Rusty Water Brand and Me (part 4)

This is where it will end up, Russ.

Recently, I have been developing a critical persona called Mad Cyril. He was devised with the help of dramaturg Elliot Roberts and burst onto the scene with a review of a burlesque show called The Illicit Thrill. Mad Cyril is vulgar, violent and frequently spices up his reviews with cheeky comments about women. He is a mask behind which I can mouth obscenities, and is supposedly a parody of an unreconstructed male who calls a spade a spade...

I realised that is exactly what he doesn't do: he never uses racist language, but is more than happy to fling about disrespectful terms for women. Obviously, I use the Frankie Boyle defence - Cyril is mocking those people who talk like this, and puncturing the pretension of those who believe that changing the way people speak will change their underlying belief system (which might work but has nasty 1984 associations). I don't think it is okay to describe women as sorts, oceans or whatever other word I can find on Urban Dictionary. But I do think it is funny, apparently.

And back to the Big Brand. Assuming that the personality presented in Booky Wook 2 is not the real Russ, he takes the Mad Cyril sexism... a little bit too far. The book is full of tales of sexual conquests, allusions to sexual conquests, descriptions of women as an amalgam of body parts and, most jarringly, what appears to be an excusing of 'rape culture.' Early on, he claims that his philandering has an evolutionary function (as does his post-coital despair, apparently) - an appeal to biological certainty that is far from undisputed. 

There's a part of me that wants to say that his promiscuity is morally neutral, that his agenda of sex as a fun pursuit, a bit like a quick game of Scrabble, if people played Scrabble in public toilets or round the back of a skip... but I can't. Brand has convinced me that I need to disapprove of his conduct, and mock him for what is clearly a neurotic compulsion to pretend he has done all sorts, like that boy at school who boasted that he'd done it with his supermodel girlfriend he met on holiday.

There's something acceptable about young people trying out their sexual identity, but cheeky Brandy is hitting his forties and still acting like a sixth former away from his family for the first time. This leads to a relentless commodification of nearly every women he meets, except his mum and make-up lady. 

He does apologise for the worst of his antics - but insists on telling how randy he is, how wonderful it is to have an orgasm, how he always gives the ladies a special feeling... 

I am assuming none of these sexual encounters happened. I know he is building up to his revelation when he falls in love with Katy Perry (they have had a kiss so far), and his clumsy sense of dramatic tension is precisely the aesthetic that would encourage him to play up the bad side to make his good side look better...

But, like Mad Cyril, it's funny how it is okay when it is women...