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?

The saddest film I ever saw from that decade was a German film called Christiana F.
Set in Berlin its the tale of a 15 year old Heroin Addict. True story as well.

I'm reading that, thank you!

One thing I've always thought about horror movies, is that they almost always feature a girl or woman, being chased by a murderous man. And we watch this for entertainment!!?? That's a bit fucked up, is it not?

Rita, Sue and Bob too is a fantastic film. And very true to life for the time. I can see echos of my own teenage years in that. Why shouldn't it have been made?

WTF. I had mates who were about 15 (this would be early 90s) with late 20s boyfriends, and I thought that was hideous, but 12!!

When I was 27, if I'd had a friend with a 15 year old girlfriend - well I'd not have been friends with him, put it that way.

That let's out much of Shakespeare's work to begin with, Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet seem to tick a lot off the bingo card.

In my northern town, underage sex, and older men exploiting girls, wasn't acceptable at all. I thought the film about abuse and damage - I found it a very uncomfortable watch and didn't know anyone who thought differently. I remember the trailer and posters were very much at odds with the experience of watching it. The ending was gruesome. There was a lot in the papers about the writer's own life at the time.

You’re a Happy Valley fan, a very violent, gritty series featuring rape, prostitution, abuse, drug use, and disturbing scenes of brutality, but you draw the line at Rita, Sue and Bob too 🤔

I guess it's no more fucked up than in earlier days, our constant re-readings of Gothic classics in which women routinely fall for abusive men, and the bulk of the rising action focuses on whether or not said abusive man really loves her.

Cf. Jane Eyre and Rebecca (same story, different setting). As readers, we are placed in the position of actually wanting Maxim de Winter to escape the hangman's noose. We join with him and his insipid second wife in our disgust of the drunken piss-artist Jack Favell, his love for Rebecca and desire for vengeance against Maxim.

All for what? Rebecca was, by Maxim's account at least, a slut, therefore she deserved what she got. Same exact scenario with Bertha Mason.

Sadly I think it's small-wonder women have been indoctrinated with these attitudes. It's one of the reasons I much prefer Villette to Jane Eyre.

And as for Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - well, enough said.

I also think it's a great film and documents that whilst most people did disapprove of these things, there wasn't a whole load of safeguarding or people reporting- and even if they did, what would have happened? My friend's sister was 13 going out with a 33 year old, absolutely horrific, a lot of girls at my school had sexual experiences 13-15 (I didn't) and even just being patted on the bum or men putting their arms around you at 15-18 at work or in social events was a normal thing, I mean older men like the Mayor or your boss. It was a different world.

That doesn't mean everyone approved. They didn't and a lot of street justice such as people being beaten up/warned off would have happened, my parents would have had the vapours. But remember marital rape was still not a crime at this point and the police were not considered the port of call to sort out these type of social problems, schools were also more laissez-faire and a handful of teachers at my school had had affairs with the pupils, often 6th formers, anyway so were hardly in a position to judge.

In the '90s I would hear my Year 11 girls planning their weekends and discussing the best places to 'get off' with footballers.

I don't agree with this - I think there is more nuance. Yes, Rita and Sue both seem enthusiastic about having sex with Bob - this is through a lens of grinding poverty, massive dysfunction and addiction in their homes - juxtoposed with Bob's more expensive house and the glamour around that. This is a way that grooming can work. It is a bleak, depressing film with some grim humour and I think shone a light on all of that deprivation and exploitation. I never saw the film as a comedy and always found it deeply upsetting.

When I was 13 in the late 80s a some of my friends had boyfriends who were aged between 18-21 and no one said anything. It just seemed normal at the time. Aged 16 my first boyfriend was 29 and my parents who were really strict didn't mind.

I don't think you can say that it's not normal and never was. These things actually did happen, they are some peoples 'normal'. Not saying its right or I condone it but it is life.

I didn't say it's not normal, I said it isn't 'the norm'. When I was at school in the late 70s one of our 15yr old classmates actually left to get married on her 16th birthday to an older man who she had been in a relationship with since she was 14 - we were very shocked even then.

I went to a girl's school (mid-2000's) in a relatively wealthy area of the country and, at 14, one of my friends was involved in a relationship with a 27 year old man.

There were stories about parties at his house where they all got drunk and slept with him. I ended up going out with him for a couple of months when I was 17.

He had a camera set up in his bedroom and he'd been filming all the things he'd been getting up to with my friends and then coerced me into doing it too. As an adult, and mother of a daughter now, it's fucking awful.

Nobody's parents gave a crap.

No one tell her about Lolita .....

An earth shattering TV programme that most on here are too young to know was Cathy Come Home, it was on in 1966 and concerned homelessness. It led to many initiatives and was the inspiration for Shelter. Some media may be uncomfortable to watch but they bring unpalatable things into the open.

Reflecting real life and people's coping mechanisms.
It's a gritty representation of a lot of girls' realities back then.
It's not a comedy.

No one tell her about Lolita

or The War Zone…. Or probably any other film with Ray Winstone.

My now exH raved about this film just after we got married - finally watched it with him after a few months and thought it was awful.

Although I haven't actually seen the film, I grew up in Bradford and was a teenager in the early/mid 90s and in my experience it was very common for young girls to be doing this stuff with older men.

I engaged in similar behaviour and at the time I thought I was being really grown up. I look back on that period now and recognise a lot of what went on as exploitation by older/more experienced men of vulnerable young girls.

I'm fairly sure teachers and parents knew full well what was going on, but it just wasn't seen as problematic in the way it is now. At the age of 14 or 15 we were somehow considered able to give full consent and were therefore responsible for what happened. I think (hope) things are seen differently now.

Of course it wasnt ok and normal, you would hardly make a film that just depicted normal everyday life

I've just remembered that hideous black lace song from the film. We are having a gang bang and there was a dance for it !

I read the book as a teen, it was brilliant.

I’m about the same age as you. I briefly dated a squaddie when I was 14 in the 4th year (year 10). I never got his age but he was a young man rather than late teens and my father didn’t bat an eyelid. I met him down the pub with my friends where they all hung out. We went there to be picked up by these men, not for sex btw. By the time I was 15/16, I was dating much older men, my father had died and my mother showed zero concern.

My dd is year 10. I’d be horrified if she came home with a man in his early 20s.

YABU about the film. It is really realistic and a sad tale. If it made society pause and think, that’s great.

I watched Cathy Come Home, in the late 60s, it was a stark warning to young impoverished families. By the 1970s it led to changes in the way social housing was allocated, instead of being on a ‘waiting list’, ‘need’ became the driving factor.

Some housing estates subsequently became concentrations of poverty and dysfunction, which was exacerbated by the right to buy, where houses on the more desirable estates were sold off to tenants, leaving the less popular estates the only option for anyone with a priority need. The Buttershaw, where Andrea Dunbar grew up, and which was reflected in Rita,Sue and Bob Too, was real life for many.