Some misguided asshole playing in the Walford Web kindergarten sandbox ventures to suggest Jean as the natural successor to Dot.
Mind you, I'm not the biggest fan of Dot. June Brown, arguably one of the biggest divas ever to set foot on the programme (quite a jump up from the journeyman actress she was for donkey's years), even if she were nice to that desperate celebrity name-dropping drama queen from New York, TimWil - even the high and mighty have compassion for those on whom they throw their cigarette ash, darling - yes, June Brown can have her moments, but as an actress she veers from maudlin to hammy to head-bobbery quicker than a Ferrari can go from 0 to 60mph.
Gillian Wright is, by profession, an acting teacher, and her performance on EastEnders gives credence to the old saying that "those who can, do; those who can't, teach."
In her own way, Wright is as annoying an actor as Brown, and neither of them are very good.
Somewhere during her two stints on EastEnders, Brown's Dot has become a cartoon character. Indeed, her finest moment was the episode in which she helped Ethel (Gretchen Franken) to commit suicide, but it was Franken who carried that episode.
Dot has been, at various times, a hypocritical, Bible-bashing Christian, filled with self-pity and prone to playing the martyr. Those whom she loves, she defends without thought or compunction, even though they can be the most amoral of people - Nick, her own son, for example, and Jack, her stepson, whose ass is, for Dot, the repository of all things sunshiny.
Max is no more amoral than Jack, but because Jim hated Max, so Dot hated and judged him pejoratively too. She even upheld Tanya's and Jack's romping the bed with each other and lying to the girls about Max's whereabouts because it suited her.
As for Jim, her own husband, Dot's hardly a supportive spouse.
Remember the celebrated one-header which won Brown the BAFTA accolade? Remember the punch line at the end of her reminiscence to Jim on the tape? That the real reason she didn't want Jim home with her was, not because she couldn't cope, but because he wasn't like he was before he had his stroke. Whatever happened to "in sickness and in health?" The episode when Dot head-bobbed her way through Walford, looking for some sort of sauce to garner the lunch she never got around to fixing Jim, after she'd accused the Polish home help of swiping ten pounds from her bag and sent her packing, which finally resulted in Jim being carted off to a nursing home because poor Dot "couldn't cope," was insultingly laughable.
And so quick was Dot to judge that she even believed her nephew Andrew capable of murdering his fiancee, Heather, another of Dot's waifs and strays.
After her return in the late 90s, after her initial Branningisation, Dot's character developed somewhat, although she was still silly and obstreperous (cf: the illegal immigrant baby storyline), but she was infinitely more likeable than she had been previously. However, under Kirkwood, the head-bobbing returned, the pejorative gossiping and judging with Cora, the excessive Biblical quotations and even a certain amount of racism crept into her being. This was the Second Coming of Dot the First.
Jean, as her successor, would be infinitely worse. Jean loves and hates discriminantly. She hates the air Janine breathes and blames Janine for the exile of Saint Stacey Slater from Walford, ne'mind the fact that Saint Stacey is a murderer and has broken up two marriages by the time she was 21, allowing the so-called love of her life to die branded a murderer. Stacey broke up Janine's marriage. Yet Janine is the bad person here. Why? Because she knocked over an empty pram.
I can tell you, if the shoe had been on the other foot and Stacey had discovered Bradley's lovechild living across the Square, a lot more than a pram would have been overturned.
Jean has pursued her hatred of Janine to the point that she blamed her for Michael's scam and even told Janine that her baby wouldn't be loved and at that point, Janine was in the early stages of what proved to be a premature labour. Now that Janine is out of the picture for several months, several dumbasses have expressed a wish to see Jean bond with baby Scarlett. That would be truly horrifying.
Jean is creepy, frightening and just plain bonkers, and that has nothing to do with her bi-polar condition. She contributes nothing to the Vic, not even rent, and she was so willing to be taken in by Michael's guile that she, unthinkingly, committed a crime - embezzlement - for him.
Someone said that Jean's children had abandoned her the way Nick had abandoned Dot. Nick once referenced how Dot used to lock him in the understairs cupboard and pray for him outside in the hall. Both Jean's children could, on occasion, be cruel to her - usually when she started getting on everyone's nerves (which meant they were cruel to her about ten times daily). Still, she eventually got close to Saint Stacey, so maybe she should think about buggering off and living with her, instead of sitting around getting bathed by Kat.
Rather than the Bible, Jean uses New Age hocum pop psychology to mete out unsolicitied advice to people who don't ask her for it. And she even gathers her own waifs and strays - Shirley, in particular. Jean is operating on the mediaeval perception that all mad people are wise, but Jean's not mad, just stupid; and at best, many people are confused as to whether she is supposed to be a comic character - running around after inappropriate men like Norman - or someone tragic. At least, June Brown, on occasion, could summon up a soupcon of poignancy. Wright can't.
And one of the most idiotic suggestions came recently from one of the fora about Jean forming a romance with Ian Beale, of all people. For fuck's sake, the poor man's just come off a nervous breakdown. Were he to couple with Jean, he'd be led off in a strait jacket by the men in little white coats - voluntarily, rather than risk spending a lifetime with "SAUSAGE SUR-P-R-I-I-I-I-S-E" resounding in his ears.
Jean is not Dot, and she shouldn't be viewed as a Dot replacement. Dot is returning for what, I fear, may be her swansong. It certainly is time for June Brown to bow out, but it's not time for Gillian Wright's creepy Jean to take centre stage as the sage of Walford.
Mind you, I'm not the biggest fan of Dot. June Brown, arguably one of the biggest divas ever to set foot on the programme (quite a jump up from the journeyman actress she was for donkey's years), even if she were nice to that desperate celebrity name-dropping drama queen from New York, TimWil - even the high and mighty have compassion for those on whom they throw their cigarette ash, darling - yes, June Brown can have her moments, but as an actress she veers from maudlin to hammy to head-bobbery quicker than a Ferrari can go from 0 to 60mph.
Gillian Wright is, by profession, an acting teacher, and her performance on EastEnders gives credence to the old saying that "those who can, do; those who can't, teach."
In her own way, Wright is as annoying an actor as Brown, and neither of them are very good.
Somewhere during her two stints on EastEnders, Brown's Dot has become a cartoon character. Indeed, her finest moment was the episode in which she helped Ethel (Gretchen Franken) to commit suicide, but it was Franken who carried that episode.
Dot has been, at various times, a hypocritical, Bible-bashing Christian, filled with self-pity and prone to playing the martyr. Those whom she loves, she defends without thought or compunction, even though they can be the most amoral of people - Nick, her own son, for example, and Jack, her stepson, whose ass is, for Dot, the repository of all things sunshiny.
Max is no more amoral than Jack, but because Jim hated Max, so Dot hated and judged him pejoratively too. She even upheld Tanya's and Jack's romping the bed with each other and lying to the girls about Max's whereabouts because it suited her.
As for Jim, her own husband, Dot's hardly a supportive spouse.
Remember the celebrated one-header which won Brown the BAFTA accolade? Remember the punch line at the end of her reminiscence to Jim on the tape? That the real reason she didn't want Jim home with her was, not because she couldn't cope, but because he wasn't like he was before he had his stroke. Whatever happened to "in sickness and in health?" The episode when Dot head-bobbed her way through Walford, looking for some sort of sauce to garner the lunch she never got around to fixing Jim, after she'd accused the Polish home help of swiping ten pounds from her bag and sent her packing, which finally resulted in Jim being carted off to a nursing home because poor Dot "couldn't cope," was insultingly laughable.
And so quick was Dot to judge that she even believed her nephew Andrew capable of murdering his fiancee, Heather, another of Dot's waifs and strays.
After her return in the late 90s, after her initial Branningisation, Dot's character developed somewhat, although she was still silly and obstreperous (cf: the illegal immigrant baby storyline), but she was infinitely more likeable than she had been previously. However, under Kirkwood, the head-bobbing returned, the pejorative gossiping and judging with Cora, the excessive Biblical quotations and even a certain amount of racism crept into her being. This was the Second Coming of Dot the First.
Jean, as her successor, would be infinitely worse. Jean loves and hates discriminantly. She hates the air Janine breathes and blames Janine for the exile of Saint Stacey Slater from Walford, ne'mind the fact that Saint Stacey is a murderer and has broken up two marriages by the time she was 21, allowing the so-called love of her life to die branded a murderer. Stacey broke up Janine's marriage. Yet Janine is the bad person here. Why? Because she knocked over an empty pram.
I can tell you, if the shoe had been on the other foot and Stacey had discovered Bradley's lovechild living across the Square, a lot more than a pram would have been overturned.
Jean has pursued her hatred of Janine to the point that she blamed her for Michael's scam and even told Janine that her baby wouldn't be loved and at that point, Janine was in the early stages of what proved to be a premature labour. Now that Janine is out of the picture for several months, several dumbasses have expressed a wish to see Jean bond with baby Scarlett. That would be truly horrifying.
Jean is creepy, frightening and just plain bonkers, and that has nothing to do with her bi-polar condition. She contributes nothing to the Vic, not even rent, and she was so willing to be taken in by Michael's guile that she, unthinkingly, committed a crime - embezzlement - for him.
Someone said that Jean's children had abandoned her the way Nick had abandoned Dot. Nick once referenced how Dot used to lock him in the understairs cupboard and pray for him outside in the hall. Both Jean's children could, on occasion, be cruel to her - usually when she started getting on everyone's nerves (which meant they were cruel to her about ten times daily). Still, she eventually got close to Saint Stacey, so maybe she should think about buggering off and living with her, instead of sitting around getting bathed by Kat.
Rather than the Bible, Jean uses New Age hocum pop psychology to mete out unsolicitied advice to people who don't ask her for it. And she even gathers her own waifs and strays - Shirley, in particular. Jean is operating on the mediaeval perception that all mad people are wise, but Jean's not mad, just stupid; and at best, many people are confused as to whether she is supposed to be a comic character - running around after inappropriate men like Norman - or someone tragic. At least, June Brown, on occasion, could summon up a soupcon of poignancy. Wright can't.
And one of the most idiotic suggestions came recently from one of the fora about Jean forming a romance with Ian Beale, of all people. For fuck's sake, the poor man's just come off a nervous breakdown. Were he to couple with Jean, he'd be led off in a strait jacket by the men in little white coats - voluntarily, rather than risk spending a lifetime with "SAUSAGE SUR-P-R-I-I-I-I-S-E" resounding in his ears.
Jean is not Dot, and she shouldn't be viewed as a Dot replacement. Dot is returning for what, I fear, may be her swansong. It certainly is time for June Brown to bow out, but it's not time for Gillian Wright's creepy Jean to take centre stage as the sage of Walford.
You're not wrong about June Brown. A nothing actor for so long - the odd bit part here, the odd bit part there - before hitting the jackpot with EE. A cartoon character, as you so rightly point out. And a cartoon character that has highlighted what everyone but the moronic fanboys can see - that EE is absolutely hopeless at comedy. I'm amazed that so many think she's some sort of national treasure - I guess it's just an age thing. When an actor/actress gets to a certain age the British public, in that patronizing way that it has, automatically starts fawning over him/her.
ReplyDeleteIn a way I can see what the fanboys mean about Jean being the natural successor to Dot - she's just as unfunny!