Silly Season in the British mainstream media only used to last for a short period each year when Parliament went on recess and much of the country, including a major stable of tabloid news, the Royal Family, went on holiday. It was at that time of year bored media types went in search of oddball, human interest stories, to fill the pages with something, when all the main proper stories were not available. The summer Silly Season was when you got the sort of ‘A fish goes to hospital’ type BS stories along with summer-themed floss ones of no great import. Now it seems that for our mainstream media, Silly Season goes on all year.
I had to check both my watch and my calendar recently when I saw what looked like the ultimate in Silly Season stories, one that has come a bit early or late. Apparently according to Sky News, a movie is going to be made about the life of Labour MP Jess Phillips. I looked at this story and then to the calendar and nope, it wasn’t April Fools Day or Purim and it wasn’t Silly Season, it was instead the usual year round piss poor excuse for journalism that we get served up these days.
Apparently a production company has been inspired by the autobiography penned by Ms Phillips entitled ‘Everywoman’ and is in talks with other media types about making a film of her life. Sky News claim that Red Productions said that the movie would: “explore how an engaged woman can make a difference in today’s very complicated world”.
Excuse me a moment whilst I swap keyboards as I’ve spat coffee over the other one.
The idea of a movie about the life of Jess Phillips, and media types taking the idea seriously, seems to me to be preposterous. Who on earth would be the target market for that sort of thing? I can’t imagine that there are a massive number of people out there who are interested in the life of Jess Phillips. If Red Productions want to make a drama programme or a movie about the lives of women who made a difference, then there are masses of other better and more marketable lives out there worth immortalising. I would suggest that the likelihood is that this movie, if made, would become not just a artefact to be mocked, but could also herald another ‘get woke, go broke’ scenario for Red Productions.
The company heralding the idea that Jess Phillips is worth the enormous expense that drama by necessity incurs, do have a track record for audience success, they were the company behind the 1990s drama Queer as Folk, a drama about the lives of young promiscuous gay men and a recent BBC TV crime drama called Happy Valley. I’ve never seen this BBC series, but judging from the plot-lines and summaries I’ve seen of it, I probably won’t bother. It looks the usual heavy, issue-led BBC drama and seems to me to be a bit like EastEnders but with better production values.
Apart from a few instances where Jess Phillips has said the right thing, such as criticising Pakistani and Bengali Muslims for their treatment of women, she hasn’t done much that is either long lasting or which (thankfully in my view) has had significant impact on our society. She’s a ‘Red Nappy’ baby, brought up in a socialist household, who apart from working with refugees suffering domestic abuse, has done little but study, and immerse herself in leftist politics. After working for Women’s Aid she became a councillor in Birmingham and also took part in a relatively minor way in the Quangocracy by becoming a ‘victims champion’ for the city. I can think of women who’ve done much more than Jess Phillips who should have their stories told.
Jess Phillips is an odd choice for a movie subject due to her own self expressed public image. She’s rude, gobby, dismissive of the views of others, naive, arrogant and censorious. She’s quick at playing the victim card if it will give her some advantage, as we see from her consistent whining about ‘misogyny’ online. Personally I don’t think she’s that attractive as a character, going by her public persona, any script written about Ms Phillips is going to have to employ some pretty large dollops of creative licence in order to get attention.
This leads me to consider how such a Jess Phillips movie could be made? My first thought was as a superhero movie with Jess Phillips as Censorwoman fighting her nemesis ‘Neckbeard Man’ for control of the internet. The problem with that one is that only a tiny number of people would want Censorwoman to win.
Or maybe the producers could consider a Hitchcockian horror style as a treatment for the story of the life of Ms Phillips? The classic scene from The Birds comes to mind here but instead of Ms Phillips being attacked by angry seagulls and pigeons, a different ‘horror’ could be shown. Ms Phillips could be seen opening up her Twitter to see loads of people saying ‘you suck’. Cut to Ms Phillips screaming at the sight and you’ve got a reasonable facsimile of something from Mr Hitchcock.
Maybe the producers are thinking on a grander scale than that? ‘Jess of Birmingham’ in a homage to Laurence of Arabia? You could have Jess Phillips riding on a camel into Birmingham and telling the local Muslims to ‘stop hating on the gays’, and then riding off again, having achieved sod all. In fact this scene could be made quite cheaply. This is because there is already footage in existence of Jess Phillips visiting Muslim majority areas of Birmingham, telling them to ‘stop hating on the gays’ and then riding off having achieved sod all.
The possible treatment of the proposed ‘Life of Jess’ is one thing to consider but who could play the key characters? There’s a multitude of choices if we consider actors and actresses who are either dead or alive to portray them.
Bearing in mind that Ms Phillips is a rude,gobby, socialist authoritarian, whose connections are pretty remote from the problems that many working class Britons of all races and peaceful faiths have to deal with, maybe she should be played by someone similar. Maxine Peake, a fine actress but a socialist dolt and rabid Corbynite, would perfectly capture the sense of arrogance that Ms Phillips shows on numerous public occasions. She would be perfect for the ‘you will do as you are told’ wokescolding and crybully whining that characterises so many of Ms Phillips’ public statements.
Maxine Peake pictured characteristically at a leftie anti nuclear demonstration. She could be perfect to play Jess Phillips.
Now we have to move on to who could possibly play Sargon of Akkad and Count Dankula, two of the many opponents of Ms Phillips in the fight to restore free speech to the United Kingdom? If we are looking at actors to play Sargon then the late James Robertson Justice would have the required ‘look’ and demeanour to portray Sargon. Omar Sharif, with additional beard, would also be a possibility to act as Sargon. As for Dankula, then two names spring to mind, Sid James or Martin Clunes. Both of these actors could portray the sort of melancholy, look at the state of the world, comedy that I’ve seen from Dankula, very well.
The late James Robertson Justice who would be a shoo-in for the role of Sargon.
Sid James as Count Dankula perhaps?
Hey! Maybe I’m a little premature and a movie about Ms Phillips might work in some way. The problem is, the only way I can see it possibly working is as a comedy, with Ms Phillips as the butt of the jokes. It would be a movie where laughing at Ms Phillips would be more appropriate then laughing with her. With Ms Phillips as a sort of comedy censor character, being constantly defeated by the mass ranks of ordinary British shitposters and those desirous of free speech, then we could have a treatment that might work.
Whether this ‘Slavering Over Ms Phillips’ movie ever gets made is a big question, whether it would be watched by enough people is another. What this story does show is a massive amount of left wing mutual back-scratching going on. We have left leaning media types heaping praise on a fellow middle class Leftie. The background of those involved in the production company and the sort of media products they’ve put out so far, show us that here we have the usual luvvie love-in going on between powerful media types and a Leftie who is under fire for good reasons.
It seems to be becoming quite common now for those who write about or comment about Ms Phillips to join the growing throng of people who, like Sargon, categorically state that they would NOT rape Jess Phillips. I also would like to be considered as part of that throng. I also would not engage even in consensual sex with Ms Phillips either. This is for two reasons. The first is that I’m already married and my wife is considerably more pulchritudinous than Ms Phillips. The second reason is that I am unable to acquire a tanker load of Gold Label Barley Wine and too mature to safely imbibe the the amount of hallucinogens and Viagra that would be required.
To be quite frank, a movie about the life of a woman who has achieved very little except from notoriety and some justifiable public derision is not my cup of tea. Not only would I not want to have anything to do with Ms Phillips carnally, politically or otherwise, but I wouldn’t even want to watch a movie about her life. The only reason that I can find for doing such a thing is to mock the portrayal without mercy. Mockery is the best weapon against the products of companies who are what Quentin Letts once described as a ‘nexus of left wing schmoozery’. ‘Jess Phillips The Movie’ would be something that would attract public mockery as soon as it opened or was broadcast and it would probably end up as a cult movie to be watched ironically like, for example how the 1936 movie ‘Reefer Madness’ is watched by viewers today. I think an awful lot of people are going to lose a large amount of money if they think that the life of Jess Phillips is going to get a lot of bums on seats.
