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Sorry, Poldark, you’re just not our type
Aidan Turner as
Ross Poldark and
Eleanor Tomlinson as
Demelza in the BBC’s
Sunday night drama
The hero of the BBC
drama is too much
of a man’s man and
is out of touch with
the feminine side
that modern women
find so attractive
in males, writes
Emily Sheffield
I
hold the BBC in the highest esteem;
it is up there with the Queen in terms of
what I treasure most about Blighty. Yet it
has clearly missed the memo on what
type of man we fancy now, because what
it has been serving up on a Sunday evening
is an entirely different dish from what we
are craving. Our tastes have changed
somewhat in the man department.
Poldark, already a hit, is popular with
the ladies not because of its hero but in spite
of him. This is because Ross Poldark, with
his rippling torso, scarred cheek, wolfish
grin and agitated tic (the only sign of his
emotional distress), is entirely out of step.
These days we want our men lissom, with
attenuated limbs, not bulging biceps,
and in touch with their feelings and
yoga postures — someone to share a green
juice with, not a comic figure endlessly,
egotistically galloping back and forth on
manly missions until we are left dizzy. In
short, the BBC needs to revamp its lead
guy. He needs to be a little less genderspecific.
Understandably,
the
corporation
wanted a repeat of the Mr Darcy/Colin
Firth wet-shirt moment, but that was 20
years ago. As the actor Aidan Turner
stripped and dipped in freezing Cornish
waters, there was no united heaving of
female bosoms across Britain. Rather, on
sofas from London to Doncaster, girls were
far more likely to have commented on his
fetching bob — so very Sienna Miller — and
wished that his co-star, Eleanor Tomlinson, would swish down that hillside and
ask who his hairstylist is.
Let’s be clear: we don’t feel insulted at
being proffered eye candy — far from it. We
just want our pin-ups to reflect an evolved
aesthetic. It is only men that assume we
still fancy the chiselled cheekbones of the
model David Gandy, say. It is men who are
nostalgic for the masculine years of yore,
where a torso was earned through hardy
toil rather than an early morning workout
in a dank basement gym before heading to
their desk.
We do not mourn our femininity; there
Old-school
macho
Matt Damon
Russell Crowe, right
Matthew McConaughey
George Clooney
Vin Diesel
Sylvester Stallone
Bruce Willis, left
Harrison Ford
Ben Affleck
Colin Farrell
are no female roles in Poldark we wish to
inhabit, neither the servant girl nor the
bride trapped in an unhappy marriage. We
revel in wearing masculine tailoring if we
wish — as we have done with gusto these
past years at the behest of the designer
Phoebe Philo at Céline — or slip on heels if
the mood takes us. And we wish for our
partners the same flexibility. I was more
taken with Tomlinson — far more
attractive as the androgynous character
they have cast her as — than with the
bristle of Turner.
Perhapstheproducersandscriptwriters
missed Emma Watson’s HeForShe speech
at the United Nations last September.
She talked of boys being imprisoned by
gender stereotypes and how we all need to
be free to be sensitive. I’m not sure
MEN
THEN
AND
NOW
Ross quite encapsulates this new mood.
In Britain we have moved beyond women
developing the confidence to explore
their masculine side. That’s done. Now we
want men to get in touch with their inner
fem — and we will fancy you all the more
for it.
Elsewhere in culture, gender difference
is being swept aside. Eddie Redmayne is
preparing for his role as the transgender
Einar Wegener in the film The Danish Girl,
while on the small screen we are obsessed
with Transparent, which takes the model
of the traditional hierarchical family and
turns it on its head.
In the groundbreaking US series, the
father, Mort Pfefferman, played by the
great Jeffrey Tambor, announces to his
adult children that he now wants to be
Waiting in the rain for a taxi ramp
is the least of MND’s indignities
SATURDAY
I have been invited to
introduce Ed Miliband at
Scottish Labour conference,
and I am running dangerously
late. The taxi driver twizzles
his screwdriver in what seems
like a well-rehearsed act.
“Sorry pal,” he mutters,
“it’s seized.” He points at
the ramp and shrugs his
shoulders. Wind howling,
rain pouring, I wait, frozen,
in my wheelchair.The clock
is ticking.
Three taxis later, I arrive. A
friend rushes over: “They
couldn’t wait any longer;
they had to put him on.”
Furious, I wheel myself
backstage regardless. As the
Labour leader concludes his
peroration, I am hurriedly
asked: “Do you still want to go
on?” Absolutely. I am pulled
to my feet and stagger to the
lectern. I ditch the script I had
written and start with an
improvised rant about taxis.
How can it be fair that a
10-minute journey takes
almost an hour because I
am in a wheelchair?
TUESDAY
Shamed by my taxi troubles,
the Edinburgh council
leader asks to meet me.
Within an hour, we have
thrashed out an action plan
to improve the accessibility of
cabs in the capital.
Random spot checks on
taxi ramps and beefed up
training feature, as does a
crackdown on drive-by
cabbies. Yes, that really does
happen. Three times in fact,
and I’ve been using a
wheelchair for only a month.
Holyrood transport
minister Derek Mackay then
gets in touch on Twitter. He
is also keen to meet. Let’s
hope we can get this rolled
out nationwide.
THE MOTOR
NEURONE DIARIES
GORDON AIKMAN
WEDNESDAY
After cheekily challenging
the UK health secretary live
on LBC Radio to double motor
neurone disease research
funding, he agrees to meet.
After congratulating me on
my recent engagement,
Jeremy Hunt promises to
write to the chief medical
officer to demand a review
into why MND research
spending had dropped. He
wants to know what action is
required to reverse that trend.
It is modest but welcome
progress. The very fact he is
writing the letter sends a
powerful signal: tackling
MND is a priority.
He also agrees
there is a compelling case
for fast-tracking benefits
for terminally ill patients.
Half of MND patients die
within 14 months of
diagnosis, yet some wait
more than seven months
to get the support to which
they are entitled. The
health secretary promises
to raise the issue with Iain
Duncan Smith.
THURSDAY
“Stomach contents can
sometimes leak out,”
warns the nurse. She is
at my flat explaining the
challenges of having a
feeding tube installed.
Hearing this, I struggle to
keep the contents of my own
stomach down.
One of the many nasty
things about MND is that,
as your muscles waste away,
the disease can rob you of
your ability to eat, chew
and swallow. That is hard
to bear.
If you want to continue
to get energy and nutrients
into your body — ie survive —
a feeding tube, grim as it
seems, is your only option.
It is an insurance policy I
can’t do without.
FRIDAY
I’m lying in a hospital bed,
starving, having not eaten
for 12 hours. A porter arrives
to wheel me to the operating
theatre. He quickly realises
that a camera crew is going
to be following us — the BBC
is making a documentary
about my campaign — and
he radios a colleague. “Two
minutes, son — there are
meant to be two of us
doing this.”
A nurse suddenly spots
that my blanket is ripped; it
is whipped off and replaced
in seconds. Everybody wants
to make a good impression.
We reach the operating
theatre. After running
through details of the
procedure, the doctor asks if
I would like music. “I’ve got
Spotify. Any requests?” My
mind is elsewhere.
Ninety minutes of gagging,
poking and pulling later, I am
the reluctant owner of a new
appendage: a percutaneous
endoscopic gastrostomy
feeding tube. The ward in
which I will recover for the
next week is clean but tired.
Wires hang down where
once there was a TV. The
hospital is functional, not
comfortable.
The nurses are heroic,
picking up the slack where
my body fails. I feel safe in
their caring and comforting
hands. Nothing is too much
trouble. Our NHS is not
perfect but I am reminded
how lucky we are in this
country to have one.
Despite endless doses of
morphine I am still in agony,
at times close to tears. They
have cut through muscle.
My stomach churns as it tries
to eject the tube. I move an
inch and pain shoots up my
chest. I am bent over double,
wishing the hours away.
Never have I felt so
vulnerable. Yet it need not
be this way.
I feel more resolute than
ever that we must find a
cure for what is killing me.
We are poised to do so:
our country is home to
world-leading universities
and top MND researchers.
With just weeks until the
general election, I hope all
political parties commit to
make ending motor neurone
disease a national priority,
by doubling MND research
funding.
That way, we can ensure
future generations need not
endure the pain and suffering
I and thousands of others do.
Gordon Aikman is an MND
patient, campaigner and former
Labour party strategist and
director of research for
the Better Together campaign.
To donate to Gordon’s
Fightback, text “MNDS85 £10”
to 70070 or visit
justgiving.com/gordonaikman.
For more details, visit
gordonsfightback.com or follow
@gordonaikman on Twitter.
New fem
buff
Miles Teller, right
Sam Riley
Benedict Cumberbatch
Eddie Redmayne, left
Andrew Garfield
Ansel Elgort
Robert Pattinson
Dane DeHaan
Sam Smith
David Beckham
called Maura. It’s a programme so riven
with sexual confusion that gender, the initial premise of the series — or so we think —
is actually shown to be irrelevant.
And some of our greatest alpha-male
actors have been falling over themselves to
prove their sexual pliability, including
Dominic West, who in last year’s British
film Pride delighted us with his fluidly
camp rendition of the disco anthem
Shame, Shame, Shame.
Where once beautiful actresses won
plaudits for transforming themselves
into ugly female characters, now it is
our leading men converting their traditional male image. And in so doing
they increase their attraction; we now
know they have experienced life on the
We don’t feel insulted
at being proffered eye
candy. We just want
our pin-ups to reflect
an evolved aesthetic
other side, even if they revert to type
off-screen.
Fashion has been quick to rally behind
this message of gender liberation. On the
Gucci runway during the recent international collections in Milan, the boundary
between male and female style was brilliantly muddied by Alessandro Michele,
the label’s new creative director. Traditional dress codes were upended, with
male models in rippled green leather suits
matched with a pretty ribbon bow, or lowslunghipsterswornwithflamboyantsheer
silk shirts. Meanwhile the girls were the
epitome of male geek.
And this new milestone was achieved in
a city that has previously defined sexbomb dressing. Unisex fashion has been
gathering in force elsewhere this season, at
Topshop, Saint Laurent and JW Anderson.
And Selfridges has just announced a new
unisex section, to stock what it is
describing as “Agender” clothing.
Politicians are not far behind the curve.
Eric Pickles, the Conservative communities secretary, told LBC radio last week that
his own views on gay marriage and adoption had previously been “narrowminded”, until he visited gay friends and
saw how content they are.
As for George Osborne, well, he is onmessage.Neverhas there been a chancellor
who looks so in touch with his fem side. He
can diet better than the rest of us — most
men do, these days, finally awake to the
fact that an oversized belly is no longer an
indicator of success — and his radically
slimmed form moves with feline grace,
while his close, gamine crop is sleekly
androgynous. Ed Balls looks positively last
century beside him.
Don’t get me wrong: no sexual variation
at all would suffocate as much as previous
stereotypes. I don’t want my husband
and I to become so HeForShe that we only
have sex by osmosis, or we have our wardrobes synched. And that expensive facial
cream is very much mine — he can get his
own.
Back to Poldark, though. Love the
series, love the script, just ... can we get
Sam Riley next time?
Emily Sheffield is deputy editor of Vogue