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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Ab Fab - abusive / narc relationship...?

69 replies

LadyShirazz · 08/08/2016 19:31

Used to love Ab Fab back in the day, and still do unconditionally love Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley. This is a given.

But rewatching series 1 of Ab Fab (reminding ourselves of the plot before seeing the film), and I found it really hard to laugh.

I promise am not some generally anal type looking round for opportunities for offence / kill joying / otherwise reading too much into the most innocuous of things - but ffs poor, poor Saffy.

She's a mere 16 in episode 1, and imagine how bad 15, 14, 13, 12 etc must also have been - alcoholic mum / semi-absent father / malevolent presence in the form of Patsy (clearly resentful of very existence...).

I just couldn't find it funny. I hope she's gone NC in the film.

OP posts:

DeadGood · 09/08/2016 07:50

I don't find it particularly funny anymore either. But surely the joke is that Edina and Patsy are awful? We aren't supposed to identify with them or find them aspirational.

Fluffsnuts · 09/08/2016 07:52

I tried to rewatch it recently and couldn't. Saffy is treated dreadfully. Her mum doesn't defend her against Patsy, she has to rescue her mum a lot and on the one where they go to Morocco, Saffy is sexually assualted and Eddy fails to protect her and suggested that the old man does it again.

I appreciate its not real, but I think it shows how much we've moved on.

ComputerUserNotTrained · 09/08/2016 07:54

It's the painful elements that give shows like Ab Fab substance, whereas schmaltz like Gavin and Stacey leaves me cold.

The Royale Family for example, plenty of soppy stuff about babies and Nana - if you'd taken away the dysfunction (spoilt chain-smoking Denise, poor down trodden Antony, outrageous comments to Cheryl...) it would have been dreadful but actually it's aging pretty well.

Lottapianos · 09/08/2016 07:55

The 'overthinking' brigade are out in force on this thread! It's actually just called 'thinking'. OP hasn't called for AbFab to be banned, or said that it's a disgrace to society. She's just identified that the relationship between Edina and Saffy makes her uncomfortable. I get that. Lots of us get that. I also think it's brilliantly played and very funny. It's entirely possible to have more than one feeling at once

Lottapianos · 09/08/2016 07:56

Computer, I thought I was the only person who thought that Gavin and Stacey was awful. Nice to meet a kindred spirit

LaContessaDiPlump · 09/08/2016 08:00

I don't think anyone has said 'I find this uncomfortable and therefore it should not have been made', have they? They've just stated that for them, it is not so funny because it is too close to life. I suspect that if you do find it funny then either a) your life was nothing like that at all or b) your life was exactly like that and you have to laugh at it or else you wouldn't stop crying.

I used to be amused by it but I don't think I would be now. I'll leave it as a fun memory I think.

ComputerUserNotTrained · 09/08/2016 08:01

Sparkling I like Bottom too. Imagine if they'd been two smart young men with futures and a lovely home, as opposed to a pair of tragic co-dependent alcoholics living in a shithole

Actually the latter would be moving into Big Bang Theory territory. I'll watch it if there's nothing else on, but it regularly makes me cringe (and not in a good way).

Sparklingbrook · 09/08/2016 08:05

Bottom is one of the few sitcoms I can watch over and over. Most sitcoms don't warrant a second viewing for me.

Once you know what's coming the joke is lost.

Don't mind TBBT but think it might be time for shelving soon.

ComputerUserNotTrained · 09/08/2016 08:11

Mine is Father Ted - knowing what's coming makes it all the more enjoyable (possibly not so much for any poor sod watching alongside me though )

Sparklingbrook · 09/08/2016 08:22

DH still laughs at Only Fools and Horses. Even the chandelier bit and when Delboy falls through the bar.

Surferjet · 09/08/2016 08:25

Saffy wasn't 'normal' though was she, she was 16 going on 70, that was the joke, role reversal.

ethelb · 09/08/2016 08:26

I have been revisiting Ab Fab recently and have been surprised about how dark and grotesque it is, but still find it absolutely hilarious!

Yes it is very close to the bone, particularly with the Nigerian father of Saffy's baby and the gay dad for example.

I don't think women would get away with making such an off the wall piece of comedy now, particularly if people can't handle mother figures, even in comedy, being anything other than attachment earth mothers.

Jesus, this thread is depressing. Like all comedy dads are perfect?

AskBasil · 09/08/2016 08:28

I don't think anyone's requiring comedy mums to be perfect ethelb.

That's what the discussion's about, surely?

Netflixandchill · 09/08/2016 08:28

We should probably fret about the cast of SATC getting AIDS or being sexually assaulted to, in that sense.

One TV show I really can't see past the offence of is CITIZEN KHAN. Can't believe it's on TV. Terrible racial stereotyping

Witchend · 09/08/2016 08:29

I think the sit coms from that era tended to be laughing at someone, which I dislike, rather than laughing at the situation. I always seemed to just end up feeling sorry for them, which meant I didn't find then particularly funny.
However the worst one was a One Foot in the Grave Christmas special where the joke was they had a depressed visitor who was trying to commit suicide. How anyone ever thought that was a good idea for a comedy is beyond me.

ethelb · 09/08/2016 08:40

Witchend One Foot in the Grave is another one that is darker than I remembered. That is also about a dysfunctional codependent relationship.

TitaniasTits · 09/08/2016 08:47

I've never been able to watch it. I grew up with an alcoholic single mum, who even had a man-eating, boozy best friend who disliked me. I was very much a "Saffy" as I'd always had to be the "grown up", responsible not just for myself but for my mother.

It ended, thankfully, when I tried and very nearly succeeded to kill myself at 15.

It's not funny when you've lived it.

AskBasil · 09/08/2016 14:12

All really good comedy has dark stuff in it. One foot in the grave was sometimes really painful. So was Steptoe, Only Fools and Horses, Hancock, Fawlty Towers, even George and Mildred - there's a tragedy at the heart of the situation, which makes the laughter all the more painful. It's what makes great comedy.

spankhurst · 09/08/2016 14:24

Many of the very best sitcoms are about people trapped in a negative situation. Steptoe and Son, Porridge, Butterflies, Rising Damp, Only Fools and Horses (Rodney), Open All Hours (Granville). Eddie was an appalling mother, but in some ways it was good to see a program where all the key characters were female and some of them were iredeemable bastards!

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