I want to talk to you about Laurence Fox.
“Why?!” I hear you cry, “don’t we already hear enough about that utter tosspot?”
And the answer to that is “yes, yes we do”, but this political party nonsense has made me furious.
And I will tell you why. If you don’t want to know, feel free not to read on.
Laurence Fox is, to my mind, a physical embodiment of everything that is wrong in the world.
Laurence Fox was born into an extremely wealthy family. Fine. Not his doing, just an accident of birth. He was born white. He was born male. Again: Not his fault. He was educated at Harrow, one of the most prestigious and influential schools in the world. Again: Not his choice. All these things, whilst indicative of a privilege well beyond over 90% of the world’s population, are nothing to do with him. Just as it is not the fault of someone if they are born poor, it is also not the fault of someone if they happen to be born rich. Or male. Or white.
Laurence decides he wants to be an actor. Now, I’m not saying the fact that that he was born into the Fox acting dynasty where his father and uncle are successful actors, as are his siblings and cousins, along with his grandparents in ANY way gave him a leg-up, but let’s just say I’ve seen every member of that family acting, and only one has proper talent in my view. And it ain’t Larry.* But you know, it’s entirely possible that it was every bit as hard for poor, hard done by Laurence Fox, son of James, nephew of Edward to get into RADA, get an agent and be seen by casting directors as it was for Joe Bloggs, son of a “nobody”, and nephew of “nobody” to do the same. It’s ENTIRELY possible.
And getting roles, of which 62% of those available are male, 87% of those available are white, and 98% of those available are for able bodied actors…. that was definitely just as tough for him as it was for everyone else who was not white, not male, not able bodied and not born into a whole address book of contacts. I’m going to be straight with you – as far as I’m concerned, NONE of the above makes Laurence Fox a despicable, reprehensible being. Not one bit of it.
But Laurence Fox watches “1917”, and is so appalled by the fact that there is one Sikh soldier… ONE… that he takes to social media… without doing ANY research, to comment on how odd it is. Political correctness gone mad. “Enforced Diversity” – I believe those were his words… The fact that there is ONE person on screen who doesn’t look like him. This was a week after appearing on Question Time and telling people of colour that they are wrong when they say they have experienced racism in the UK – that white men were the real victims of discrimination in this country.
And now he is forming a political party because he has looked at all his privilege: his wealth, his race, his gender, his education, his massive leg up in a profession where insanely talented people, WAY more talented than him, graft for decades and never get anywhere because they haven’t been in-front of the right door at the time when it opened … he has looked at that and he has not decided to use it all to help others less fortunate, he has not even decided just to keep quiet, say nothing, and hope nobody has noticed… he has thought “No. That’s not enough. I want MORE. I deserve MORE.”
And it is that which makes him the worst type of scum on the pond of humanity. And that may sound over dramatic to you; but look around at our current leaders and then come back to me.
*It’s Freddie, if you’re wondering.
My Name is Not Debbie 