Sexist Interviews from the 70s and 80s

[Satchmo Distel]

This Michael Parkinson interview with Helen Mirren (1975) is staggering:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmlP_cFOoAM

Parkinson's demeanour is everything I wanted to escape in my town of birth, but it's also an example of why I can't believe anyone would want to go back and live in the 70s, culturally, when an actress had to be interviewed by a boor like Parkinson if she wanted to reach a TV audience as 'herself', so to speak, rather than through playing a character speaking lines written by someone else.

And, clearly, there were thousands of actresses who had to deal with far worse back then, and still many who do so today (but hopefully fewer as a proportion of the whole).

[Lang Spoon]

I never got the love for "Parky".

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Holy fuck.

I was watching a bunch terry wogan interviews, and I saw that the next one in the list was an interview with winona ryder. I clenched all my sphincters, and jumped straight in.

There's a lot of interviewers now, that could learn from this (though wogan's questions have aged better than her answers.)

[Hot Pepsi]

Well, she was 19. I'm very glad there is no extant video footage of me at 19.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I was watching that thinking that with the benefit of hindsight she was trying to convince herself more than anything. A facade of mature stability in one so young seems to generally be someone trying to use rationalization to quieten the screaming voice of anxiety. Certainly that's how I would have seemed at that age.

[Hot Pepsi]

She had a lot of problems with depression and insomnia in the decade that followed. Doing ok now, apparently.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Getting involved with Johnny Depp doesn't seem to be the path to happiness either though.

[Freestyling buck wilding Stijn Stijnen]

I was watching that thinking that with the benefit of hindsight she was trying to convince herself more than anything. A facade of mature stability in one so young seems to generally be someone trying to use rationalization to quieten the screaming voice of anxiety. Certainly that's how I would have seemed at that age.

I mostly saw a 19 year old in another country, with all of the accompanying disorientation, concentrating on what Wogan was saying, focusing on a new accent in a strange land, and found it all quite respectable.

[Hot Pepsi]

Most young actors don’t come off well in early interviews, although clearly they’re more trained than they used to be.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Oh she comes across just fine. she handles the actual interview quite well. It's just with the benefit of hindsight the answers seem a bit unfortunate. Wogan does a great job of interviewing her as a person, rather than giving us an insight into his flirting game.