Coronation Street Blog: Julie Burchill: Invasion of the Corrie Snatchers

Friday, 15 July 2011

Julie Burchill: Invasion of the Corrie Snatchers

One of my favourite writers, Julie Burchill has written an interesting piece in Th'Independent today about Coronation Street. Well worth a read and it's here. Can't imagine why Corrie turned her down as a script writer though, she'd have been fab!

See also: Fat Brenda's Gay Horn - because you're worth it.

14 comments:

Rachel said...: What a bizarre article. The Julie Bindel bit is irrelevant (Marc isn't asking to be accepted as a woman, just as a man who has a bad-wig wearing alter-ego). The story could have been played for laughs (like Ida Fagg), it hasn't (except for Claudia when she found out), but neither has it been ultra-PC "accept my diversity". It's just been an obstacle in Audrey's romance with him-out-of-Butterflies. There's got to be obstacles!

I don't understand why the TV story keeps being quoted interchangeably with the "too many gay characters" complaint (4/65 = less than 10%). It's two different things.

Burchill then seems to use the current Corrie backlash to moan about immigrants! Eh??

People keep complaining about lack of realism in having "so many" gay characters, transvestites, transsexuals etc; I think it's far more unrealistic that (e.g.) Rob, Janet & James would travel around the country setting up fake soup kitchens in order to con money from gullible teens. Seems like an awful lot of work just for £20K. Easier to get a job!; 15 July 2011 10:06
Adam Rekitt said...: She's right that the scene in the transvestite bar was preachy, but that's a long way from Corrie being like a Council diversity worskhop. It seems to me that Ms Burchill is being PC in claiming that Commonwealth immigration is more benign than Eastern European immigration. I agree with Rachel. The article is bizarre.; 15 July 2011 11:20
Dolly Tubb said...: A very strange article, it seems as though Ms Burchill is jumping on the Corrie-bashing bandwagon for her own, very mixed agendas. She has absolutely nothing of value to say.; 15 July 2011 11:57
Anonymous said...: I, too, agree with the above comments. And Rachel, yes - this is something which has been bugging me too. Wouldn't it cost them much more set up the soup kitchens and run them for a period of time than the amount they are trying to scam? And how many teenagers have access to 20k? Not properly thought through, methinks...; 15 July 2011 12:15
Anonymous said...: Tsss, keep telling yourself that you're not bitter because you have been rejected. Ridiculous, pseudo-intellectual article. And it's already been said that the supposed 'plunge' in rating is a myth. Eastenders has about the same ratings at the moments, why are people pretending Corrie is doing do badly??; 15 July 2011 12:33
naitch said...: It's a shame that this sort of disorganized ranty dither is the sort of thing a once highly entertaining and coherent writer in Burchill has come to. Given that her interpretation of things is so out of wack, one has to wonder what show she's been watching, because it sure isn't sounding like corrie. The least of its current ills are some generally low key (minus Sean) lgbt characters. If corrie today is merely an idealistic and ideological vision of diversity, why do the writers constantly present us with the flipside too? Sylv's reaction to hayley and claudia's treatment of marcia were not so pc. Poor journalism; 15 July 2011 12:39
Anonymous said...: Poor journalism, rubbish!

Absolutly spot-on is JB, it is just that you lot have swalloed the PC bait hook, line and sinker. JB is a true libertarine of the old school. Not someone who hanhs to the back of the latest "liberal" bandwagon. The flipside, er...where, is Norris a secret member of the EDL, he sufers nothing but abuse for his thoughts, WHICH HE IS ENTITLED TO AS MUCH AS THE SO-CALLED "LIBERALS"?; 15 July 2011 15:49
Tracy Barlow said...: Leaving aside the pick-and-mix ideological loghorrhea that characterises the article, the fact that Ms. Burchill goes from one hot topic to another in no discernibly logical progression leaves me to believe that it is indeed bad journalism. It was like a whistle-stop tour through the Daily Mail's bugbears. Coherence is the cornerstone of good journalism, so trying to wrench in a number of things that are barely related to Coronation St in the article is a pretty bad show. Unless you can provide us with a sensible reason as to why any sane writer would link Lithuanian immigration and Sophie Webster under the same masthead...

True libertarians, if that was the word you were stretching for, live and let live. We do not attempt to harrangue TV execs into mucking about with their on-screen product so that it better suits our out of date dogmatic approach to life, as some of these so-called writers would..; 15 July 2011 17:04
maggie muggins said...: Crikey, what blather Burchill spouts! And is she ever nasty! Talk about jumping on the bandwagon big time. She writes like a confused poisonous snake. And what the heck is this about - "I think that everyone watching got a lump in their throat – or somewhere– when the teenage lesbians first declared their love". Sheesh.

She complains about forcing agendas from above, then uses 3/4 of the article to rant about immigration. Not surprised both Corrie & EE turned her down. Can you imagine storylines written by her? Yikes!

Corrie's viewer numbers may not be falling, as she claims, but The Independent's is. From Wikipedia - "In February 2010, the paper had a certified average daily circulation of 183,547, down 10.88% from the previous year".

And, Anonymous, I haven't swallowed anything hook, line and sinker. Being gay myself, I appreciate seeing representation of lesbian characters on TV. We're not even on commercials.; 15 July 2011 20:06
Anonymous said...: Bring back Eldorado!!!; 15 July 2011 22:58
Anonymous said...: This article had potential but failed in meeting basic elements of proper writing. The long winding train of thought reads more like a random blog post after she'd taken her drowsy cough meds. She's entitled to have her opinion but to express it publicly in such a disorganized, directionless rant is not the right path to take unless you are trying to express hate by feebly masking it with sarcasm.; 15 July 2011 23:56
Frosty the Snowman said...: As you say a very bizarre article but then Julie Birchill has always been quite odd! Yep Corrie bashing seems to have become the new black in the newspapers and magazines and some people are making themselves look very pathetic indeed.; 16 July 2011 06:27
Beth said...: I couldn't make head nor tail of the article, It was all over the place. One minute on about this, then sympathizing with that, then off on a tangent about a totally different subject altogether. Seemed to me she tried to appeal to everybody while on the Corrie bandwagon preaching her own agendas at the same time.... Got far more out of Fat Brenda's Gay Horn! I knew what she was talking about, she made her point and we knew where she stood. (The best to date :))
Blimey thank goodness JB doesn't write for Corrie, I'd be in a tailspin!; 16 July 2011 09:08
paulathomas said...: Julie Birchall shows exactly why she was turned down as a Corrie writer!!

She can't even get her facts right. Corrie has not lost two million viewers year on year. That figure comes from comparing an episode in the middle of Britain's Got Talent with one opposite an tennis match at Wimbledon. The figures year-on-year are up about 6%!!; 16 July 2011 11:58