Bodyguard ‘was the most misogynist show in years’
Women had all top jobs but ex-equalities chief isn’t happy
IT WON high praise for featuring women in senior roles, but a former equalities chief has blasted the BBC hit drama Bodyguard as ‘misogynistic’ because it portrayed them as ‘dim and devious’.
Trevor Phillips, former Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), described the series as ‘possibly the most misogynist piece of TV I’ve seen in years’, adding: ‘All the women were dim, devious, pusillanimous or all three.’
He said he had been left with the impression that Jed Mercurio, the creator of the series, had ‘got some pretty rubbish (probably male) advice on this occasion’.
The six-part drama featured some of Britain’s biggest female stars including Keeley Hawes as Home Secretary Julia Montague; Gina McKee, who starred as the Met Police’s Head of Counter Terrorism, Anne Sampson; and Pippa Haywood as Chief Superintendent Lorraine Craddock, the boss of bodyguard David Budd, played by Scot Richard Madden.
Each of the three were shown as ambitious schemers, with Craddock eventually revealed to have leaked confidential information about Montague’s location to assist in her assassination.
Other female characters in the drama included suicide bomber Nadia (Anjli Mohindra); neurotic PR adviser Chanel Dyson (Stephanie Hyam); and Budd’s estranged wife Vicky (Sophie Rundle).
The criticism of the drama, which attracted 10.4 million viewers for its final episode, comes in an article by Phillips for Television, the magazine of the Royal Television Society.
In it, he adds: ‘I am lucky to have known several of the real women who occupied the jobs portrayed – top politicians, cops and spooks – all of them forced their way to the top of maledominated, sexist outfits by sheer character, and all of them can freeze molten lead with a glance at a range of 20 metres.’
Feminist novelist Kathy Lette said she agreed with Phillips’s analysis – up to a point. ‘Yes, most of the female characters in the show were “dim, devious and pusillanimous”,’ she said.
‘I thought they all needed to go to the vets to get their claws done, but the male characters didn’t fare all that much better. At least the women were depicted in positions of power and not as human handbags – decorative and demure and draped over the arm of some powerful man.’
The broadcaster also welcomed a change of emphasis within what she described as the BBC’s ‘perving department’, saying: ‘What with Poldark’s pecs appeal, [Tom] Hiddleston’s pert posterior and the Bodyguard’s dimpled derriere, it’s a welcome change to have the male character highlighted as a sex object for a change.’
‘They were portrayed as dim and devious’