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2010 October 27
Dear Mr. Fry,
We regret to inform you that you have been stripped of the title of the Nation’s Wise and Cuddly Favourite Grandfather. This is due to comments that you made in your interview with Attitude, published yesterday, Tuesday 25th October.
The position of the Nation’s Sexist, Least Favourite Grandfather Who Makes Christmas Dinner Uncomfortable for Everyone and Insists that Girls do the Washing Up is currently open, if you would like to send us your application.
Yours sincerely,
The People of Britain
21 Responses leave one →
Mr. Fry, I am disappoint :(
Wow.
That makes me so very, very sad – because he is my absolute hero. I really hope he sees just how atrocious a statement he’s made and takes it back. I do have faith in his morality and intelligence to do that, especially if people point out just how wrong he is, but that doesn’t make it any the more sad that he said it in the first place.
I’m living in hope that there was something dodgy in his pipe that day.
Am considering invading the QI studios to confiscate his pipe collection for scientific investigation.
You sure he wasn’t channelling Swift?
Maybe. Why isn’t it easier to see, then?**
Swiftian trolling is supposed to be so ridiculous that you can pick up the sark, right, unless you’ve had an absolute irony bypass? And it’s not clear. Maybe that’s Attitude? Or something’s been lost in the Pink-reporting-Attitude-reporting-Fry translation?
HAVE we had an Absolute Irony Bypass?
** LATER EDIT: I think it’s not easier to see because we haven’t read the article itself. The more I think about this, the more I really think we should before we get so rargh. But that’s just me. And BR is not a hive mind!
I read the basic argument ‘I pity straight men because women only want sex in order to have a relationship’ as pretty absurdist which is why I raised the possibility, especially given the the lost-in-translation possiblity…
After all, when Swift wrote his ‘Modest Proposal’ there was widespread public outrage in some quarters and they made a kids’ cartoon out of Gulliver’s Travels.
Obviously, if it’s not that and he actually believes it then it’s a pretty poor show.
Oh, I don’t think he’s being po-faced serious – he’s Stephen Fry, after all. He is mercurial and flippant on a regular basis.
I think people have been more put out by it than they would be if it weren’t him. He’s on my list of People Off The Telly I Wish Were My Aunts And Uncles. Which is the case for many people, I think.
Yes, it’d be nice for just one or two famous pundits to make some other sort of joke or blanket statement that DIDN’T, for a change, blather on about women as though women were an amusing novelty quantity somewhere *over there*, and not, in fact, on the internet, shopping for magazines, and, y’know, READING articles online. (I know Attitude is aimed at gay men, but c’mon.) But I don’t think he’s serious at all, and I don’t think he’s bucking a track record of perfection-in-front-of-a-dictaphone either.
I’d be more gutted if it was Bill Bailey, though. He’s number one on my Aunts And Uncles From The Television Chart.
Yeah, Bill Bailey rocks.
As for the ‘Cult of Stephen Fry’ – I’m with Dan le Sac and Scroobius Pip ; )
I see where you’re coming from but couldn’t the fact that he uses the term ‘relationship’ be seen as him subverting the “women only sleep with men because…” trope?
Not sure I think that but curious what others think.
Hmmmm. Coming back the next day after doing a bit of brow furrow!
The more I re-read Fry’s quotes the more I think he was probably chortling with Attitude over tea, made some silly we’re-so-rad asides, and that was that. Magazines like to quote the most polemical bits of any discussion. And the way it’s quoted, what he says is faintly ludicrous, and does sound like someone who’s grown used to pontificating sweepingly with a humourous intent as his shtick. Lazy humour, but now that I’ve reflected a bit, we shouldn’t boil him in the cauldron of our mighty rage unless he is on BBC news blanket-stating this stuff to News At Ten. I think we have better things to focus on, in fact.
I might try and see if Attitude is on sale anywhere near me and see if I can read the piece itself – I think Alasdair has a point, and not having the source also really bothers me.
I’m just thinking what would happen if the BR team were interviewed one day and one of us made a ribald joke that looked terrible in print, with the wrong framing. We’d be so screwed.
On the other hand, as asides go, it reads as a silly one that goes on for several lines. The humour is lazy. The generalisations are yawnsome. But he’s been flippant about ladies in comedy before too, on QI, if memory serves; this should not come as a great shock.
I would be interested to read the original context, now that I’ve gotten over my “WUH?” reaction.
Hmm, can’t reply to your other reply for some reason but yes, having now more than skim-read (that’ll teach me) I can see he does go on a bit.
I’d picked up his use of the word ‘relationship’ but seeing him go on to ‘boyfriend’ and ‘commitment’ I can see your point exactly.
Be interested to hear how the whole article goes.
With you on throwaway comments and context – I have to be so careful at work my writing style has meant some people assuming I’m a generation older!
I’m holding the Nation’s Favourite Grandfather position vacant until we hear one way or the other.
I’d want to read the original article before I get up in arms about this. If true in context, it’s certainly not the first stupid thing he’s said in his life, and I’m sure it won’t be the last, but it’s no stupider than many of the things I’ve said in public at various times. What matters is not what people get wrong, but whether they respond to criticism/correction.
In any event, if the position of greatest living Englishman was based on never saying or doing anything stupid, the previous incumbent (John Peel) would never have held it.
Yeah, I had a grandad who’d say stupid things like this. (“What do you want to educate those girls for?”)
Did he mean it? Maybe he was being ironic, or funny, or maybe he would have responded to criticism after a while, but regardless, the other grandfather was still our favourite.
Sex as a “price to pay for a relationship”??? I haven’t heard that since I read the book of sex tips for wives in 1854 that I got given as a joke birthday present (aka a “How to withhold sex from your husband’ manual).
There is also something tiresome about the all men are desperate sex starved animals who hate relationships/families etc. part of his “joke”. My assumption is this is lazy humor based on stereotyping but it is disappointing.
Oh how completely depressing. That’s just lost him his large female fanbase then.
The line that gets me (whether he’s joking or not) is the idea that women could have had cruising areas if they’d come out and said they wanted them in the past.
Er… sure. Because women have always been allowed sexual independence with no fuss or opposition from men. “We want somewhere we can find a stranger to hook up with for the night?” There’d have been fucking riots.
Don’t you think you’re over-reacting a bit?
And although I think he’s joking, I also think that he’s not totally wrong. Whether due to society, the “classical” role of women or female needs, I’m fairly convinced that often women are prepared to do quite a lot to have or stay in a relationship…even, believe it or not, “pay” with sex. I’m not saying that this also means they are in a happy relationship.
As for enjoying or liking sex..I think we can agree that we do like it, but many of us with different expectations or under different circumstances than men.
A well thought out blog post detailing why Fry is in the wrong would have made more interesting reading.
There are plenty of those to be found if you’re looking. This looks like an in-the-moment response. Adding something to the discussion would have made a more interesting comment.
So it turned out that he was very misquoted. (just hoping that anyone who reads this and didn’t know gets to the end of the comments!)