26 October 2021

Whatever happened to all those Actresses? Authors?

I only ask because, this side of the water, the word 'actress' seems now only to exist within formulaic jokes which turn upon the phrases "As the Bishop said to the Actress" and "As the Actress said to the Bishop". I suppose the magic would be aborted if the phrase mutated to "As the Bishop said to the Actor". (Does this genre of humour exist trans undas?0

Perhaps, in the Catholic Church, there should be jokes articulated by the formula "As the Cardinal said to the Actor".

Anyway ... QUESTION 1

An English actress called Beckinsale is in the news for saying that, in Hollywood, if you are 

(a) a woman, and

(b) clever,

the combination will be a very notable career disadvantage.

Why do so many men have problems with clever women? I invite serious answers.

In the following extract, we find women undergraduates ... circa 1935 ... alluding to the phenomenon:

"I hope," said Miss Millbanks, "[Miss Flaxman] has not been trying to collect your Geoffrey."

"I'm not giving her the opportunity," said Miss Layton. "Geoffrey's sound-yes, darlings, definitely sound-but I'm taking no chances. Last time we had him to tea in the J.C.R., Flaxman came undulating in-so sorry, she had no idea anybody was there, and she'd left a book behind. With the Engaged Label on the door as large as life. I did not introduce Geoffrey." 

"Did he want you to?" inquired Miss Haydock.

"Asked who she was. I said she was the Templeton Scholar and the world's heavyweight in the way of learning. That put him off."

"What'll Geoffrey do when you pull off your First, my child?" demanded Miss Haydock.

"Well Eve-it will be awkward if I do that. Poor lamb! I shall have to make him believe I only did it by looking fragile and pathetic at the viva." ... 

QUESTION 2

I have just heard a discussion on the Home Service about why nearly all novels nowadays are written by women; 80% of the readers are women; and what can be done about it.

Does anything need to be done?

Are women different from men? If not, why not?

 

10 comments:

THE CONTRARIAN said...

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30920098612&cm_sp=SEARCHREC-_-WIDGET-L-_-BDP-F&searchurl=bi%3D0%26ds%3D30%26bx%3Doff%26sortby%3D17%26tn%3DWilliam%2BThe%2BDetective%26recentlyadded%3Dall

Everything sooner or later shows up on ABE Books

JOSEPH said...

Dear Fr. Jesus already gave us a commentary on the usefullness of images too explain our condition,concerning a certain coin.If we consider two sides of a women the front side you get what God intended.On the other side you get what the goverment intended.
Joseph.

OreamnosAmericanus said...

Men competing against women is a situation men instinctively and rightly avoid.
They are built to compete for women.

Men are primed to compete against one another and psychologically ordered either to the honor of victory over another man or the sadness of defeat by another man.

Competing against a woman and winning brings a man no honor, while losing brings him not sadness but shame.

It is a game that is unnatural and evil.

Like all the other equality games our degenerate culture forces us into while calling them the highest form of virtue.

Zephyrinus said...

In addition, dear Reverend Fr Hunwicke, I always fall about laughing when The BBC (they really are laughable) INSIST on calling everybody's wife (old fashioned word) or husband (old fashioned word) “PARTNER”.

I sense that The BBC believe that, the more they try and drum this phenomenon into us, we will, pretty soon, not understand the words “wife” or “husband”.

I really feel sorry for the children. Unless their parents bother to tell them all the above, they will never understand.

Newspeak is in operation !!!

Zephyrinus said...

AND, in addition, what about the latest “hoot” from “The Powers That Be”, reference playing Cricket.

There is no longer a “BATSMAN”, but only a “BATTER”.

Presumably, when there are two Batsmen (BATTERS) out in the field playing an innings, one Batsman's colleague will be, of course, his PARTNER !!!

BBC's Radio Five Live Sports Extra programme managed to get the word “BATTER” mentioned in every third word.

Do you think they were operation under Orders to avoid mentioning any GENDER-RELATED thingy?

Voice from the roof top said...

Some men use pseudonyms of women to write books. Jorge Diaz, Agustin Martinez, and Antonio Mercero wrote novels under the pseudonym Carmen Mola. They won 2021 Premio Planeta literary prize and with it a million euros. So nearly all novels written nowadays are not written by women. At one time women used pseudonyms of men like George Eliot and George Sands.

PM said...

What have the Powers That Be in cricket done with Third Man? I dread to think. But it cannot be Third Person, because that is too redolent of (shock, horror) traditional grammar.

IaninEngland said...

...and to make matters worse, "batter" is the *American* term for one of the chaps who play baseball!

scotchlil said...

...and what about 'chapbooks'?

Alan said...

I do recall the Guardian acknowledging that it had stuck too rigorously to its stylebook when it referred to Carlo Ponti giving Sophia Loren grief because of his fondness for "young actors".