IT SEEMS John Stuart Mill anticipated the recent Sex and the City spat back in 1859. Mill’s treatise on Liberty highlighted the tyranny of the majority, making the case for individuality, an argument against the prevailing opinion.
This week, Kim Cattrall kicked against the prevailing opinion that we have to be nice to each other, that we should adopt veneered, shiny, sparkly Hollywood smiles – even when we can’t stand the (two) faces we’re facing.
The background to the slap – carried out on social media – was the death of Cattrall’s brother, which prompted Sarah Jessica Parker’s messaging of “support.” Cattrall however pointed out SJP was as fake as her hair colour. “Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now,” she Tweeted. “Let me make this VERY clear. (If I haven’t already) You are not my family. You are not my friend.” Cattrall added; “So I’m writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your ‘nice girl’ persona.”
Sex and the City’s Samantha should be applauded. The perceived virtue signalling was the last straw. It took a tragic event to allow Cattrall to unleash her true voice. Yet, why should we pretend to be pals with those who’ve let us down badly in the past? Why pretend life is a happy play in which all the characters spend their time hugging and kissing? Had Hollywood been more honest we’d have had Harvey and the like in the dock long before now. Had someone with a common decency chosen to declare what was going on in the bacchanalian world of the Oxfam fun park, many victims would have been spared and lots of money relocated to deserving causes.
We have to ask the difficult questions of each other because if we don’t, we are a very poor version of ourselves. Writer Kurt Vonnegut said; “We are what we pretend to be. So we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Mill too may have argued if we pretend to be cosy, to offer fake smiles to the undeserving, we are opting out of our role in an ordered society.
A few years back, I took Paul Merton to task over his treatment of Have I Got News For You host Angus Deayton. Merton’s public condemnation of Dayton’s misdemeanours resulted in the host being sacked. “You stabbed him in the back,” I accused. “No, I stabbed him in the front.” And although unable to agree with Merton’s argument, had to applaud his honesty. He didn’t like Deayton – or what he thought Deayton had done to the programme – and called it as he saw it. More recently, I had to tip my hat to the Scots (commercial) theatre producer who on reading the Creative Scotland theatre funding list declared on Facebook; “What a load of wink.” (Give or take a letter.)
That’s not to say we should live our lives like a Jim Carrey movie, always calling it as we see it. It’s funny when the rampantly honest Homer Simpson pays his kids money to go away. Or when his wife loses a million dollars he wonders if he still loves her. It’s funny when comedian Tommy Tiernan suggests most relationship agreements function under the premise; “You’ll do.” It’s funny when the grandfather in C4’s Derry Girls trashes his soft southern son-in-law (played by Tiernan) at every opportunity because you know he believes his own voice. But it’s best not to say everything out loud in the real world. Convention demands certain behaviours. If an actor goes into a rehearsal room and says to the director; “I think that idea is devoid of all thought, imagination and purpose,” they will very soon exit Stage Left for all time. And we can’t scatter gun the world with unbridled honesty because innocents don’t deserve that.
But let’s not not be a little cruel to those with a capacity for cruelty or unkindness. When I split up with the mother of my then seven year-old daughter, relations were more than amicable. That changed the moment my ex remarried. Suddenly, I was re-written into the script as Irritant. Fifteen years of humiliation later however, after a serious car crash involving my own mother, the ex called to express sympathies. My response? It was “You can flip right off,” (Not actual word used). At the time, I reckoned I’d gone too far. Looking back, I think I called it about right.
And honesty can not only be cathartic, it can even be funny. Yesterday, when asked about the progress of this column by the op-ed editor, I moaned that I was ill and suffering from inner ear imbalance etc in the hope of garnering sympathy and time extension. He reached into his drawer, took out a tissue, held it to his face and said; “Look, I’m dabbing my eyes.” And I loved that because although it revealed him to be a heartless, unsympathetic self-serving icebox, he was at least an entirely honest icebox.
Let’s applaud truth. When Bette Davis was asked for a quote on arch rival Joan Crawford’s demise; she said “My mother always told me to say something good about the dead. Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”
Let’s not let others slipstream on our grief. Let’s keep out the self-serving nosy Parker’s of this world. Because sometimes it’s good to be rude.
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