Colm O'Regan: Breaking the bias - one fairy tale at a time

I ain’t cancelling nothing - it’s just about looking with new eyes

Sun, 06 Mar, 2022 - 19:00

Colm O'Regan is a comedian, best-selling author, broadcaster and podcaster from Cork.

In 2020, around International Women’s Day, I was asking Two and Four about what it means to be a girl. Two was still establishing her identity and digesting jammy hyper-toast and jumping up and down shouting "I’M NOT A GIRL, I’M A LITTLE BABY". Four said, “Being a girl means getting to wear tights a lot.” But “boys can wear tights as well”.

This time I’m asking Four and Six whether they see bias against girls. It’s always a tricky thing asking small children about a big question because there is the fear that asking the question is the first time they’ve heard of it and now their lovely unspoilt brain has to deal with some grown-up shite not of their creation, but (un)happily they’re already well aware of it.

“XX says that boys can’t wear pink and girls can’t wear blue. But I don’t think that’s right because one of my favourite colours is blue.” says Six. Four tells a tale about how “YYYY is saying ZZZ can’t wear trousers because she is a girl.” Four is a very committed skirt/dress/nightie wearer so it’s only as an afterthought she adds “… and that’s not right”. I don’t know if we’ll see her at the Trouser barricades soon but I don’t think she’s in the pay of Big Twirly.

So they’re well able to see through the bias and not be influenced. They seem to revel in pointing it out in fairy tales. They are downright furious if the princess seems to be intent on marrying her true love immediately. “NO, YOU DON’T KNOW HIM. YOU MIGHT NOT LIKE HIM.”

Other biases in what they see and read are more sneaky because they are not plot or text-driven. They are image-based, eg body-type. I’m always amazed at how pretty and skinny girl equals good while more roundy figures and pointy noses means a bad woman even in relatively recent books.

The Ugly Sisters have hairy legs in one version of Cinderella. So, in the middle of bedtime reading, I have to casually mention how body hair ain't no thang. This leads to questions about where the hair comes from and when and that’s tomorrow night’s story. But we’re not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

We still aim to read and watch the ‘classics’. But also to talk about them afterwards. I find one way to learn about bias is to see it in the wild.

It makes me think about all the stuff I’ve absorbed over the years. If I think back to most films and TV from the 80s and 90s and… last Tuesday, they were almost all full of sneaky little tropes that I absorbed like UV. Apart from Wonder Woman, Charlie's Angels and Cagney and Lacey, the woman’s main action contribution was to help out the Actorman at the end by smashing a vase over the bad guy’s head.

Whenever they had to run somewhere the man grabbed the woman’s hand even though it’s clearly inefficient as well robbing her of agency. If a woman needed information she dressed up sexy, whether it was Jessica Fletcher or Jessica Rabbitt. Plenty of kissing scenes included a woman who clearly didn’t want to at the start but was convinced by the passage of time and not being able to get away.

Loads of movies where a woman goes through some sort of trauma and about five minutes later is romantically involved with Hero Guy. Don’t get me started on Splash where he just takes a disorientated woman home.

I know some spoon with “anti-woke” in their social media bio will read this and say “Snowflakes want to cancel Macgyver” but I ain’t cancelling nothing. It’s just about looking with new eyes.