I am Ruth. Channel 4.

[Tirrrrred]

Anyone going to be watching this Thursday?

I saw the advert a couple of weeks ago and meant to Google the daughter. I thought she was Kate Winslet's daughter IRL as they look so alike. She is.

I love all "I Am" programmes. Although they are very deep and thought provoking.

Wasn't keen on the Suranne Jones one.

Hmm how convenient. Don’t believe a word of it. Drama schools packed with young actors without an A list mummy…

I'm guessing that the family connection helped her get this role of course.
Although apparently for her first acting role in a series (which didn't have her mum in) she auditioned under her own surname and they didn't know she was Kate Winslet's daughter

Just this nepotism is endemic now. Used to be talented working class kids could make it now in acting it’s all who your parents are / which public school you went to. Depressing

Yeah tis but then again I think it's who you know with a lot of 'normal' jobs as well, getting your foot in the door

This. ^

I agree that it's fairly normal for a child to go into showbiz if their parents are in it, (the same as many children go into farming/ plumbing/ fishing/ mining/ car mechanics etc etc etc if their parents are in it.) But at the same time, it's very annoying that if you don't know the right people/don't have the right contacts in showbiz, OR you're unable to get into a swanky Performing Arts School, (which 95% of people aren't able to,) you are very unlikely get into showbiz.

People like Ray Winstone, Stephen Graham, Christopher Ecclestone, Helen McCrory, Sarah Lancashire, Tom Hardy, Maxine Peake, etc etc, would not stand a chance now at becoming actors and actresses, because they don't have the right nobby background or contacts in the industry.

Same with the music industry.

Meant to add ^ all the 'normal' professions I mentioned, (not showbiz or music industry,) along with many other professions like hairdressing, nursing, police, teaching etc, are easy enough to get into with NO contacts in the industry. Unlike Showbiz/music industry. It pisses me off, and yeah, it's very unfair.

Some people in showbiz who got into it via their family members are quite good and talented, but some are really NOT!

There was a great article on this in the NY Times or similar last week. Nepo babies they are called. They identified many of them - so so many. Absolutely endemic. Hence my eye roll at an epic lovey in a hand wringing drama starring herself and not one but both her kids. No thanks.

It’s a tale as old as time though isn’t it? I thought the whole ‘nepo babies’ thing was about how funny it is watching gen Z realise these people all have famous parents, we have all felt that outrage of the real world. Nepotism is in loads of industries too isn’t it? Banking, business etc. Life is who you know, not what you know. And I’m sure it’s not nepotism but whole families of teachers, doctors etc. is pretty normal.

Efforts are being made in many industries to level the playing field though - Oxbridge falling over themselves to get away from this. I think the tide is turning. Most normal jobs aren’t as lucrative or fun as acting / modelling. So I’m not wildly impressed by offspring clinging to mummy’s coattails to get a foot in the door no.

I started watching this with my teenage daughter but she bailed out because she found it difficult and thought there was not enough of a structure or story. I think she felt what I felt which was that we didn't have enough backstory/context as to why the daughter was in such a mess emotionally.

For a start she agreed with me that it was bad that the Mum seemingly let the daughter stew in her room being rude and uncommunicative. That's because in our house we wouldn't let anyone get away with being so rude to one another. And that includes it being acceptable to call your daughter a 'slut' for wearing a short skirt (awful!) I found it unbelievable that a Mum would react so negatively to their child being offered 'counselling' by the school. I believe that most families being offered that would have bitten off their hands rather than feel 'stigmatised'.

The fact that in a standard parent/teacher meeting they would have been offered anything that useful was far-fetched. The disintegration of the mother daughter relationship obviously hadn't happened overnight and I would have loved to know whether this had happened because of an incident or a marriage breakdown. The mother was in some ways in a worse place than the daughter - she was self-obsessed, wierdly delusional about the gym instructor fancying her. In some ways I thought the daughter's mental health may have been a reaction to having to deal with her own mother's mental illness.

The social media aspect was I think over played. I also watched in the knowledge that I've seen Kate Winslet being interviewed about the fact that she did not allow her daughter access to a phone/social media at all and wouldn't until she was way past 13/14.

But the acting itself was stunning and I recognised the thankless, hopeless, powerless moments that Kate Winslet portrayed. I just thought that it didn't accurately portray how most mothers would be trying to get help but meeting with a brick wall. The brick wall in this portrayal was the mother's self-obsession and resistance to accepting any help. The reality is actually that very little practical help is ever offered or available.

But it gave a lot of food for thought and I definitely recognised many moments within it.

I think the subject matter warrants a dedicated series, as it clearly raised more questions than it could possibly have answered.

Sarah Lancashire doesn't fit with your examples. She did have television connections as her father, Geoffrey Lancashire, was a very successful scriptwriter who worked on Coronation Street and sitcoms like The Lovers. He has his own Wikipedia page.