This is a soap. It's not real. Nowhere in the UK would you find characters of the ilk you see on Albert Square. This is London. It's highly debatable that one household would know well more than one other household in that immediate area, much less know more than one or two people by name.
The people depicted aren't real. They don't exist. And because they don't exist, we can comment on them as much as we can comment on characters in a book or in a film. Calling Whitney a slut is entirely different from calling someone like - oh, I don't know - Ivanka Trump or Pippa Middleton the same, because Trump and Middleton are real people, whether we like and approve of their actions or not.
If you knew someone like Whitney, someone with a reputation of cutting through various men like a scythe, dumping the nice ones and pursuing the edgy blokes and always, always assuming the moral guise of the victim, even if you knew something about their traumatic background, you'd have little sympathy, as much as anyone could go po-faced and try to argue against such a thing. Someone like that would garner comment about taking control of their lives and assuming responsibilty.
And by the way, whilst the character of Whitney looks as though she needs a bath, the actress, appearing in real life, is the epitome of classic beauty and in no way represents herself as the character she portrays - because Whitney isn't real, whereas Shona McGarty is. Whitney is supposed to look grubby, as if she wears dirty knickers and piles her make-up on over unwashed skin and has hair that never, entirely, looks free of grease.
One of the best and most subtle things EastEnders has done over the years and one of the few things it still manages to do is physically symbolise a character as some moral attribute it's trying to convey. Example? In the 90s,you always knew when Cindy Beale was on the prowl and cheating on Ian. The actress allowed her dark roots to grow and she went several days without washing her hair. She looked, in a word, slutty.
Whitney is supposed to be the last dirty girl standing. She's one of the many characters who learns nothing from past mistakes. She thinks nothing of attracting a nice guy and throwing him over for someone edgier. She's dumped nice boys one minute,and the very same day, bedded bad ones. That's a mattress. In fact, when you think how the likes of Whitney, Lauren and Lucy Beale passed around sleeping partners like pass-the-parcel, that pretty much makes all of them mattresses.
But they aren't real,and alluding to that is simply stating the bleeding obvious.
It's also a helluva lot more acceptable than condoning a woman killing a man in cold blood, for the slightest offence as evidence of female empowerment. Women seek to empower themselves, but stooping to violence serves nothing but to equate themselves with the lowest common denominator.
Three of the last four EPs have been gay men. Under those men's watches, we've seen:-
The people depicted aren't real. They don't exist. And because they don't exist, we can comment on them as much as we can comment on characters in a book or in a film. Calling Whitney a slut is entirely different from calling someone like - oh, I don't know - Ivanka Trump or Pippa Middleton the same, because Trump and Middleton are real people, whether we like and approve of their actions or not.
If you knew someone like Whitney, someone with a reputation of cutting through various men like a scythe, dumping the nice ones and pursuing the edgy blokes and always, always assuming the moral guise of the victim, even if you knew something about their traumatic background, you'd have little sympathy, as much as anyone could go po-faced and try to argue against such a thing. Someone like that would garner comment about taking control of their lives and assuming responsibilty.
And by the way, whilst the character of Whitney looks as though she needs a bath, the actress, appearing in real life, is the epitome of classic beauty and in no way represents herself as the character she portrays - because Whitney isn't real, whereas Shona McGarty is. Whitney is supposed to look grubby, as if she wears dirty knickers and piles her make-up on over unwashed skin and has hair that never, entirely, looks free of grease.
One of the best and most subtle things EastEnders has done over the years and one of the few things it still manages to do is physically symbolise a character as some moral attribute it's trying to convey. Example? In the 90s,you always knew when Cindy Beale was on the prowl and cheating on Ian. The actress allowed her dark roots to grow and she went several days without washing her hair. She looked, in a word, slutty.
Whitney is supposed to be the last dirty girl standing. She's one of the many characters who learns nothing from past mistakes. She thinks nothing of attracting a nice guy and throwing him over for someone edgier. She's dumped nice boys one minute,and the very same day, bedded bad ones. That's a mattress. In fact, when you think how the likes of Whitney, Lauren and Lucy Beale passed around sleeping partners like pass-the-parcel, that pretty much makes all of them mattresses.
But they aren't real,and alluding to that is simply stating the bleeding obvious.
It's also a helluva lot more acceptable than condoning a woman killing a man in cold blood, for the slightest offence as evidence of female empowerment. Women seek to empower themselves, but stooping to violence serves nothing but to equate themselves with the lowest common denominator.
Three of the last four EPs have been gay men. Under those men's watches, we've seen:-
- Violence against women. (In fact, the year Lucy Beale was killed, all three main soaps depicted the graphic deaths of three young women, all at the hands of someone they knew)
- Misogyny (Sean O'Connor's EastEnders is rife with that in the disturbing character of Keegan)
- Ageism
- Racism - the passive aggressive bully who accuses me of racism ought to reference DTC's depiction of the Ian Beale-Denise Fox relationship, which clearly showed Ian as considering her something out of The Help and then exercising his plantational droit du seigneur. In the Beales' family portrait, he preferred Jane in the frame, rather than the decidedly ethnic features of Denise. That's not racism, boyo, that's stating a fact about melanin. Besides, EastEnders has long depicted ethnic characters as stereotypical. Anyone not perceiving that Dexter and, currently, Kim are offensive racial stereotypes and who accuse me of being offensive simply aren't seeing the forest for the trees.
- Male objectification: the ubiquitous male topless scene has become one big joke.
- Homophobia - DTC put Ben back into the closet, and when he finally decided to emerge,he wantonly humiliated Abi in the process. Everyone went on about Abi betraying Ben with a lie,but Ben cheated on her and gave her an STD. Also, EastEnders has to be the first soap to show a gay-to-straight conversion in the character of Steven Beale.
- Insulting the notion of adoption and implying that adopted children are better off seeking blood relations.
- Poverty porn in serving up a character who, from her own intransigence, finds herself on the breadline with several avenues of help only to wantonly refuse all intended.
All of this is fiction, yet we cannot call out any of it for the assininity that it is because it's "offensive." What? We've insulted Denise? Or Whitney? Or Honey or any of the above? Quick. Write an apology note. Send some flowers. It's funny. I recall various people getting their knickers in a twist because someone called out Tanya for being a bloody awful parent who always put herself first ... until Jo Joyner, in an interview, waxed lyrical about what a bloody awful parent Tanya was, who always put herself first.
Absolutely none of this is real, but bullying against any divergence of opinion is.
Just get a grip.
This episode showed just about everything that is obnoxious about the show at the moment.
Shut Up: Denise Is Not a Victim. Once again, something happened off screen. When we last left the star of the show, she was flat out in a faint. I'm surprised that the hospital didn't find she wasn't eating or ask when she last had a meal. Or maybe they offered her a sandwich, which she scoffed in one bite. Instead, her diagnosis was low blood pressure due to stress over the exam - the most glorified GCSE ever depicted.
Tonight's episode was particularly cringeworthy in that Kim had spread the word about Denise's fainting, and, as a result, literally the entire Square was stopping her in her tracks and enquiring after her health. Really? Honey, I can understand, because Honey is enough of a dimwit (as well as being passive-aggressive in her own right) to be nice enough to ask after Denise's health. They worked together, even though that relationship consisted of Denise pilfering food from the stock to eat while Honey did all the heavy lifting. But Martin and Stacey? They've had little or nothing to do with this character, and she's never given them a second thought.
In fact, Denise has never given anyone in the Square a second thought outside of Kim and Patrick. The last time she did, she ended up getting burned by Ian Beale. She's rude, aggressive, selfish, arrogant, and loud-mouthed. She hardly had a good word to say to clientele when she did work at the Minute Mart, so why is everyone so concerned about her health now? Had the shoe been on the other foot, I daresay, Denise would have shown no concern.
And even the Scandinavian tutor kowtowing to his "star pupil" - the one to whom he gave additional help and sustenance during her study period. Yes, I can see him bringing her flowers as a nice gesture after hearing about her fainting, but the walk in the park and the bigging up of her ego was yet another thing. Is he going to be Kush's rival - because Denise, like most of the other women in this programme, is entirely man-dependent?
Sorry, is that a sexist remark? Did I offend anyone? Does anyone wish to comment in the section below reserved for such things about what a bad, mean, and horrible person I am?
It's the truth. Denise's ultimate salvation will be at the hands of a man. Her immediate salvation, however, is Patrick. Yes, a man, but more or less the paterfamilias of the piece. Daddy's home, so Denise can cry, sit on his lap and tell him what a terrible time she's had - how she couldn't get a job (a good reference would have helped), how the mean, old Social Services wouldn't give her any benefits for a long, long time because Minute Mart and that mean old Yolande wanted her to go for an anger management course and how she was humiliated in the food bank by that drunken old cow, Cora, so much so that she gave her food away to a young mother who'd been there before and who somehow thought she could get food without a voucher.
But seriously, I found the ice cream scene in the park where Denise and the tutor took turns quoting A E Houseman the height of pretension. Still, her ego got bigged up yet again to the point where, after Patrick gives her some money for food and dries her tears, she'll strut around the Square again. And we'll all be made to feel sorry for noble Denise, who kept her financial problems to herself, managed to keep the gold bling on her fingers intact and her expensive manicure maintained and yet starved herself for culture.
Pass me the sick bucket.
Shut Up: Jack Is Not a Victim. It would be nice if Honey took a bit more interest in Billy's success and in the fact that her son is having emotional problems in adjusting to his living premises, rather than running afterJack's kids and catering to his needs.
Honey needs to shut the fuck up in challenging Charlie. She wasn't around for the Charlie-Ronnie fall-out, and to warn Charlie off seeing his son was just wrong - and highly hypocritical from the woman who tried to abandon her baby because she had Downs'Syndrome and who didn't hesitate to leave her behind with Billy to run off to Canada to pursue a silly modeling contract with William.
Once again, we get Amy the Regressed, coming up for 9 years old in six months time and still talking, acting and thinking like a 4 year-old.
You're the one who makes my daddy saaaaaaaaaaad!
Who the fuck writes this shit? Obviously, someone who doesn't have kids. Amy readily remembered Charlie. She was fucking 6 years old when Charlie was around, ya know, raising Matthew? She remembered Charlie as her uncle. For fuck's sake, she was even in Charlie's and Ronnie's wedding! She knows Charlie is Matthew's father, she should have sense enough to know that Jack isn't. Is she stupid?
Instead, she now only knows Charlie, not by name, but as "the one who makes my daddy saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad."
And what was that all about with Honey?
All right, kids, (dramatically) everybody hold onto the push chair.
Sorry for all the "fucks", but ... what the fucking fuck was that all about?
Seriously, Charlie simply walked out of the bushes. He didn't lunge and grab Matthew or grab the pushchair, and he wasn't aggressive towards either her or the kids. He simply wanted to see and speak to his child. And, Honey, you lamebrain ... yes, Matthew has lost his mother and so has Amy, but Matthew will retain no memories of Ronnie, and I daresay that no one is going to tell him how she killed two men, and watched as they crushed one of their bodies. No, we mustn't speak about that. And in all the welter of rubbish that's occurred in recent years, I have trouble remembering it Honey even knows that Ronnie was a cold-blooded killer and a psychopath? I daresay, she'd have trouble wanting her children around such a character.
Oh, and lest I forget ... Honey, Ricky hasn't lost his mother. He's merely mislaid her. She's in Portugal, soaking up the sunshine, because she found motherhood a bore - as Ronnie would have, eventually and as she did with Matthew.
I'm glad Charlie wasn't put off by Honey's misplaced diatribe or her blabbing to Jack. In fact, he showed he was the bigger character by directly confronting Jack with his plans. Jack is just a Class A prat, and Charlie doesn't like being manipulated by Max. At the end of the day, all he wants is his child. I hope he succeeds.
Shut Up: Neither Mick Nor Whitney Are Victims. Shirley is the hero of the day
Mick is a moral coward, and Whitney is a slut. Mick wants to fuck Whitney, but he knows what side his bread is buttered on. If anyone ever.doubted Mick was an emotional adolescent, tonight rendered proof. Shirley is no fool; in fact, she's been around the block more than a few times, and she's caught the vibes between Mick and Whitney.
She also was cognizant from early on about Whitney playing up to Mick, even whilst she was married to Lee. Her confrontation with Mick didn't take long for her to coax the truth from him. His entire demeanor was that of a little boy caught with his fingers in the cookie jar. Seriously, he wasn't even an adolescent, he was a ten year-old.
I'm ashamed o'meself.
Shoulders hunched, fiddling with his fingers, not meeting Shirley's gaze. He's ashamed that they kissed, but he says nothing about Linda. Shirley gives him the benefit of the doubt, reminding him that he's a good man, but Mick is, at least, truthful here.
The real truth, but he isn't man enough to admit it, is that he caught her come-on vibes early on,and it clouded his vision of his son, who was ill and silently crying out for help. He should have been totally attuned to his child; instead, he was sulking about Linda being away and flattered by all the fluttering eyes Whitney was giving him. It was far easier to lash out at Lee, subliminally jealous of him and to drive him away.
I would also wager that he's been seriously thinking about Whitney since their first kiss, after the bus crash; because that's the first intimation that he actually had that she was interested in him, and he's been struggling with that attraction ever since. After all, this is the man who went from boy to father at fifteen, who's only ever been with one woman in life,and the first time this woman is away from him for any length of time, he allows himself to be tempted.
What was doubly interesting was Mick, evaluating himself and his behaviour to the point that he actually asked doltish Johnny the definition of an adult, wondering what the difference between an adult and "not an adult" (how about "a child", Mick?) was. Johnny, rightly, told him that an adult was someone who is responsible for their actions and the consequences thereof - in short, someone who takes responsiblity for themselves. The irony of that situation is, when Johnny returns from cleaning the bogs, Mick admits that he's been trying to remember what it's like to be a grown-up. He should stop trying, because he's never really been one -except now, he looks around and views the mess which encompasses everything around him, and he actually accepts - for all Johnny's protestations - that everything is down to him.
Well, that's progress; because for ages now, he's been rattling around in his cage, lashing out and blaming everyone and everything for all the bad that's happened. Recently, he's blamed Lee,and more recently, it's been Linda. In actual fact, Mick the moral coward is about to take the gentleman's way out and bow out of any potential involvement with Whitney - not because he doesn't lust after her. He does. It's just that he's realistic enough to see the problems ahead that any such entanglement would involve - Linda's feelings, Shirley's anger, Johnny and Ollie, Lee's moral vindication.
On the other hand, the scene of the night was the confrontation.between Shirley and Whitney. That was classic Linda Henry at her best, with the absolute line of the night:-
You're a tart ... a parasite who feeds off good men like Lee and Mick.
Shirley gave a pretty good character assessment of Whitney there, because that's exactly what she has done since time out of mind - suck up to nice blokes and shit on them from a great height, moving onto the ubiquitous bad boy. I don't know if Gillian Richmond paid women's empowerment a back-handed compliment, having Whitney call Shirley a "nasty woman."
Since the Presdiential campaign, that term has become a clarion call, an empowerment phrase for women in general, ever since Donald Trump referred to Hillary Clinton as a "nasty woman." A "nasty woman" now means a strong, independent woman who fights for her rights and her own ferociously. Whitney's accusation was merely a backhanded acknowledgement that Shirley, at the moment, is the strongest female character on the show.
Whatever Whitney throws at Shirley, including her gloat about this kiss not being the first one -and even then,Whitney was deflecting any responsibility she had in this situation by claiming that Mick kissed her, the bus crash kiss was totally initiated by Whitney. However, Shirley was right. Whitney honed in on Mick when she knew he was missing Linda, worried about the state of the pub and a little concerned about Lee. She managed to insinuate Lee's situation into something darkly pejorative,resulting in Mick manipulating Lee into leaving, literally telling Lee that he was unworthy of Whitney. And still, as Shirley accused, Whitney's still there, at the bosom of the family, and Lee is gone.
For all the gentle,yet emotional persuasiveness of the two-hander with Kat some years ago, this exchange with Linda Henry was more powerful, forcing Whitney to look in the mirror and hitting her with the home truth that, given the choice, Mick would never leave Linda for her. Ever. He's too much of a moral coward. I'm glad Shirley threw her out, but I have a stinking feeling that she'll be back, horning around the Fowlers and comparing cheating notes with Lauren, who won't listen to a thing she says, but will only whine about her situation.
Shut Up: Lauren Is Not the Victim. No one knows Lauren better than Abi, but whether or not she thinks she's cheating on Steven, it's with malicious glee that she picks up on the fact that Steven, himself, doesn't entirely trust Lauren. Abi is only too happy to stoke that insecurity.
The truth is, Lauren is working with creepy Josh,because Josh is whittling away at her resistance. She's the victim being edged along the treasonous path until she realises too late what her fate is to be - that "Creative Team Assistant" is really a euphemism for the boss's whore, creatively finding ways to have sex on the company time and spread her legs at the photocopier without anyone noticing.
Oops, did I offend anyone?
Michelle got her divorce papers. Is anyone sad?
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