![]() ![]() Then there was Nicole Kidman, 28, as Dr Chase Meridian, “brain expert”, in Batman Forever. (Could the problem have lain with the fact that, being only 28 and already leading the field in quite a niche specialty, Dr Barnes may have rather rushed her PhD?) Similarly, in Volcano, following a giant eruption in downtown Los Angeles, America invested all its faith in hot, vested, lone-wolf volcanologist Dr Amy Barnes (Anne Heche), kindly overlooking the fact that she had failed to spot a single warning sign of the most disastrous seismological event in modern history. ![]() There is joy in fumbling and bumbling through the simplest of tasks how much more charismatic and lovable are the “negative stereotypes” than those whose contribution is to tut, roll their eyes and take over the nappy-changing/pie-making/map-reading with drab proficiency? Nobody wants to watch someone calmly and correctly get everything right. Oh please! What those characters are is funny. Often, the role is simply to look on with pity or disapproval as a man bumbles his way through something to gripping or hilarious effect.ĭo you remember the complaint a few years ago that fathers are negatively stereotyped in comedies and cartoons? A website called Netmums ran a survey of 2,000 people who agreed that the hapless Homer Simpson, Daddy Pig and Fred Flintstone – along with Ben Harper from My Family and Pete Brockman from Outnumbered – represent a cruel and unfair depiction of fatherhood, given how responsible and hardworking male parents really are. Reliable lawyers, trustworthy doctors, efficient mums. Thus, in drama and even sitcom, well-meaning writers with feminism in their hearts have a tendency to depict women as drearily competent. Women can never get away with that sort of thing. Just look at the Prime Minister! Do you think a woman could have become First Lord of the Treasury if she’d been photographed dangling over a public park from a broken zip wire, socks exposed and cheap plastic flags in each hand? Bumbling in the public eye is the preserve of those with sufficient power and confidence to carry it off. It means our social position is still too weak. There aren’t enough bumbling women on television. Controversy has raged around The Dig, a new Netflix film about the great historical findings at Sutton Hoo, on the grounds that late archaeologist Peggy Piggott is portrayed as “bumbling”.
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