I am Kirsty

[selly24]

3/4 through...
My god.
Samantha Morton is awesome...

I don't like the way this is going

Samantha Morton is brilliant but I feel sick watching this .

She is very good indeed.

I think I read somewhere that she used to be in care as a young child, and if I’m not mistaken, has some experience/knowledge of sex work. She went through a crazily rough patch some years ago, after she became famous as an actress in her early 20s, turned to drugs and alcohol ... lots of demons from her past. So to do this programme now - she’s an amazing actress.

This is horrible

The ending was gut wrenchingly powerful.

That was one of the most unforgettable things I have ever watched. Samantha Morton was absolutely brilliant. I probably will post again but for now I feel quite stunned by it.

Was very good

It was brilliant - she was fantastic but also the script. It's making me think that desperate women turning to sex work as a last resort is probably far more common than I'd like to think.

That was really good and upsetting.

I have an issue with the same old stereotype TV script = struggling single mum turning to prostitution. All very old hat. Would have been a good opportunity for them to break this stereotype crap and show a professional working single parent which represents ‘us’ better.

What do you mean by "us" though? Do you mean you who has never brushed up against this kind of thing?

It's a stereotype for a reason. I have known women who have had to do this. I've worked in an environment where I came into contact with women who did this and felt they had very little choice and it was almost acceptable to those who knew them. The way she played that part really resonated with me and I think it's great that it was shown, it was real except that she triumphed in the end, these women don't usually, but I am glad she did.

Yikes that was good.

Guessing she slept with quite a few guys in a few days?
I wasn't sure at first if she slept with Roy?

That was terrifying to watch. Loan sharks are absolute scum preying on desperate people pretending to be helpful. And she was a working mum with a reasonable job, but she had everything taken from her and had no one to turn to. So very scary.

“Us” you obviously live in a bubble! I have absolute compassion for this portrayal, & it’s stereotype because that’s how some women have to live. As a mum you’d do anything to protect your children, and it was such a difficult watch because as mums we’d probably wonder if we’d do the same in that position. But “us” probably have family and good friends to turn to, a lovely home and job....which is in fact my life....how lucky am I!! Professional jobs come with other issues, that I’m only too well aware of ie equal pay, nursery costs, school runs, holiday term care, etc, which wouldn’t make great drama!
I’d have these issues any day compared with the Kirstie’s of this world ...my heart goes out to them! Brave strong women

So a professional middle-class parent turning to prostitution, Villanelle?

It was powerful viewing and I thought the day to day struggles with poverty were artfully portrayed, but so hoped that she would find a different way. I don't like the thought of desperate women watching and having sex work reaffirmed as the only way out. I read an interview where Samantha Morton said that she used women she met when she was in care as her inspiration.

Channel 4 drama about poverty and survival sex. On 30th July

inews.co.uk/culture/television/samantha-morton-interview-i-am-kirsty-channel-4/

Samantha Morton ‘survival sex’ epidemic in her TV film: ‘Growing up I saw women with absolutely no other avenue to go down’
The actress covers a growing social issue in her emotional new film

Back in 2018, the Oscar-nominated actress Samantha Morton met with director and writer Dominic Savage to discuss the idea of co-creating one of three female-led, improvised films for TV.

Months of discussion between the two passed until they came up with the character of Kirsty for I Am Kirsty, a single mum who finds herself pushed into sex work to pay back a loan shark. For Morton, it was a comment on a social issue that is brushed under the carpet and ignored as its victims are normally working class women. But then she realised how widespread the issue really was.

“I had been having a conversation with a friend,” Morton says. “And she was saying she had also been forced to do sex work. I nearly fell off my chair. I said: ‘Why didn’t you come to me?’ and she said, ‘Oh I didn’t want to be one of those people that’s asking you for money’. I couldn’t believe it. But this isn’t just a working class, one subsection of society issue, this is across the board. It’s a serious problem.

The horrifying scale of ‘survival sex’

Morton then went on to research further, and was “horrified” about the scale of the problem. She found that there were countless issues of loan sharks or landlords forcing women into paying off their debt with sex, and found there was even a government inquiry into Universal Credit forcing women into what has been demeaningly branded “survival sex”.

“It’s a new thing in parts of society that it had never, ever entered before in the past,” she says. “It was a big shock to me.

“The character of Kirsty comes from incredible personal situations I’ve been in as a kid, like being a child in poverty, then bad men coming in to my mum’s life, to people I knew and people I know now. It’s really personal.”

The actress says she hopes her story – as part of the I Am anthology series – gives a name and face to increasingly dehumanised issues like austerity and poverty, something which she has experienced herself firsthand.

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/29/austerity-is-forcing-women-into-sex-work-samantha-morton

Austerity is forcing women into sex work – Samantha Morton

Ahead of release of C4 film I Am Kirsty, actor says British welfare system is crumbling
Sarah Marsh

Sarah Marsh
@sloumarsh

Mon 29 Jul 2019 18.50 BST
Last modified on Tue 30 Jul 2019 00.15 BST

Samantha Morton in I am Kirsty: ‘Homelessness is so much more of an issue for women now.’
Samantha Morton in I am Kirsty: ‘Homelessness is so much more of an issue for women now.’ Photograph: Joss Barratt/Channel 4

The Oscar nominated actor Samantha Morton has pleaded with the government to address the impact of austerity on women, warning that they are increasingly being forced into sex work and homelessness.

In an emotional interview with the Guardian, Morton said: “I am pleading with this government … to not just farm us all off as lefties, liberals or whatever, but to have a serious look at the implications of what has happened with cutbacks.”

The actor, known for Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown and Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, said: “Homelessness is so much more of an issue for women now. There are various factors for that, such as the closure of women’s refuges. Women in abusive relationships now have nowhere to go. So what we are looking at, there are women – often in rural areas – staying in horrific places so they have a roof over their heads.”

Morton was talking to the Guardian ahead of the release of her latest Channel 4 film, I Am Kirsty, which details the experiences of a single mother who is forced to consider sex work when she finds herself struggling financially. The hour-long film is part of a new series created by the Bafta winner Dominic Savage.

Morton said she pitched the idea to Savage. “I approached a brilliant screen writer about it years ago but it never got made. I put it to the back of my mind … When Dominic met me to discuss working together, he said, is there anything you’re interested in? I pitched this idea to him, because it’s something I had been through as a kid. It’s commonplace and it’s happening more and more.”

Reflecting on her childhood, she said: “The poverty I suffered as a kid growing up … Unemployment was very high so there was lots of sex work happening in communities then. It was about basic things, people selling their body to put food on the table, as opposed to supporting a drug habit.”

Morton said she discussed the plot with a friend, who divulged that she had experienced something similar. Other conversations with charities and women’s groups made it clear to Morton how common it was for women to be forced into sex work.
Samantha Morton: ‘Maybe I was the first person to publicly answer Weinstein’
Read more

“Students are having to do it to keep a roof over their heads. The system is all crumbling and not fit for purpose,” she said.

Morton added: “When I look at the decimation of Sure Start centres, the shift in the benefit system to universal credit, it’s all connected … the fact this is happening [women being forced into sex work] gets me emotional. It’s happening to people right now.”

Morton also discussed the election of Boris Johnson, criticising his comments about the child abuse inquiry. In March, child sex abuse victims criticised Johnson for claiming police funding was being “spaffed up the wall” investigating historical allegations. The Tory MP said in an interview with LBC that “an awful lot of police time” was spent looking at “historic offences and all this malarkey”.

Morton said: “What breaks my heart regarding that, having been a survivor of child abuse, in order to heal and fix it you have to go back to the root of the problem, like cancer, and cut it out. For me, I don’t have anger and blame any more, but I want it to be fixed … and we need to communicate about it and say this should never happen again.”

A bubble.. middle class 🤣 council house estate upbringing, sink special measures secondary school, social services involved throughout my abusive childhood, single parent 15 years. Several years working in criminal/prison field prior to becoming a single parent.

Many friends single parents. FFS single parents make up a huge number of parents, whom work and don’t succumb to this life.

My point being whenever a programme is made re single mums in particular this is the usual script, Doesn’t help the stereotyping of single parents or council estates as evidenced by a recent thread of here.

Radio Times article here

Samantha Moreton co-directed and says that the stories were 'autobiographical' and based on women she knew when she was growing up.

Dominic Savage that, whilst filming on the estate, they met women who had had experience of this.

So you might describe it as 'the usual script' or 'stereotyping' villanelle but it is a story that needs telling again imo.

I found this a very thought provoking short film, it really touched me ,you always think it couldn’t happen to me , but if. You have no. Family no support and are prayed on by people like that , and you think some one is trying to help you then your “helper “ becomesYour biggest threat to you and your kids ....it’s a therefore by the grace of......... whatever if anything you may believe in ... ..go I ? . it was brilliantly played for such a short film .. and the fact it has people talking about it is great , I think the crux of the matter is that if services were there to help her and her daughters, exactly at that time she wouldn’t have needed to succumb, .. to wolves in sheep’s clothing it was powerful that she did what she had to to free herself and stand up to him in the playground , so she did what she did but only to set herself free and not with him .. that’s the way I took it ..

I agree

Does anyone know why she had to repay £1000? He told her the loan would increase by 50%...What am I missing?

Amy.....Numeracy prob not top of his list of talents.
Wouldn't the neighbours notice lots of men coming to the flat? I'm guessing SS would take the kids if they knew she was turning tricks in her home? Probably get evicted as well. Sad glimpse into a world most of us never have to visit. SM is a super actor.