Rita, Sue and Bob too

[BeachBlondey]

As a Happy Valley fan, I was surprised to find out that the actors who played Nev and Clare in Happy Valley, were actually in two main roles of the Rita, Sue and Bob too film from the 80s.

It's made me think about that old film again, and I'm actually shocked that it was made at all.

There is some discussion online today about the film, and most comments are along the lines of "great film", "a British Classic", and so forth.

The plot (for those who haven't seen it), is centered around a fully grown married man, who seduces grooms two 15 year old school girls and engages in lots of sex with them, mainly in his car (iirc).

How the hell was this okay, to put this out as a comedy, even back then? And how can the majority of people who remember the film, still think it's a great British classic?

I knew her younger daughter and she was lovely but sadly passed away of cancer at the age of 36 and she did talk about her mom and yes it wasnt the best upbringing but i got the impression that she was a caring mom doing what she could for her children and the estate where its filmed is still not the best estate in the area but certainly not the worst either

I recommend The Arbor which is a drama documentary about Andrea Dunbar’s difficult life.

According to her wiki, Andrea Dunbar no longer wanted to be associated with the film version of Rita,Sue and Bob Too because other writers were brought in to give the film a different and ‘happier’ ending.

There were men picking up 14 and 15 year old girls from schools yes. But many people did not think it was okay. I remember the nuns in the local Catholic school chasing these men away. But nobody in authority cared.

Was the film billed as a comedy? I guess it does have comedic moments, but it's very dark. It's one of those film that when you watch it, enjoy seems the wrong word. I never found it especially funny. Bit of a cliche but it was of its time. My was 15 when she met her late 20s boyfriend. She was a virgin. By 16 she was pregnant and living in a room with him. They did marry. He was controlling and an idiot. By the time we (other friends) were 18 we knew he was an idiot. Sadly we didn't appreciate just how dangerous he was. They eventually divorced but it took her all her strength. Her confidence was distoyed. Within 2 years of leaving she was off to uni. She's remarried and happy now but thinking about him makes my skin crawl.

I was 14 in 1984, and none of my friends had boyfriends, let alone older ones. My Dad would have killed a grown man who came anywhere near me, that I do know.

I do remember though, we all had CB radios, and one lad arranged to meet my friend. When she got there it was our other friends Dad! She ran off. We never told anyone, goodness knows why!!

As for the film it reminds me of my teenage years. I grew up close to where it as made, I knew girls who were Rita and Sue. I suppose it doesn’t shock me but it closely mirrors life in a northern town in the late 70s/80s. I went to a big comp school where the girls loos were always cloudy with cigarette smoke and you were subjected to abuse from the gang of “cool” girls. Smoke filled loos always used to take me back to those times.

With the caveat that I've not seen this film for 20 years, I think it was the ending that was problematic. (From memory) Bob's wife and children leave. He's alone in their lovely house. Then goes into the bedroom and Rita and Sue are there ready and waiting and suddenly he's all happy again. I think a film made today about relationships between teenagers and older men in the 80s would not give Bob such a wish fulfilment ending.

It's a brilliant film, absolutely blazing with life.

But the film didn't have a happy ending? One of the girls ends up pregnant to an abusive Asian guy I think. Can't remember now. Can confirm all the things happening in the film were still happening mid 90s.

It was NOT a comedy!!

Yes my Dad would have done too and I was 11 in 1984 so just a few years younger than you ,but the point is not everyone had caring,and protective parents ,and the author was writing about her OWN, experiences.and those of girls.around her

I was around 15 when it came out and my best friend at the time was being groomed by a married lab tech at school. He dumped her when she was 17 and moved on to his next victim. But in the 1980s it wouldn't have been seen in those terms, at the time she was a slag who tempted a married man ( according to her mother and the school ) .
I'm glad this film exists , it shows the reality of the situation although the author wasn't pleased with the happy ending, the original story was darker at the end.

It's a very honest film which depicts just how life was for some girls back then. Andrea Dunbar was very angry about the final scene where the girls lie in bed waiting for Bob, who dives into bed for a threesome. A lot of the dialogue, particularly the scene where Rita's boyfriend comes round threatening suicide, is literally lifted from real life experience.

She wrote this play when she was 15 which is really something.

It’s not ok but at the time sadly acceptable. Around the same time period, many of the girls (up to the age of 16) at my school boasted of ‘older boyfriends’ - who were usually men 30+, often married. It was seen as a status symbol, they had money & a car & could buy alcohol for them.

I wasn't a teen in the 80s but I remember seeing it on TV in the 90s, I don't think people did think it was ok for married men to have sex with 15 year old girls did they, I'm only saying that as my Mum was a teen in the 60s and said how it wasn't ok then either.

I watched it when it first came out and I certainly didn’t think it was ‘ok’ To me, it was pretty obvious that he was a sleazebag and what he was doing was not acceptable.

One of the girls ends up.pregnant to Bob ,but miscarrys,and the other girl has an abusive Asian boyfriend but she doesn't get pregnant ,and they both decided to go back to Bob ,which is supposed to be the happy ending ,obviously it isn't but it is in the context of the film.

There was a similar thread a few weeks ago @BeachBlondey

this movie featured in the list

Films you see differently as an adult.

I'm going down a rabbit hole now re the author.

It was viewed the same way people would these days view a 48 year old man having sex with a 16 year old. The police would not get involved unless there was coercion or grooming, but lots of people would not think it was okay.
So nobody would officially get involved, but there would be a lot of judgement.

That said I was watching the sitcom, My Family on BBC I player and there is an episode where the girl who is in the 6th form goes on a date with one of the Dad's dentist client's son and the jist of the story is that I think he tried to force himself on to her and the Dad is fuming and seeks revenge but is obviously done in a comic way.

I think that was either 1999 or 2000

I wish I shared your optimism. Not too long ago I recollect a married, 30-year old teacher running off overseas with his 15-year old student. Social media was awash with protestations that 15-year-olds were sexy and sexually aware, that it was a sweet little star-crossed lovers story: 'ahhh, they just fell in love', and that he was being persecuted and turned into a scapegoat. He'd first made overtures to her when she was a troubled, vulnerable fourteen-year-old.

I grew up in the dark, urban Yorkshire north and can guarantee that attitudes like the ones portrayed in this movie - particularly as they relate to the extremely fluid boundaries surrounding acceptable behaviour with young teenage girls - absolutely did exist. There was so much that resonated: right down to the alcoholic father constantly threatening his female relatives so that the house felt like an unexploded bomb, then telling his young daughter who had been groomed and sexually exploited by a much older man that she was a 'dirty little slut'. That same exact scenario happened to me, down to the last syllable.

We didn't have the same racial demographic as Bradford, but my black and Asian friends - there were only a few - experienced similar racism as they were growing up.

It was a stark social commentary of its time which pulled no punches with its audience. It's message said: 'look - this grinding, relentless poverty and (arguably related) lack of appropriate sexual boundaries exists, and it's how some people are forced to live). Same was true of films like Frank Clark's 'Letter to Brezhnev', although that was far more idealist and lacking the more controversial sexual exploitation element.

Did have its laugh out loud moment though - the old fella strutting about on the balcony shouting and gesticulating whilst egging on his neighbours' row was funny as hell.

I don't think everything should be censored. I don't think that film was in any way delivering the message that Bob's predilection for teenage girls was funny, clever or acceptable. It was for the most part bloody depressing, as it should be.

But sadly, I don't think anything has really changed all that much. It still goes on, the men who do this are still protected, it's only on the very thin veneer of respectability that they are ever castigated for what they do.

That is how it was in the 80's. I went to school with a girl who was groomed by a teacher 25 years older than her. She moved in with him as soon as she left school. No one batted an eye lid. It's a bleak film and reflects that time well.

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