Mrs Browns Boys - how is it ok?

[wavingwhilstdrowning]

Please be gentle if I am missing something massively obvious here!

I have never sat through a whole episode of MBB I will admit I find it intolerable but I don't understand why it is ok.

It is totally unacceptable to dress up and do a mocking impression of a trans-woman and lots of older comedies are now removed from iPlayer due to a change in what is acceptable. So why is it ok to dress up as an older working class woman a perform a grotesque caricature?

I realise I am probably missing something. The writer says it is not the same and he would never be racist or homophobic - but this sexism is ok? www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/mrs-browns-boys-political-correctness-b1780721.html

I am a very thick skinned middle aged Northern woman, tbh I just don't watch, it doesn't bother me that much, but I don't understand why women are fame game for the BBC. I'd appreciate your opinions.

@Macmickmoo

Because the booked actor didn't turn up, so Brendan took her role himself and it made people laugh so they stuck with it And people do like to laugh at a man taking the piss out of women...so that's ok then.

Not sure I actually believe that story He probably claims that but I really doubt it

I know loads of people that love it. I am ambivalent personally but don’t mind that it is on. It brings in 10 million plus viewers I think if not more so clearly lots of people enjoy it.

According to this it'll be around until 2026 www.entertainmentdaily.co.uk/tv/mrs-browns-boys-viewers-divided-as-bbc-show-is-extended-until-at-least-2026/

I was a fan at one point, but I think it's tired and more than had it's day now, viewing figures have been steadily declining for a while Wiki

@Hoppinggreen That story is such obviously bullshit isn't it. "OOooooo I don't really want to do this, you see, they make me, my fans, oh I know, I shouldn't but I just do it for them"

I’m obviously in the minority and really love it. It’s basically a comedy centred around a family. As well as comedy, there’s some really tender moments in it. It’s one of the few comedies on tv actually find funny.

It reminds me of the old series Bread (Remember the Boswells.) - another drama where family is the central element.

[quote wavingwhilstdrowning]@Hoppinggreen That story is such obviously bullshit isn't it. "OOooooo I don't really want to do this, you see, they make me, my fans, oh I know, I shouldn't but I just do it for them"[/quote]
I'm pretty sure that it actually is true, but it won't have been a significant decision at the time, when it was just a low-key touring stage show that emerged out of these radio play shorts, where Brendan O'Carroll couldn't afford actors, so had everyone he knew doing the radio voices. They've made other equally arbitrary casting decisions since -- like one of the cast used to be Brendan O'Carroll's booker/logistics guy and had literally never been on stage before someone dropped out.

I mean, I don't think that makes drag OK, but I'm fairly sure it happened accidentally, or because it was cheap, in this case.

wait... Mrs brown ISN'T actually a woman? 😲

😛

I love Mrs brown, I don't think he's mocking or making fun of anyone, just playing a character he created. And even if he is making fun, well it's funny and nothing personal 🙃

@Mudbomb

wait... Mrs brown ISN'T actually a woman? 😲

😛

I love Mrs brown, I don't think he's mocking or making fun of anyone, just playing a character he created. And even if he is making fun, well it's funny and nothing personal 🙃

Personally I don't like the show but I did find the characters dressed as women in League of Gentlemen very funny - especially the Vicar! But if we can't laugh at a man playing trans-woman Babs, why can we laugh at the Vicar.... that's my question. I don't find any of it offensive tbh, as I have said I am very thick skinned, but I don't understand why the media now agrees that trans people must be played 'authentically' and women can be played by men. It's so odd and no one on this thread seems any wiser!

@SarahBellam

I’m from NI. I’d rather have my pubes plucked out by vultures in public than watch it.

It’s got bit to to do with NI. It’s inner city old school Dublin humour.

Sorry typos ^ should read “it’s got nothing to do with NI”.

That’s the mad thing about Ireland, you go five miles down the road and everything changes, accents, point of references etc. Although to contradict myself Derry Girls was absolutely spot on, and I’m from Dublin not Derry!

It’s ok because women haven’t complained loudly and at length about the cultural appropriation by a man of a female domain.

That’s why it hasn’t been cancelled. Because it’s women, and women don’t complain. They see the funny side of things and make allowances.

Because men regardless of their situation still like to see themselves as superior to women in a similar situation. And oddly quite a few women don't seem to mind being the subject of the joke, it's almost like they think it doesn't apply to them.

I don’t find well done drag offensive. It’s about gender stereotypes, both hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine (juxtaposition of a deep masculine voice, stereotypical masculine deportment etc with feminine dress etc). It’s not mocking women but the conventions around masculinity and femininity.

That said, plenty of drag is not done well, and Mrs Brown’s Boys certainly isn’t.

@SSOYS

I don’t find well done drag offensive. It’s about gender stereotypes, both hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine (juxtaposition of a deep masculine voice, stereotypical masculine deportment etc with feminine dress etc). It’s not mocking women but the conventions around masculinity and femininity.

That said, plenty of drag is not done well, and Mrs Brown’s Boys certainly isn’t.

So not mocking women - when they refer to each other as women (girlfriend and bitch) while they display nastiness...it's a misogynistic caricature - we all hope it doesn't affect us, some us really believe it doesn't but the message goes out to the masses and they believe it - the discrimination against women is real...what's very depressing is that women are often complicit in it.

SSOYS - I'm not sure that's true.

The kind of drag in MBB isn't mocking gender stereotypes, or hyper-femininity - that whole "man dresses up as middle aged woman" music hall tradition is all about mocking older women, and particularly that they look so masculine, fat and ugly/unsexy that a man can play them too.

"Mrs Brown" is firmly of that Two Ronnies style of drag where you put on an ugly dress and an apron, do up hair in curlers and a scarf, put on some badly applied makeup and bingo! You look just like the old washerwoman harridan type of woman who runs around waving a rolling pin and wearing Nora Batty stockings, and is so masculine you can hardly tell the difference.

That's why Mrs Brown is Irish - English audiences will still buy that awful Drag-Mam-From-Bread/Monty Python stereotype of the older woman if it's set in Ireland, because it relies on the offensive caricature that Ireland is old-fashioned as well. If you set it in today's Manchester it would be obvious that it was a sexist old rehash of 1970s rubbish.

*SSOYS - I'm not sure that's true.

The kind of drag in MBB isn't mocking gender stereotypes, or hyper-femininity*

Sure- that’s why I distinguished between drag done well and drag not done well, with MBB in the latter category.

@carlyswirly

Dp and I loathe it. I was then astonished to find out that the pils like it so much they went to see it being filmed.

And my friend said her very elderly and straight laced gran absolutely loves it.

I feel there's possibly a generational divide here. If memory serves, I've also heard that it's unexpectedly popular with some people on the autistic spectrum.

I'm almost 70 and I hate it. DH is mid 70s and he hates it. It was bad enough when we were all accused of being leavers don't add this to it.

@SSOYS

*SSOYS - I'm not sure that's true.

The kind of drag in MBB isn't mocking gender stereotypes, or hyper-femininity*

Sure- that’s why I distinguished between drag done well and drag not done well, with MBB in the latter category.

It's more fundamental than that, isn't it? The tradition MBB is in is basically most drag during the 20thc., from music hall to the pantomime dame to the "dame" characters in ballet to Monty Python to Benny Hill.

Stick Edna Everard and the rest of the "I'm dressing up as an ugly middle aged woman because I'm a man" performers.

Then there's the Ru Paul style drag performers, but lots of these, as other pp have said, base their performances on crude language, stereotypes and caricatures of how gay men must be effeminate drag queens.

Where are the good ones that are lampooning stereotypes -- instead of just relying on them for cheap laughs....?

@foxgoosefinch I like modern performers like Jonny Woo and LGC. But I have to say I don’t share your entirely negative view of acts which would now be seen as old fashioned, like Dame Edna, at all, not do I see her as just an “ugly woman”- that act works because the softer stereotypes of femininity allow for much sharper jokes- the same jokes delivered by a male character would not have worked as well. I also have no issue with pantomime dames (again done well).

I appreciate that just qualifying everything by saying “only if done well” could be a bit “no true Scotsman”. But I’ve seen many drag performances which I haven’t found at all misogynistic, and plenty of straight performances dripping in it.

I’m Irish - I put up with that paddy Irishman shitj for far too long - it was never funny - but clearly it made some people laugh and feel superior.

Its utter shite. I am a Dub and i don't know anyone who likes it, or relates to it. Awful.

@SSOYS I think we'll have to differ on Dame Edna -- in the 80s the whole point about her was that she was out of date and ugly, with the Nana Mouskouri glasses and the blue rinse perm and the wart and Barbara Cartland makeup! She was satirising a certain type of older woman - the Hyacinth Bucket agony aunt type - and the fact that older women are seen as ugly, masculine and lacking in taste is part of the whole caricature.

I just can't see that as all about the tone being incongruous - the whole idea that older women are blunt about sex and relationships is part of the caricature itself. It dates well back all the way to Chaucer's Wife of Bath and medieval Scots literature, the character of the vulgar fat "widow" or past-it married woman, who gives blunt and salacious relationship advice to the young people.

Same with the pantomime dame - the whole point is to set her up as the sexless old harridan figure of fun who jealously stands in the way of the young couple's sex life. That character has been a part of farce and bawdy storytelling since medieval plays and it's always been deeply misogynistic - the pantomime dame is the exact flip side of the Wife of Bath, the one who gets made fun of rather than plays the audience.

I haven't seen any of the other performers you mention, but I know for example many gay male friends who absolutely hate that kind of drag because it plays on certain stereotypes of gay men. But that opinion isn't shared by all gay men, I agree.

I mean, bring up a picture of Dame Edna, and then one of Barbara Cartland and one of Margaret Thatcher, and you'll see exactly who the target of the Edna caricature is.

Not that I don't hate Thatcher as much as anyone else, but in the 80s lampooning ugly middle aged women wasn't just a gentle laugh at gender stereotypes; it was caricaturing actual women.

I’m happy to agree to disagree- to me Dame Edna was excessively glamorous, super-sharp and always had the upper hand over her guests- she was funny but not laughable (to me) in the way you describe. I actually find the Les Patterson character makes me feel more uncomfortable.