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?)

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Dunbar

Oh my goodness that is grim.

Her daughters’ lives too.

So sad that she was gifted enough to write well, was mentored in that, bug it didn’t aid her escape to a better life. Just tragic.

I was actually an extra in the film! No words though just in a class room, in PE and walking down Haworth Main Street.
As a pp said it's of it's time, now it's rather creepy and unpleasant. I grew up just outside Bradford and now live in Saltaire; I think every large city in the 80's had places like Buttershaw, there were certainly others areas of Bradford like that then.
I have a 16 yo DD and I would be mortified and devastated if things that happened to me in those days (nothing like the film) happened to her now.

@AuntieMarys

Watched it recently and found it so depressing. Girls with no aspirations and sleazy men. Andrea Dunbar had a similar life...died very young

In many cases girls in these types of communities were brought up to believe their aspirations should be centered around having babies and getting married.

You can't just say that without telling us which one you were! Which pastel coloured jacket were you wearing with your white skirt in Haworth?

@angieloumc

I was actually an extra in the film! No words though just in a class room, in PE and walking down Haworth Main Street. As a pp said it's of it's time, now it's rather creepy and unpleasant. I grew up just outside Bradford and now live in Saltaire; I think every large city in the 80's had places like Buttershaw, there were certainly others areas of Bradford like that then. I have a 16 yo DD and I would be mortified and devastated if things that happened to me in those days (nothing like the film) happened to her now.

Were you the girl Sue had a fight with in the Bronte museum?

So sad that she was gifted enough to write well, was mentored in that, bug it didn’t aid her escape to a better life. Just tragic.

It is sad. Maybe talent alone doesn't enable you to throw off the shackles you're born with. Maybe you need a desire to get out, which becomes your driving force, and you use your talent to do that. I get the impression that it never did become the driving force for Andrea Dunbar; that she wrote, to say to people 'this is my life', rather than to escape it. She lived and died on the Butterworth Estate, perhaps because that was her only security?

Arbadacarba no that wasn't me, as I say I didn't have any proper lives, just 'pretended' to be chatting. Great fun though filming.
I attended a stage school at weekends so had various opportunities in those days. My favourite was being picked to be the girl Bruce Springsteen took out of the audience to dance with at Roundhay Park to Dancing in the dark. It wasn't a spontaneous thing as it looked like at concerts!

I love that film, it cracks me up every time I watch it, especially the confrontation outside Rita's house.
Rita and Sue were portrayed as being 16, so not underage.

@OhYesChurchill

I love that film, it cracks me up every time I watch it, especially the confrontation outside Rita's house. Rita and Sue were portrayed as being 16, so not underage.

So you think adult married men grooming pairs of deprived 16 year olds into threesomes is just fine?

I think it's a really good film and I like Andrea Dunbar's work. But yeah wouldn't say its a light hearted comedy. It's fairly grim in places, as real life can be, which is why I think it's a good film.

@angieloumc in the late 80,s somebody I was friends with attended Buttershaw school whilst they were filming ,I don't think they lived on the estate though as they moved to Greater Manchester the next year to a much nicer middle class area .

The scene I find most uncomfortable is where he's having sex with one of them in the front of his car and the other one is saying hurry up you're taking ages is it my turn yet? It just seems clinical and sad tbh

We know that older men grooming tee age girls for sex is something that still goes on today. We know that child poverty is increasing and unemployment is increasing.
I don't think RSABT is just 'of its time' by any means, unfortunately

I moved to the UK the same year this came out. I didn't see it then because I was too young but the combination of children's TV, evening TV and as I got a bit older seeing films like this made me wonder what kind of country my parents had brought me to. They all featured people your parents had spent your childhood telling you to avoid. There's something uniquely bleak and grim in so many UK films that I do wonder if you have to have been born here to get it. My parents were British though

There was stuff I was familiar with like doctor who but there's loads of stuff that doesn't get exported and was all pretty shocking as a youngster

I don't think RSABT is just 'of its time' by any means, unfortunately

I agree with this sadly there is still creepy men preying on young women.

A lot of films are a bit creepy when you watch them back. Even more recent ones, I watched Vacation the other night and there were a few bits I really cringed at, one being, the young lad asked his dad What's a paedophile? Dad says Well when a man and a boy love each other very much...
Didn't find that funny!

x2boys I believe they did use a lot of local people as extras. I grew up in Baildon, where Bob's house was filmed at.
MonkeyNotOrgangrinder yes perhaps I phrased it wrong, I think there is a lot of grooming but more under the radar whereas I think in the 80's it seemed to be more open. I don't know, maybe it's just my experience.

I don't get all the people saying it didn't happen in the 80s, I was born in 85 and recall in the early 2000s plenty of men in their 20s getting off with 15-16 year old girls and I was in Ireland too where the age of consent was 17. There was definitely a more laxed approach to this back then although I think in the last 15 years or so society has defo changed.

angieloumc maybe we don't see it as much because they can groom children online? But apparently in situations ikea Rotherham it was in plain sight, but because it was troubled and/or working class girls, hardly anyone in authority gave a shit

But apparently in situations ikea Rotherham it was in plain sight, but because it was troubled and/or working class girls, hardly anyone in authority gave a shit angry

Not at all having a go at you @MonkeyNotOrgangrinder but you’ve reminded me of something.

I was actually thinking about this word “troubled” the other day and it’s really a synonym for “abused or neglected” young people who age floating around, maybe acting out a little, maybe drinking. Not usually criminal, just lost and hurt.

Using the word “troubled” (which we’ve all done, I’m sure) helpfully shifts the blame onto the young people concerned and burdens them with the stigma.

I’ve decided to consciously stop using it.

"Make your own fucking tea" one of my favourite films.

RickiTarr I've never thought of it like that, but yes you're right, it does shift the blame onto the victim doesn't it. I will also stop using it

@RickiTarr

But apparently in situations ikea Rotherham it was in plain sight, but because it was troubled and/or working class girls, hardly anyone in authority gave a shit angry

Not at all having a go at you @MonkeyNotOrgangrinder but you’ve reminded me of something.

I was actually thinking about this word “troubled” the other day and it’s really a synonym for “abused or neglected” young people who age floating around, maybe acting out a little, maybe drinking. Not usually criminal, just lost and hurt.

Using the word “troubled” (which we’ve all done, I’m sure) helpfully shifts the blame onto the young people concerned and burdens them with the stigma.

I’ve decided to consciously stop using it.

Yep, I hate the word "troubled"

Seems like one of the made up phrases that the media push, to not so subtley give the audience a negative picture of someone.

Every child/young person needs to be treated the same by the authorities whether they are in care or from a disadvantaged background or if they are from a great background with incredibly supporting parents.

@MonkeyNotOrgangrinder & @tttigress

Quite possibly the reason why people are saying it's "of its time" is because none of us commenting are teenagers so for us what happens in teenage years was a while ago? In my case it was a good long while ago, certainly.

Because teenage girls are still definitely abused and groomed and subjected to nefarious media content - eg half of BBC3's output seems to be about how to be a prostitute or set up an onlyfans account a fair bit of channel 5 is similar.