I feel a book coming on. Never mind Buchan, I think it’s high time to expose the numerous past and present counter-revolutionaries who have long lurked in our midst and whose insidious influences and voices still run counter to the Great Enlightenment. I’ll start with:
Enid Blyton, for her patriarchal and colonialist brainwashing of generations of our children.
Richmal Crompton, ditto, as well as for her questionable appropriation of an intersex name and her reinforcement of so-called, but now discredited ‘family values’. How can they be ‘values’ if they exclude LGBTQWS+ people?
Cliff Michelmore. I heard some appalling sexist remarks during a replay of ‘Election 70’ on the BBC the other day. Various people who menstruate, battling valiantly against an oppressive patriarchal regime in the ironically-named House of ‘Commons’ were referred to solely by their hair colour.
Johnny Speight. He artfully crafted ‘Till Death Us Do Part’ as a comedy, and in turn got it approved by the BBC Politburo in their naivety, but in reality it was a cloak underneath which revisionist imperial and colonialist attitudes were secretly celebrated.
Mick Jagger. In one of the most blatant counter-revolutionary transgressions in living memory, his song ‘Brown Sugar’ mixes the heroic struggle of oppressed poppy farmers against imperial aggression, with outdated and appalling sexist attitudes to people of colour who identify as female.
Cary Grant, for betraying his roots and relocating to ‘Hollywood’ where he indulged in behaviour viewed as sexually deviant at the time, while nominally claiming cis status, thus betraying his less privileged co-workers of all sexes. Further, there is evidence of alleged sexual appropriation of female clothing (viz. the wearing of tights.) And as if that wasn’t enough, he was also regularly seen taking his cat for a walk, in direct contravention of American Humane Society regs. Section 21, para (b) ii.
