AA Gill and misogyny and homophobia....

[PacificDogwod]

Ok, don't all shout at me at once, but I am up for a lively debate and/or to be educated.

I did not want this conversation on the other thread as he a. is dead and b. has bereaved family including young children and it just seemed in poor taste.

I have always enjoyed his writing, often disagreed with his content (I am German, a Hun - need I say more?!) but did enjoy his way with words and found him funny, acerbic and often prepared to say deeply uncomfortable things.
There is no doubt in my mind that he was a deeply flawed individual and was screwed up enough to keep a psychoanalyst in work for decades, but (and here it comes) I read his famous remark that Prof Mary Beard was 'too ugly for TV' as not a sexist slur about her appearance but a scathing indictment about just how superficial TV was, how no matter how brilliant or qualified you were to present a program, if you did not have the required looks the medium would reject you.
Similarly, the whole 'Dyke on a Bike' quip about Clare Balding I took as a critique of the program which he felt was boring and the most interesting thing about it was the presenter and her sexuality and how wonderfully the two rhymed (I gather there is a parade in Australia where the phrase may have originated from?). I have never seen the program, I have no idea how good or bad it was.

Reading some of his articles that popped up when I searched 'AA Gill' and 'misogyny' about pregnancy, children's sexuality, women I found insightful, honest and raw.

He was no doubt a product of his upbringing, his alcoholism, his dyslexia, had chips the size of the Rockies on both shoulders and could destroy with a sharp turn of phrase although his ire was usually reserved for the deserving IMO. His humanity and deep compassion is clear to me when he writes about famine and refugees for instance.

So, what am I missing? Please don't bring up the sodding baboon - I have a different take on that too, but am mainly interested in the misogyny angle.
I think he loved women, was terrified of them, wanted/needed to be loved more than was healthy, but did not hate them.

AA Gill falls into that category of 'posh white men' who are permitted to be misogynistic/xenophobic/whatever because we're 'amused'. (See also Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg etc).

If he'd been working class/an ethnic minority (but just as intelligent and articulate) he'd have been entirely unknown.

See also Prince Philip.

Oh, clearly him being funny (or some of us found him funny at least) let him get away with things he would not have otherwise.
And his class/education (not formal degree education but clearly he was well and widely read) also contributed to that.

I dunno, I think you average working class/ethnic person also gets away with things, maybe slightly different subjects, because they don't get pulled up on it.
Prince Philip and Boris? Pur-l ease! Not funny and not clever (well, Boris maybe but he hides it well ).

Thanks for all your thoughts, much appreciated.

Here's another thing I've been pondering (not just about Gill): can a man like woman and like clever women, but dislike individuals? And if he says that out loud when does an opinion about an individual turn in to misogyny?

I know men I intensely dislike. Because they are Not Nice People. I hate that I live in patriarchy and that is how my DSs grow up. But there are male individuals I very much like/love. I don't consider myself a misandrist.

I think a lot of it is about how the dislike is expressed. Gill, for example, didn't have anything to say about Mary Beard's scholarship or political views or presenting style-he only focussed on her looks. And spcificLly, how her looks do not fit our society's ideal for a woman. I think that is misogyny.

"I reject everything about this woman because she does not look how I expect women to look"

I don't think that eve happens to men.

Ok, yes, I get that. And I agree. "I dislike her because of how she looks"

I cannot find the original thing he wrote about her (and if I could it'd be hidden behind the ST's paywall I expect), but clearly she was pissed off about it - and I see why.

Ok, he's/was a misogynist.
Oh, well, another example of feet of clay. Disappointing.

So once a misogynist, always a misogynist?
Yes, I am looking to find ways to make excuses for him
I too have no intellectual vigour, but I always knew that.

I think the Britannia's mother in law piece is dreadful writing.

It was the woman on Question Time that really did it for me. She was so familiar. There is someone like her in every queue, every coffee shop, outside every school in every parish council in the country. Middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow, over-made-up, with her National Health face and weatherproof English expression of hurt righteousness

Oh superficially glib and clever but what is a "National Health Face" ? And do you see someone like her in every queue? I don't even recognise what he is describing.

It's also such a lazy trope - well worked by Evelyn Waugh- invent an Everyman or Everyman who is dimmer, less interesting, less patrician than you and sneer at them.

If you ask me for my nationality, the truth is I feel more European than anything else. I am part of this culture, this European civilisation. I can walk into any gallery on our continent and completely understand the images and the stories on the walls. These people are my people and they have been for thousands of years. I can read books on subjects from Ancient Greece to Dark Ages Scandinavia, from Renaissance Italy to 19th-century France, and I don’t need the context or the landscape explained to me. The music of Europe, from its scales and its instruments to its rhythms and religion, is my music. The Renaissance, the rococo, the Romantics, the impressionists, gothic, baroque, neoclassicism, realism, expressionism, futurism, fauvism, cubism, dada, surrealism, postmodernism and kitsch were all European movements and none of them belongs to a single nation

Yes, I get what he means I feel the same, but it's hardly a very inclusive idea of being European

So pleased to see you, Lass!

I have expressed so many of my other issues with him that I didn't dare say "and another thing, As a writer, think he was nothing more than a glib competent hack who was in that he right place at that he right time...."

I come from a long line of hack writers-I know one when I see one!

Basically to me he just came across as an awful snob. Sure sometimes he was quite witty in his put downs, but they were still mean spirited I (and any other man from my cultural background) am better than anyone else type pieces. The world isn't exactly short of people who like to put other people down or those with misogynistic views. Saying nasty things cleverly doesn't make them any more commendable.

Oh and why is his dyslexia used as a part of his excuse? We have lots of dyslexics in my family and none of them are nasty.

Basically to me he just came across as an awful snob

Yes and as I am too I can recognise another.

I think the Britannia's Wife piece lacks any self -awareness. He is criticising Britannia's Wife for wanting to hold on to her idea of England and for being backward looking and insular whilst at the same time extolling a sort of Grand Tour / European Enlightenment view of Europe.

Being a snob myself I'm certainly not going to decry that sort of European culture. It's what I know and am at ease with. But if the concept of the EU and Europe is to be meaningful and relevant there must be more to it than just being able to understand the allegorical significance of a painting in an art gallery.

Oh, he was a massive snob - I think he would have agreed with that.
And I am one too, and agree that he was a bit of a one trick pony. I think he was quite full of himself while also suffering from dreadful self-loathing and that is also what comes out in his Britannia piece (Britannia's mother in law, no less, when he could have described as self-satisfied, ham-faced, be-three-piece-suited ruggers industrialist... ).

I do get what he means that he feels part of a European culture and tradition that goes beyond national borders - he feels more akin to fellow Europeans than, say, to a South American. Fine.

His writing gave me easy laughs, and unexpected metaphors - I do like that and I shall miss it.
I think I will just have to stop trying to justify the unjustifiable, enjoy what I liked about his writing, and not overthink him as a person or how he lived his life. Lets face it, he does not have a chance to improve on any of that, so fair dos.

My view of him is coloured by knowing my fair share of white men from various backgrounds who ended up being public school educated and going into middle-class professions and suffering quite badly from alcoholism. It is a type, and an exhausting one. The desperate need to provoke. The ability to be quite sentimental but also cruel and uncaring.

The thing is, all this 'did he mean Mary Beard is ugly or tv is a shallow world' isn't really getting to the nub of the matter, which is that good people don't say things like that at all, never mind in a public forum. So yeah, bright as you like, funny too, but also perhaps just a git.