To feel shocked about this on a comedy programme?

[girlfriend44]

Regarding Butterflies the comedy series written by Carla Lane in the late 70s.

It's on I player at the moment. I watched an episode and she was talking to herself loudly about being bored, and feeling taken for granted in her marriage
She expressed quite loudly that she wanted to be raped.

Should a woman ever write that into a script or was it more acceptable to say that back then?
I cannot imagine it in a script today.

I agree. He has a reputation for being a nice person, and no scandals or unpleasant stories ever told. He was funny. A statue would be good.

You don't think in this is offensive?

Bowdlerism! That's what is going on. Things from the past are being censored and cut to let us imagine how things are now is how all right thinking people thought and acted always. Bowdler cut Shakespeare to bits to remove the bits unsuitable for family reading, taking out, he said, those things which were unacceptable in the present and (this is the nub of what's going on) SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN WRITTEN.
That's where we are.

Butterflies? She didn’t want to be raped, she wanted to be desired. Different times, and no one got offended. 🙄

There were rumours about his sexuality.

Oddly all the comedians at that time who were gay did similar sketches to Benny Hill.

They would have fun with Only Fools and Horses. There would be nothing left.

I don't recall this particular episode , but she tried to spice things up with her husband and he didn't seem that interested or bothered ( it's been a while since I watched it , but that's how he came across)
She was torn over Leonard as they had lots of things in common , but she wasn't one to be unfaithful and she wanted her marriage to work.
I always felt she should have got a job really!
( but not as a cook)
The line isn't great , but comedy was always more risqué back then and Ria was a bit of a lost soul.
It's very dated now and maybe they will just take this line out of its repeated any time on tv.
Lots of older comedys just don't work that well these days!

Agree with it or not, I believe it is a common fantasy for some women, so doesn't surprise me that much

Yes Nancy friday wrote a book about real female fantasies that has a chapter on it

Yes, this exactly.

She meant being seduced by someone she fancied.

I remember watching Straw Dogs where Susan George's character seems to enjoy being raped. That was obviously also v controversial.

I've just watched the episode in question - for context... after a boorish breakfast with her boorish sons, Ria has lunch with smarmy Leonard, who flirts lumpenly with her but seems to listen, a bit, to her horrible anxiety. She talks about suicide casually, then goes home to her boorish sons and husband who bond over their contempt for her bad cooking. The next day, mid-housework in her 'brick prison', she imagines at length how she'll schedule in her suicide and how this will impact on the week's menu planning for her family, and at the climax of a long list of energetic things she yearns to do to release her inner frustration, she blurts out 'I want to be raped!' Immediately she claps her hand over her mouth in horror/shame, and calls her husband at work to tell him she loves him.

it's meant to be shocking. You could play the same lines without the laugh track and it would sound like a woman having a breakdown. It's the only passive action she chooses in that list - everything else is active (shoplifting, running through buttercup fields 'knickerless') but a woman like Ria can't bring herself to choose sexual excitement in the casual way Leonard, who she knows will be shagging some 20 yr from the office because he's told her over lunch, (admittedly in the same gloomy way you might tell someone about your upcoming colposcopy). She's not thinking about the horrors of a real assault; she's trying to articulate a need she's ashamed of.

It's all an unsettling watch, frankly, 40 years on. There is death everywhere - the butterflies, the photo of her husband with a scythe, dead flowers. At one point, Ria actually says, "My husband says a woman's handbag is like her mind. Makes loud clanking noises and is full of rubbish" and get a huge laugh. There is only just enough tenderness between Ben and Ria to make this a comedy but... only just.

If you watch some of the early Only Fools and Horses, it is really quite racist.

Later ones changed - but some of the early ones were racist and homophobic.

"We went in Primark and I described a dark brown item of clothing similarly to something 'bottle green' - her reaction was utter shock and that made me howl. Mum you can't say that word"

Wtf? It's pretty obvious what word you used - and you appear to be bemoaning the fact that you can't say it without your daughter disapproving? Fucking hell.

"Rape was rare in the 70s, nothing like today's society thank goodness."

You made yourself too obvious here... you're obviously just here to goad.

It was always a bleak comedy. It wan't really supposed to be funny. The rape reference is a bit like 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' - being able to ofload her cerebral constraints(being a surburban housewife) and to become free to her true physical self.

No, it was a singer called Clare Torry, an orchestra conducted by Ronnie Hazlehurst played the tune. It was originally recorded by Dolly Parton.

Yes, it’s been shown several times on tv in clips of ‘how things used to be’. So what? That was then. This is now.

She clearly said raped.

It's perfectly reasonable to be surprised at how lightly we used the word 'rape' in the 1970s.

Your surprise is noted. Now carry on with your life.

I think Butterflies was quite dark as pp mentions - Lane made Ben's hobby butterfly-collecting which meant catching and poisoning them, they are mounted in frames all over the house. I'd imagine that offends a lot of people nowadays, it was a quite insane, loathsome activity, but I do like the way she uses it to illustrate how inured 'civilised' people become to cruelty. I know that she felt very strongly about animal welfare and this was her way perhaps of making people think about it.

Agreed.

Likewise!

Thanks to you OP I've just watched the episode in question and I will definitely watch the whole series. I can see why my mum liked it.

The episode has a content warning and you have to put your pin in to confirm you're an adult. The phrase itself happens like a pp said at the end of a really very dark monologue. It's amazing how much ground the episode covers.

Also, it struck me that the way the scene starts - with Wendy Craig doing the hoovering - was almost certainly lifted for that fucking shake and vac advert with the housewife dancing herself into a frenzy at the thought of clean carpets. The woman in the advert even has the same haircut. Depressing really.

Things have changed a lot since the 70s , people wear seat belts , you don't smoke on aeroplanes, etc, and people have learnt not to joke about various subjects like race,disability.or rape. Butterflies was a great show and although it was written by a woman ,this dialogue is typical of what would go through the characters head, I don't remember that particular episode, but I can imagine her saying it. So many programmes or episodes have been banned/ cut from viewing from the 70s which I understand were in poor tasteful our generstion . Yet in 00s they allowed a sketch show, involving 2 very talented funny people which while some characters were hilarious,some were also in very poor taste ( I think even worse than 70s humour)

1970s or not. I think it was unacceptable then and now .mum and me watched it.and she felt shocked as well .mind you she felt the whole plot was silly even then,.she worked 9 to 4 (seen as pt) and felt Ria really was a spoilt bored housewife .while mum spent ages at the weekend catching up on chores!