Some thoughts apart from just everyone should listen to this episode of the podcast because it's just that good
(And if you haven't got the time just read this quote posted by wreathedwith from it or listen to this compilation by eccentricthornback.):
- As someone who really, really liked both the book and the film (and reading about both, ie adaptation choices, interviews etc) listening to this finally inspired me to try watching the tv show again.
- Ben's analysis of the way the school system in England works for a certain class of people was both incredibly fascinating (just his inside view of it, the perspective he brought to it) and also genuinely heartbreaking. The feeling of abandonment that's by design to breed a certain sensibility in boys is really horrific and I'm glad both him and Joel Morris (the host) really drove this point home.
- And the idea that the games that these spies are playing is really just an extension of the games and group divisions in school (both at public school, but also apparently at university) was so interesting.
- Once they mentioned the way the other characters ask "How's Ann?" to Smiley I couldn't stop noticing it and the way the actors lean into that line. So good.
- What did make me laugh though was the bit where they (well pretty much just Justin) discuss the characters that unlike Smiley and the sterile spy-world do have some sensuality or that have sex or are sexual (Ricki, Connie & Ann mostly) and I just sat there going. Is- are they not going to mention Haydon and Prideaux and their whole deal or what? Especially given the Captain. But I imagine they didn't have the time. Still, Haydon, at least, definitely fits into the same category as Ricki, Connie and Ann when it comes to characters who are presented in a certain way in the episodes I've watched of the show so far. Can't really remember if anyone ever registered as a sexual being to me in the book though, to be honest.
- Also the show has so far convinced me that there is no version of this movie, book or show where I don't find Jim Prideaux to be the most interesting of the lot.
- Prideaux's relationship with Bill Roach, which on it's own is really interesting and a bit sad (he's just so lonely), is added with an other dimension of sadness after this, for me, I think. Ben reads a bit from Roach's perspective in the book and again it's- yeah, heartbreaking is the only word for it really.
- That quote from a non-fiction book about the teacher who in the sixties couldn't even phantom the idea that the Beatles could have written their own songs and thought they simply must have hired someone from Cambridge or whatever to do it, says it all really about the prevailing mindset of those type of people. Everything said about class and class distinctions and the idea that there is a certain type of people in Britain that inherently are entitled and best suited to rule and how that utterly idiotic idea is exposed in this story (and in the real life case) and the mindset of "if we can't trust the correct type of people to behave in a certain way then the whole system falls down" (which it should!) is also great and interesting and makes me a bit sad that the movie doesn't hit that quite as hard as maybe the book and show does.
- The show's Karla flashback (with surprise Patrick Stewart!) was so close to the same scene in the book that even I, who haven't read the book in some time, still thought "Wow, this is so like the book!"
- The way that they kept weaving into the conversation the real double agent Kim Philby (which made me want to read up on the Cambridge Five even more than I did the first time I read the book) was really interesting as well. Again I refer to that quote that wreathedwith posted that is stellar.
In conclusion a great, insightful, heartbreaking and fascinating podcast episode that has unfortunately gotten me back on my Tinker, Tailor, Bullshit-train again. Damn you Willbond!
And also, also that quote that Ben is quoting from Connie Sachs sums up the view of the episode in such a neat way.
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because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
aren't you happy yet?
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I want everybody who’s calling Ken a Trophy Husband to know that he’s actually a Trophy Boyfriend, because when Ruth Handler invented Ken in the 1960s, she was adamant that he would never marry her and instead be her “handsome steady”, so that Barbie remained a figure of independence for the little girls and was never put in the position of housewife.
Her house is hers. She bought it and furnished it with money she made in her own job. In STEM, in politics, in healthcare, in fashion, in academy, in customer service. Her credit card is in her name (women in the US couldn’t have their own regardless of marital status until 1974). And it’s all pink and fashionable because femininity and badassness aren’t mutually exclusive. No matter who you are, you can be anything.
That’s why Barbie’s slogan is “you can be anything”. Teaching these ideals to little girls is why Barbie was created. Empowering women and empowering femininity is the original meaning of the Barbie doll. It’s not that you have to be all this to be a woman, but if you are all or some of this, you too are awesome.
And somehow pop culture deliberately changed that narrative. Sexualised, bimbofied, and villainised her, when she actually isn’t responsible for the impossible beauty standards — people are, she’s just a stylised, not-to-scale toy like most others.
Men are frothing because he’s just Ken and I guess they were expecting her to be just Barbie, but that’s exactly what Ken is. Canonically. A badass woman’s himbo boyfriend.
This movie has the potential to radically change the way we collectively see Barbie into what Ruth Handler originally intended, I’m so very excited
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actually because i keep seeing polls around that vastly underestimate how long most people have been on this site, might as well make my own!
you know the drill, more reblogs equals more votes!
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