AIBU to think that Rita, Sue and Bob Too isn’t a laugh riot of a film?

[StanfordPines]

There was a Facebook post a little while ago about the film Rita, Sue and Bob Too. Lots of people were commenting about what a funny film is was.
I commented that while it is a fantastic film and certainly has a humorous side to it I wouldn’t say it was a funny film. I was told that I was without a sense of humour. I said that I didn’t find a grown man having sex with underage girls to be super funny and was told that that is just how it was then and it was fine.
I deleted my comments and walked away.
I’m the same age as Rita and Sue. It wasn’t how things were then and it wasn’t fine.

AIBU to think that while it is a great film comments like ‘such a funny film’ and ‘you wouldn’t be allowed to make that today’ are just missing the point?

(I know it’s Facebook and I haven’t taken it to heart but was I wrong?)

I remember my friend got the video and thought it was great. I thought it was creepy and a bit pervy.

It's an accurate snap shot of life on a Bradford Council estate at that time. Funny, tragic, unbearable all rolled into one.

@Aprilx Disagree. Middle age men having sex with 15/16 year olds happened regularly a few eyebrows were raised but that was about it.

@Toomanymuslins

I’m not sure I agree with that april - I do think right up until ten years ago working class girls were seen as promiscuous, slappers, slags, streetwise.

Not vulnerable.

I wouldn't agree with this view. Well, not from the POV of someone growing up in a working class family. Maybe those who,were more middle class did look down on those 'below' them with this kind of attitude, but the reality wasn't like that at all, ime.

I grew up on a northern, working class, council estate in the 70s and 80s.

Not one of my friends would have thought it normal to be having sex with an man in his 30s, let alone two girls together. By 'older' for relationships for almost all the girls I knew it would have meant 17-19y type age, so still teens. It was a huge school scandal when one girl was dating a teacher - looking back, said teacher was very newly qualified and probably about 22y, and the girl was in sixth form.

Ah so Rotherham didn’t happen?

I think it was of its time - not every teenage girl was dating older married men, but I can recall a few from my school. The film has funny scenes, but I wouldn't consider it a comedy.
I saw it around the time it came out, and on TV a lot more recently - maybe five years ago.

the link to the author's wiki brought me up sharply - initially that her birthday was within a couple of days of mine, but then to see that she died so young. Will seek out the Arbor.

I always did think it was pure creepiness. The tone was off for the subject matter.

I am same age and went to school in a working class town. Older men having sex with girls under 18 was common, a lot were the younger teachers. They used to be in pubs and we all got into pubs at 15-16. Also, ‘Bob’ would have probably been mid/late twenties as everyone had children younger then. It is a very real portrayal of life. Life was pretty rough and some men were predators. I really get and like the dark humour as it is very like my background and we always found humour in dark circumstances. I didn’t realise how this wasn’t just normal until I went to Uni. The acting by Rita and Sue is spot on, I knew girls just like them who would have a go at you if you looked at their boyfriend.

It touches a nerve in more ways than one.
In that era I remember the couple I used to babysit for, the man found out I had a boyfriend so said he was going to come home early to shag me now I knew what I was doing - everybody laughed. I used to dread going.
Girls at school getting picked up by older men. Feeling flattered but not really knowing any better because we were young & not having the life experience to know that we were being taken advantage of by someone older and it being condoned by attitudes at the time.
If I knew then what I know now. Maybe it is better now, I don't know, have attitudes changed that much, are we more aware?
It is a wonderful film with some great lines and acting, a dark humour at times but not a comedy in the traditional sense, uncomfortable viewing but an accurate portrayal.

Definitely not a comedy but an accurate portrayal of working class life at that time. I’m not from ‘the Norf’ but grew up in a very deprived area of the Black Country and it was a badge of honour to have a much older boyfriend - they had a car, some money etc. My friend at school was ‘dating’ a middle aged pub landlord. He would let us drink there underage. We thought we were cool!

As a teen the thought of an older man was exciting rather than pervy.

It’s the ‘shameless’ equivalent of the late 80s.

It's certainly unforgettable, I remember so many details of that film. I was always struck by the loudness and harshness yet huge vulnerability of the girls and how truly awful Bob was. There was also such a rawness to the housing area they lived in and Bob's new build was equally grim but in a different way. What a job the writer did to leave such strong impressions.

I remember having hysterics over the "We're Having a Gangbang" scene with a colleague after it had been on TV the night before but, other than that, it was a deeply unpleasant film.

I do think right up until ten years ago working class girls were seen as promiscuous, slappers, slags, streetwise

I'm guessing you're not very old.

Awful creepy film. Always found it stomach turning.

It’s many years since I saw it, and I’d call it a 50/50 mix of black comedy and what used to be called ‘kitchen sink drama’, i.e. the gritty realities of (some) lives in what was once called ‘the poorer classes’.

I will admit to finding bits of it hysterically funny and thought the acting was brilliant.

[quote userxx]@Aprilx Disagree. Middle age men having sex with 15/16 year olds happened regularly a few eyebrows were raised but that was about it. [/quote]
I am not sure how you can “disagree” with my experience. I was born in Oldham in 1970 and brought up there. I am categorically northern, working class and no, it was not normal for teenagers to be having sex with grown men. It would have been scandalous, had I ever heard of it, which I did not.

@pinkyredrose

I do think right up until ten years ago working class girls were seen as promiscuous, slappers, slags, streetwise

I'm guessing you're not very old.

I wish. 40.

Can I have my cookery money is one of the funniest scenes ever

I remember laughing and quoting along to it as a young teenager but watching it back more recently, the vulnerability of the two girls is quite upsetting. It was a clever film though, using humour in a dark context. I think it illustrates that until very recently (rotherham) and even now, young lasses aren't seen as vulnerable to exploitation or abuse if they're streetwise, working class, sexually curious. I saw a theatre adaptation in recent years and was a bit surprised to see that it portrayed the girls in that way and the whole thing as a giggle- Bob's bare arse got a big laugh and cheer at one bit- rather than bringing out the sadness of the story through more modern understanding. Surprisingly, this was in South Yorks.

I’ve always thought it was grim and made me feel grubby for watching it, but ii’d say it’s a fairly accurate description of growing up working class in a northern town during that era. One of my friends aged 14/15 who would have been regarded as ‘at risk ‘ by today’s standards, was having sex with a man in his mid 30’s. people disapproved but nothing was ever done about it, so fairly accurate in that respect too.

I think for me the difference is that when I first saw it I was the age of the girls. I didn’t see it in the same light. I was from a completely different world, working class but extremely rural south or England, and it all seemed so alien to me.
Now I’m old enough to be their mum and my view has changed hugely.
As a teen I didn’t see that he was taking advantage. All I saw was a couple of girls having sex and a fun time. Now as an adult I see it completely differently.

One of the comments on the Facebook post was that he didn’t force them, they consented, so what is the problem.
These girls had no one looking out for them. Parents who didn’t care and teachers who didn’t notice. No one to tell them this wasn’t right.

@Nickmoooooo

Can I have my cookery money is one of the funniest scenes ever

I’m not denying there are funny moments and humour in it. There certainly is. But it’s not a comedy film.

@Aprilx that’s the thing though - you say you never heard of it. So that explains you mixing in circles where it either didn’t happen or people pretended it didn’t and declared they be shocked.

In 1982 at 15 I would go to my town discotheque (as we still called them!) in the south, on fake ID. Not that they cared that it was fake! Small town, there was only one place to go so the “class” range was fairly broad. There was always a large minority of under age girls there.

There was also a group of men who I’d say were 25-35 who always hung around the underage gaggle. Always. And nobody said a word. It was totally normal to us and to everyone else in that “discotheque”. Many of the girls - especially once they were 17/18 - sneered and called them the pervy lot. When you were a little older you’d witnessed them going for each new cohort of underage girls several times. Everyone knew what they were doing. A lot of people thought it was pathetic, grim... but nobody called it abuse or grooming, or was scandalised by it. But they should have been. Most of these men were paedophiles. The girls weren’t pre-pubescent if you want to be strict on definitions. I don’t believe that they were attracted specifically to underage girls, sexually. They just wanted easy sex and they knew that was easy to get from naïve 15 year olds trying to feel grown up in a club, and excited by the attention and made more vulnerable by the alcohol bought for them.

Everybody knew about those men.
Nobody stopped them.
Nobody even judged them beyond, “pervy corner” 😢