Graham Linehan's Beard Weekends: Transphobia III: The Sorceror

[Old Gold Tooth]

Thread. Beard. Ok groomer. Beard. Thread. Beard. Beard. Beard.

Pope Ted should be dynamite.

Edit: new page beard

[idunnosomename]

He's pleading with us to watch the pile of shite that was Count Arthur Strong now. No lumbering blokes in dresses in it, that's the Glinner Guarantee!

https://twitter.com/Glinner/status/1243554760919257089?s=20

someones losing earnings lol pathetic cunt

[bigfatheart]

After Glinner linked to that article the other day gloating that trans rights activists had been quiet because they're worrying about trivialities like being financially crippled and the health of them and/or their families, the sort of things TERFs don't have to worry about because they're emotionally stunted fascists without a single shred of compassion and with nothing but contempt for those they consider weaker than them erm they've already alienated everyone close to them so they don't have to worry about a thing um a few old people dying isn't anywhere near as important as telling Billy Bragg he's a rapist misogynist for not joining their virtual picket line to reinstate Posey Parker I guess they just don't, it's pretty satisfying to watch him suddenly have to button up about toilets for a minute to remind everyone that they could be watching stuff he wrote in his former life as a comedy writer, because if they don't he might actually have to face some consequences, the lumpen, lovechild-of-Peter-Beardsley-and-Shrek, hate-filled, bigoted cunt.

[phantom_power]

Yeah but think of all the great female characters this defender of women has written over the years, like that one who makes tea, or that one who doesn't understand computers

[Barry Admin]

Yeah but think of all the great female characters this defender of women has written over the years, like that one who makes tea, or that one who doesn't understand computers

Little bit unfair there, she wasn't quite that one-dimensional; she also had a secondary character trait of "really likes shoes."

[shh]

why cross it out when that person's name is going to be Helen or Jane

Ah, is this a case of the infamous 'dog whistle' politics?

The dismissive sneering on here is really something - reminiscent of the labour MP and the tweet telling girls in rotherham to shut their mouths.

[Blue Jam]

Glad I heard about this through Glinner though:

https://mobile.twitter.com/BritishComedy/status/1243514820013502464

604.9K followers. Didn't he have over 610K at the start of the year?

[Famous Mortimer]

Ah, is this a case of the infamous 'dog whistle' politics?

The dismissive sneering on here is really something - reminiscent of the labour MP and the tweet telling girls in rotherham to shut their mouths.

Person not taking their own username's advice, there.

[bigfatheart]

Ah, is this a case of the infamous 'dog whistle' politics?

Nah, this is:

I expect there are some feline enthusiasts out there up in arms about tom & jerry. Most people see it as cartoon violence. Is the John & Mary strand in ft sexist/misogynist/misandrist?

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Yeah but think of all the great female characters this defender of women has written over the years, like that one who makes tea, or that one who doesn't understand computers

god I didn't even think about that

[Ferris]

god I didn't even think about that

Don't worry, neither did he.

[idunnosomename]

you can argue that father ted was never going to have rounded female characters (and also all the male leads are flawed too) but otherwise it is amazing how all his other characters of that gender are basically "the woman". and of course this is NOT an issue that can be fruitfully discussed at length, because beard.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

it's almost as if he's responding to criticism of his comedy by engaging in the easiest form of "feminism" possible

almost.

[Retinend]

it is amazing how all his other characters of that gender are basically "the woman"

Sounds subjective at best. In what sense are Jen or Mrs Doyle "the basic woman"? Aren't they perfectly loveable, quirky individuals?

[idunnosomename]

Mrs Doyle, yes. Like I say she's no more crazy than the priests she looks after. Jen, no, she's a shit character, but so are all the men in that show

[damien]

".. one episode "Rock a hula Ted" featured as its villain a female pop star who told crazy lies about the church on TV and tried to steal the main character's house, it was a parody of Sinéad O Connor and her speaking out about child abuse in the church. It also reveals Glin's true feelings about feminism as said villainous pop star is a feminist who tries to steal away the Priests doting housekeeper who in the end happily returns to her life of servitude to three men"

https://twitter.com/RAUTTING/status/1224930829798866945

[canadagoose]

Ah, is this a case of the infamous 'dog whistle' politics?

The dismissive sneering on here is really something - reminiscent of the labour MP and the tweet telling girls in rotherham to shut their mouths.

First "he", now "shh". Do all CaB transphobes share their names with the vocal percussion in Billy Joel's Allentown?

[bigfatheart]

https://twitter.com/RAUTTING/status/1224930829798866945

Somebody on that thread says this, which got me thinking:

Didn't he literally make an entire show about priests without once mentioning child abuse? But suddenly he's on board when there's trans folk to menace.

While I disagree with the notion that Father Ted would be improved as a show if it had been a full-on, investigative exploration of abuse in the Catholic church (and it does mention it a few times anyway), it occurs to me that Glinner himself expresses similar sentiments on the Father Ted commentaries. He mentions a few times that he regrets the show taking such a light approach to religion, and that, having subsequently become more engaged in such matters, he'd have taken a much more direct approach in attacking them. With that in mind, it's not too hard to work out why he's so eager to play up the 'ok groomer' side of the TERF ideology - he's dealing with his guilty conscience.

[Hand Solo]

Somebody on that thread says this, which got me thinking:

While I disagree with the notion that Father Ted would be improved as a show if it had been a full-on, investigative exploration of abuse in the Catholic church (and it does mention it a few times anyway)

Father Fintan Stack : [talking about the sports video]  Youg boys running round in shorts. I bet you like that, don't you.

[to father Michael]

Father Fintan Stack : And you, only you're thinking of what they'd look like without the shorts. You're sitting there, imagining that, with a huge smile on your face.

Father Billy Kerrigan : I must say, I think you're a very rude man

Father Fintan Stack : If you say that to me again... I'll put your head through the wall

[bigfatheart]

Exactly. There's also 'pedrophiles' in the 'No Swearing' bit, and I'm pretty sure the Niamh Connolly episode mentions it too.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I think there is something just as effective about showing all the priests as being venal, petty and corrupted all on a low level each in their weird way. There's something so particularly repugnant about Bishop Brennan which allows them to critique the hierarchy without ever seeming to be heavy handed. There's something more slow-burn devastating about focusing on how small minded and pathetic they all are, in my opinion.

[bigfatheart]

Agreed, and that's basically an expanded version of what Arthur Mathews says on the Ted commentaries when Glinner asks if he agrees with him about the show's tone. Worth noting this quote from Mathews too:

Graham spent a lot of time listening to the Pixies and watching Taxi Driver. When I knew him first, it was like he'd never been outside the house, except to go to see Star Wars films, so his influences were never that Irish, whereas I grew up in the country... I was always aware of the strangeness and madness of Irish things.

Which could go some way to explaining Glinner's misgivings about certain aspects of Father Ted compared to Mathews' comfort.

[buttgammon]

Arthur Mathews is a top satirist with a particularly keen eye on the myths and lies that have often been used to hold Irish society together - his book Well Remembered Days is an especially good (and really funny) example of how this works on a historical and political level. There certainly is that dimension to Ted (bearing in mind certain aspects of Bishop Brennan are based on the "Bishop of Galway" who gets mentioned at one point) but I think we can safely credit that to Mathews.

[tomasrojo]

I've always assumed that Mathews provided most of the Irish cultural references, and Linehan most of the episode's structures (especially the ones repurposed from other shows) and maybe more of the TV, music and movie references.

He's also a decade older and didn't leave Ireland till his 30s. Apart from appearing to be generally more engaged with society around him than Linehan, he was an adolescent or adult from the early 70s, so saw more of the, em, idiosyncratic end of Irish Catholicism, which was, while still present, in decline, especially in Dublin where Linehan lived, by the 80s.

I must read that Well Remembered Days.

[idunnosomename]

Jokes about Catholic priests being kiddy-fiddlers are usually so hacky as to be ineffective.

Remember the central conceit of Father Ted is the Church exiling three terrible priests to the edge of beyond rather than just getting rid of them

[ishantbekeepingit]

I think there's a flashback in one episode that implies that Father Jack either molested or was at least inappropriate with an entire classroom of girls.

[greencalx]

There is, somewhere in the first few episodes. We're currently working through Ted as part of our Remain Indoors entertainment and have only got to episode 4 by now, I think (the one with the author and the group of nuns - an episode I'd somehow managed to miss seeing before).

As I'm watching this I keep trying to reconcile the brilliance of the writing with the witlessness of glinner's tweets. Either his contribution was fairly limited (I wonder how much involvement Geoffrey Perkins had as producer) or he's a different person now. Or both.

[Blumf]

(I wonder how much involvement Geoffrey Perkins had as producer)

Listed as Script Advisor on 10 episodes (he only produced 6):
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0673942/

And I'm still bummed out that we lost Perkins so early. Possibly one of the most important figures in late 20th century British comedy.

[RFT]

I think, in terms of "how far they went in criticising the church", there's a danger of seeing things too much from a "now" perspective.

In Aisling Bea's Episode of Rule Of Three from a couple of years ago, she talks about how, even in the mid-90s, the church was still so ingrained in Irish culture and media that it was astonishing to her as a young Irish woman to see something sending up the church and the priesthood at all.

[Mango Chimes]

Pope Ted's going to be a very dark and sombre musical.