Speaking from experience, it sure is. It's still a man's world, but women are, by no means, inferior; and we're supposedly equal, able to stand on our own and function independently.
Not on EastEnders.
EastEnders has set the cause of women back by - oh, I'd say fifty years. To think of the wonderful and genuinely strong women who were amongst the early and original characters on this show - the indomitable Lou Beale, a matriarch's matriarch, who viewed he entire square as her extended family, who'd kept the family business intact through war and widowhood; Ethel Skinner, who never let the worst thing get her down and was strong enough to decide when she'd had enough of life's pain; Pauline Fowler, who - for many years - was the breadwinner of the Fowler family; Michelle Fowler, who worked at anything to better herself and strove to get a university degree for a better chance for herself and her daughter.
Peggy Mitchell, who, after a lifetime of a brutal marriage, bounced back to forge herself a new identity as a local publican and businesswoman. And Pat, the natural successor to Lou, who overcame every obstacle thrown at her, and came back stronger and stronger every time.
There was a minimum of shouting, and none of these women ever depended on a man's existence to define themselves or their ethos.
Not today.
Today's EastEnders is a gaggle of women who allow past traumas to dictate their present day inappropriate behaviour. Nothing is ever their fault. They are always the victim. They are allowed to do as they please without compunction or blame. The blame always lies with the man. But somewhere between Bianca Butcher (first time around) and Stacey Slater, someone mistook shouting and screaming as evidence of strength, so the louder the women, the stronger she is.
How about the woman as a bully? We see that in almost every episode of EastEnders - the passive-aggressive, the belligerant, all sorts.
Their defining and unifying factor is simply that they don't recognise their inherent weakness and the fact that they are, for the most part, just callous bitches.
Except one woman ... she who stands alone.
Tonight's episode was a woman-centric piece, with a bevy of different females on parade before the ultimate arrival of the best female character on the programme.
Fat Barbie or Bimbo Sharon.
Jack's gone, and so Sharon moves back into his flat, as he said she could do until he returns.
Make no mistake: Jack's absence is temporary. He's coming back, and she shouldn't put down roots there. There's something strange about the reason she's moving back - she tells Phil it's for fey Fauntleroy's stability, because he considers that one bedroomed glorified squat with the boys' toys his home. But is that really the reason she's scarpering down the street?
No, of course, it isn't. Like most women on the Square, Sharon, in this reincarnation, is using her child as a means of justifying her own cowardice - or indeed, any inexplicable action. Kat uses her child as either a shield or a weapon. Bianca uses her children for sympathy. Tanya uses her children to make her feel better about herself. Zainab lived vicariously through hers.
So Sharon uses Denny as an excuse to avoid confronting her feelings about Phil. She turns to Phil in times of crises. She knows and has acknowledged several times - in fact, this week most recently - that Phil is always there for her, dependable as clock work. In fact, her most recent admission took the form of an epiphany almost, the look on her face giving the long-term viewer something of a hope that all this useless kabuki dancing of the past eight months might be suddenly dispelled.
But no, Jack's flat becomes a sanctuary, which she appropriates, promising her fey son that they'd redecorate, change the curtains and the bedding on Jack's bed. Who does she think she is? Will the viscerally masculine Jack return to his den to find it frilly and feminine? Who knows?
It was hinted back in the autumn that Sharon's dark secret is a dependency on prescription drugs, or painkillers. Tonight, we were confronted with two dependencies - her dependency (created by Simon Ashdown) as a Branning satellite, in her gabfest with Tanya - a gabfest about the deficiencies of the men in their lives - and her dark dependency on drugs.
An accidental cut prompts her to wade through the fragrant Tanya's kitchen cabinet only to find a packet of generic prescription painkillers. Question is ... why does Tanya have them? Her cancer was caught in its early stages, via chemotherapy and radiation therapy. It wasn't terminal, and if it were, she'd be on diomorphine, which wouldn't be lying around the house, the way Bryan Kirkwood wrote that it was when she killed her father with the drug at the age of thirteen.
Oh well, at least a new storyline is beginning - sans Jack.
The Mistress-Wife, the Wife-Mistress and the Drunken Daughter
Tanya thinks she's Max's wife. She's not. She's the same person she was when she first met him way back when she was eighteen. The other woman.
I don't understand why she and Lauren the Lip are so bent out of shape that Max and Kirsty are expecting a baby (if they really are). It's really none of Tanya's or Lauren's business if Max and his wife (whom everyone treats as though she were the slut in the equation) want to start a family, that's their business. He doesn't owe it to Tanya to make sure she's the first to know of Kirsty's condition, and it's way out of order for Lauren the Lip, with her own convoluted sense of morality (especially when it comes to cousin-fucking), for her to hold her father to ransome about telling Tanya that Kirsty was expecting a baby.
It was even more out of order for her to blab this information to Tanya, and quite honestly, if Max wanted to wait until Kirsty was "as big as a barn" (in Tanya's words) before telling Tanya, that's his business.
Tanya certainly wouldn't ensure that Max knew of any pregnancy she had by any other husband she might acquire unless it were used as a reason to rub Max's nose in her good fortune, and that's exactly what she'd accuse him of doing if he'd rushed around to her house to tell her of the impending blessed event.
Entitled much?
Not that Kirsty's pregnant, mind you. I don't believe she is. I think this was a lie she'd told Max for two reasons - to gauge his reaction and then to give him a truly bonding experience with her. That's why she's all keen for him to remain in bed all day long with her - in a desperate effort to become pregnant in order that her lie might become the truth.
The minute she heard Max weasel out of his commitment by telling her to get an abortion - basically because he felt he had to devote more time to his three children by Tanya (two of whom are technically adults) than any child she had, should have resulted in alarm bells ringing under her silly hat. She should have walked, leaving him the signed divorce papers. Living alone is better than living with a slippery scumbag like that, and tonight, Max was just as slippery ... just like the lizard he voices in the GEICO television ads in the US ...
Lauren's badgering Max to tell Tanya, Tanya's waiting for Max to come forward with the good news, and Max is relieved that Kirsty's going to get an abortion, because - as he hints to Lauren - maybe Tanya won't have to find out.
If anyone ever had any doubts that the Brannings were generic cowards, it's not enough that Jack runs away from the humiliation he's caused Sharon, Max is banking on his current wife getting an abortion so the ex-wife won't have to be told he got his current wife up the duff, because Max isn't really allowed to sleep with anyone but Tanya, you see.
Branning cowardice.
Face it too, Max only decided to go with Kirsty "to the clinic" (for the abortion of a pregnancy that never was) because he was shamed into it by the Matron Saint of Lying Sluts, Katshit. We also know from this whole non-happening that Max and Kirsty are doomed as a couple, because their relationship - at least since Kirsty came to Walford, has been based on secrets and lies.
Kevin's Wives and Ian's Daughter.
Arguably, the best scenes of the night were the Minute Mart scenes with Denise and Shirley. Wherever Kevin Wicks is, he's probably pissing himself laughing at the bonding antics of his ex- and his widow.
This is Shirley ca 2007, when she was at her biting best, scarily funny with the one-liners. Shirley and Denise work so much better than Denise and UnFunny Kim or Shirley and Skinny Heather (Jean). Their discussion of Ian Beale's qualities, especially Shirley's "manly" line, was hilarious, but it raises doubts about whether or not Denise really loves Ian or he's just a bit of comfort for her. She seemed reluctant to find adjectives adequate enough to describe why she's attracted to Ian. Looks are unimportant. She should have been able to describe or simply say that Ian was a nice man, who treated her well. Is that too much?
The best scene, however, was Shirley's shouting the question to Denise about the price of fruit-flavoured condoms, as a terminally embarrassed teenager scurried from the shop, as well as her bitter pleasantries to Phil. I know Shirley needs to move on from Phil, but I can deal with the odd barbed remark and the silly sarcasm (as evidenced in her Wedding March humming on Monday) when it's done for laughs.
I'm more convinced now that Lucy Beale doesn't want to see Ian venture into anything other than the cosy little empire she fanagled him into giving her last year. As much as I prefer Lucy to the other dimwit teenaged girls on the show, I don't like the way she treats her father in this instance.
Whatever she may think, Ian Beale was, in his time, a very successful businessman, and yes, in business, you do have to take risks, something she's afraid to do. As Ian wants his restaurant to be in the old emporium premises (where space isn't enough to swing a cat), his restaurant will probably be nothing more than an upmarket cafe, so maybe she's afraid of the competition. Or maybe she's afraid Ian will get his mojo back and eventually foist the businesses from her. And, by the way, who's living in that George Street flat?
Whoever she thinks she is, Lucy has no right to dictate to her father. Ne'mind, the cavalry's a-comin'.
Poopy Poppy, Alice the Dim, the Prince of Darkness and the Bad Smell.
Poppy doesn't seem to be working today. Nor does Tanya. One wonders how the Salon makes any money, with Tanya at home all day, swigging wine - and aren't Oscar and Fauntleroy supposed to be in school? They'd best get around there, or else The Magic Negro will be breathing fire down their necks. Wait ... she doesn't work either.
Poppy's giving lovelorn advice to dippy Alice, whom Michael refers to as "the girl" and whom he uses as unpaid slave labour. Alice is in lurrrrve with a mystery man. Well, we all know it's Michael, who's forty to her mere eighteen.
Of course, he's got his new BFF, Katshit, subtly hiding the fact that she's hitting on him for money for the son (whom he refers to as "the boy"), who'll eventually be discovered to be Alfie's son.
I hate these two together - Michael and Kat. They are so self-obsessed and so selfish and nasty, they actually deserve each other - except that Kat wouldn't be able to pull her victim routine with him for long. Michael doesn't care about anyone but himself. I don't even think he thinks as much of his daughter as people make out. He's pretty panicky because Jack's left, without telling him, and he has no funds with which to operate the gym, so it's closed "for staffing problems" as Michael tells a punter. Considering that Jack's horde of money kept the place going and that he's probably taken it with him to climes unknown, Michael's in deep shit.
He has the actual social gaucheness of a bona fide psychopath, which the character is, taking on board ver batim, Kat's advice about getting Alice a gift to show his appreciation for what she's doing, when just paying her would be nice. I guess Alice is making a living off all those clothes of Janine's he's letting her have.
He buys some cheap perfume which has a seductive title, and Dimwit, fresh from Poppy's porkers about Fatboy buying her gifts as a sign that he likes her, makes a move on him. Credit to Michael to put her off. I don't think it had anything to do with Scarlett (whom he left outside on the pavement unattended when he apologised again to dippy Alice), but more to do with the fact that he merely finds Alice tolerable and he wants to hang onto her free child-minding services.
He'd rather spend an evening with Kat, listening to each of them collectively big their egos up.
Ne'mind. He's in deep shit with the gym, and he's about to fall into a vat of shit supreme ...
The Queen of the Night arriveth ...
It was worth sitting through 28 minutes of standard mediocrity to see the return, at the end, of the show's best and strongest female character.
Let's hope that Newman and Co don't fuck Janine up and over.
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