Penny Red is a little upset at Wallace and Grommit, A Matter of Loaf and Death, in which to cut a long story short, Wallace gets a new girlfriend, who in her younger days was ‘the face’ of a bakery produce. Due to life being life, the pin-up gets too old and too chubby (or fat, if you like) and loses the gig and can’t get another. This turn from having the world at her feet to being on the scrapheap makes her mind crack, turning her a little mental with a chip on her shoulder against bakers, of which Wallace is the latest in a long line to be bumped off in inimitable Wallace and Grommit way.
But Penny, being “a dour, humourless feminist who will eventually be eaten alive by her own cats” (her words, not mine) saw something not altogether pleasant…
A Matter of Loaf and Death is targeted at children. So what will half of the film’s intended audience, the hundreds of thousands of little girls all over the world who have seen the thing by now, be thinking? What message does this send to young girls?
Well, firstly, don’t ever ever ever get fat, because you’ll lose your job and then your mind. Your future success depends entirely on your ability to look great and hook a man. Avoid bipedal dogs who drive delivery vans. And don’t worry, it’s all a joke, really.
Being a white, hetero, English man I haven’t really had much discrimination go my way and so am a bit oblivious to it until the offence has been pointed out. Just ask Mrs -O. But even now, after this bit of mysogyny has been highlighted to me, I still fail to see it.
Paella isn’t treated badly by the other characters, infact it’s the opposite as Wallace falls for the charms of a lady. We’re not laughing at Paella, the joke is on Wallace as he misses the signs that Paella is upto no good and dismisses Grommits warnings.
Paella isn’t laughed at or made to look stupid by the filmmakers, and her size obviously isn’t a hinderence to hooking a fella either, judging by her history of husbands.
A Matter of Loaf and Death doesn’t reinforce the message…
…don’t ever ever ever get fat, because you’ll lose your job and then your mind. Your future success depends entirely on your ability to look great and hook a man.
It does the opposite. As I said in the comments on Pennys’ post…
The story isn’t saying don’t put on those pounds or you’ll be rubbish and worthless. It is saying look, this is happening. Not quite in the same comedic manner, but it is happening.
It is highlighting to the other half of the audience, the boys, that there is something wrong with how women are perceived and treated that do not conform to visual norms.
The video of the latest incident to emerge was released by Climate Camp protesters. In it, 24-year-old IT worker Alex Cinnane is shown being forcibly hit in the left temple with a round shield by a policeman wearing a balaclava and a visor.
Well, that’s torn to shit any excuses that may (or have already come up) about Ian Tomlinson death being an isolated incident.
Now a fresh post-mortem examination has found he died of abdominal bleeding, not a heart attack, as first thought.
Now, I’m not a doctor or anything like that, my medical expertise ranges from a couple of ibuprofen for a headache to ‘hair of the dog’ for, ahem, more serious illness, so I could be a little out here.
A heart attack doesn’t neccersarily result in internal bleeding, but a heart attack can result from loss of blood as the heart works harder to keep blood pressure without enough blood.
So, the first post mortem wasn’t exactly wrong, more incomplete because yes Ian died of a heart attack, but is was brought about from abdominal heamorraging, which in turn was brought about from, say, being knocked about.
The footage shows the woman swearing at a police officer who then appears to hit her in the face before apparently striking her on the leg with his baton.
The woman is swearing at the copper, but he only appears to slap her with the back of his hand, whilst wearing leather gloves that wouldn’t look out of place on a biker, and then he strikes her on the leg, apparently.
If we’re going down that sort of path, then surely, the woman only looks like she is swearing at the Filth.
But then, the girl probably hasn’t got institutions the size of the Met and the IPCC to defend her honour, has she?
Update:
The officer, a sergeant, it would appear, has been suspended.
David Howarth (LbDem justice spokesman)…
“The fact that this video shows another example of an officer with his number obscured assaulting a member of the public indicates that there is a systematic problem here, not just a series of individual acts of misconduct.
“The question is on my mind whether the police are using a some kind of ‘designated hitter’ system.”
Link via Rwendland in the comments on Bloggerheads.
5. Special advisers should conduct themselves with integrity and honesty. They should not deceive or knowingly mislead Parliament or the public. They should not misuse their official position or information acquired in the course of their official duties to further their private interests or the private interests of others. They should not receive benefits of any kind which others might reasonably see as compromising their personal judgement or integrity. They should not without authority disclose official information which has been communicated in confidence in Government or received in confidence from others. The principles of public life set down by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, at Annex B, provide a framework for all public servants.
So. We’ve got one bunch of cunts making up shit about another bunch of cunts.
I have had a ticking off for tarring everyone in one group of public servants with the same, but I’m gonna do it again here.
Our politicians are all the same. There is no difference between them*. Is it that you need to be a cunt to rise to the top of the tree or does the system turn once good and honest people into complete wankers?
This latest debacle between McBride and Draper is just the latest in a long line of fuck ups that are unacceptable. And I’ll bet that it could just as easily have been a Conservative plot to fuck the opposite team as the Labour one that’s come to light.
I don’t know the details of the email, or much details about it at all. To be frank, I couldn’t give two shits either. All I know is that there was an email from Labour MPs’ containing lies about Conservative MPs’.
What sort of shitheads must we have running the country, if they think it is ok to do this? Think about it. These guys aren’t your drunk down the local spouting whatever comes into their head. It’s not 7 year old shouting to about someone ‘having the lurgy’ not realising what they’re doing. They are supposedly grown up, responsible people that are supposed to know right from wrong.
These. People. Tell. Lies.
The whole fucking thing is shagged. They’re only sorry when they get caught at something like this and when they do it’s a passed of as a joke or a misunderstanding or not very sensitively worded.
Are we fucking stupid? Do we look like cunts? Have we got ‘TWAT’ written on our collective foreheads?
That’s what it feels like, sometimes.
Dunno about you, but I’m fucking sick of it.
*There are a couple of exceptions, but I’ll let you decide who they are.
Then there’s the house raid that goes a little wrong and one of the occupants, who is innocent as it happens, ends up getting shot.
Well, the information the coppers had meant that firearms were appropriate for the raid, and when a raid gets started there is lot of noise and confusion, everyone is hyped up and it’s usually dark as they are carried out in the early hours of the morning. It’s quite scary, even for the officers. I know, I’ve seen them on telly.
It’s surprising, really, that more people hurt. All it needs is the suspect to not put there hands up, or make a wrong move and, well…
Or there’s the suicide bomber that wasn’t. Armed officers, in a stressful situation, the tube full of people. OK, so there were errors made. Would you have done any better?
The thing is, with all those examples, we weren’t there. It doesn’t matter what witnesses say, you’re own mind can add little caveats, little excuses, that still leave the rozzers The Good Guys.
What happened at the G20 shattered that completely.
The assault was unprovoked, cowardly and on film.
As you can see, Ian is strolling along with his hands in his pockets, the fuzz come up behind him, a dog sniffing him, and then he gets a whack on the back of the legs and an almighty shove to the ground.
Why? What purpose did it serve? Ian wasn’t giving them abuse, the coppers could see his hands were in his pockets, so he wasn’t gonna be able to do anything before they could get to him, and he wasn’t giving them abuse. It was just malicious.
The game has changed. Why the hell else are coppers leaving off a letter or number from their lapels? ‘If you’ve got nothing to hide…’ applies to them too. Why else were the police telling people in the Climate Camp to delete photos of plod or have their cameras seized? Was the Climate Camp full of terrorists, was it?
A lie can be delivered by innuendo. The so-called “Independent Police Complaints Commission” – whose investigations in this case are being conducted by the City of London Police – had put out a statement saying that “it appeared that Mr Tomlinson had contact with the Police.” If we had not seen the video, what image does that conjure up in your mind?
John O’Connor, a former Flying Squad commander, defended kettling in extraordinarily totalitarian terms, saying that
…using these tactics in a non-selective way does cause inconvenience to persons who are legally trying to make their point, but it is effective in controlling the troublemakers.
The same could be said of subjecting the entire population to house arrest or amputating the limbs of anyone not in the police. Certainly, what he says is a clear admission that kettling does not ‘facilitate peaceful protest’.
Do I need to spell out what message is that sending to the ordinary plod on the beat? The modern policeman already wears a quasi-military uniform, with their stab vest and utility belt. They do work under some tremendous pressures, and you can excuse them with that and the adrenaline and all sorts of other reasons, but that is what training is for. If a copper goes loses it, makes an error of judgement or gets power crazy and attacks an innocent person, he either needs to be fired or retrained. As well as prosecuted.
The example needs to be set from the top and that is what is missing. Last word goes to Craig Murray…
We have reached the stage in the UK where we need a revolutionary change. We have to sweep out the old order of corrupt politicians whose one guiding principle is to keep their own snouts in the trough: of City bankers who are multi-millionaires from their bubble scams and whose lifestyles and jobs the ordinary people are now supporting by a massive tax and debt burden, while nobody guarantees the jobs of those ordinary people who fund it all.
We have to realise that the end of the centuries old prohibition of torture by agents of the state is of a piece with the freedom of the police to maintain the system of power by fatal force, in both cases without consequence. You cannot separate this brutalisation of power from the illegal war that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and thousands of our own soldiers, on the basis of a lie but really to secure oil.
The whole system stinks from the head like a fish. And people are starting at last to understand where the smell comes from.
