themselves. The boys got away with what they could. Sounds pretty much the story now tbh! Lesley Ash and Neil Morrissey didn’t really have a romance much- she spent most of her time putting him down.

We have mostly come a long way in the last 30 years! Although there does seem to be a growing trend of young men and young women seeing women in very traditional, submissive/oppressed roles. I usuiextvit never really went away.

It was dreadful then.

I wouldn't watch it then because of all the things you wrote here, but it was mysteriously popular. I always wondered who watched it.

The question is not whether it was always this horrible - it clearly was. The question is why on earth you (and others!) ever thought it was acceptable back then.

Do you remember why you enjoyed it, OP?

It was always terrible but that was the point wasn't it? Gary and Tony were like cartoon characters and Dorothy and Deborah were just there to show them up. A bit like Rigsby in Rising Damp, you're not meant to like them but laugh at them.

Goodnight Sweetheart was on the other day and man, that's bad. Gary the time travelling, cheating, gaslighter - stay in 1945 where you belong, please.

That's why sitcoms have had their day, they rely on horrible characters doing stupid things and people reacting to that. Although I'll give Motherland and Catastrophe a pass as these shows have everyone being horrible in equal measure.

I watched every episode of butterflies. I didn’t find it funny more of a reflection of someone’s sad life.

I think it is a little unfair to judge comedy by anything other than how it was received by audiences at the time, particularly in the case of sitcoms.

They are essentially one side of a conversation - the other side of that conversation is made up of all the things the audience watching at that time bring with them.

That’s a combination of the tv they have been watching up until then, what they are reading in newspapers and magazines, what they are seeing on the news. If you’re not steeped in that context (and it is all easily forgotten years later) then the conversation doesn’t work - it becomes more like someone talking at you, recounting anecdotes about people you don’t know or places you’ve not been (or perhaps went to once but have no desire to return!).

A lot of comedy also strives to walk a very fine line where it creates some mild (or strong) shock in the audience. Even for people fully aware of the context at the time the comedy is made, they will often object to it or think that that line is being crossed. A few decades down the line it becomes even harder to judge how successful the writers/performers were at walking that line as the perspective we watch it from has shifted enormously.

I remember MBB being enormously popular for a while, it felt quite fresh and boundary pushing in its way and there was a lot of fondness for the characters. It worked on its own terms as it found a huge audience, but the world has definitely moved on now.

Comdies like 'Allo 'Allo, Father Ted and Blackadder survive better because they're not so dependent on a generational sub-culture that dates easily. That's not to undermine great writing either.

Keeping up Apperences or Kevin the Teenager are of their time but the charactures and society structure they orientate around still exist over time.
With Men Behaving Badly, their behaviour was not aspirational, but societies standards have largely continued to become more disapproving. I say largely as it's a weekly feature of AIBU that someone's "D"P still seems to mistake that standard of living as aspirational.

I used to watch Allo Allo as a child and find it pretty dull and then re watched as an adult and found it hilarious. Totally didn’t get all the innuendo as a child and I agree it has many continued sayings for our house too, especially as my husband was military so I occasionally refer to his “little tank” etc

@Bluegrass

I think it is a little unfair to judge comedy by anything other than how it was received by audiences at the time, particularly in the case of sitcoms.

They are essentially one side of a conversation - the other side of that conversation is made up of all the things the audience watching at that time bring with them.

That’s a combination of the tv they have been watching up until then, what they are reading in newspapers and magazines, what they are seeing on the news. If you’re not steeped in that context (and it is all easily forgotten years later) then the conversation doesn’t work - it becomes more like someone talking at you, recounting anecdotes about people you don’t know or places you’ve not been (or perhaps went to once but have no desire to return!).

A lot of comedy also strives to walk a very fine line where it creates some mild (or strong) shock in the audience. Even for people fully aware of the context at the time the comedy is made, they will often object to it or think that that line is being crossed. A few decades down the line it becomes even harder to judge how successful the writers/performers were at walking that line as the perspective we watch it from has shifted enormously.

I remember MBB being enormously popular for a while, it felt quite fresh and boundary pushing in its way and there was a lot of fondness for the characters. It worked on its own terms as it found a huge audience, but the world has definitely moved on now.

This is where criticism of Little Britain misses the point. It was supposed to be shocking and offensive, but critically, universally offensive to just about everyone, not singling out any demographic. On a TV schedule at the time, there were lots of other shock comedies such as Borat, Catherine Tate, League of Gentlemen so it didn't stand out in the way that it does now. A lot of that was recognising unreasonable predjudice and lauging at the offenders, not laughing with them as people would have done in the 70s.

Probably the Jonathon Ross/ Andrew Sachs prank which went too far diluted the appetite for shock culture within broadcasters, and the general political and cancel culture that we have now quenches a lot of observational comedy. Comedy exists to be funny, but often that comes from a place of discomfort and pushing a boundary.

How has 'Absolutely Fabulous' aged?
I couldn't stand it the first time around so I can't judge it.

They were all quite horrible characters and the humour was middling to lame..however I do remember killing myself laughing at the one where Tony builds a sauna in the back garden.

But no I'd never watch an episode now.