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 suppose I have only ever discussed that film with people who shared that background. If you are familiar with the context I don’t see how anyone could see it as simply a funny romp. We were only too aware of the levels of deprivation that people were living in and the constrained lives. You could appreciate the black humour without losing sight of the layers of meaning.

Perhaps the people who can see it as a funny romp do not actually have the empathy and experience to understand that there were those layers of meaning, so they can ignore the grim context?

m.imdb.com/title/tt1623008/

This is a link to The Arbor. It's about Andrea Dunbar's life, in the words of her daughters, using recording of their speech, but with actors miming their words. It's an amazing, powerful but very grim film. She had a really difficult background and an amazing talent and drive to document what she saw around her.

Not RTFT

It's not really a comedy. The DV scenes are really upsetting.

I think if they think it's hilarious ask what's funny about that.

It's got a really gritty side. The other film people always seem to forget this with is Saturday night fever. Rape, gang violence, I think murder, I think suicide as well.

Otherwise,to shamelessly go off topic - does anyone else think the film Educating Rita is actually a bit shit as its basically saying that hairdressers are thick as munce and its okay to be an alcoholic if you are a poet .
I liked the film at first viewing and its nice for anyone to study english lit for fun - but job wise where would rita's exams have gotten her - editor of poetry review quarterly ,teacher at a sink school ?

Erm no. I don't think it is saying Hairdressers are thick at all, quite the opposite. What it is saying is that for most WC girls hairdresser was the ceiling put on their ambitions, hence lots of clever businesswomen actually did find an outlet in hairdressing. However if you were clever and your talents were academic, or creative in other ways, those talents were never going to be fulfilled. I had peers who loved reading and who I shared books with but who because of their background were just expected to leave school at 16, and then find a man and get pregnant. It wasn't just if you were WC either, only 1 in 10 places at university were taken by women then.

I know only one woman who studied English Literature who ended up in a sink school, the rest went into management, advertising, publishing, the media, social work. She actually took over the Headship of a primary school on a sink estate in Bradford by choice because she wanted to make a difference. She turned it round. She is actually a bit of a Rita/ Sue character. I don't know how she avoided getting expelled from school but poachers make the best gamekeepers.

It looks as though the actresses were 20 when it was made, so may be Not quite as shocking as if the had actual 15 year olds in the parts. ( just the thought of that makes me feel a bit hrim)

It's really sad how things like child exploitation were just accepted back then. I grew up working class, in a Northern town. The local bus depot used to hold a free weekly under 16s disco. It was run by a paedophile ring. Many of my friends were abused there, some ended up drug addicts and one took her own life aged 24. Everyone knew what was going on and yet I was still encouraged to attend by my parents, just told to "be careful".
It makes me cringe now when I see young girls standing up at the front of school buses chatting to the drivers. Surely the drivers should tell them to sit down.
No fun in this film at all.

Watched it in the 80's and thought it was a bit grubby but saw the comedy in it. Decades later, it makes me want to vomit as I was groomed/abused from age of 6 and the underage sex brings back dark memories that have messed up most of my life.

Does anyone remember the YMCA rollerdisco in Hastings in the 80's? Run by two 40-something men who persistently snogged/groped girls that attended. I never got 'picked' for their attention and remember feeling disappointed at the time, now realise how lucky I was.

@TheQueef

Remember the countdown to Sam Fox being 16 so we could see her breasts as a nation? It was fucked up.

The countdowns/comments on the 16th birthdays of Charlotte Church and Emma Watson show that grimness hasn’t gone away yet.

It's actually one of my favourite films and is pretty close to what my life was - dating a 21 year old man at 14, having sex and taking his requests to shave and have anal sex. Thought I was so grown up. His family knew and didn't care I even slept over at his house. My family knew and were almost proud? I wouldn't even have said we were working class certainly not in a poor or deprived area. It was a south east seaside town but even when we broke up and I told the school I had been having sex with him nothing was done.

This wasn't the 80's either, it would have been about 2000.

Its certainly funnier than some of the crappy stuff people say is entertainment now. Yes he was sleeping with teenage girls but they were 16ish not 12. Thats how it was then - cant judge it in the light of 2021

@Tamingofthehamster

It looks as though the actresses were 20 when it was made, so may be Not quite as shocking as if the had actual 15 year olds in the parts. ( just the thought of that makes me feel a bit hrim)

But the characters were clearly school girls.

Just because ""that's how it was" doesn't make it right though.

@lockeddownandcrazy

Its certainly funnier than some of the crappy stuff people say is entertainment now. Yes he was sleeping with teenage girls but they were 16ish not 12. Thats how it was then - cant judge it in the light of 2021

I really don’t know how to reply to that. If you can’t see what is wrong with a grown man having sex with two 15 year olds, even if they were consenting, then I don’t how to explain the problem to you.

I remember this film. This thread has made me look back on my teens with a different eye. I had a boyfriend at 16 who was 25 and that wasn't abnormal. The whole 'teenage single motherhood' thing was used to beat young vulnerable girls with, especially by the press. The fathers were never criticised, after all, how could they help it when it was handed to them on a plate?

Thats how it was then - cant judge it in the light of 2021 I think it is different thing saying the film reflected life then, and saying you can’t judge. I think the film does implicitly judge Bob anyway. The age of consent hasn’t changed, you could and did judge then, just as we judge now. It just that people got away with it more. I certainly judged certain sports and rock stars at the time, I thought it was pretty tawdry and sad holding court to a gaggle of underage girls in a Bradford nightclub or backstage at a concert. In the case of one star he actually sent a roadie to bring him a 15 year old that was sat on the front row of the balcony.

I remember seeing it on ch4 late one night when I was a late teen and being a bit shocked but everyone told me it was hilarious, soo then saw it again late 30s and thinking what an underlying sadness it had. Poverty, deprivation, desperation to find whatever you can to escape your life, and power corrupting.
Like it or not that was what went on as normal in those times. It's uncomfortable viewing now.

As an aside, I watched Kathy come home once, so sad, nothing has really changed.

Andrea Dunbar is a fascinating, tragic, genius character. She grew up and raised her children amongst drug and alcohol abuse, in one of the most deprived areas in England and yet had the potential to be one of the greatest playwrights of her generation.

I remember watching that film as a teenager and it made my skin crawl.

Also i remember all the wild child stories in the press in the 80s.

Bill Wyman and Mandy Smith mother[i use that word loosely] should have been shot for what happened to her.

It's bloody grim. Saw it with my teenage daughter when it came out. Neither of us found it uplifting or humorous. I assume it was a film written and directed by men. 'Just a bit of fun you frigid lesbian'. Right.

I stumbled across the film when I was in my late teens (about 1996 ish) and I never want to watch it again. The scene in the car was so upsetting. I didn't know what grooming was then but I knew that the film really disturbed me without really knowing why.

Such a sad life Andrea had. She was clearly very talented and it's heartbreaking to think about how difficult life was for her and her children.

Funny? I found it rather grim and depressing tbh and not even a particularly good film.

I remember watching East is East on television with one of my DDs some years ago. It was in the tv listings as a comedy. We both found absolutely nothing to laugh at in it.

It was very good film, but funny? No. I found a lot of it quite upsetting actually.

The way the father treated his poor wife, and the reasons behind the treatment was all just so sad. I've watched it a couple of times and my opinion of it hasn't changed the more I've watched it.

I know humour is subjective but I often wonder why what some people find hilarious, I just find cruel and sad.

The film was a channel 4 film on four / I think? So a bit cutting edge, not mainstream and aimed at a younger, more "sophisticated" audience wanting some gritty drama/humour . I found it both sad and crudely funny at the time. I was upset later when I read about Andrea Dunbar's short life.

People who would have judged this type of film were considered dull. Maybe even fuddy duddies with Victorian style prudishness. My mum and dad for example who didn't give a stuff about that sort of judgementalism and were secure in their values would have been quick to see it as a poor form of entertainment.

I have now become my Dad : I really hate my adult kid watching Breaking Bad or Narcos as entertainment. It's not entertainment to me, it's a nightmare.

I got the dvd of this a couple of years ago as I remembered it as funny and entertaining.
Came away the second time feeling sad, horrified and that how grooming happened in deprived areas was all too easy to understand.

At the time I thought it hilarious. Even then, though, I was deeply uncomfortable with the racism in that film.

I agree with the PP who compared it with the kitchen sink dramas of a decade or so before. 'Look Back in Anger' for one has some grim scenes of domestic violence that are similar to the situation endured by Sue in the film.

The 80s north saw tough times, and I completely see where the strapline 'Thatcher's Britain with her knickers down) comes from. Unemployment was rife and things felt hopeless for many people with few prospects, so there was a culture of instant gratification. People would receive their pay and go out and blow the lot on a weekend bender (Clarke's Letter to Brezhnev of the same period set in Liverpool deals with this brilliantly). In this environment a night on the tiles in some seedy club and escape from the dull grind for one evening could seem like the greatest adventure in the world. People set their bars far lower in terms of their expectations of the world.

As for the grooming, it's well-recognised by those with any involvement in that film that such a movie would never be made today in a million years.

It does have its laugh out loud moments. The old bloke up on the balcony shouting 'send 'em on Manningham Lane!' and snooty Michelle telling Sue and Rita to 'make your own fucking tea' - well there's no way those are not funny. Overall though. watching it these days just makes me incredibly sad.