The Problematic Gaze

Periods, pig's blood, religious repression and quite possibly the worst school prom in cinema history. Welcome to Carrie! Hello Gazers! This week we're going back to 1976 for Brian De Palma's horror classic Carrie , starring Sissy Spacek as the painfully shy teenager whose schooldays are about to take a rather spectacular turn for the worse. But is Carrie simply a terrifying tale of su...

Daniel Craig in tiny swimming trunks, a very dangerous poker game, and the important question: which James Bond is actually the sexiest? Hello Gazers! This week we're dusting off our tuxedos, ordering something shaken rather than stirred, and heading back to 2006 for Casino Royale , the film that reinvented James Bond for a new generation. But was Daniel Craig's tougher, moodier and consid...

Click here to visit our YouTube Channel! We're back! After a week off, we're reunited in the cellar at PG Towers , accompanied by Fontaine the dog, a little background building noise and the usual complete inability to stay on one subject for more than five minutes. And what a lot we've got to catch up on. First, we're opening the mailbag for your reactions to The League of Gentlem...

Watch our 'Dynasty and the 80's' YouTube playlist! Click here Shoulder pads, champagne, catfights and a royal wedding that ends in a bloodbath. Hello Gazers! This week we're heading back to the gloriously excessive 1980s for Dynasty , the American primetime soap that gave us Joan Collins, spectacular wealth, magnificent bitchiness and one of the most outrageous cliffhangers in tele...

Hello, Dave? You're our wife now. This week we're taking a local trip for local people as The Problematic Gays head to Royston Vasey for The League of Gentlemen . We're focusing on Series 2, Episode 2 — “Lust for Royston Vasey,” first broadcast on 21 January 2000 — and asking how one of Britain's darkest, strangest and most grotesque comedies looks more than 25 years later. We go b...

Hello Gazers! Welcome to our weekly Gazette! We're still circling Jaws (1975) this week — although apparently the most contentious part of our entire discussion isn't the shark. It's coffee ice cream . After our latest Jaws episode, we're debating whether Spielberg's classic really counts as a horror film and tackling the important culinary questions nobody else was brave enoug...

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water… This week we're heading to Amity Island for Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) — the film that terrified a generation, transformed the Hollywood blockbuster and did absolutely nothing for the shark's public image. We revisit Spielberg's troubled ocean shoot, the notoriously temperamental mechanical shark and John Williams'...

Hello Gazers! The postbag is open and A Taste of Honey has got you talking. Listener John Bishop—not that one—gives the film a whopping 9/10 , remembers a Welsh stage production that relocated the story to Cardiff after the Manchester accent proved something of a stumbling block, and somehow takes us on a detour to seeing Jaws at the IMAX . Then Johannes joins us from Norway with his thoughts on w...

Visit our YouTube playlist to find out more about "A Taste Of Honey" and the cultural landscape of Britain in 1961 Interracial romance. Teenage pregnancy. Homosexuality. An unmarried mother. In 1961,  A Taste of Honey  put subjects British cinema usually kept firmly out of sight right at the centre of the screen. This week we're revisiting  A Taste of Honey (1961) , Tony Richardson'...

Click here to check out our new YouTube playlists, this week it accompanies our last main episode on UK sitcom 'Bread' from 1986 Click here to watch the documentary on Shelagh Delaney (writer of A Taste Of Honey from next weeks main show) Click here to watch 'A Taste Of Honey', the topic of next weeks main episode This week at  PG Manor , we're recovering from a rather busy weekend. We've bee...

Click here to watch the episode of Bread discussed in this show on YouTube This week we're heading to Liverpool to revisit  Bread , Carla Lane's hugely popular BBC sitcom about the Boswell family. First broadcast in 1986,  Bread  became one of the defining British sitcoms of the decade, following formidable matriarch Nellie Boswell and her Catholic, working-class Liverpool family as...

Welcome Gazers to this weeks Gazette! This week we're dealing with some of the social-media reaction to our  Dam Busters  episodes. We're also returning to  The Dam Busters' extraordinary influence on Star Wars , including just how closely George Lucas's climactic Death Star attack echoes moments from the 1955 film. Once you start spotting the similarities, they're rather difficult...

This week we're heading back to 1955 for bouncing bombs, stiff upper lips and one of the most famous pieces of music in British cinema as we revisit  The Dam Busters . Based on the true story of  Operation Chastise , the film follows engineer Barnes Wallis as he develops his extraordinary bouncing bomb and Wing Commander Guy Gibson as he leads 617 Squadron on the daring 1943 raid against...

Click this link to watch the Dolly Parton documentary on YouTube discussed in this episode Click here to visit our YouTube Channel This week at PG Manor we're feeling slightly ill, not sleeping properly and discussing pensions, so naturally we've decided we're entering the  third quarter of life . Apparently this is what passes for optimism now. Fortunately, there's plenty to cheer us up, sta...

Hello Gazers! We watched three episodes of Grange Hill discussed in this podcast: Click here to watch the Racism episode from 1983 on YouTube Click here to watch the first Zammo Heroin episode from 1983 on YouTube Click here to watch the second Zammo Heroin episode from 1983 on YouTube Get your school bags ready because this week we're going back to  Grange Hill —the BBC children's drama. Cre...

It's been quite a week. We've survived biblical weather, failed to see The Human League and said goodbye to two absolute legends:  Tim Curry and Dolly Parton . We begin back at PG Manor with the tale of the concert that never was. Plans to see  The Human League, Toyah and Roland Gift  were scuppered by a spectacular storm and eventual cancellation, leaving us with no synth-pop whats...

Pull on your flares, practise that pointing pose and dust off that Bee Gees soundtrack because this week we're revisiting  Saturday Night Fever —although the film we actually watched is a lot less glittery than popular culture would have us believe. Released in America in 1977 and arriving in UK cinemas in March 1978,  Saturday Night Fever  gave us John Travolta in the white suit, o...

To watch the first series of Prime Suspect discussed in this episode, click here to watch on YouTube Grab your notebook, light another cigarette and prepare for some extremely grim early-90s police station décor, because this week we're investigating one of the most acclaimed British crime dramas ever made:  Prime Suspect . First broadcast on ITV in 1991,  Prime Suspect  gave Helen...

Something strange is happening to the water, Ingrid Pitt may have had an even more extraordinary life than we realised, and Lee has travelled all the way to Tooting Common to stare at... some clouds. It can only be another  Problematic Gazette . We begin with the important question of the week:  why does the tap water suddenly taste sweet?  With drought conditions, a hosepipe ban, V...

Sharpen your stakes and protect your daughters because this week we're entering the wonderfully gothic, increasingly racy world of  Hammer Horror  with 1970's  The Vampire Lovers . By the dawn of the 1970s, Hammer's familiar formula of castles, cleavage and Christopher Lee was facing competition from a new generation of increasingly explicit cinema. The answer? More blood, more nudi...

We're back! After a short summer break, our bonus episode, The Problematic Gazette  returns with plenty to catch up on, including holidays, television recommendations, listener emails, and a sneak peek at the gloriously gothic world we'll be exploring next week. We start by looking back at our recent recording with special guest  Andrew Mercado , where we revisited  Crocodile D...

This week we're heading into the Australian Outback—and the streets of New York—to revisit one of the biggest global movie sensations of the 1980s: Crocodile Dundee . Joining us is Australian author and co-host of the TV Gold Podcast Andrew Mercado , who brings first-hand insight into the remarkable phenomenon that turned Paul Hogan from a household name in Australia into one of the world's bigges...

This week we're heading back to  Canal Street in 1999  to revisit one of the most influential British television dramas ever made:  Queer as Folk . Created by  Russell T Davies , the groundbreaking Channel 4 series exploded onto British television with an honesty and confidence rarely seen before. Funny, provocative, explicit and unapologetically gay, it introduced millions of...

To watch the episode of 'Tales Of The City" discussed in this episode on YouTube: Click here Pack your bags because this week we're moving to  28 Barbary Lane  as our Pride series takes us to one of television's most beloved LGBTQ+ classics:  Tales of the City . First broadcast in the UK on Channel 4 in 1993 and adapted from Armistead Maupin's novels, the series transports us back t...

Watch the '40 Minutes: Rent Boys' documentary on YouTube here This week, as our Pride series continues, we're discussing one of the most powerful—and perhaps least remembered—BBC documentaries ever broadcast Rent Boys , first shown as part of BBC2's acclaimed  40 Minutes  strand in December 1984. Unlike many of the films we've covered, this isn't entertainment. It's an unflinching docume...