Friday, May 30, 2014
My Granny the Escort, C4, review: 'sordid but sensitive'
I like to think that there's still a pocket of human oddity yet to be turned into a Channel 4 documentary. People who fall in love with postage stamps, perhaps. Let them thrive in obscurity. Last night, the channel continued its mad plunder of the human psyche with My Granny the Escort, a documentary about women of a certain age who prefer suspenders to gardening slacks.
The award-winning documentary maker Charlie Russell spent time with three mature prostitutes, aged 57, 64 and 84; the last hit headlines in 2010 when she was exposed in a tabloid as the grandmother of an X Factor contestant. This programme went far beyond shrill outrage or cheeky euphemism to a full, frank – and frankly eye-watering – exploration of sex, lust, love and age.
As Sheila, the eldest and most expensive of the three, put it, "I really have no inhibitions," an approach which extended to making Russell watch her home-made sex tape, and explaining what she meant by the term water sports (nothing to do with windsurfing).
Sordid voyeurism? Maybe, but the programme also offered a sensitive and nuanced perspective which broke down the familiar narratives of powerless women and predatory men. All three escorts said they did what they did because they enjoyed sex; the male clients (who ranged from men in their 20s to their 50s) spoke of being made to feel special. This glimpse of prostitution for the pacemaker generation was not for the faint-hearted, but it was uplifting in its own peculiar way. Human desire was shown as much richer than the usual twerking of blank-faced teenagers.
READ: TODAY'S TV HIGHLIGHTS
Source : http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568414/s/3af78ea2/sc/38/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cculture0Ctvandradio0Ctv0Eand0Eradio0Ereviews0C10A8632750CMy0EGranny0Ethe0EEscort0EC40Ereview0Esordid0Ebut0Esensitive0Bhtml/story01.htm
