Mary Whitehouse
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Mary Whitehouse CBE (13 June 1910 – 23 November 2001) was a British campaigner for her values of morality and decency, derived principally from her Christian religious beliefs, focusing her efforts in particular towards the broadcast media where she felt these values were lacking. She was the founder and first president of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association.
Writing in the Dictionary of National Biography, Mary Warnock comments, "Even if her campaigning did not succeed in ‘cleaning up TV’, still less in making it more fit to watch in other ways, she was of serious intent, and was an influence for good at a crucial stage in the development both of the BBC and of ITV. She was not, as the BBC seemed officially to proclaim, a mere figure of fun"[1].
This sums up the differing views of Mary Whitehouse. The older generation, and those of a more conservative intellectual outlook of whom Baroness Warnock was typical and from which group Governors of the BBC were largely drawn, took her at her face value as a campaigner for standards of morality and decency. However, in the media, particularly television, she was seen as naïve and simplistic, uninformed, an irritant and an irrelevance. To the young generation she represented a granny's eye view on life and was seen as somebody whose opinions were not to be taken seriously.
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[edit] Early life
Born Constance Mary Hutcheson in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, Mary Whitehouse won a scolarship to the City and County School, Chester. On leaving, she did two years of unpaid apprentice teaching at St John's School, Chester, and attended the Cheshire County Teacher Training College in Crewe, specialising in secondary school art teaching. Ms. Hutcheson was involved with the Student Christian Movement before qualifying in 1932. She became an art teacher at Lichfield Road School, Wednesfield, West Midlands (then Staffordshire), where she stayed for eight years.
She joined the Oxford Group (later Moral Re-Armament (MRA)) in the 1930s. At MRA meetings, she met Ernest Whitehouse; they married in 1940 and remained married until Ernest's death in 2000. The couple had three children.
After raising her children and returning to teaching, she became responsible for sex education, at Madeley Modern School in Shropshire in the early 1960s. At this time, apparently shocked at the response of her pupils to moral issues, she became concerned about what she and many others perceived as declining moral standards in Britain, of the media, and especially of the BBC.
[edit] "Clean Up TV" campaigns
Mary Whitehouse began her campaigning in 1963. Among her first targets was Sir Hugh Greene, director-general of the BBC, whom she claimed was "more than anybody else [...] responsible for the moral collapse in this country".[citation needed] Greene ignored her concerns and blocked her from participation in BBC programming. At her first public meeting, in Birmingham in April 1964, over 2,000 people attended, and her 'Clean Up TV Campaign' was launched. The National Viewers' and Listeners' Association was formed in 1965; she obtained a total of 500,000 signatures on her 'Clean Up TV' petition, then a record for the UK.
Through the letters she frequently sent to Harold Wilson, then Prime Minister, Whitehouse caused particular difficulties for civil servants at 10 Downing Street. These letters expressed her belief that, through the Royal Charter, ultimate responsibility for BBC output lay with the Government, rather than with the BBC's governors whom she felt to be failing in their duties. For some time, Downing Street intentionally "lost" her letters to avoid having to respond to them[citation needed]. When Greene left the BBC, in 1969, because of disagreements over the appointment of the Conservative Lord Hill as BBC chairman in 1967, Whitehouse was given some credit for his departure; other sources pointed more to a political struggle between the BBC and Wilson.
[edit] Opposition
Some of Whitehouse's opponents claimed that she had an ability to be offended by almost anything[citation needed], pointing to her complaints about the use of the word "bloody", her concerns about the TV character Alf Garnett, Doctor Who, and the violence in Tom and Jerry cartoons. Of Four Weddings and a Funeral, she famously said "I haven't seen it, of course, but I've heard that the opening three minutes contains a stream of four-letter obscenities"[citation needed], after which there were claims that she tended to take any sexualised activity on television or in the theatre as an affront[citation needed]. This was occasionally taken advantage of: the tabloids ambushed her, asking her what she thought of a new children's programme in which children were killed, a reference to Knightmare; she publicly professed her shock, but apologised once she had watched an episode.
She became a target for mockery and caricature. During the episode of Till Death Us Do Part entitled "Alf's Dilemma" Alf Garnett is seen reading her book 'Clean up TV' and agreeing with every word. One publisher of pornographic magazines named a magazine Whitehouse, in an apparent attempt to annoy her. British "noise" band Whitehouse also named themselves after her, in mocking tribute. She is the inspiration of Deep Purple's 1973 song Mary Long and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band's Mrs Blackhouse, in which the eponymous Blackhouse is depicted as a demonic, unholy creature. The British punk band The Adicts wrote a song called "Mary Whitehouse", which includes the line "She don't like pornography when it's on the BBC" among others. She's also mentioned by name in the song Pigs (Three Different Ones) on the 1977 Pink Floyd album Animals, described as an uptight "house-proud town mouse" who is "trying to keep our feelings off the street" and mocked with the recurring phrase "ha-ha, charade you are".
Sometimes, if the cast and crew of a TV programme were congratulated by Mary Whitehouse for producing "wholesome entertainment", they took it as an insult, as was the case of The Goodies in 1970. After the first season, the cast of The Goodies were worried that an endorsement from Mary Whitehouse would harm their image. They made it their goal to get a complaint from her. To achieve this, they introduced more smut into their show, but with no response. They even featured a caricature of her, called "Desiree Carthorse", in one episode (Gender Education); but that, too, got no response. In the end, a sequence of Tim Brooke-Taylor dancing in underpants with a carrot motif triggered a complaint[citation needed].
In 1990, Whitehouse claimed, on BBC radio, that Dennis Potter had been influenced by witnessing his mother engaged in adulterous sex. Potter's mother won substantial damages from the BBC and The Listener, who were reportedly unimpressed by Whitehouse's claim to have had a blackout on air and subsequently to have had no recollection of her words[citation needed]. Her own favourite programmes were Dixon of Dock Green, Neighbours, and coverage of snooker[citation needed].
[edit] "Mary Whitehouse" on television
There were two notable television comedy creations which owed more than a little to the image the world of television thought the public had of Mary Whitehouse as a "busybody housewife".
Mrs Whitehouse and her contemporary fellow-campaigner the Dowager Lady Birdwood both wore "swept-up" spectacles, which made them look rather grim and humourless. This was seized upon by Barry Humphries for his popular alter ego Dame Edna Everage, to portray a fussy middle-aged woman with outspoken views who always seemed to know best, though Dame Edna's general appearance seemed to owe rather more to Elton John. After the emergence of Dame Edna, Mrs Whitehouse rapidly dropped the swept-up spectacles and reverted to frames similar to those she is seen wearing in the illustration.
Caroline Aherne came to prominence in her early twenties for her character "Mrs Merton", who was an elderly lady whose dress and the views she expressed were much in line with those attributed to Mary Whitehouse.[1]
The Mary Whitehouse Experience was a comedy series which appeared on BBC television and radio comedy for a year or two either side of 1990. The creators named it after Mrs Whitehouse, and at one point the BBC feared that Whitehouse would pursue legal action against the show for using her name.[2]
[edit] Private prosecutions
In addition to her campaigns regarding television, Whitehouse brought a number of notable legal actions, including a private prosecution for blasphemous libel against Gay News in 1977 (Whitehouse v. Lemon), the first such prosecution since 1922. The private prosecution concerned a poem, The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name by James Kirkup, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. It resulted in a nine-month suspended jail sentence for the editor of Gay News, Denis Lemon, who was told by the judge that he had come close to serving it. Appeals to the House of Lords and the European Court were rejected.
In 1982 she pursued a private prosecution against Michael Bogdanov, the director of a National Theatre production of Howard Brenton's The Romans in Britain, which had a scene of simulated anal rape, under the Sexual Offences Act 1956, s13, which described the offence of "procuring an act of gross indecency". Because the Act was a general one, there was no defence, similar to that permitted in the Obscene Publications Act, for reasons of artistic merit. The defence argued that the Act did not apply to the theatre; the judge ruled that it did. Since Whitehouse had not herself seen the play, the prosecution evidence rested on the testimony of a single witness: Graham Ross-Cornes, her solicitor. It was established during cross-examination that Ross-Cornes had been sitting in the back row of the theatre, 90 feet from where the alleged offence took place. This meant that he was unable to repeat with the same authority that he had seen the actor's penis during the alleged offence. With the prosecution case in shreds, and after her leading barrister, Ian Kennedy QC, informed her that he was no longer able to pursue the case, Whitehouse withdrew from the prosecution and the proceedings were terminated by a nolle prosequi procedure on 18 March 1982.[3] The case was the subject of a radio play, Mark Lawson's The Third Soldier Holds His Thighs, on BBC Radio 4 in 2005. Whitehouse's account of the trial is recorded in her book A Most Dangerous Woman (ISBN 0-85648-540-3).
Her supporters claimed that her efforts played a part in the passage of Protection of Children Act 1978 and the Indecent Displays Act 1981, which concerned sex shops. In 1984, she mounted a decisive campaign in the UK about "video nasties", which led to the Video Recordings Act of that year. Additionally, her supporters claimed that the Whitehouse campaigns helped end Channel 4's "red triangle" series of films; claimed by Channel 4 to be intended to warn viewers of material liable to cause offence, the broadcasting of these films had also received criticism from non-supporters of Whitehouse. She also had a role in the 1990 extension of the Broadcasting Act and the establishment of the Broadcasting Standards Council, which later became the Broadcasting Standards Commission (in 2004, this was subsumed into the Office of Communications).
[edit] Support base
Her support came from conservatives, many Christians and those who held the view that television directly influenced antisocial behaviour. For much of the 1960s and 1970s, she had more than 250 speaking engagements every year. Among her staunchest allies was the (Catholic) Labour peer Lord Longford, a campaigner against pornography.
During the 1980s, Mary Whitehouse found an ally in the Conservative government, particularly in Margaret Thatcher. Senior television executives commented that at this time her views were not disregarded lightly, particularly if she had the ear of the Prime Minister.[4] It has been claimed though, that the market orientation of the Thatcher government actually prejudiced that government against Whitehouse in private[citation needed].
In 1980, she was appointed CBE.
[edit] Retirement
Whitehouse retired as president of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association in 1994; the Association was re-named mediawatch-uk in 2001. The organisation had about 150,000 supporters through corporate memberships at its peak; members now number fewer than 40,000. In 1997, she damaged her spine in a fall, which severely curbed her campaigning activities.
[edit] Death
She died, aged 91, in a nursing home in Colchester on 23 November 2001. Despite earlier clashes, Michael Grade said of her: "She was very witty, she was a great debater, she was very courageous and she had a very sincere view, but it was out of touch entirely with the real world."[4] The comedian Bernard Manning also commented, "She'll be sadly missed, I imagine, but not by me." [5]
[edit] Trivia
- A 90-minute film drama based on the life of Mary Whitehouse, written by Amanda Coe, writer of As If, is being developed by Wall to Wall for the BBC. Julie Walters is being touted to play Whitehouse.
- In the Monty Python's Flying Circus election-night satire, John Cleese says "Mary Whitehouse has taken Umbrage—no surprise there."
- The satirist Victor Lewis-Smith made a prank call to Whitehouse in his series TV Offal, pretending to be the editor of 'an Islamic fashion magazine'. It was suggested she had won a prize for 'purity in the media' and would receive a cash prize of some £20,000. The call was later made available on his self-released prank call compilation album, 'Nuisance Calls'[citation needed].
- From 1986 to 1988, a character based on Whitehouse was featured in the controversial children's comic Oink!. Mary Lighthouse was the enemy of the comic's fictional 'editor', Uncle Pigg.
- The original Doctor Who novel "Time of Your Life" features a character clearly based on Mary Whitehouse going by the name of Miriam Walker. Ironically she and the sixth Doctor work together very well.
- The Pink Floyd song titled Pigs (Three Different Ones) from the album Animals mentions Whitehouse extensively in a negative fashion because of member Roger Waters's attitude towards her.
[edit] References
- ^ Housewife superscourge: We did not deserve Mary Whitehouse. Leader, The Guardian, Saturday November 24, 2001
- ^ SOTCAA article on The Mary Whitehouse Experience
- ^ BBC "On This Day", March 18th
- ^ a b Whitehouse "kept TV on its toes" BBC obituary Friday, 23 November, 2001
- ^ Campaigner Mary Whitehouse dies, aged 91 John Ezard, The Guardian, Saturday November 24, 2001
[edit] Bibliography
- Max Caulfield (1976) Mary Whitehouse, Mowbray, ISBN 0-264-66190-7
- Geoffrey Robertson (1999) The Justice Game, Random House UK. (A memoir of a prominent barrister who, among other historic trials, defended several of Whitehouse's targets in her private prosecutions).
- Michael Tracey & David Morrison (1979) Whitehouse, Macmillan, ISBN 0-333-23790-0
- Mary Whitehouse (1967) Cleaning-up TV: From Protest to Participation, Blandford, ISBN B0000CNC3I
- Mary Whitehouse (1971) Who Does She Think She is?, New English Library, ISBN 0-450-00993-9
- Mary Whitehouse (1977) Whatever Happened to Sex?, Wayland, ISBN 0-85340-460-7 (pbk: Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 0-340-22906-3)
- Mary Whitehouse (1982) Most Dangerous Woman?, Lion Hudson, ISBN 0-85648-408-3
- Mary Whitehouse (1985) Mightier Than the Sword, Kingsway Publications, ISBN 0-86065-382-X
- Mary Whitehouse (1993) Quite Contrary: An Autobiography, Sidgwick & Jackson, ISBN 0-283-06202-9
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Passion Play - Guardian article on The Romans In Britain
- A life spent trying in vain to preserve the suburban idyll - Bruce Anderson in The Independent November 26 2001
Categories: Articles lacking sources from December 2006 | All articles lacking sources | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | 1910 births | 2001 deaths | Censorship in the United Kingdom | Commanders of the Order of the British Empire | Anti-pornography activists | British Christians
