Reaction to the television drama Bodyguard only serves to confirm our confusion about women at Westminster
If there’s any hope of dealing with the relentless sexism aimed at female politicians, don’t we have to be clear what we mean – and try not to label all criticism, mockery, or even fictional representation, aimed at female politicians as wholly, or even partly, sexist?
Let’s examine, for instance, the much-discussed sex scenes in the new Jed Mercurio television drama Bodyguard, in which Keeley Hawes plays a home secretary having an affair with her bodyguard. To my mind, these scenes weren’t about gratuitously sexualising women in British politics, they were about plot development and characterisation. If you really wanted to be pretentious, you could argue that art shouldn’t allow itself to be constrained by reality. So, just because some real-life women (Theresa May, Amber Rudd, Jacqui Smith) have been home secretaries, it doesn’t follow that Hawes’s character shouldn’t be “allowed” to fornicate with Richard Madden’s bodyguard. (And these were among the most stubbornly clothed sex scenes of all time.)
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2oxpho0
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