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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be cross as a bbc drama

26 replies

Cadenza1818 · 02/02/2015 11:10

This is fairly light hearted. I like drama and an a sucker for call the midwife. However I'm getting fed up with bbc writers feeling the need to push a social / moral point. Last night a man was arrested for kissing a man. The whole episode was pitched with the message of 'look how bad we used to treat gay ppl' with lots of very unsubtle metaphors.
Don't get me wrong it's awful when you see how ppl used to get treated but surely it's not historically accurate to paint all the characters as sympathisers..surely it would have far more impact to really display it as it was so that we could see for ourselves. It's not that I disagree with the point being made but.disagree with being spoonfed. Last time it was feminism in lark Rise.
Just wish the bbc would credit us with brains!
Ok rant over.. Just needed to splurge. Please carry on discussing important issues

OP posts:

MrsPeterQuill · 02/02/2015 12:51

I agree OP. I thought that was historically inaccurate too.

It's not that I disagree with the point they were making, it's just that I don't think they would have been as understanding as they all seemed to be last night. I could be wrong, but it just seemed out of place.

5Foot5 · 02/02/2015 12:58

But they weren't all understanding - or were we watching different shows!

Most of the friends and neighbours, including the man's FIL, were not at all accepting. One of the nuns at least was talking about it being a sin. Even the doctor was treating it as a problem that could be "cured"

Dfg15 · 02/02/2015 12:59

But they weren't all sympathetic - most of them were horrible about it. A couple of the midwives and nuns were ok but a lot of them were against the wife as well

partialderivative · 02/02/2015 13:00

to be cross as a bbc drama

Interesting simile.

Can I suggest some others:

Sad as the nine o'clock news
Daft as a part political broadcast
Bent as a Blue Peter competition

Dfg15 · 02/02/2015 13:00

Cross post there !

manchestermummy · 02/02/2015 13:00

Yes, and when they stood to applaud at the end, you could see that some were only doing so because they felt it was the expected thing.

Bue · 02/02/2015 13:11

I agree, OP. All the main characters were either staunchly or quietly supportive - it was only the evil background characters who were not. FFS even the nuns were onside (with the exception of Winifred). Not having been born in the 1960s I can't say how representative the characters' reactions would have been, but I suspect not very. The modern moralizing is irritating, but CTM does it with every single issue - just think of all those young single mothers and babies at the home they have started crusading to keep together.

Icimoi · 02/02/2015 13:18

Yes, it was a bit unrealistic, but I'm glad it was aired. There's a tendency amongst some of the media (Daily Mail and Express, I'm looking at you) to paint the 50s and 60s as some sort of halcyon era where the son always shone, you could leave your doors unlocked because there was no crime, children played outside all day in perfect safety, and all was right with the world. And manifestly it wasn't. So putting the other side of the coin really doesn't hurt - particularly given that homophobia still flourishes today.

Original poster

Cadenza1818 · 02/02/2015 13:20

Glad I'm not the only one :-D

OP posts:

LaurieFairyCake · 02/02/2015 13:22

I thought it was realistic. The nuns and midwives are very non-judgemental about everything - as you would be if you saw that grinding filthy poverty every day.

Not one eyebrow was raised at the woman with dysentery who hadn't had chance to wash before giving birth.

The war also changed people a lot - last night the doctor said he believed in 'live and let live' because of the war.

I certainly know my grandmothers generation who fought in the war were completely changed by it - as my grandmother said in a conversation to me more than 20 years ago about how every generation thought it invented sex -"we thought our boyfriends weren't coming back so we were shagging in alleyways a lot before they left"

My grandmother had lots of 'friends of Dorothy/Noel' and she was by no means a city girl though she was very non judgemental having been a nurse during the war.

We didn't invent liberalism. Doctors, nurses and religious orders that work with the poor have always been at the forefront of social change.

It's your average person, well represented last night in the 'no Irish' stuff who was very conservative with a small c.

yougotafriend · 02/02/2015 13:26

I hate this too - they do it on Downton a lot and it annoys me. I think that if they portrayed peoples reactions as more historically accurate it would be horrific to watch.

But then I wouldn't know what prople really thought back then - they may have agreed with the mases openly but secretly been sympathetic, just not brave enough stand up to the wave of public opinion. TV characters are always very brave!!

grocklebox · 02/02/2015 13:31

I think youre missing the point. Its a historical drama based on actual memoirs. Of course its about social issues, thats the whole point.

Its one perspective, in one show. Watch a different show if you want a different perspective. Or turn off tge tv and read a bloody book, then you can have whatever the fyck you like. Seriously, the shit people complain about.......

grocklebox · 02/02/2015 13:33

As for those of you who think anyone pre whenever you were born must not have been a decent person or have what you erroneously believe to be only modern views, arrogant much?

SaucyMare · 02/02/2015 13:39

Its a historical drama based on actual memoirs. Of course its about social issues, thats the whole point.

i can no longer be based on memoirs, the woman who wrote the book isn't in it any more.
It is now just imagined drama.

ConferencePear · 02/02/2015 13:43

I agree. I'm a bit fed up with feeling as though I'm being preached at. They do it on BBC Radio too.

ithoughtofitfirst · 02/02/2015 13:49

If it makes someone rethink being homophobic fuckstick then it's ok with me.

Bue · 02/02/2015 14:00

grocklebox I'd say it's much more arrogant to re-imagine the past in terms of contemporary views. It's so self-congratulatory. Of course many people back then would have shared our current opinions about a range of issues, but to portray 21st century social mores as the 1960s norm is ludicrous.

HubertCumberdale · 02/02/2015 14:15

I think your perception of the past is way off the mark. Last night's show was set in 1960. Just to put it in some context, that's the same year that the pill was approved for medical use, and only a year until it was freely available to all. As someone else has said, we certainly didn't invent sexual liberation.
My gran, who was in her 20s in 1960, had many gay friends. She says that generally people were accepting, although it was kept behind doors, but really only the older generation had a problem and were outspoken about it.
Last nights show wasn't set in the Victorian era, it was set the same year that The Beatles formed.

Germgirl · 02/02/2015 14:19

My Sky+ is being a twat & didn't record CTM last night (or Top Gear, DH is not pleased)
I know I can watch it on iplayer but is it actually on again on proper telly sometime this week? TG is on again tonight but I can't find CTM anywhere, like I said my Sky+ is being a twat & not letting me see listings more than 48hrs in advance.

helenthemadex · 02/02/2015 15:23

I have to say I thought that given that the main characters are nuns and medical professionals, I thought it was reasonable to portray them as less judgmental and more aware, despite that they did still see it as something to cure

IsadoraQuagmire · 02/02/2015 15:42

I agree helenthemadex they haven't been judgy about anything else in the series, it's in character.
I'm wondering when Trixie is finally going to realize that Patsy's gay. She can't be too observant, since I've known from the first episode she appeared in..
Actually I was assuming she knew, then when she asked Patsy why she cared so much about the Amos situation I wasn't sure.

wasabipeanut · 02/02/2015 15:50

I quite liked it actually - I agree with whoever said that those working with people in desperate, filthy conditions would have been pushing for social change and way more open minded than "normal" working class folk.

It reminded of an early episode when Jenny had to attend to a woman who was stinking and obviously in a filthy state. It showed her revulsion and then Pam Ferris's character giving her a stiff talking to about how nobody had ever cared for this woman and telling her to get over herself basically.

MorrisZapp · 02/02/2015 15:59

Didn't see the ep but totally agree about popular drama in general. No sympathetic character is allowed to hold prejudiced views, even if they would have prevailed as majority beliefs at the time.

And when a sympathetic character does display and signs of prejudice, they learn their lesson and the show ends with everybody singing a rainbow.

I remember thinking this even watching Grange Hill thirty years ago. Grumpy curmudgeons change the deep held values of a lifetime when presented with a storyline, and have their entire outlook changed. They then get written as a lovely liberal from then on.

It's all very nice and Richard Curtis-like, but hardly realistic.

IsadoraQuagmire · 02/02/2015 16:04

MorrisZapp I was reading a fan fiction like that the other day. The homophobic father changed his beliefs of a lifetime during a conversation that took up about three paragraphs!

NeedAScarfForMyGiraffe · 02/02/2015 16:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

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