Misbehaviour (2020)

https://youtu.be/ZUa0Mtdv1HQ

What a treat! Seeing something new at the cinema. This time my train did not misbehave - no signal failure or fire on the trackside. Neither was there room for misbehaving at Chichester's Cinema in the Park - my first time of having my temperature taken (a painless wrist or back of the hand scan - then sanitise); the following the dots to give your name (this happens twice in going in), and socially distanced seating with seats blocked off to give space. Apart from someone standing far too close to me in the marked out queue (and a look got them going back, and it is easy to forget yourself), very straightforward and easy... You are also called out in rows and the nice thing is...it gets people talking to each other; so many 'thank you's' at the end...Staff are protective shield wearing and apart from looking like they're about to start a joust, all is well and safe. Maybe on exiting the supervising staff member needs to stand back a bit more, but it's all a learning curve.

But, on with the film...

So, it's the 1970s - hair is bad, big and everything is groovy. Except it isn't - it's hard to be a mature part time student, a thinking woman; to be heard or even get a chance to speak in tutorials. But women's liberation is on the rise and starting to roar... However, there is Miss World which is causing them to roar with anger more than happiness as a 'cattle market'.

Kind of in the same genre as Military Wives, and yet there's a lot of subtle undercurrents going on here. As well as hard feminism, there is Apartheid in South Africa and even what it means to be beautiful - whose beauty is it? The fascinating thing was the in the aspirations of the various 'Miss World's' - the range of why they wanted to be there and what they hoped to achieve - from being there because the government told you too to disparage Apartheid claims to getting a job in Media to not wanting to be there at all or wanting glory and fame and to talk with Bob Hope.

It made me think much more than I thought a Brit com would - because of the subtle thoughts hidden in it. A hard Feminism is shown - the women often fight amongst themselves about what it is to be a woman, what they're trying to achieve and represent, and even who is a woman. It made me think about self and when self becomes selfish, in trying to get a wider kind of life who loses out or is disregarded? A really subtle moment was shown in the daughter belittling her Mum's homemaker and family raising choices - and yet it is the same Mum providing the child care so that her daughter can go out and protest. The lead character is trying to make a better world for her daughter and yet is it at the expense of other women, like her Mum? Women are shown to support one another and also to be quite hard on one another and yet while marriage isn't celebrated, the husband and wife team working behind Miss World is a celebration of marriage, foibles, weaknesses and all, and of a different kind of working, married woman. Mr 'Miss World' won't allow his wife to be disrespected; Mrs 'Miss World' works behind the scenes to navigate social-political criticisms and move forward.

Another thought is how thankful I am that we do live in a world of wider opportunities. The intense scrutiny of the contestants bottoms was cringeworthy and am glad that we're more than this now. And yet although we have much more choice and opportunity, there is still PornHub; the terrible side stories of the Daily Mail of women frolicking, (yes, they're always frolicking), in their bikinis, gym wear, underwear or whatever and the flip side, body shaming; the unfortunateness that is Cuties; paid pop up twerking on Insta and the need of famous women to be posing in front of cameras in not very much during Lockdown and beyond cos 'empowered'. Not even mentioning WAP; how Meghan Markle and Duchess Kate are shown as fighting and described more in terms of style than the event they're at or the thing they're trying to do; the looks and style critique of female MPs and more; the scandalous refusal to pay mostly female workers for good produced during Lockdown by many big Western clothing corporations. If we have more choice, why do we have these things still?

I'm glad that Page 3 has gone, but it seems to have splurged in so many other directions and become normalised as 'empowerment'. And with WIFI and camera phones, it can be everywhere at once.

Yet, it's not all doom and gloom - there is Malala! Same with this movie, '70s fashions; Mr 'Miss World' demonstrating how to win with beauty and grace and not fall over the step; *spoiler* flour bombing Bob Hope; the many ironies experienced by the main character as she navigates through life; the chaperones. While it can't quite go for the BIG hair so fashionable then, you get a sense of the look and how it was for some.

It also makes me think in the midst of all these battles - why can't you have both? Enjoying clothes and being pretty and having a brain and opinions; have motherhood valued as much as paid work, even seen as work. A subtle undercurrent too is that we need a wider definition of beauty, culturally and socially. I also thinking that women need to be kinder to women too and support each other in our choices rather than pulling each other one way or the other, and especially in faith communities, where there can often be a strict division between the married and the unmarried, those with multiple children and those with none, and the other things of life can go uncelebrated, especially if you're a woman. Rather than want to hate men or burn bra's, I've come away thinking that we need wider definitions of what it means to be a woman or a man in terms of characteristics and to celebrate wider ranges of life stages. Despite it's faults tho, I am grateful for women (and men!) who fought for better pay and benefits for me, for me to have my own bank account in my own name, to vote, and the freedom to work - paid or unpaid, and I wonder why, in spite of having so much more choice in the West, we seem so unhappy?