Helen Wood

I have spent most of the last week worrying about my upcoming turn on
the CST rota. Like [Kim Akass](https://cstonline.net/on-not-watching-tv)
my TV viewing habits have gone awry, mine in the inevitable balancing
act of work/life/kids where at present I am wedded to watching
entertainment programming mostly as it is scheduled -- how passe. Then
Karen Boyle posted on Facebook her annoyance with the line-up for Friday
night's peak viewing television panel shows. *Have I Got News for
You,* the long-running BBC news entertainment panel show, Friday 11
October 2013 -- no women.  Then I checked for the next week, Friday
18^th^ October and guess what? -- no women. But by Friday 25^th^ October
the show is hosted by Jo Brand -- hurrah, at last a woman.

![Have I Got News For You
](http://cms.cstonline.net/resizeimage.php?width=300&height=240&image=http://cdn.cstonline.net/assets/image/user_94/Have%20I%20got%20news%20for%20you.jpg "Have I Got News For You "){.addCaption
.aligncenter loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300" height="240"}

In my admittedly very limited search for the figures: of the top 65
panelists who appear most on *HIGNFY,* just [12 are
women](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_I_Got_News_for_You#Guest_appearance_records).
Then I recalled some of the tensions over the other more maverick BBC2
news panel show which showcases comedians, *Mock the Week*, to find
that [just 9.7% of panelists have been
women](http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2012/01/31/14768/mp%3A_mock_the_week_proves_bbc_is_sexist).
 And I tried to think of a space where comedic 'banter' was central to a
panel show and thought BBC2's *Never Mind the Buzzcocks* must have a
better record, notwithstanding the sexism of the music industry, but in
2012 of 48 panellists, [12 were
women](http://epguides.com/NeverMindtheBuzzcocks/). None of the team
captains or regular weekly panellists on these shows are women, and yet
last year a [BBC commissioned
report](http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jan/31/bbc-diversity-report) for
the Cultural Diversity Network criticised this lack of women on panel
shows.  It seems as though we have reached a point where TV, or here the
BBC, does not worry about a 'token' woman even in prime time; as we have
named tokenism, so we have allowed it to be abandoned or tolerated,
rather than rectified.  And I'm prepared for the charges of reductionism
and essentialism for pointing out these figures: I am guilty of
humourless reductionism at that -- what is funny is just funny, right?

The main argument deployed in defence of *MTW *is that women do
not *want* to go on these shows -- see Gary Lee in the [Huffington
Post](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/garry-lee/mock-the-week-sexist-or-lacking-female-appeal_b_1255024.html).
This is partly a process of self-exclusion and one that reflects the
broader comedy scene (as Lee Mack suggested on his recent appearance
on *Desert Island Discs*). But this is not only a story that relates to
comedy. There is a parallel narrative with *Question Time*, the BBC's
long running political debate show. Jilly Boyce Kay
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Jilly Boyce (forthcoming) 'Media virgins Vs political lions:
historicising the gender politics of Question Time' in Laura Mee and
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has written about *QT*'s difficult history and the struggles that
original producer Barbara Maxwell had trying to get women panellists to
appear. She records Robin Day's sexist comments about women panellists
simply not being up to the job because they could not cope with the
'combative' nature of debate. Of course the debate raged again when Mary
Beard's appearance on *QT *early in the year* * provoked a series of
personal attacks and misogynist abuse on Twitter, which encouraged other
public women, with a good deal of professional and intellectual acumen,
to talk about why they are still reluctant to appear on the show.

What connects both of these absences of women on television in the
comedy panel show and the political debate show is some kind of critique
about the very nature of television debate. When Jo Brand announced in
2009 that she, and some of her male colleagues, would no longer appear
on *MTW,* it was more about distaste for the combative style than a
straight-forward reference to the number of women panellists. [She
states](http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/jun/10/television-panel-shows-jo-brand) "we
just don't like the prospect of having to bite someone's foot off before
they let us say something". The comedian Milton Jones [remarks
on *MTW*](http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/interviews/a359798/milton-jones-interview-mock-the-week-had-too-much-testosterone.html) that,
'you have to go on the show with bullets in your gun and most of your
bullets end up on the cutting room floor'. A more macho figuration of
battle lines would be hard to find, and of course, combat makes good
television.

![Mock the
Week](http://cms.cstonline.net/resizeimage.php?width=300&height=168&image=http://cdn.cstonline.net/assets/image/user_94/Image%202.jpg "Mock the Week"){.addCaption
.aligncenter loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300" height="168"}

But this kind of discussion is difficult to have in relation to gender
politics. We are on awkward territory here: if we start to say men are
more combative and women are more cooperative in their speech styles we
are in danger of being essentialist and patronising. Then we cannot talk
of a set of cultural differences because the idea of 'two cultures' can
elude any understanding of power. And so of course, we suggest that
styles of talk are 'performative' and can be adopted freely, or at least
to be fair to Judith Butler, played out in the re-iteration of routine. 
Here we can end up by simply saying that 'it's just that women do
not *choose* these styles' as in Gary Lee's commentary. It is perhaps a
wise move that, like Brand, women opt out of a game that they simply
don't want to play.

Of course we have debated representational politics in feminism --
recognition alone does not generate equality if it leaves the very
frameworks of representation untouched. These questions are important
because discursive styles are not being used evenly in popular culture:
they carry different forms of potency and weight, and nowhere more so
than on television. Most recently this year, when [Rory Bremner
announced](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9774242/Rory-Bremner-attacks-BBCs-Mock-the-Week.html) that
he would not go on *MTW* for its highly charged competitive environment,
he went on to talk about his appearance on the show with the late Linda
Smith and struggled with the exclusive terms of 'banter'
that *MTW* plays out: 'She was such a brilliant comedian and in a
strange sort of way, the show didn't respect her reputation or her
intelligence'.

I want to, rather speculatively, think a little about what that 'strange
sort of way' is and how it relates to television in particular. I looked
up the word 'banter' in the OED, and as a noun it is referred to as 'the
playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks'. This seems relatively
benign, but when listed as a verb, the OED's example is 'the men
bantered with the waitresses'. Not an especially scientific rationale
admittedly, but this indicates some kind of sexual frisson in 'banter'
as it is enacted. This is more explicit in other entertainment panels
shows, for instance we might think of Ulrika Jonsson's naïve stooge next
to Vik and Bob's quirky comedic routine on BBC2's *Shooting Stars*, or
more recently Holly 'Willo-booby' as side-kick to Keith Lemon's
sex-obsessed caricature on ITV2's *Celebrity Juice*. These women play
relatively straight and naïve 'waitresses' to the comedic playfulness of
the male hosts where innuendo flows free. Successful female comedians
and occasional panel hosts -- Jo Brand, Sarah Millican, Miranda Hart --
of course, do not.

![Mrs Merton
Show](http://cms.cstonline.net/resizeimage.php?width=300&height=291&image=http://cdn.cstonline.net/assets/image/user_94/Wood%20Image%203.jpg "Mrs Merton Show"){.addCaption
.addCaption .aligncenter loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300"
height="291"}

Here I am reminded of an essay by Martin Montgomery
[[^\[2\]^]{role="button" tabindex="0"
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onkeypress="footnote_moveToReference_2230_7('footnote_plugin_reference_2230_7_2');"}[Montgomery,
Martin (1999) Talk as Entertainment: the case of the Mrs Merton Show In
Louann Harmann (ed.) *Talk About
Shows *CLUEB.]{#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2230_7_2
.footnote_tooltip}]{.footnote_referrer}

on the comedic style of Mrs Merton on the*Mrs Merton
Show *\[1995-1998\]: a comedy chat show where comedian Caroline Aherne
plays the character of the elderly Mrs Merton which allows her license
to say what she wants to her guests. Montgomery talks about how Merton
breaks all the main 'maxims' of conversational norms, producing laughter
through ritual insults, sexual innuendo and utilising her bodily
excess.  She can transgress these norms because she adopts the character
of Mrs Merton -- a straight talking slightly naïve grandma. Sarah
Millican and Miranda Hart in different ways remind me of this kind of
character too -- and I have heard Millican talk of herself as a
'glamorous nan' (Millican is 38). The character provides a vehicle for
the humorous banter such that competition and sexual threat can be
diffused. When Brand and Millican have their own shows they can, of
course, set more of their own terms.

In [an article in *Vanity
Fair*](http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/01/hitchens200701) about
women and comedy Hitchens suggests that funny is to men as pretty is to
women implying that the two are not really interchangeable or
co-existent. I thought about this awful possibility as I re-watched last
week's *Strictly Come Dancing* -- the blessed week when Brucie stepped
down and Claudia Winkleman stepped in. There is a palpable difference
between Tess Daly and Claudia: Tess plays it straight to the venerable
Brucie, whilst Claudia is set free. She turns to Aljaz Skorjanic, the
professional dancing partner of Abby Clancy, whilst they await the
judges scores and says something like: 'turn away you are too
beautiful'... then later 'I told you to turn away'. On a cut back to
them after the scores, she says, 'you are defiant, I like it!', to the
palpable hilarity of the other stars in the background. This may have
lost something in transcription, but Winkleman is famous for slightly
riské asides in other 'safe' entertainment spaces. She has also been one
of the few female hosts of *Never Mind the Buzzcocks *which may be
related to her apparently 'quirky' (posh[[^\[3\]^]{role="button"
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is the daughter of Eve Pollard and Barry
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?) demeanour, and ability to 'banter', as some commentators have
described.

![Tess Daly and Claudia
Winkelman](http://cms.cstonline.net/resizeimage.php?width=300&height=204&image=http://cdn.cstonline.net/assets/image/user_94/Wood%20Image%204.jpg "Tess Daly and Claudia Winkelman"){.addCaption
.aligncenter loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300" height="204"}

Of course it is not right to say that women need to speak like men; now
that is reductionist and offers us only polar possibilities. Winkleman
has found space to do something other than the stooge without having a
mainstream comedy act, and has a line of witty banter that has made it
onto prime time. We can think of others, sure: Su Perkins, Liza Tarbuck,
Janet Street Porter, Jenny Éclair, and perhaps their greater success on
radio. It is curious that Winkleman's presenting of the show *Film
2010 *was met with a good deal of scepticism, not just for her
qualifications in film knowledge, but for her speech style. [She is
criticised for her
loquaciousness](http://sabotagetimes.com/reportage/walk-on-winkleman-film-2011s-a-catastrophe-with-claudia/) compared
with the cautious and informative styles of Jonathon Ross and Barry
Norman. Only women are ever criticised for talking too much.

How all of this relates to *QT, *I am not really sure, and I'll leave
that to Jilly Kay, but one particular response to Mary Beard's
accusations of misogyny came with more misogyny from [Rod Liddle in *The
Spectator*](http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/rod-liddle/8830261/its-not-misogyny-professor-beard-its-you/)*,* who
made it clear that Beard provoked such response by the way she looks.
 In this discussion we might also want to think about ITV's daytime
all-female panel show *Loose Women *and I might write my next blog about
my experience in the studio audience where the warm-up act addressed us
all as a 'bunch of old slappers'.  Despite this, we all know from
experience that women's banter *is *funny, intelligent and interesting
and we should not shut up about its place on television.

 

**Helen Wood** is Professor of Media and Communication at Leiceter
University.  She has published *Talking With Television* (2009)
University of Illinois Press, with Beverley Skeggs*Reality Television
and Class* (2011) BFI Palgrave and *Reacting to Reality
Television* (2012) Routledge. She is editor of *European Journal of
Cultural Studies* and is currently working on the AHRC project 'A
History of Television for Women'.

 

 

 

 

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| [[↑]{.footnote_index_arrow}1]{.footnote_plugin_link role="button" tabindex="0"} | Kay, Jilly Boyce (forthcoming) 'Media virgins Vs political lions: historicising the gender politics of Question Time' in Laura Mee and Johhny Walker (eds.) *Cinema, Television and History: New Approaches*. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing |
| [[↑]{.footnote_index_arrow}2]{.footnote_plugin_link role="button" tabindex="0"} | Montgomery, Martin (1999) Talk as Entertainment: the case of the Mrs Merton Show In Louann Harmann (ed.) *Talk About Shows *CLUEB.                                                                                                                               |
| [[↑]{.footnote_index_arrow}3]{.footnote_plugin_link role="button" tabindex="0"} | Winkleman is the daughter of Eve Pollard and Barry Winkleman.                                                                                                                                                                                                    |

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I have spent most of the last week worrying about my upcoming turn on the CST rota. Like Kim Akass my TV viewing habits have gone awry, mine in the inevitable balancing act of work/life/kids where at present I am wedded to watching entertainment programming mostly as it is scheduled – how passe.

Postagens de Rogue Scholar

WOMEN AND ‘BANTER’ IN BRITISH TELEVISION ENTERTAINMENT