EastEnders doesn't just have a problem with the depiction of male characters, it also has a big problem with the female characters as well. The men are all depicted in varying shades of pathetic, whilst most of the women define themselves by their sexual relationship.
All of that was on show tonight, in the 14th year of the 21st Century.
It's interesting to note that there are three educated, well-spoken female professionals, all of whom are incidental and recurring characters - DI Keeble, Ritchie Scott and Emma Summerhayes. Summerhayes is a weak, neurotic flake and more akin to some of the other middle class female professionals previously in the programme who ended up being certified head cases, but Ritchie Scott and Keeble are monotoned and asexual. Interesting characters, yes, but dry, acerbic and openly cynical.
So there are two ways of seeing educated female professionals - as neurotic, weak-willed sociopaths or dry, brittle ballbusters, aloof and haughty to the point of being frightening.
Then there are the rest of them.
Whitney mopes around Walford - and it looked as though she never made it to work that day, much less never told her workplace that she was leaving - with tear-filled eyes at the thought of leaving Lee. Her visit to him in the Vic was a deliberate bait to gauge his reaction.
I'm moving to Milton Keynes.
Oh, OK, nice while it lasted. See you around.
The classic romcom device again - the perpetual misunderstanding. Whitney's fishing for something definite there and then which will determine whether or not she goes to Milton Keynes with the rest of the family. She shouldn't need Lee's opinion or approval. She is an adult, she's 21 and she has a job. It isn't as though she doesn't have a place to live, because - at the moment - when Bianca and Co leave, Carol will be rattling around on her tod in that house.
But noooooooooooooooooooooooooo ... Whitney's geogrpahical future is dependent upon gormless Lee's immediate reaction. (BTW, what happened to the plumbing course he never started?)
So Lee bites the bullet on the advice of Stan - only fighting for the woman he loves, for Lee, means presenting an engagement ring to a girl you've known for a matter of weeks. Lee was intimate with Lucy within hours. When she binned him, he was practically on the verge of getting intimate with Whitney, again, within hours of Lucy letting him down. He dropped Whitney the moment he knew Lucy was definitely interested, only to get intimate with her again. Then she died, he left, and returned to stalk Whitney through Walford.
Now he wants to marry her. Either this is the most cack-handed romance storyline the writers have ever developed for two of the most unlikeable and pointless young characters in the show ... or Lee's Lucy's killer. Go figure.
Whilst we're on the subject of the Carters - and how could we avoid them? - they were out in force tonight. Even the nefarious Babe the Beeyatch, who more than makes up for Tina's absence. What a miserable, rude old bitch! Pam was nothing less than nice to her, and she was just a rude old biddy. I'm even more convinced that the only members of that tribe worth their salt are Linda, Stan and Nancy.
Mick has officially now joined the League of Walford Weak Men, the way he whined, moaned and stumbled around practically crying because there was no milk for his tea. Boy, was that a Freudian slip! Mick's missing his milk was a euphemism for Mick missing Linda, whilst his sister-mummy stood by ready to right the wrongs done to him.
She was everywhere tonight, wasn't she, SuperShirl? What's the football chant?
She's here, she's there
She's every f***ing where!
SuperShirl, SuperShirl!
There at the CarterVille Breakfast Table to quell Stan's double entendres, lest they offend Mick's delicately innocent ears, there emerging from the cafe to overhear Phil interrogating Abi and Lola about Jay's whereabouts on Good Friday night, long enough to hear the magic name of "Ben" uttered. Can anyone ever remember when Shirley had even given Abi the time of day, and yet there she was, literally scaring the shit out of her with her hectoring demands to know what was going on with Jay and if he'd seen Ben?
Here's food for thought: Ben was released sometime before Easter, released on licence. Cast your minds back a couple of years to the time it was announced that Ronnie was being released on licence. The first thing the authorities did was notify Kat that she was about to be released and to ask Kat if she, as the mother of Ronnie's kidnap victim, had any prohibitives to put on Ronnie's probation conditions. (Kat didn't want her anywhere near Walford, but the writers conveniently forgot that, didn't they?) My point is this - wouldn't the authorities have contacted George's responsible adult (his father, Darren, who would be trusted to act in Ben's interests) to inform him that Ben was about to be released? And, knowing this, and being in touch with Shirley, wouldn't Darren have informed Shirley as soon as he knew?
Just saying.
Once the truth was established about Ben with SuperShirl, the Avenger went around to the Arches, just to pick an argument with Phil. That's when I honed out of this, because we know what's around the corner with these two, and I really can't invest anything in this silliness again. Shirley is supposed to be this so-called strong woman, but all she ever seems to do is bully younger people or people in on condition to answer back and moon after Phil. So she's yet another woman who defines herself by a totally self-obsessed man, who makes a habit of throwing women under the proverbial bus when it comes to defending the skewed honour of his putrid family. Shirley deserves better, but because she doesn't think so, she deserves every crock of shit Phil chooses to throw at her. She's got her own family about to implode, yet she's more concerned about what's going on in Phil's.
And finally, there she is, skulking about an equally skulking Jay, who's obviously talking to Ben on the phone, just for a final session of bullying.
Do me a favour.
In the meantime, Mick's still sniffing after Linda, and here were the best scenes in the programme -the scenes between Linda and Sharon with the wedding dress. Linda, for the first time in her childlike adult life, has finally had an epiphany - life goes on without Mick. In fact, life goes on so well, that the moment she sees him again, she realises that she really is pretty pissed off at the way he's treated her. And that's a positive development, or so I thought.
The moment she sought to confide in Sharon about the fact that she and Mick weren't married, about keeping a secret from the children and how mortified she'd be if anyone ever found out, was really quite poignant. I wasn't too keen on Sharon's advice - either leave him or forgive him, and then implying that she'd forgive him. I disagree entirely, both with Sharon's advice and with Sharon's own decision to forgive Phil.
That's the other thing about these weak-willed Walford men - you give them an inch, they take a mile. Again and again. Did Sharon's decision to forgive Phil really hinge on that double-edged sword of a conversation with Phil at the Arches?
You can't just go barging in there shouting the odds. That would make things bad for Jay. Sometimes when you go barging in, people get hurt, Phil.
Well, I don't mean for them to.
Oh, well, that's all right then. Sharon isn't stupid - although I'm beginning to discover that various characters not at the top of a perceived A-List are subject to stupefication by the writing room. No, Sharon isn't stupid, and she'd surely remember how Grant didn't mean for her to get hurt when he torched the Vic, but she did. Even if she hadn't got hurt in that raid, it was meant to frighten her, and a fright of that calibre could affect a person for life. That was a callous and cruel bit of covery bullying on the part of Phil, but now it seems that Sharon is intent on hitching her wagon to this moron.
Her smug, self-satisfied assessment to Marcus that she knew Phil better than anyone was pre-designed to presage a fall. Dot was being mightily smug about Charlie's presence a few weeks ago, and now we have Sharon secure in Phil's affections enough to brag about it to Marcus. Yes, Sharon should know Phil, and the Mitchells, better than anyone else. She's lived through hell with them, but once again, TPTB have dumbed her down for a purpose.
Just as they made Linda return to Mick on the promise of a slap and a tickle. The Carters' relationship is based on sex and little else. Linda begins to mature as a person and realise that, hey, there is life after Mick, when she returns on the skewed advice of a friend and falls right back to where she was before Mick disappointed her. So Mick will continue to sideline her in favour of SuperShirl, passive-aggressively bully her in the knowledge that a bit of a bonk would put things right. When he realised she was back visiting the kids, without his knowledge, the only thing he was interested in was spending enough time for a sex session with her, even if it were in the shower.
The Moons' situation is such an insult to viewers' intelligence, it isn't worth the hassle of discussing, except to say that, back in 2013, Alfie secured the market stall for Kat, paying her first month's rent, in Kat's name. Bianca was the employee, so now how does Bianca own half the stock? Of all the men in Walford, TPTB have stupefied Alfie the most, and I'm sure there's a reason behind that. Maybe they should have dug deep, found their own pair and shown him the axe. This is painful, embarrassing and insulting to watch.
Once again, the only adult in the room was Stacey, and the subject of the key was brought up again. She spoke to someone on the phone about the key, and we know it's now a key to something in storage. The person wasn't Ryan. It wasn't Jean. Could it be Sean?
Two suggestions: Jacqueline Jossa needs to stop with the screechy voices, and Danny Dyer needs to lessen the Cockney rhyming slang.
Meh episode.
All of that was on show tonight, in the 14th year of the 21st Century.
It's interesting to note that there are three educated, well-spoken female professionals, all of whom are incidental and recurring characters - DI Keeble, Ritchie Scott and Emma Summerhayes. Summerhayes is a weak, neurotic flake and more akin to some of the other middle class female professionals previously in the programme who ended up being certified head cases, but Ritchie Scott and Keeble are monotoned and asexual. Interesting characters, yes, but dry, acerbic and openly cynical.
So there are two ways of seeing educated female professionals - as neurotic, weak-willed sociopaths or dry, brittle ballbusters, aloof and haughty to the point of being frightening.
Then there are the rest of them.
Whitney mopes around Walford - and it looked as though she never made it to work that day, much less never told her workplace that she was leaving - with tear-filled eyes at the thought of leaving Lee. Her visit to him in the Vic was a deliberate bait to gauge his reaction.
I'm moving to Milton Keynes.
Oh, OK, nice while it lasted. See you around.
The classic romcom device again - the perpetual misunderstanding. Whitney's fishing for something definite there and then which will determine whether or not she goes to Milton Keynes with the rest of the family. She shouldn't need Lee's opinion or approval. She is an adult, she's 21 and she has a job. It isn't as though she doesn't have a place to live, because - at the moment - when Bianca and Co leave, Carol will be rattling around on her tod in that house.
But noooooooooooooooooooooooooo ... Whitney's geogrpahical future is dependent upon gormless Lee's immediate reaction. (BTW, what happened to the plumbing course he never started?)
So Lee bites the bullet on the advice of Stan - only fighting for the woman he loves, for Lee, means presenting an engagement ring to a girl you've known for a matter of weeks. Lee was intimate with Lucy within hours. When she binned him, he was practically on the verge of getting intimate with Whitney, again, within hours of Lucy letting him down. He dropped Whitney the moment he knew Lucy was definitely interested, only to get intimate with her again. Then she died, he left, and returned to stalk Whitney through Walford.
Now he wants to marry her. Either this is the most cack-handed romance storyline the writers have ever developed for two of the most unlikeable and pointless young characters in the show ... or Lee's Lucy's killer. Go figure.
Whilst we're on the subject of the Carters - and how could we avoid them? - they were out in force tonight. Even the nefarious Babe the Beeyatch, who more than makes up for Tina's absence. What a miserable, rude old bitch! Pam was nothing less than nice to her, and she was just a rude old biddy. I'm even more convinced that the only members of that tribe worth their salt are Linda, Stan and Nancy.
Mick has officially now joined the League of Walford Weak Men, the way he whined, moaned and stumbled around practically crying because there was no milk for his tea. Boy, was that a Freudian slip! Mick's missing his milk was a euphemism for Mick missing Linda, whilst his sister-mummy stood by ready to right the wrongs done to him.
She was everywhere tonight, wasn't she, SuperShirl? What's the football chant?
She's here, she's there
She's every f***ing where!
SuperShirl, SuperShirl!
There at the CarterVille Breakfast Table to quell Stan's double entendres, lest they offend Mick's delicately innocent ears, there emerging from the cafe to overhear Phil interrogating Abi and Lola about Jay's whereabouts on Good Friday night, long enough to hear the magic name of "Ben" uttered. Can anyone ever remember when Shirley had even given Abi the time of day, and yet there she was, literally scaring the shit out of her with her hectoring demands to know what was going on with Jay and if he'd seen Ben?
Here's food for thought: Ben was released sometime before Easter, released on licence. Cast your minds back a couple of years to the time it was announced that Ronnie was being released on licence. The first thing the authorities did was notify Kat that she was about to be released and to ask Kat if she, as the mother of Ronnie's kidnap victim, had any prohibitives to put on Ronnie's probation conditions. (Kat didn't want her anywhere near Walford, but the writers conveniently forgot that, didn't they?) My point is this - wouldn't the authorities have contacted George's responsible adult (his father, Darren, who would be trusted to act in Ben's interests) to inform him that Ben was about to be released? And, knowing this, and being in touch with Shirley, wouldn't Darren have informed Shirley as soon as he knew?
Just saying.
Once the truth was established about Ben with SuperShirl, the Avenger went around to the Arches, just to pick an argument with Phil. That's when I honed out of this, because we know what's around the corner with these two, and I really can't invest anything in this silliness again. Shirley is supposed to be this so-called strong woman, but all she ever seems to do is bully younger people or people in on condition to answer back and moon after Phil. So she's yet another woman who defines herself by a totally self-obsessed man, who makes a habit of throwing women under the proverbial bus when it comes to defending the skewed honour of his putrid family. Shirley deserves better, but because she doesn't think so, she deserves every crock of shit Phil chooses to throw at her. She's got her own family about to implode, yet she's more concerned about what's going on in Phil's.
And finally, there she is, skulking about an equally skulking Jay, who's obviously talking to Ben on the phone, just for a final session of bullying.
Do me a favour.
In the meantime, Mick's still sniffing after Linda, and here were the best scenes in the programme -the scenes between Linda and Sharon with the wedding dress. Linda, for the first time in her childlike adult life, has finally had an epiphany - life goes on without Mick. In fact, life goes on so well, that the moment she sees him again, she realises that she really is pretty pissed off at the way he's treated her. And that's a positive development, or so I thought.
The moment she sought to confide in Sharon about the fact that she and Mick weren't married, about keeping a secret from the children and how mortified she'd be if anyone ever found out, was really quite poignant. I wasn't too keen on Sharon's advice - either leave him or forgive him, and then implying that she'd forgive him. I disagree entirely, both with Sharon's advice and with Sharon's own decision to forgive Phil.
That's the other thing about these weak-willed Walford men - you give them an inch, they take a mile. Again and again. Did Sharon's decision to forgive Phil really hinge on that double-edged sword of a conversation with Phil at the Arches?
You can't just go barging in there shouting the odds. That would make things bad for Jay. Sometimes when you go barging in, people get hurt, Phil.
Well, I don't mean for them to.
Oh, well, that's all right then. Sharon isn't stupid - although I'm beginning to discover that various characters not at the top of a perceived A-List are subject to stupefication by the writing room. No, Sharon isn't stupid, and she'd surely remember how Grant didn't mean for her to get hurt when he torched the Vic, but she did. Even if she hadn't got hurt in that raid, it was meant to frighten her, and a fright of that calibre could affect a person for life. That was a callous and cruel bit of covery bullying on the part of Phil, but now it seems that Sharon is intent on hitching her wagon to this moron.
Her smug, self-satisfied assessment to Marcus that she knew Phil better than anyone was pre-designed to presage a fall. Dot was being mightily smug about Charlie's presence a few weeks ago, and now we have Sharon secure in Phil's affections enough to brag about it to Marcus. Yes, Sharon should know Phil, and the Mitchells, better than anyone else. She's lived through hell with them, but once again, TPTB have dumbed her down for a purpose.
Just as they made Linda return to Mick on the promise of a slap and a tickle. The Carters' relationship is based on sex and little else. Linda begins to mature as a person and realise that, hey, there is life after Mick, when she returns on the skewed advice of a friend and falls right back to where she was before Mick disappointed her. So Mick will continue to sideline her in favour of SuperShirl, passive-aggressively bully her in the knowledge that a bit of a bonk would put things right. When he realised she was back visiting the kids, without his knowledge, the only thing he was interested in was spending enough time for a sex session with her, even if it were in the shower.
The Moons' situation is such an insult to viewers' intelligence, it isn't worth the hassle of discussing, except to say that, back in 2013, Alfie secured the market stall for Kat, paying her first month's rent, in Kat's name. Bianca was the employee, so now how does Bianca own half the stock? Of all the men in Walford, TPTB have stupefied Alfie the most, and I'm sure there's a reason behind that. Maybe they should have dug deep, found their own pair and shown him the axe. This is painful, embarrassing and insulting to watch.
Once again, the only adult in the room was Stacey, and the subject of the key was brought up again. She spoke to someone on the phone about the key, and we know it's now a key to something in storage. The person wasn't Ryan. It wasn't Jean. Could it be Sean?
Two suggestions: Jacqueline Jossa needs to stop with the screechy voices, and Danny Dyer needs to lessen the Cockney rhyming slang.
Meh episode.
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