The trailer for Captain Marvel has landed. I always find it hard to tell someone’s superpower from a trailer – it all moves so fast – but I know she can breathe fire out of her eyes, and I can see quite plainly that she is female, the first of her kind, unless you count Wonder Woman, or Lara Croft, which for reasons relating to comic franchises, we do not. Apart from the eyes, some obligatory superhero amnesia and a bit of kinetic energy, the main thing we see is the Captain punching an old lady. In the fullness of the film, it will doubtless transpire that the old lady was a well-disguised mutant, or carrying a nuclear bomb; in the thrill of the trailer, we take these things on trust. The Captain, being female, must have a sound reason.
You would never see Superman do such a thing, even if the lady did have a nuclear bomb: it would be too visually uncomfortable. Some studio exec would say: “Can’t we make the old lady a hyena?” And everyone would nod and say: “That’s why he’s paid the big bucks.”
It is partly the infinite licence of the classic character, newly inhabited by a woman. It is astonishing that we got a good way through the 21st century before anyone would consider having a superhero, or a time-travelling, two-hearted Doctor, or anyone vaguely competent in combat and killing, who was a woman. And the relief is such that Captain Marvel, or Jodie Whittaker, or any new inhabitant of a typically male role, can basically do what she likes, punch who they like, swear as much as they like.
Whittaker this week gave an interview ahead of her first Doctor Who season full of effing and jeffing; who was a dick, who got on her tits. It was like a blast of optimism, an explosion of impunity, an “Oi! Peter Capaldi! Imagine if you’d done that: you would have come before a disciplinary panel before you could utter one of those compound swearwords for which you’ve been so beloved in other roles.” It was magnificent.
But it also reminds me a little bit of Germaine Greer. No, wait, stay with me. Roughly one in five broadcasting requests I get is to go somewhere and argue with, or be mean about, Greer. I disagree with her on most things, from transgender politics to rape. Anything I don’t disagree with her on, it is most probably because I haven’t read closely enough what she has said. But I distrust the way the debates are framed: nobody wants to book a man to argue with Greer. It wouldn’t be as thrilling; it wouldn’t reverse any expectations. Nobody wants one of her contemporaries; then you might have to listen to what each one says.
It is much neater to set it up as an old-guard feminist against a slightly younger one, or better still, second-wave (in their 60s to 80s) against fourth-wave (in their 20s and 30s). So many feminist issues – from gender fluidity and sex work to mascara and childcare – are presented as a battle between young and old. It allows ideas to be squashed and an impression to build that these are all just cat-fights from which the normal world, the male world, is safely insulated (though, guys, you’re welcome to watch). It’s neat enough, but also a complete stitch-up, a hollowing out of the sisterhood. The acceptance that men cannot attack women has led to a growing appetite for the razzle dazzle of women attacking each other.
Sorry, to clarify: I am judging only myself, and my cultural environment. Captain Marvel remains flawless. Who knows what that old lady’s packing?
Who says the young have more fun than fortysomethings?
Forty-three is the age at which you officially stop having fun. This is according to a survey by Virgin Holidays, so I think we can refine it down to “stop having fun on holiday” – otherwise, how to explain the buzz I just got from finding a pencil sharpener in an unexpected place? It’s inescapable, really; however counter-culturally age-defying you think yourself, on holiday your life is probably a lot like it is the rest of the year, just swapping out your colleagues for friends and having commensurately less fun bitching about them.
But we’ve got this all wrong. There was a phase last century when the behaviour of British youth on holiday was of such peculiar fascination – national shame mixed with the spirit of Millwall (“No one likes us, we don’t care) – that it was pretty much a full-time job, to follow 18-30 holiday-goers around Ayia Napa and Malaga, and report their exploits. The tabloids always got the best scoops: outrageous sexual misdemeanours featuring entire plane-loads of young people. But even if you couldn’t afford to pervert journalistic integrity by buying them drinks all night, you still saw your fair share of bacchanalian excess.
Yet everyone was miserable to their bones: I met a 19-year-old gamekeeper so introverted that he was looking for wildlife in a plant pot while someone tried to vomit next to it; two 20-year-old girls competitively tanning their upper thighs, trying to mask cellulite that was invisible to the naked eye, as if it was a job. The most fervent party-goers ended up crying in the toilets every evening. In this world, the only thing you weren’t allowed to do was nap.
Maybe it’s different now; more likely, 43-year-olds have as much fun as the next person. We have just stopped doing Fun: the Live Show.
Find My iPhone isn’t a licence to snoop on your kids
Jamie Oliver electronically tracks his children, but relax, he just means “on his phone”. We all do that. Find My iPhone has become shorthand for: “Find out whether my child is really outside a pub looking for a Pokémon, or has actually gone to the shop for some Doritos.” It is astonishingly accurate – and revealing. It has also become completely normal. “If you can track them, why wouldn’t you?” the argument goes. But you would never implant a tracking device on your child; nor would you eavesdrop on their conversations, even though parenting “experts” routinely advise hacking into their phone every night to check what they’re talking about. We’re being technologically enabled in the worst kind of snooping; self-righteous, unreflective, which doesn’t even bother to mask itself.
