This is The Peel, a weekly dispatch from the AVM patch.
You have been on a journey, dear reader.
You may not know it but you have. Sit down, intrepid traveller, and enjoy the sum of its spoils. A herald on the season’s hard ground. This has been FEBRUARY, this has been BIG-FREEDOM-COMING-SOON.
With one hand laid flat atop the other, both thumbs outward, wiggling, one can mimic the turgid body of a turtle.
As Take That appeared on screen, and the collective toenail of the BAFTA 2025 viewer recoiled in embarrassment, the playground cursor of cringe came back to me.
Heaven forfend its use in the face of one’s attempt at humour, sincerity, braggadocio. The playground cruelty of a child is quite often their only source of agency. Hence the prolific production of nicknames, chants, handshakes etc.
The awkward turtle (T.A.T) could send ripples when detected in the playground. Just as likely to cause a scrap or falling out than any Tamagotchi being stolen, or over-enthusiastic participation in kiss-chase.
There is something distinctly chelonian about Mark, Howard, and Gary, the remaining members of Take That. Although comically various in shape and size, it’s no stretch to imagine each of them with added shell. Mark Owen, the smallest and most androgynous of the group, pokes out of the top of his stage outfits with the slow benevolence required to survive - whether in the music industry or on the Galapagos - for many years. What Gary B lacks in turtle likeness, he makes up for with unassailable levels of cringe. In short, Gary puts the A in TAT.
You may have seen this performance for yourself - truncated via clips the next day, or in full, analogue form. Engaged as I was with the latter, the horror and confusion came to me live, direct, strong. Hand in front of mouth, I winced at every wink and knowing smirk, every contrived move and panning shot. Handing a heart-shaped balloon to the highly-talented, utterly-perplexed Mikey Madison?! Cocking a jaunty this performing lark, eh! half-turn toward Cynthia Erivo in the front row?! Gary! I longed to holler, Stop! You’re making the movie stars uncomfortable. What’ll T.Chal, A. Brod and Pamela Anderson think of us now?
The tenuous link which launched this ick, was the use of Take That’s Greatest Day, in Sean Baker’s Anora, released last year. The film blurs the lines of street fairytale, and dramatic epic; rewriting the rulebook on supporting performance thanks to Yura Borisov. Indeed, its star would go onto win the Best Actress award within the hour. So what’s the problem?
Well, something was off. Something soggy in the state of England. With this performance, it was acknowledged that perhaps we haven’t the tools to be in the present. And since the future is yet to form, we must take refuge in the recent past. With this performance, at an award ceremony in 2025, by a boy band from the 80s, it is suggested that the inclusion of a Take That song in a film from America, is the best of UK culture all year.
There may be something in this. But you know what else? Embarrassment is borne in the eye of the beholder. The collective reflex, felt by this writer and detailed in the press the next day, was to shield the eyes of Hollywood’s great & good. Yes, Gary & the boys may be far from chic, and David Tennant entering the auditorium from the back, wearing a kilt and singing 500 Miles by The Pretenders reductive at worst, perplexing at best. And yet…
The shinier, supposedly superior awards ceremonies across the Atlantic are just as backward, showy and false. We are daft, we are fond, we may go gooey in the hand at a whiff of nostalgia. At least BAFTA have the grit to wear lameness on their lapel.
The culture leans recent pastwards. Why, it’s cosy there, familiar! We know the roads because we’ve been down them before. One can, to a certain extent, exercise agency over the past and the memories that took place there.
We may cringe as they haze into view; trussed up in their suits, embarrassing us, revealing something of ourselves we’d rather keep hidden. Skulking in the doorway as our memories play out on screen does nothing for our ability to forge new ones, untarnished by what came before.
A little while after a break-up, my ex appeared in the doorway of where I was staying. We were scheduled to have dinner, but two things about his appearance were surprising. Firstly, the Lidl bunch of flowers in his hand. Second, the suit he had put on for the occasion. It was the first time he had bought flowers for me, it was the first time I saw him in a suit. This notion, of man in suit equals good man, reliable man, was as dated then as the memory feels now. He would go onto use this device as a statement of intent a few more times - come back, I am going to be a Good Guy now, the future with me wears a suit.
Staying as I was in my friends’ house, there was an audience. This, rather than the act itself, saw my surprise curdle into cringe. I had expressed a hope to one day see him in a suit, had held onto the hope that there’d be an occasion to warrant it. He had listened, as one hopes a partner would. This, and the flowers appearing at the door, would be sure to bring me over to where his heart stood.
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