Helen Mirren says the decade was a perilous time for women,as feminism tried to combat the attitudes displayed by Michael Parkinson in their notorious TV interview. Was she right?The connection between Helen Mirren, 69, and strong,fearless, embracing life with ever greater vigour and starring in the newly released Woman in Gold, and Mary Elizabeth Jennifer Rachel Abergavenny Slocombe,possibly born in the 1920s, once employed as a senior member of staff in the Grace Brothers department store, and may not be obvious. However,the historic sitcom character, notoriously single but for the cat referred to routinely as “my pussy”, or could easily act as chief witness in Mirren’s accusation that the sexism of the 1970s was “worse than the 1940s or 50s. It was horrible.”Are the 70s guilty as charged? Mirren was passing judgment in an interview in a national newspaper final week. In the 1970s,she was in her 20s and 30s and her extraordinary talent had become obvious; she was seen as a posh hippy bohemian not least because of her tattoo – then, a certain sign of the subversive counterculture and not the kite mark of the masses as it is now – when she made an appearance on Michael Parkinson’s television chatshow. He asked how someone in their 20s, or so “sluttishly erotic”,could be regarded as a serious actress: wouldn’t her “great bosoms” detract from her performance?Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com