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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions
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CouldNotResist · 24/09/2023 11:37

I’ll admit to being a bit of a Father Ted Crilly when it comes to the issue of speaking up - a lot of inner rage seething in a suppressed, overly polite, not wanting to offend demeanour. GL probably started out like that but now, understandably, has more Father Jack ‘Feck!’ moments (minus the lechery and alcoholism). And we all know what side Father Dougal’s stunted childlike personality might better represent…

But the hypocritical Bishop Brennan is responsible for them all being banished to Craggy Island. Banished whilst he gets up to all sorts of no good and holds all the power.

And then there’s the nuns. They’re all terrified of the nuns.

Sorry for the digression. But I did/do love Father Ted and I’ll be buying Glinner’s book and I appreciate what he’s done and what it’s cost him. I don’t think Hadley’s article was particularly kind or useful but neither does it signal any huge ‘schism’ - keep the focus on the issue, not the personalities

MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving · 24/09/2023 11:39

Thanks for the expansion @LoobiJee , that’s a great explanation of your position and I agree with it.

RealityFan · 24/09/2023 11:41

JoodyBlue · 24/09/2023 10:44

@RealityFan she is saying he chose to speak. I suspect he would argue that he could not make the choice not to speak or to stay silent. The final lines read to me like that childish refrain "see you, wouldn't want to be you". The article lacks empathy and support. I don't know how one can read that final paragraph in another way. I can't.

Yes, that's very possible, I guess. He certainly has read it this way. Despite not being overly critical on her wording, I agree with others that it seems a pointless piece to write. Almost as if she had a contractural obligation and couldn't think of anything else.

Maybe she's not such a good writer if her prose can provoke such diametrically opposite reactions in different readers.

RealityFan · 24/09/2023 11:46

CouldNotResist · 24/09/2023 11:37

I’ll admit to being a bit of a Father Ted Crilly when it comes to the issue of speaking up - a lot of inner rage seething in a suppressed, overly polite, not wanting to offend demeanour. GL probably started out like that but now, understandably, has more Father Jack ‘Feck!’ moments (minus the lechery and alcoholism). And we all know what side Father Dougal’s stunted childlike personality might better represent…

But the hypocritical Bishop Brennan is responsible for them all being banished to Craggy Island. Banished whilst he gets up to all sorts of no good and holds all the power.

And then there’s the nuns. They’re all terrified of the nuns.

Sorry for the digression. But I did/do love Father Ted and I’ll be buying Glinner’s book and I appreciate what he’s done and what it’s cost him. I don’t think Hadley’s article was particularly kind or useful but neither does it signal any huge ‘schism’ - keep the focus on the issue, not the personalities

Brilliant! Yes, truth is certainly stranger than (comic) fiction, and yet as you say Graham summed up things very concisely the way you've described. Although I don't think even he realised he was describing the future.

I've been indulging in watching Monty Python all over again, including the films. And what a portent of the future they were, you can't ever watch the Loretta scene in Life Of Brian and the sex education scene in The Meaning Of Life without seeing life in 2023 being foretold four decades earlier.

MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving · 24/09/2023 11:46

Maybe she's not such a good writer if her prose can provoke such diametrically opposite reactions in different readers

Oof! Good point. I suppose it could be that she got asked to write an article in a hurry and/or it fell victim to poor editing. Maybe she’ll explain at some point.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 24/09/2023 11:50

Odd article.

My view entirely.

It seemed to be stirring a pot I certainly never knew existed.

Why write it?

RealityFan · 24/09/2023 11:56

MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving · 24/09/2023 11:46

Maybe she's not such a good writer if her prose can provoke such diametrically opposite reactions in different readers

Oof! Good point. I suppose it could be that she got asked to write an article in a hurry and/or it fell victim to poor editing. Maybe she’ll explain at some point.

Its as if she wanted to convey genuine sadness for an individual she highly respects, but instead has suggested he be pitied.

I think that wasn't her intention. But it's kind of coming across this way.

Her defence will be that Nazi jibes will never sit with her well, and that unlike Linehan she's not a polemicist here, she needs to convey more nuance.

Unfortunately that's impossible to do in what I'm more and more considering a zero sum uncivil war. How do Ukrainians show restraint when Russia has invaded their safe space? They don't, they can't.

Maybe if Linehan hadn't had his whole world ripped asunder he'd have ended up more "restrained". Who knows. Probably not even him. But one side has attempted to disappear him. What does that do to a person? I've had to take bold measures that have cost me money and a lucrative job to rediscover my sanity and stay true to myself. Graham has gone way past that, is so far down the rabbit hole, he cannot be criticised for his tactics. Helen is just reiterating how none of us could venture there.

I admit I'm maybe spinning her words too positively.

Abhannmor · 24/09/2023 11:57

CouldNotResist · 24/09/2023 11:37

I’ll admit to being a bit of a Father Ted Crilly when it comes to the issue of speaking up - a lot of inner rage seething in a suppressed, overly polite, not wanting to offend demeanour. GL probably started out like that but now, understandably, has more Father Jack ‘Feck!’ moments (minus the lechery and alcoholism). And we all know what side Father Dougal’s stunted childlike personality might better represent…

But the hypocritical Bishop Brennan is responsible for them all being banished to Craggy Island. Banished whilst he gets up to all sorts of no good and holds all the power.

And then there’s the nuns. They’re all terrified of the nuns.

Sorry for the digression. But I did/do love Father Ted and I’ll be buying Glinner’s book and I appreciate what he’s done and what it’s cost him. I don’t think Hadley’s article was particularly kind or useful but neither does it signal any huge ‘schism’ - keep the focus on the issue, not the personalities

I've always seen Dougal as GL's quotidian self - is that the right word?

He just blurts things out while Ted gamely tries to contain the opposites and ignore the absurdities .

'It's a bit mad Ted! '

RealityFan · 24/09/2023 12:02

Abhannmor · 24/09/2023 11:57

I've always seen Dougal as GL's quotidian self - is that the right word?

He just blurts things out while Ted gamely tries to contain the opposites and ignore the absurdities .

'It's a bit mad Ted! '

We all would love to think the world is a simple place, like Dougal. In reality, we all learn to compromise and make excuses, like Ted.

But Graham is the only one publically shouting at the world, like Jack. While Brennan is pulling the strings in front of our eyes.

Are you feisty women of MN the no nonsense nuns? Lol

SerenityNowInsanityLater · 24/09/2023 12:04

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the poster's request.

AutumnCrow · 24/09/2023 12:11

Hadley Freeman has had a huge amount of support and promotion on Mumsnet, both on F:S&GD (FWR as was) and on the recent Q&A for her book on anorexia.

This is why I'm so very puzzled (and not in a good way) by this line at the end of her article:

But he’s lost everything: his reputation, his career, his family. I could never have put all that on the line.

Who the heck is she to say that a man has 'lost everything'?

No, he hasn't lost his reputation in my eyes - or do I not count? No, he hasn't lost his career - he has a best-selling memoir coming out. No, he hasn't 'lost' his family - this is a meaningless, wildly flailing hyperbolic statement that frankly is beneath a journalist of her calibre, and, like previous posters, I wonder if it will be confirmed that she didn't write it?

edit: daft typo

Theeyeballsinthesky · 24/09/2023 12:18

shes replied to some criticism on Twitter in a way that suggest she genuinely doesn’t see it as unsupportive 🤷🏻‍♀️

ArabeIIaScott · 24/09/2023 12:35

YetAnotherSpartacus · 24/09/2023 11:50

Odd article.

My view entirely.

It seemed to be stirring a pot I certainly never knew existed.

Why write it?

'Did you mean to be so rude' is the response I'm feeling.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 24/09/2023 12:37

I don’t think she’s quite understood his Nazi comparison which to me reads as a comparison to Mengele and his ilk; Nazis who test-drove their inhumane experiments on society’s most vulnerable people- the doomed.

Yes, I thought that and I also think that there is an element of truth to it. Glinner is not the only one to have made this comparison.

AutumnCrow · 24/09/2023 12:47

Mutilation-level quasi-medical experimenters on children need to be held to account. If we don't have the language available, we'd better work together and find it, fast.

RealityFan · 24/09/2023 12:48

Sall Grover has just Tweeted a massive thank you to Graham for supporting her, barely disguised swipe at Hadley for her lukewarm article. No holds barred support and defence of Graham, his methods, his invaluable support of her when others backed away, and denying he's been disappeared as Hadley contends.

Bev of LGBA likewise.

Hadley a bit isolated here.

Totalwasteofpaper · 24/09/2023 12:53

SmugglersHaunt · 23/09/2023 21:35

I think her article was a piece of self-important, patronising shite. She tone polices him, which is her bag, but it’s the more-in-sorrow-than-anger pitying of him like he’s a mental defective makes my stomach turn

+1

Hadley is a hack

GoodOldEmmaNess · 24/09/2023 12:57

I really didn't read her article as unsupportive of Linnehan at all. I've read enough comments here to realise that there is the possibility of reading it as less supportive than I interpreted as. But I certainly can't see it as snippy or unkind.

And things have been so hard for HF too. It must have been exhausting over the years to have been under the pressure she has in relation to gender politics. Plus of course the additional stress of speaking about her Jewishness with anti-semitism always lurking in the commentsphere.

I bet she feels under a knife-edge, writing about Linnehan, and was trying extremely hard to do the subject justice. I'm reminded of Marina Hyde's piece recently, calling herself to account for what she had written in the past in relation to an aspect of the Russell Brand story. She hadn't failed in a very major way, but her own account of not getting things right during 'Sachsgate' seemed plausible and I can imagine how bad she felt. Both her piece and HF's indicate a high-level of self-scrutiny and angst - in a cultural environment where speaking honestly is flat-out perilous, with attacks capable of coming from all sides.

(And why is it two women who have worked so hard to create an honest scrutiny of their own conduct? Oh, yes, I know, because we are the ones who have to be fairer than fair, kinder than kind, etc.)

When I imagine the stress of having your writings so much and so prominently in the public domain on subjects where opinions are harshly expressed by so many people, I'm v v happy to cut HF plenty of slack and put the most generous motives possible on her words.

YokoOnosBigHat · 24/09/2023 13:06

I didn't think that was a bad article at all. I'm confused.

AutumnCrow · 24/09/2023 14:21

I suppose it's a sign of how far we have come that we can feel able to critique such an article rather than simply be grateful for and amazed by its appearance in a newspaper in the first place.

Hadley Freeman has a place in that shift. I'm grateful for that.

As regards this particular piece, the loyalty being shown to Graham Linehan rather undermines her assertion that 'he has lost his reputation and career'. Clearly, he hasn't.

Look at the man's current book sales, if you prefer to see empirical royalties over loyalties.

SirCharlesRainier · 24/09/2023 14:22

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Abhannmor · 24/09/2023 14:43

Why can't anyone be arsed to spell the man's name right even? It's been 6 + years of this shite now.

MouseMinge · 24/09/2023 14:44

I'm with others who share the opinion of the Nazi analogy being accurate. I hate most references that are "just like the/worse than the Nazis." They're generally hyperbolic and reductive. In this instance though ... I've found myself thinking of Mengele. Sure, I don't think the intent is the same but they are basically experimenting and they know there are serious long-term health issues and sterility for children even if they back out. What he did was say out loud what many think. The GI medical industrial complex is manipulating and mutilating children and adults using the lie that all of this will make them the opposite sex. It will rob them of fertility and it will rob children of sexual pleasure as adults before they even know what they're giving up. It's Mengele adjacent.

AutumnCrow · 24/09/2023 14:48

There's certainly an ideological scalpel being wielded in real life operating rooms.

Abhannmor · 24/09/2023 14:50

@RealityFan . Graham was actually punched by a nun as he emerged from a cinema in Dublin. I think he was watching the Last Temptation of Christ , which wasn't as raunchy as the publicity had implied. Many years later this experience became a Fr Ted episode.

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