Iron Lady - what were they thinking?
- Thread starter Deckerd
- Start date
You remind me a quote (possibly apocryphal) attributed to film critic Pauline Kael in the wake of some republican's landslide victory in the presidential election. She reportedly said that she couldn't believe he'd had won, since no one she knew had voted for him, forgetting that neighborhoods or regions often have a political character that differs from other places.
That is a good observation. I think of films like "the Queen" or "the Missiles of October" that did excellent jobs capturing a public figure without doing a "Ray" style biography.
Do we work together?!
I think the response would be pretty similar in any office up and down the land.
My political history might be a little rusty but the Conservatives where elected three times whilst she was head of the Conservative party. So enough people liked what the Conservative party was doing and in general a Governmnet takes it's lead from the leader.
Now I am not saying that everything she did was right or even wrong. But perhaps the fact that she is viewed as being an unpopular PM means that people won't admit to voting for her even if they did (BTW I wasn't eligible to vote until after she had left office).
History will be the final judge on her as a PM, and by History I mean when future historians look back on her tenure with less emotional influance than those who where around to vote during the time she was in office.
Now I am not saying that everything she did was right or even wrong. But perhaps the fact that she is viewed as being an unpopular PM means that people won't admit to voting for her even if they did (BTW I wasn't eligible to vote until after she had left office).
History will be the final judge on her as a PM, and by History I mean when future historians look back on her tenure with less emotional influance than those who where around to vote during the time she was in office.
She fucked the country so hard we're still feeling the effects now, she won for various reasons. An uplift in popularity after the Falklands, she got a lot of women's votes for being a woman and people didn't trust the Labour party after the 70s. Much like Conservatives are in power now, and appear to have popularity because people don't trust lib dems or labour.
The thing is, most Left-wingers and Liberals hate her so much that they won't see a movie that shows her in any sort of sympathetic light. While Conservative supporters are outraged at the depiction of Thatch in her current state of dementia. Non-political types probably don't care about her. So it's hard to see who the movie is going to appeal to.
You really need to get out more.
Oddly enough, a few of those have been box office successes recently. Slumdog Millionaire's worldwide box office was only about $15 million behind Twilight. The King's Speech, Gran Torino, and True Grit also did well.
Ah you mean where Britain went from the duldrums to the what the fifth or sixth richest country by the end of her tenure.
That isn't to say she didn't make any mistakes.
So lets examine prior to the conservatives coming to power in 79 it was a Labour Administration the country was in a mess. The Conservatives get elected partially because of the way Labour screwed up.
Lets see the country is a bit of mess (due in part to global events) but in part due to Labour so we have a conservative led Administration partly because of what occured during Labour's tenure.
So from History it almost appears as if Labour screws up the economy, and then the Conservatives are elected to rectify it (having to make unpopular decisions).
But give it a few years and we'll be sick of the Conservatives and vote in Labour then get sick of them and the cycle repeats. It seems as if all parties are as bad as each other.
I planned to see the movie at one point (not necessarily in cinema) because I like movies about politics/politicians. I'm a bit surprised that the negative feelings towards Thatcher are still so strong because I don't think I feel as strongly about any (elected) politician in my lifetime here even though I disliked my fair share of them.
Thatcher is certainly a polarising politician in British politics.
Look at who we've had since her.
Major (I think I remember his Spitting Image caricature better than him)
Blair (His grin, never trust a politican who smiles too much they are hiding something)
Brown (I think his tenure as PM damged what his image as Chancellor, plus of course he had to make a grovelling apology to a voter) [He must never have watched Yes, Prime Minister. Where the PM Hacker berates Humphrey with something along the lines of "Always treat e very microphone as though it was on"
Cameron (too early to say)
Look at who we've had since her.
Major (I think I remember his Spitting Image caricature better than him)
Blair (His grin, never trust a politican who smiles too much they are hiding something)
Brown (I think his tenure as PM damged what his image as Chancellor, plus of course he had to make a grovelling apology to a voter) [He must never have watched Yes, Prime Minister. Where the PM Hacker berates Humphrey with something along the lines of "Always treat e very microphone as though it was on"
Cameron (too early to say)
I have to say, in the ads I've seen, Streep absolutely nails the voice. That tired swoop of vowels and condescension. Mike Carlton, a local talkback guy used to do a radio version of Spitting Image, and he used to end his version of Thatcher ("British PM Gladys Hacksaw") saying "Now go away or I shall punch you in the mouth", which always cracked me up.
No, what I mean is Britain went from a country with a sense of community to a country with a fuck you pal I've got mine attitude. We lost our industrial base and we're still struggling to get back any sense of worth and stability.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think we could have gone on entirely the way things were, but that was more to do with corruption than with nationalised industries and social welfare. The problem isn't capitalism or socialism being in the system, it's the extremes people take either system to, and they way people corrupt themselves in side each of them.
The problem right now isn't that Labour fucked up buy spending too much or by being too socialist, the problem is Labour didn't reverse the trends the conservatives put in place, so things were still PFI, things were still city run, things were allowed to continue the course the Tories started, while at the same time getting too big headed and believing they could do anything they wanted. They did some good things, like reinvest in the NHS, they also did bad things and things that pissed off the electorate.
The country may have become rich for the things that Maggie did, but what exactly did most of us see for it? We lost public services, we had more expensive bills and we had 2 big recessions, with high unemployment and lost the industries a vast swathe of the country was employed in.
The problem with Nu Labour is that they were, how can I put this, more Tory than the Tories...
With this taste of the Tories I'm not exactly sure you can say that, but they were definitely more Tory than any Labour party should have been.
More Tory than the Tories in 1997, certainly.
I love Thatch but I've got no plans on seeing it. Oscar bait is spot on. Meryl Streep gets on my tits as well.