Graham Swift's Mothering Sunday

I have just seen the Mothering Sunday film -

I liked it. It very poetically portrays the rite of passage the maid Jane Fairchild undergoes, triggered by the delicate love scene with Master Paul of Beechwood and his demise immediately following (was it an accident?) The way she strolls naked through the deserted Beechwood, when he is gone and probably already dead, unbeknownst to her, especially its library, is full of wonder.

The book bears the same mood, but is subtly different on details. Loved the book too, 5, 6 years ago, and find that Graham Swift wonderfully paints a picture of a maid, laid bare at a defining juncture in her life.

The point I want to make is this –

In the cancel culture we live in, should a man, Graham Swift, be allowed to be the spokesperson of a naked maid in all her free glory and sensuousness? Isn’t it exploitation? We live in an age where a white actress can’t play a Puerto Rican anymore, where a black female poet cannot be translated anymore by a white female poet, where a suspected sex offender cannot play at all anymore, where JK Rowling can’t vent an opinion in the transgender context anymore, that a difference exists between a transgender woman and a ‘born’ woman who menstruates…

This argument can be made as complex as you like – but for me Graham Swift is allowed to portray that nude free sensuous maid and her feelings.

Now you know.