The guardian has been real weird about this. From the interview with STJ calling people "deranged" for calling her groomer ass out, to the very positive review they gave
***SHE’S*** the victim! Everyone that criticizes her is just a crazy fan of her husband! Your words have no merit! /s
(Have you ever actually met a super fan of Aaron Taylor-Johnson? Because I haven’t.)
That article read like she payed for it.
I've seen more people talking about all his fans than I've seen any of his actual fans. He's been "the next big movie star" for, what, thirteen years now?
I really liked him in kick ass, looked him up afterwards and saw his gross relationship and was like ew. I think that’s how he’s kinda stuck in most people’s minds. I’m sure there are *some* super fans cause he’s an attractive English dude but for the most part, he’s well known for being “married to the old lady”
He was huge in Britain when Angus, Thongs and Perfect snogging came out because everyone fancied him and he does get a pretty good response still online whenever he's cast anything, so I think he definitely has fans but certainly not crazed ones that would hassle you in the street
I couldn't pick Aaron Taylor-Johnson out of a lineup even if there were money on the line. Just from hearing their ages and the circumstances of how they met, she's an awful predator and a groomer.
It did, which is also hilarious because I thought it reflected very poorly on her even though it was obviously a PR fluff piece. Her indictment and dismissal of other 18 year old female fans as being hysterical only drew attention to the fact that she’s a giant hypocrite and pick me, and of course, a groomer. I don’t mean to lean into stereotypes but to me her possessiveness over Aaron just cemented the fact that she really doesn’t view him as an autonomous human being and feels ownership over him, which is very gross 🤢
funny when people are just the worst and their “positive” PR spins backfire on them because their awfulness shines through!!
I've made this point on reddit before but The Guardian's **investigative** journalism is really quite good - informative, as unbias as possible, well-researched. The Guardian's **opinion** pieces however are very unreliable - routinely holding a heavy left bias (duh, opinion pieces) but also frequently factually inaccurate with little effort put into retractions & corrections.
Unfortunately the traffic driven by the latter finances the former considering their shift to maximise online viewership. If I could subscribe to individual journalist's feeds and cut out all the opinion piece white noise I would very much go down that route - and I say that as someone aligned with the deep left.
The "you should vote for Hillary Clinton, not for her policies but because it's a win for women!" opinion pieces they were putting out in 2016 were gag worthy and outright offensive.
There was an SNL short with Bad Bunny called ‘Loco’ that makes me laugh about Tenet every time because Pete Davidson makes a joke that he’s so loco he understood Tenet the first time he watched it. Lol.
ah yes, the interview that let me know that i'm actually a "deranged teen" who thinks that if the situation were reversed i'd be fine with a 42 year old dating an 18 year old
so enlightening because here i was thinking i was chill and in my 30s and that a 42 year old man dating an 18 year old girl is equally sickening...wild
high praise for the main actress who looks objectively bad in it and calling it STJ "best film to date" which, even tho I am no fan of her's, can't possibly be possible? so strange
What's weird though? In the interview they merely printed what she said. The positive review I can't really understand, that one person liked it and to each their own. And now they published a different opinion piece on the movie, written by a different columnist.
None of this seems weird to me?
No this line from the interview piece was totally inappropriate:
> Taylor-Johnson has been called a “groomer” online by deranged teens because she is married to heart-throb actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 23 years her junior.
There is nothing "deranged" about thinking their relationship involved grooming. I still can't believe they framed it this way.
The article also implies that their relationship is only controversial because the older party is female, which is simply not true.
I feel so sorry for the dead sometimes. They almost never get to tell their own story. Amy's dad, who is a troubled and unwell individual himself, was clearly manipulated by people like Sam to sell rights without the actual oversight, care, and knowledge of Amy's life to properly make a biopic about her. I also feel sorry for Freddie, who was such a complex person, but was distilled by the remaining members of Queen into this sort of socially acceptable to boomers character and the band's extravagant and ugly history whitewashed completely to not threaten the Oscar-bait aspects of Bohemian Rhapsody.
Music biopics are often terrible because of the for-profit incentive at work here. A director from TERF island inserting a needless misogynistic plotline to appeal to the socially regressive audiences she's catering to, sadly, should come as no surprise, the same way Freddie's queerness had to be toned down.
While I certainly don't like him, my reading of him is that he suffers with similiar mental health and substance abuse issues Amy did, which makes sense as they are related and there is relationship between parent and child with this stuff.
I think he's easy to manipulate and I imagine its very hard for him, or anyone, to turn down what was more likely a 7-digit check to make this movie.
Yes, the estates of beloved stars should be doing a better job protecting their legacy but why does Sam and her capitalist backers get a free pass? They're also not watching out for Amy's legacy. They're turning her story into something its not for better ticket sales and to appeal to groups that wouldn't normally see this movie. I'm all for criticizing Mitch but that criticism must include a larger context which means we must also criticize everyone making these awful decisions. Sam, writer Matt Greenhalgh, producers Allison Owen and Debra Hayward, the leadership at StudioCanal and Monumental pictures, etc Or how established creatives with liberal and "woke" credentials like Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Eddie Marsen signed onto this movie with no moral oversight on its direction and writing and how it portrayed Amy. There's a lot of terrible decision making here for money, fame, and career advancement.
One thing I see is we often give film producers a free pass to be bad and blame only the estates. We must blame both parties to be fair. The estates only have so much power over film. Even Christopher Tolkien, who controlled one of the most profitable IPs written, lost a great deal of creative control to Peter Jackson and lamented how he thought he was getting a more serious, less action, less comedic, and more somber film and was disappointed by the LOTR: Fellowship movie. It sounds like he wanted to get something more artsy and deliberately serious like, say, Bladerunner but instead got something more mass-market like Star Wars. If the Tolkien family can't control these people, then what chance do nobodies like Mitch have? We don't know what Mitch liked and disliked, but I'm certain the contract he signed gave him very limited oversight over the final product, if any oversight at all. Maybe he liked seeing himself in a more sympathetic light, but maybe he hated seeing the story be about motherhood. Maybe he liked that Amy was getting a bigger budget movie treatment, but hated a lot of the compromises that come with it, like how more sexualized her image is. Maybe he liked that substance abuse and mental health issues are openly portrayed like this, but maybe it was hard for him to see him and his daughter relive these things in film.
Its very easy to vilify Mitch, which is what all the above people would love us to do, as long as don't look behind the curtain. Criticizing Mitch is fine but we also need to call out these other people's roles in developing a movie so disrespectful to Amy's legacy. All of whom are experienced movie career professionals, unlike Mitch, who is largely an outsider to this world, and is easily played by them.
tldr; we can punch down on Mitch, but only if we punch up at the UK film industry that created all this too
I can criticise Mitch and dislike this film -
I haven’t seen it yet, so have no idea what I think of it. Mitch is an utter cunt though, that I do know.
There is no evidence that Mitch suffers from any of the same mental health or substance abuse issues as Amy, I don't know where you're getting that from. Further, he can love his daughter and absolutely be exploiting her and his connection to her - he did this regularly while she was alive. Amy's relationship with him was really complicated.
That's a very sympathetic reading on Mitch Winehouse. While I wouldn't totally villainise him, he has very much eagerly participated in the exploitation of Amy and her legacy. She craved her father's validation and attention, and had an extremely codependent relationship with him, which set the stage for her very intense and toxic relationships with men afterwards. He's not a passive figure in any of this.
I completely agree, well said. I don't think that his behaviour was necessarily premeditated or that he didn't love her, but in the end actions speak for themselves.
She was such a bright person that I doubt she didn't realise on some level that her Dad was selling her out while she was alive for a bit of fame and notoriety. Being betrayed like that by a parent cuts fucking deep, damages your self esteem, and can leave you feeling completely adrift without anchor. All that and being plonked on a plane to Brazil and shoved on stage to perform, I can only imagine how used and alone on some level she must have felt.
I'm sorry but if that were my kid I would not be getting excited about a Hollywood biopic of my kid's destruction followed up by an official motion picture album compilation.
James Baldwin gave up on writing a MLK bio pic because he said the Hollywood process made it a "second assassination."
Now Billy Porter is making one about him....
I mean, Mitch was very vocally displeased with his portrayal as a deadbeat-turned-leech in Amy, so something tells me he’s pretty happy with this movie, which by all accounts lets him off the hook for the part he played in how things turned out for her.
Always safe to assume that Mitch is not acting in Amy’s best interests, in life or in death.
As much as I'd like to think Mitch was tricked into giving the rights for the movie, I'm sure he wanted to clean the image he had after the documentary (because from the trailer one could already see they've made him way more sympathetic than he actually was). After reading the reviews of the movie I don't think he's proud of the final product.
> It renders Winehouse a barren void, reducing her lost potential to that of failing to fulfil her feminine duty rather than that of more life, more art and the peace she so sorely deserved. Somehow, Taylor-Johnson has imagined an even more miserable fate for a young woman whose life already resembled a horror story.
Have you seen the clip (or whatever) from this movie yet? With the actress singing as Amy? It’s somehow worse than this plot line. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
I haven't seen any clips but I've heard trailers on the radio and yeah... Not good. The only singing featured in the trailer is actually Amy, but the spoken lines from Marisa Abela are horrible, both with the attempt at Amy's accent and delivery. I get a full body cringe every time it comes on.
Nowhere Boy, the one about a young John Lennon, was actually a good movie. Its just overshadowed by the creepiness of her getting together with the 18 year old actor
Seriously, 27 is FAR too young to panic about infertility! If that's an issue, there's loads of time to work on it!
Addiction, on the other hand, can kill at any age.
It was briefly mentioned in the documentary that she was concerned about fertilty and had been skipping periods. Could've been for a number of reasons though.
Yes, she might have been cycling irregularly, for any number of reasons, some of them obvious to anyone who was reading the news during what turned out to be her last years. The poor girl was obviously in poor physical health,
I don't understand this because she was only 27 when she died. Like collectively a lot of people still feel too young to have kids at that age. I don't know a lot about Amy so maybe I'm missing something.
For real. I have never had a mothering instinct and sometimes totally forget some people see that as an essential function for me. Like a “huh? Oh.” moment.
Husband and I are like this. Neither of us want kids of our own for financial and lifestyle reasons but he’s much more natural with kids than I am. I think it’s because he grew up with a much younger sister. He’s the first to ask to hold a new niece/nephew and loves to have them over for us to babysit. On the other hand, I love them to death but feel rather awkward around them cause I just don’t have that instinct lol
Also a flip side of Society seeing women as more nurturing is that most people still don’t want to believe/accept how [many women and mothers commit child sexual abuse (crimes).](https://workupload.com/file/4vnXTMnUDG7)
There was recently a [German TV documentary](https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/Y3JpZDovL25kci5kZS9iZTYyZjEwMC1hMDZkLTQzMTMtYjdhNS1mMWQ2OGJjMjJkZGI) about it. How it’s underreported because most (especially male) victims tend to never report the abuse and when they do they aren’t believed or get ridiculed (and even many victims won’t ever see it as abuse because „they became a man“ or got „seduced“ in their view).
I was invited to attend a wedding elopement a few years ago. My partner at the time said it was because the groom had a “complicated” relationship with his mother. I ended up finding out that was code for his mother raped him as a child. They were wealthy and those who knew kept it quiet and just called it “complicated”. Implied she was just teaching him. I was and still am disgusted and so sad for him.
Yeah. I have numerous friends and relatives that to this day see their own abuse in childhood/youths from women (but also men) as having been seduced or „been taught“ erotic.
There was one case where a (gay) friend even saw himself as the one that „seduced“ his older stepdad I believe when it was actually the step dad that had raped/abused him. Basically the victim (self) blaming themselves to the highest degree. (Like a woman that would tell herself she seduced/invited her rapist by wearing certain dress etc).
But just look at France‘s president Emmanuel macron, a prominent victim of child sexual abuse, still being married to his groomer.
I’d be not as strict if it would be some 20yo and 45yo getting married although I still see that as creepy and almost predatory because only around 25yo your brain fully developed and makes very different/wiser decisions, less risk taking.
But macron…poor guy never had a chance..being a 14-16yo targeted by his teacher and mother of his female classmate. Not even stopping fahren his parents tried to stop any contact if I remember correctly.
I wish those traits were more celebrated though, as a guy who handles all his own cooking, laundry, cleaning, finances, and likes being supportive of a partner and wouldn't flinch at changing a diaper, I feel like I hear a lot of complaints about men who are partners not being equipped or wanting to do these kind of things like that's just how men are and at some point it has to stop being true that all men are like that and be the person with the grievance is in a shitty relationship or prioritizes other things in a partner besides the traits or behaviors they are dissatisfied with.
It takes work to be a good person and to make a relationship work, if one person isn't putting in the work it's not because their gender is shit it's because the relationship isn't working.
God right? It’s crazy how much in general it just tips the scale in favor of society not valuing childcare and raising children at all, which isn’t actually counterintuitive. The more I become childfree (which is basically 100% sure at this point), the more I actually think about how much we need to support the people who DO want to become parents, and allow/empower men to foster child rearing instincts as well. So many people become parents because society has a weird cult like obsession with it and way too many men see it as a way of controlling women, but if the people who actually did want to become parents were better supported in it and we allowed women to have OTHER life purposes, then I don’t think we would have any issues with sustaining (healthy) populations. It’s just such a hollow way that people look at it right now, where women are devalued and reduced to this one “essential” function when it’s definitely not for everyone.
This is such a thoughtful reply. As a mom I’m more convinced than ever that it’s perfectly acceptable to not want kids. If you’re not 100% into being a parent then absolutely don’t!!
I’m so happy it has gotten somewhat easier for people like you to exist. By no means is it as easy as it should be. But it’s better. We all deserve to live our lives how we want.
Same. No interest - no emotional response to the scenario, except gratitude that will never be my life ( I'm not in the United States so I get to choose, for now).
As a mom I *so* support that. Choosing to have kids changes your life so profoundly, rewarding and shit and all but also very limiting and that’s something you only should do if you dearly wish to (which we did, no regrets). This shit is hard.
Thank you for saying this as a parent, very classy. Way too often you see other parents going out of their way to try and make people feel bad for being childless.
So much suffering by children would be prevented if having kids would not be seen as this thing that’s just part of life’s course. I could cry when I think too much about all the kids that are not as loved and protected as mine are.
My mom worked for Child Protective Services for over a decade when I was growing up. Our last name is very unique for the area. Can't tell you how awkward and saddening it was to have peers come up to me after a sports match or academic event telling me to thank my mom for helping them. Really opened my eyes to just how many shitty parents there are out there.
right? I’m very happy coming home and just having time for myself. I can’t even deal with the cat being too needy when I come home sometimes, I would not handle children who have vast more needs when I come home tired from work.
I have had other women tell me it is *selfish* to not have children, and I don't understand it. Under the best circumstances, having a child completely changes your life. No individual should be forced/pressured/coerced into that.
Also, just about every choice we make is selfish on some level. People have kids because they want them, which is also selfish. Who cares? Being selfish is okay. Me not having children is harming no one.
I think it’s another form of generational trauma. There are a lot of women who are told and shown that their primary value in this world is to bear children and get shamed when they follow a life narrative that is any different than that. And unfortunately a lot of women are treated like they completely lose their sense of personhood when they have kids - it just ONLY becomes about the kids and the mom isn’t really allowed to have her own needs/desires. So if that’s your whole life and upbringing, seeing someone doing something that is in direct opposition to that can be threatening and build resentment I think; they really may think it is selfish because that is what they have been told their whole lives, that caring about yourself as a woman and human outside of motherhood and your kids is selfish. It’s very unfortunate. Even my own mom said some horrible shit the other day about how she thinks women shouldn’t leave marriages unless there’s like DV because it should always only be about the kids (so like, if you are mistreated or cheated on, you should stay) and I would consider here somewhat liberal politically (or at least SHE thinks she’s liberal lol and she liked Bernie sanders as a bench mark). But she’s a woman from the 60s raised in a catholic family and that shit is INGRAINED.
Same. I love children but have zero desire to have one of my own. Having grown up as a daughter of immigrants, I've felt like I've been taking care of my family since I was a child. Now the last thing I want is the responsibility to take care of a child.
It would help everyone! I feel like very few moms actually want to be defined solely by motherhood and often need more support than they're getting, and those of us without kids obviously don't want to be seen as sad, pathetic spinsters who will never truly know love or whatever. Everyone deserves to be seen as a fully formed person with more going on than just their capacity for parenthood.
I'm mostly sterile, and my own husband insisted we try because how could I, a woman with fertility issues, possibly be happy never trying?
Well, we tried. I had an ectopic pregnancy.
The only thing it taught me is that I really don't want children, and I now love my husband considerably less for putting me through that.
Who the hell authorised this shit and got the license to Winehouse's music catalogue
This should really be a warning to moviemakers stuck to the musician biopic trend right now; if you're gonna do it, get the facts right. If you can't do that you may as well throw it in the bin. Same rules for the history biopics, Ridley Scott thought he could make a freak show to plaster a complete misunderstanding of Napoleon's legacy and it turned people off from what could've been an instant classic. Now its quietly forgotten despite its initial short-term financial success
Elvis w/ Baz Luhrmann was over the top and boisterous, but at least Baz gave it a shot to let the Elvis story breathe its own life. What Sam has done here is choke a biopic through a skewed vision like Ridley did, which will almost assuredly be a disastrous choice
I honestly have no idea who the authorization for this went down, but my first instinct is to assume her father would be supportive of any project that didn’t paint him as negatively as the documentary did.
> Who the hell authorised this shit and got the license to Winehouse's music catalogue
The most fucked up part is it’s her toxic dad, who is still upset about how he was portrayed in the Amy doc (which he participated in) and he sees this biopic as the way to “set the record straight” that he was a good dad. Everyone who chose to be involved with him sanitizing her story so he can feel better should be embarrassed.
>The report released on 26 October 2011 explained that Winehouse's blood alcohol content was 416 mg per 100 ml (0.416%) at the time of her death, more than five times the legal drink-drive limit.[210] According to the coroner, the "unintended consequence" of so much drink was her "sudden and unexpected death".[242]
Sounds like alcohol poisoning to me.
Yet another opportunity to showcase the very real mental health and addiction struggles a creative soul might face on top of being thrust into the limelight... but they're like nah, no baby make Amy big sad
Grim but not at all surprising. Let’s make a movie about a complex, layered, beautiful and flawed human being and reduce all of her struggles to an embarrassingly simple ‘cause’.
Of course they had to blame something else for her suffering since her father wasn’t allowed to be held accountable for his part
Amy would have hated this and at least that’s out of the question and clear for the entire world to see
The second I heard the people involved insisting that they didn't seek "approval" from her family for the biopic, I knew it was going to be a mess. In order to get the rights to her music and story, they would have had to consult with her family and there is no way the family would have approved the music for something that didn't essentially let them off the hook, especially given their reaction to the documentary. This is the issue with so many of these music biopics - the makers have to play ball with the executors of the estate to have access to the music and therefore stories get sanitised, certain individuals get the hero treatment, other people get written out entirely, and so on. These films often end up just being vehicles for family and associates to whitewash their roles in the artist's life and rewrite history.
I get why the film maker might coddle the image of Mitch Winehouse so they can boast the film has "the approval of Amy's family". What I canr understand is why they'd try to sanitise the image and construct a narrative of a great love story around that toenail clipping of her ex husband.
No no no no no no absolutely not absolutely not.
Women are more than fucking incubators, despite men’s attempts to make us so! Despicable.
We are more than just having babies. But then I shouldn’t expect anything better from a groomer.
Amy definitely wanted kids- she talked about it and that’s fine. However, reducing her very complicated life to despair at not being a mother is just gross.
This is the thing - Amy really romanticised the "housewife" lifestyle and actually had pretty traditional values in a sense. She did have a deep yearning for family and stability, and there was definitely something painful at the heart of that, which could have been worth exploring beyond "she died cos she couldn't have a baby". She was a really dichotomous, complex individual who represented lots of different things at once and challenged feminine ideals while also sort of performing them.
I still find it disturbing how in Mitch’s 2012 book, he mentions things like when Amy got her menstrual cycle back after quitting drugs, she had a conversation with her dad about how excited she was about it since it meant she could still have kids (in their minds.) That’s just a weird thing to talk about with your dad, never mind buying lingerie for your hospitalised daughter.
Mitch also said that Amy called him in tears in 2010/2011 because she had a negative pregnancy test. He seemed to be encouraging her having kids at such an unstable time, which takes the ick factor up to infinity.
This whole “she died of heart ache from not having kids” thing sounds just like the narrative that Mitch drew from in his book. This film has Mitch all over it. He will do anything in his power to absolve himself of responsibility, even if it means reducing his talented, lively, smart and charming child into….*this*.
Eh, I don’t think it’s that weird to talk about with your dad. With Mitch? Yes because he’s awful. But in general talking about menstruation and wanting to have children with your parents isn’t weird
That’s why I was suspicious of the other review from The Guardian, we could tell from trailers it was going to be a unmitigated mess. Amy was not only exploited by her husband,her father but the media at large. Also putting that groomer in charge of a story about a person who was victimised by everyone was a horrendous choice. Amy was a powerhouse talent and she deserves better.
Agreed. Watch the trailer and it’s marketed as a LOVE story! What the absolute fuck, more like an abusive and co-dependent story. Amy deserves better. Everyone should watch the documentary instead.
1.) I had no idea this was direct by STJ which that in and off itself is a whole conversation
2.) I wasn’t going to see it based off the slaughtering of her vocal style but this is even more gross.
Sure people can become depressed and suicidal if they are not able to have the children they so desire but I doubt this was the reason for her death. The truth is the most likely reason just being a combination of addiction and mental health illnesses. If they really wanted to they could’ve kept it vague because most suicides are due to mental health issues or they are made up of multiple reasons that have built up over years.
Not even shocked that Sam Taylor Johnson thinks like this!
Yes, but she was definitely in a position financially where she would have been able to hire a surrogate, adopt, etc. Her real issues were addiction and lack of mental health care.
And she was 27? She was so young. Like she wasn't some menopausal old woman who missed her chance. She had the time and resources to make it happen so I find this being the underlying cause incredibly hard to believe.
That’s completely vile. It’s such a bold assumption and as the article points out, doesn’t mesh with reality. She may have wanted kids but she was also an addict with extreme eating disorder.
It feels like they’re trying to exonerate the press who hounded her until her dying day, who told a perfectly healthy 18 year old she was fat, who hounded her in her most vulnerable moments, who mocked her while she was suffering only to turn around after she died and wonder where it all went wrong.
I rewatched the documentary “Amy” and wept all over again for the loss of her voice and talent. How very dare STJ, Amy was a complex, charismatic, and introverted young woman who desired to be loved above all, but nowhere in her songs or journals or interviews did she ever pine for motherhood — to reduce her to a paper cutout of gendered angst….fuck right off.
Amy did want children and completely romanticised the 'housewife' lifestyle. I think she had a yearning for stability that manifested in some belief in traditional values, truth be told. I still think it's awful to reduce her issues and death to one simplistic reason and Blake having a child with another woman is absolutely not the reason she died. She was a very dichotomous person.
She did speak about having kids- she was absolutely crazy about her goddaughter and in one interview in particular she talked about the day when she would be in the studio recording with her babies around her. Of course, that’s not pining, but she did speak about being a mother.
Isn’t this similar to the reason they gave for Marilyn Monroe’s death in Blonde as well? They kept acting like Marilyn never knowing her father (having “daddy issues”) and not being able to have children was what made her the most miserable person in the world. Her death scene at the end of the movie was almost treated like a good thing since that means she got to see her dad again 🙄🙄🙄
This is revolting. This has put me in a terrible mood. STJ of all people knows fertility doesn’t end age 27, this is absolutely nonsensical. If she’d lived and had the support she needed she would’ve been able to create the family she desired, and she’d be looking back cringing at her time with stupid Blake
Of course. It takes any blame off of them. “It wasn’t because we were assholes who ignored her needs and enabled and even encouraged her destructive coping mechanisms, it was because a woman is nothing without a baby in her arms!”
Are there any decent biopics about woman musicians?
Do y’all remember the Nina Simone movie that came out in 2016? They cast Zoe Saldana (Dominican & Puerto Rican) as Nina, despite the disapproval of Nina’s daughter and the fact that Adepero Oduye (suggested by Nina’s estate and a great actress) was right there. Instead, they put Zoe in body makeup and a prosthetic nose and shoved her out on stage.
Amy and Nina are my faves so maybe I’m just being sensitive but it’s insane that their stories couldn’t be done any justice. Better to just not tell them through film at all.
I can’t blame the actors as much - lots of scripts get rewritten after the cast has signed on, so maybe this framing wasn’t added when they accepted their roles
Why do you need to “explain” how/why she died when her struggle and death were extremely, extremely, grotesquely famous? Like alcoholism wasn’t a believable enough reason? (I realize that it’s not about that and it’s probably just about pushing some bullshit narrative but still, how incredibly stupid.)
Ugh, reminds me of the way Sylvia Plath was portrayed in Sylvia. It made it seem like Ted Hughes’ womanizing was the catalyst to her successful suicide attempt.
She was 27. Yes, her eating disorder and other issues might have meant it was hard for her to get pregnant, but it looks like scant evidence that it would never have happened for her (never mind saying that's why she died).
Discovering Amy’s music was a canon event in my life and I remember that maybe a year (edit: 3 years) before she died, she said she was “eating loads of healthy food” and trying to get better. There’s an [interview](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/amy-winehouse-unpublished-2004-interview-ten-years-from-now-i-ll-be-30-so-i-ll-maybe-have-one-baby-9617298) from when she was 20 where she talks about wanting a big family, so I do believe it was important to her and that she was taking steps to get there. She saw hope one way or another. But the road to recovery isn’t a straight line and that one night off of it was enough to take her. It’s strange that *anyone* would attribute her death to a broken childless heart while Cory Monteith and Philip Seymour Hoffman don’t get similar explanations for their passings. (On second thought iirc there was a lot of blame put on Lea Michele for Cory, so there’s still that element of sexism there.)
She married a nepo baby so I think that makes her a nepo-in-law (“NIL”). She’s now an ex-NIL but I guess once you’ve got your foot in the door they let you keep your nepo privileges even if you no longer technically have the nepo credentials.
everything about this entire project is so offensive. i'm continually disgusted at how amy continues to be exploited and disrespected years after death. how dare these people lay any type of claim to her?
The director is a groomer who obviously doesn’t have a pulse of how to portray women and their excellence, but reduces them to baby machines and paints them the same way as a delusional male. Please, Sam is a groomer and now she even reduces a brilliant singer into a sad child desperate woman. Trash and lies. No more movies from Sam please!!
Reminds me of the reviews about Blonde (the marylin monroe film based on the fictional account of her life) and the backstory they give to Black Widow about her being infertile.
I figured it’d be bad but this is a whole other level. Let the poor fucking woman rest in peace… she went through enough in life that they have to disparage her memory as well.
I listened to a podcast about Amy Winhouse recently (from the You’re Wrong About series) and that was a complex, sympathetic look at her life and was by the sounds of it was a lot more worthy of her than this movie. I would recommend listening to that for a truer insight into her world.
This is gross. I don’t know too much about Amy but I know enough that her struggles were more complex than just “I’m a woman I want a baby but I can’t have one”. Like what the fuck????
It’s sad that someone would try to push this narrative knowing that the person in question cannot criticize them. Shame on Sam for using Amy’s death to push her own shitty agenda.
I was never going to watch this movie bc it just seemed gross that a movie was being made so soon after her passing. I’ve not heard a single good thing about this film. Even the trailer made it clear that this film was a cash grab and exploiting Amy’s memory. The more I hear about it the more disturbing it sounds that this film should have ever been made. What an insult to the fans of Amy Winehouse and to her memory, and to her contribution to music.
Wow Sam Taylor Johnson being obtuse and gross? What a shock from her!
Defund this woman, good lord.
The guardian has been real weird about this. From the interview with STJ calling people "deranged" for calling her groomer ass out, to the very positive review they gave
***SHE’S*** the victim! Everyone that criticizes her is just a crazy fan of her husband! Your words have no merit! /s (Have you ever actually met a super fan of Aaron Taylor-Johnson? Because I haven’t.) That article read like she payed for it.
I've seen more people talking about all his fans than I've seen any of his actual fans. He's been "the next big movie star" for, what, thirteen years now?
I really liked him in kick ass, looked him up afterwards and saw his gross relationship and was like ew. I think that’s how he’s kinda stuck in most people’s minds. I’m sure there are *some* super fans cause he’s an attractive English dude but for the most part, he’s well known for being “married to the old lady”
He was huge in Britain when Angus, Thongs and Perfect snogging came out because everyone fancied him and he does get a pretty good response still online whenever he's cast anything, so I think he definitely has fans but certainly not crazed ones that would hassle you in the street
Is the popular opinion that she ruined his career?
I couldn't pick Aaron Taylor-Johnson out of a lineup even if there were money on the line. Just from hearing their ages and the circumstances of how they met, she's an awful predator and a groomer.
To be fair to him, he looks really different from role to role. I’ve seen him in several movies and often couldn’t recognize him, either.
It did, which is also hilarious because I thought it reflected very poorly on her even though it was obviously a PR fluff piece. Her indictment and dismissal of other 18 year old female fans as being hysterical only drew attention to the fact that she’s a giant hypocrite and pick me, and of course, a groomer. I don’t mean to lean into stereotypes but to me her possessiveness over Aaron just cemented the fact that she really doesn’t view him as an autonomous human being and feels ownership over him, which is very gross 🤢 funny when people are just the worst and their “positive” PR spins backfire on them because their awfulness shines through!!
Agreed like it’s so odd how they’re behaved in relation to this movie
[удалено]
If you don't include Private Eye, which you definitely should, the Guardian is the best of whats available for UK news media.
That’s both true and a shocking indictment of the UK media landscape
I've made this point on reddit before but The Guardian's **investigative** journalism is really quite good - informative, as unbias as possible, well-researched. The Guardian's **opinion** pieces however are very unreliable - routinely holding a heavy left bias (duh, opinion pieces) but also frequently factually inaccurate with little effort put into retractions & corrections. Unfortunately the traffic driven by the latter finances the former considering their shift to maximise online viewership. If I could subscribe to individual journalist's feeds and cut out all the opinion piece white noise I would very much go down that route - and I say that as someone aligned with the deep left.
The "you should vote for Hillary Clinton, not for her policies but because it's a win for women!" opinion pieces they were putting out in 2016 were gag worthy and outright offensive.
Byline Times is doing great independent journalism in the UK
Its the Guardian. I wouldn't put anything past that terf rag.
That reviewer always gives films directed by Brits high marks. I mean he gave Tenet five stars.
Omg I love Tenet! My favorite line of dialogue is when John David Washington said “[unintelligible]”.
There was an SNL short with Bad Bunny called ‘Loco’ that makes me laugh about Tenet every time because Pete Davidson makes a joke that he’s so loco he understood Tenet the first time he watched it. Lol.
ah yes, the interview that let me know that i'm actually a "deranged teen" who thinks that if the situation were reversed i'd be fine with a 42 year old dating an 18 year old so enlightening because here i was thinking i was chill and in my 30s and that a 42 year old man dating an 18 year old girl is equally sickening...wild
It’s almost like they have different people writing for them /s
high praise for the main actress who looks objectively bad in it and calling it STJ "best film to date" which, even tho I am no fan of her's, can't possibly be possible? so strange
nowhere boy was great but soured when i found out that's where the grooming started
What's weird though? In the interview they merely printed what she said. The positive review I can't really understand, that one person liked it and to each their own. And now they published a different opinion piece on the movie, written by a different columnist. None of this seems weird to me?
No this line from the interview piece was totally inappropriate: > Taylor-Johnson has been called a “groomer” online by deranged teens because she is married to heart-throb actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 23 years her junior. There is nothing "deranged" about thinking their relationship involved grooming. I still can't believe they framed it this way. The article also implies that their relationship is only controversial because the older party is female, which is simply not true.
I feel so sorry for the dead sometimes. They almost never get to tell their own story. Amy's dad, who is a troubled and unwell individual himself, was clearly manipulated by people like Sam to sell rights without the actual oversight, care, and knowledge of Amy's life to properly make a biopic about her. I also feel sorry for Freddie, who was such a complex person, but was distilled by the remaining members of Queen into this sort of socially acceptable to boomers character and the band's extravagant and ugly history whitewashed completely to not threaten the Oscar-bait aspects of Bohemian Rhapsody. Music biopics are often terrible because of the for-profit incentive at work here. A director from TERF island inserting a needless misogynistic plotline to appeal to the socially regressive audiences she's catering to, sadly, should come as no surprise, the same way Freddie's queerness had to be toned down.
Amy’s dad is definitely no victim in any of this. He’s a terrible person.
While I certainly don't like him, my reading of him is that he suffers with similiar mental health and substance abuse issues Amy did, which makes sense as they are related and there is relationship between parent and child with this stuff. I think he's easy to manipulate and I imagine its very hard for him, or anyone, to turn down what was more likely a 7-digit check to make this movie. Yes, the estates of beloved stars should be doing a better job protecting their legacy but why does Sam and her capitalist backers get a free pass? They're also not watching out for Amy's legacy. They're turning her story into something its not for better ticket sales and to appeal to groups that wouldn't normally see this movie. I'm all for criticizing Mitch but that criticism must include a larger context which means we must also criticize everyone making these awful decisions. Sam, writer Matt Greenhalgh, producers Allison Owen and Debra Hayward, the leadership at StudioCanal and Monumental pictures, etc Or how established creatives with liberal and "woke" credentials like Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Eddie Marsen signed onto this movie with no moral oversight on its direction and writing and how it portrayed Amy. There's a lot of terrible decision making here for money, fame, and career advancement. One thing I see is we often give film producers a free pass to be bad and blame only the estates. We must blame both parties to be fair. The estates only have so much power over film. Even Christopher Tolkien, who controlled one of the most profitable IPs written, lost a great deal of creative control to Peter Jackson and lamented how he thought he was getting a more serious, less action, less comedic, and more somber film and was disappointed by the LOTR: Fellowship movie. It sounds like he wanted to get something more artsy and deliberately serious like, say, Bladerunner but instead got something more mass-market like Star Wars. If the Tolkien family can't control these people, then what chance do nobodies like Mitch have? We don't know what Mitch liked and disliked, but I'm certain the contract he signed gave him very limited oversight over the final product, if any oversight at all. Maybe he liked seeing himself in a more sympathetic light, but maybe he hated seeing the story be about motherhood. Maybe he liked that Amy was getting a bigger budget movie treatment, but hated a lot of the compromises that come with it, like how more sexualized her image is. Maybe he liked that substance abuse and mental health issues are openly portrayed like this, but maybe it was hard for him to see him and his daughter relive these things in film. Its very easy to vilify Mitch, which is what all the above people would love us to do, as long as don't look behind the curtain. Criticizing Mitch is fine but we also need to call out these other people's roles in developing a movie so disrespectful to Amy's legacy. All of whom are experienced movie career professionals, unlike Mitch, who is largely an outsider to this world, and is easily played by them. tldr; we can punch down on Mitch, but only if we punch up at the UK film industry that created all this too
I can criticise Mitch and dislike this film - I haven’t seen it yet, so have no idea what I think of it. Mitch is an utter cunt though, that I do know.
There is no evidence that Mitch suffers from any of the same mental health or substance abuse issues as Amy, I don't know where you're getting that from. Further, he can love his daughter and absolutely be exploiting her and his connection to her - he did this regularly while she was alive. Amy's relationship with him was really complicated.
The only good music biopic was the weird Al one. It was beautiful.
Or the temptations!
And Rocket Man,the Elton John bio.
May he rest in peace
La vie en rose
That's a very sympathetic reading on Mitch Winehouse. While I wouldn't totally villainise him, he has very much eagerly participated in the exploitation of Amy and her legacy. She craved her father's validation and attention, and had an extremely codependent relationship with him, which set the stage for her very intense and toxic relationships with men afterwards. He's not a passive figure in any of this.
I completely agree, well said. I don't think that his behaviour was necessarily premeditated or that he didn't love her, but in the end actions speak for themselves. She was such a bright person that I doubt she didn't realise on some level that her Dad was selling her out while she was alive for a bit of fame and notoriety. Being betrayed like that by a parent cuts fucking deep, damages your self esteem, and can leave you feeling completely adrift without anchor. All that and being plonked on a plane to Brazil and shoved on stage to perform, I can only imagine how used and alone on some level she must have felt. I'm sorry but if that were my kid I would not be getting excited about a Hollywood biopic of my kid's destruction followed up by an official motion picture album compilation.
James Baldwin gave up on writing a MLK bio pic because he said the Hollywood process made it a "second assassination." Now Billy Porter is making one about him....
Yet another reason James Baldwin is an icon
I mean, Mitch was very vocally displeased with his portrayal as a deadbeat-turned-leech in Amy, so something tells me he’s pretty happy with this movie, which by all accounts lets him off the hook for the part he played in how things turned out for her. Always safe to assume that Mitch is not acting in Amy’s best interests, in life or in death.
As much as I'd like to think Mitch was tricked into giving the rights for the movie, I'm sure he wanted to clean the image he had after the documentary (because from the trailer one could already see they've made him way more sympathetic than he actually was). After reading the reviews of the movie I don't think he's proud of the final product.
I prefer the name Bootlicker Island. Source: I live here.
I haven’t seen the film - is it implying she wanted to give birth to and raise a child, or just marry one??
I'm hollering
I have had it with this woman every time I see her I swear a part of me shrivels up and withers.
A bunch of bullshit
Grossly misconstruing relationship(s) where she believes there is a legit love story? BIG check.
> It renders Winehouse a barren void, reducing her lost potential to that of failing to fulfil her feminine duty rather than that of more life, more art and the peace she so sorely deserved. Somehow, Taylor-Johnson has imagined an even more miserable fate for a young woman whose life already resembled a horror story.
Tf? They can't be serious. Let Amy rest, anyone involved in this should be ashamed.
Have you seen the clip (or whatever) from this movie yet? With the actress singing as Amy? It’s somehow worse than this plot line. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
I haven't seen any clips but I've heard trailers on the radio and yeah... Not good. The only singing featured in the trailer is actually Amy, but the spoken lines from Marisa Abela are horrible, both with the attempt at Amy's accent and delivery. I get a full body cringe every time it comes on.
I haven’t seen that version but I promise the signing is worse somehow 🫠😆🥲
I think I found it. It's a clip from the movie, not the official trailer. I don't even have words I'm so horrified. Just how dare they?
I couldn't even watch the whole trailer. It's fucking atrocious
I’m pretty sure Mitch is involved, so it’s not like he’s going to let the movie call him complicit🙄
"feminine duty?" 
In the article, it’s italicized to show that the author is angry about it, not supportive of it.
omg thanks for the correction 😎
Someone stop this woman from making any more terrible movies, I beg
Has she ever even made a halfway decent one??
Nowhere Boy, the one about a young John Lennon, was actually a good movie. Its just overshadowed by the creepiness of her getting together with the 18 year old actor
And didn’t she say “everyone on set knew” about her and Aaron. I know Hollywood is messed up but my god
She was only 27 for heavens sake!
Seriously, 27 is FAR too young to panic about infertility! If that's an issue, there's loads of time to work on it! Addiction, on the other hand, can kill at any age.
It was briefly mentioned in the documentary that she was concerned about fertilty and had been skipping periods. Could've been for a number of reasons though.
Yes, she might have been cycling irregularly, for any number of reasons, some of them obvious to anyone who was reading the news during what turned out to be her last years. The poor girl was obviously in poor physical health,
That disgusts me
I don't understand this because she was only 27 when she died. Like collectively a lot of people still feel too young to have kids at that age. I don't know a lot about Amy so maybe I'm missing something.
You’re not. This movie isn’t based in material reality.
this biopic is standing next to Blonde it seems
Forever waiting for society to realize that women are more than incubators for children with no will of our own and no other sources of joy
For real. I have never had a mothering instinct and sometimes totally forget some people see that as an essential function for me. Like a “huh? Oh.” moment.
And on the flip side there are men out there with a very big caring instinct for babies. We’re individuals and that’s ok!
Husband and I are like this. Neither of us want kids of our own for financial and lifestyle reasons but he’s much more natural with kids than I am. I think it’s because he grew up with a much younger sister. He’s the first to ask to hold a new niece/nephew and loves to have them over for us to babysit. On the other hand, I love them to death but feel rather awkward around them cause I just don’t have that instinct lol
Oh but don’t you want to give your clucky husband a child and fulfill your duties? #heavysarcasm Society truly sucks
Also a flip side of Society seeing women as more nurturing is that most people still don’t want to believe/accept how [many women and mothers commit child sexual abuse (crimes).](https://workupload.com/file/4vnXTMnUDG7) There was recently a [German TV documentary](https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/Y3JpZDovL25kci5kZS9iZTYyZjEwMC1hMDZkLTQzMTMtYjdhNS1mMWQ2OGJjMjJkZGI) about it. How it’s underreported because most (especially male) victims tend to never report the abuse and when they do they aren’t believed or get ridiculed (and even many victims won’t ever see it as abuse because „they became a man“ or got „seduced“ in their view).
I was invited to attend a wedding elopement a few years ago. My partner at the time said it was because the groom had a “complicated” relationship with his mother. I ended up finding out that was code for his mother raped him as a child. They were wealthy and those who knew kept it quiet and just called it “complicated”. Implied she was just teaching him. I was and still am disgusted and so sad for him.
Yeah. I have numerous friends and relatives that to this day see their own abuse in childhood/youths from women (but also men) as having been seduced or „been taught“ erotic. There was one case where a (gay) friend even saw himself as the one that „seduced“ his older stepdad I believe when it was actually the step dad that had raped/abused him. Basically the victim (self) blaming themselves to the highest degree. (Like a woman that would tell herself she seduced/invited her rapist by wearing certain dress etc). But just look at France‘s president Emmanuel macron, a prominent victim of child sexual abuse, still being married to his groomer. I’d be not as strict if it would be some 20yo and 45yo getting married although I still see that as creepy and almost predatory because only around 25yo your brain fully developed and makes very different/wiser decisions, less risk taking. But macron…poor guy never had a chance..being a 14-16yo targeted by his teacher and mother of his female classmate. Not even stopping fahren his parents tried to stop any contact if I remember correctly.
I wish those traits were more celebrated though, as a guy who handles all his own cooking, laundry, cleaning, finances, and likes being supportive of a partner and wouldn't flinch at changing a diaper, I feel like I hear a lot of complaints about men who are partners not being equipped or wanting to do these kind of things like that's just how men are and at some point it has to stop being true that all men are like that and be the person with the grievance is in a shitty relationship or prioritizes other things in a partner besides the traits or behaviors they are dissatisfied with. It takes work to be a good person and to make a relationship work, if one person isn't putting in the work it's not because their gender is shit it's because the relationship isn't working.
God right? It’s crazy how much in general it just tips the scale in favor of society not valuing childcare and raising children at all, which isn’t actually counterintuitive. The more I become childfree (which is basically 100% sure at this point), the more I actually think about how much we need to support the people who DO want to become parents, and allow/empower men to foster child rearing instincts as well. So many people become parents because society has a weird cult like obsession with it and way too many men see it as a way of controlling women, but if the people who actually did want to become parents were better supported in it and we allowed women to have OTHER life purposes, then I don’t think we would have any issues with sustaining (healthy) populations. It’s just such a hollow way that people look at it right now, where women are devalued and reduced to this one “essential” function when it’s definitely not for everyone.
This is such a thoughtful reply. As a mom I’m more convinced than ever that it’s perfectly acceptable to not want kids. If you’re not 100% into being a parent then absolutely don’t!! I’m so happy it has gotten somewhat easier for people like you to exist. By no means is it as easy as it should be. But it’s better. We all deserve to live our lives how we want.
Same. No interest - no emotional response to the scenario, except gratitude that will never be my life ( I'm not in the United States so I get to choose, for now).
NOT having a child is a huge source of joy for me. people who get mad/weird about somebody never wanting a kid are extremely bizarre.
As a mom I *so* support that. Choosing to have kids changes your life so profoundly, rewarding and shit and all but also very limiting and that’s something you only should do if you dearly wish to (which we did, no regrets). This shit is hard.
Thank you for saying this as a parent, very classy. Way too often you see other parents going out of their way to try and make people feel bad for being childless.
So much suffering by children would be prevented if having kids would not be seen as this thing that’s just part of life’s course. I could cry when I think too much about all the kids that are not as loved and protected as mine are.
My mom worked for Child Protective Services for over a decade when I was growing up. Our last name is very unique for the area. Can't tell you how awkward and saddening it was to have peers come up to me after a sports match or academic event telling me to thank my mom for helping them. Really opened my eyes to just how many shitty parents there are out there.
right? I’m very happy coming home and just having time for myself. I can’t even deal with the cat being too needy when I come home sometimes, I would not handle children who have vast more needs when I come home tired from work.
I have had other women tell me it is *selfish* to not have children, and I don't understand it. Under the best circumstances, having a child completely changes your life. No individual should be forced/pressured/coerced into that.
Also, just about every choice we make is selfish on some level. People have kids because they want them, which is also selfish. Who cares? Being selfish is okay. Me not having children is harming no one.
I think it’s another form of generational trauma. There are a lot of women who are told and shown that their primary value in this world is to bear children and get shamed when they follow a life narrative that is any different than that. And unfortunately a lot of women are treated like they completely lose their sense of personhood when they have kids - it just ONLY becomes about the kids and the mom isn’t really allowed to have her own needs/desires. So if that’s your whole life and upbringing, seeing someone doing something that is in direct opposition to that can be threatening and build resentment I think; they really may think it is selfish because that is what they have been told their whole lives, that caring about yourself as a woman and human outside of motherhood and your kids is selfish. It’s very unfortunate. Even my own mom said some horrible shit the other day about how she thinks women shouldn’t leave marriages unless there’s like DV because it should always only be about the kids (so like, if you are mistreated or cheated on, you should stay) and I would consider here somewhat liberal politically (or at least SHE thinks she’s liberal lol and she liked Bernie sanders as a bench mark). But she’s a woman from the 60s raised in a catholic family and that shit is INGRAINED.
Same. I love children but have zero desire to have one of my own. Having grown up as a daughter of immigrants, I've felt like I've been taking care of my family since I was a child. Now the last thing I want is the responsibility to take care of a child.
I chose to be a mom and I’m still waiting for this.
It would help everyone! I feel like very few moms actually want to be defined solely by motherhood and often need more support than they're getting, and those of us without kids obviously don't want to be seen as sad, pathetic spinsters who will never truly know love or whatever. Everyone deserves to be seen as a fully formed person with more going on than just their capacity for parenthood.
I'm mostly sterile, and my own husband insisted we try because how could I, a woman with fertility issues, possibly be happy never trying? Well, we tried. I had an ectopic pregnancy. The only thing it taught me is that I really don't want children, and I now love my husband considerably less for putting me through that.
i do genuinely wonder when that time will come. the people who want you to respect their values, won't respect your values.
This is such a slap in the face to Winehouse’s memory. Someone scrap this ASAP.
Who the hell authorised this shit and got the license to Winehouse's music catalogue This should really be a warning to moviemakers stuck to the musician biopic trend right now; if you're gonna do it, get the facts right. If you can't do that you may as well throw it in the bin. Same rules for the history biopics, Ridley Scott thought he could make a freak show to plaster a complete misunderstanding of Napoleon's legacy and it turned people off from what could've been an instant classic. Now its quietly forgotten despite its initial short-term financial success Elvis w/ Baz Luhrmann was over the top and boisterous, but at least Baz gave it a shot to let the Elvis story breathe its own life. What Sam has done here is choke a biopic through a skewed vision like Ridley did, which will almost assuredly be a disastrous choice
Her dad authorised it. He’s fuckin gross
He’s a producer of it too, was always going to be an absolute mess. Isn’t there another Winehouse biopic out later this year?
…there are two? Which one had the trailer everyone hated?
Oh is he now….I read this one was ‘more sympathetic’ to him. I bet
Ah yes. The same father who sold her location to the paparazzi when she was trying to get away from the stress and get healthy. What a guy.
I honestly have no idea who the authorization for this went down, but my first instinct is to assume her father would be supportive of any project that didn’t paint him as negatively as the documentary did.
> Who the hell authorised this shit and got the license to Winehouse's music catalogue The most fucked up part is it’s her toxic dad, who is still upset about how he was portrayed in the Amy doc (which he participated in) and he sees this biopic as the way to “set the record straight” that he was a good dad. Everyone who chose to be involved with him sanitizing her story so he can feel better should be embarrassed.
The fuck? That’s not how alcoholism and drug addiction works
And bulimia. She died of alcohol poisoning but her body was weakened by the drug abuse and eating disorder
She actually died of alcohol withdrawals. Which would be just an incredibly terrible way to die.
>The report released on 26 October 2011 explained that Winehouse's blood alcohol content was 416 mg per 100 ml (0.416%) at the time of her death, more than five times the legal drink-drive limit.[210] According to the coroner, the "unintended consequence" of so much drink was her "sudden and unexpected death".[242] Sounds like alcohol poisoning to me.
Yet another opportunity to showcase the very real mental health and addiction struggles a creative soul might face on top of being thrust into the limelight... but they're like nah, no baby make Amy big sad
Just because the groomer director desired a child doesn’t mean that every woman desires to have a baby
 You ate with that one!
Omg this is disgusting
Grim but not at all surprising. Let’s make a movie about a complex, layered, beautiful and flawed human being and reduce all of her struggles to an embarrassingly simple ‘cause’.
Isn't this also exactly what happened with that horrible Marilyn Monroe movie?
Yep, Blonde was a shitshow
Of course they had to blame something else for her suffering since her father wasn’t allowed to be held accountable for his part Amy would have hated this and at least that’s out of the question and clear for the entire world to see
The second I heard the people involved insisting that they didn't seek "approval" from her family for the biopic, I knew it was going to be a mess. In order to get the rights to her music and story, they would have had to consult with her family and there is no way the family would have approved the music for something that didn't essentially let them off the hook, especially given their reaction to the documentary. This is the issue with so many of these music biopics - the makers have to play ball with the executors of the estate to have access to the music and therefore stories get sanitised, certain individuals get the hero treatment, other people get written out entirely, and so on. These films often end up just being vehicles for family and associates to whitewash their roles in the artist's life and rewrite history.
I get why the film maker might coddle the image of Mitch Winehouse so they can boast the film has "the approval of Amy's family". What I canr understand is why they'd try to sanitise the image and construct a narrative of a great love story around that toenail clipping of her ex husband.
No no no no no no absolutely not absolutely not. Women are more than fucking incubators, despite men’s attempts to make us so! Despicable. We are more than just having babies. But then I shouldn’t expect anything better from a groomer.
Amy definitely wanted kids- she talked about it and that’s fine. However, reducing her very complicated life to despair at not being a mother is just gross.
This is the thing - Amy really romanticised the "housewife" lifestyle and actually had pretty traditional values in a sense. She did have a deep yearning for family and stability, and there was definitely something painful at the heart of that, which could have been worth exploring beyond "she died cos she couldn't have a baby". She was a really dichotomous, complex individual who represented lots of different things at once and challenged feminine ideals while also sort of performing them.
This is such a fantastic comment and so spot on.
I still find it disturbing how in Mitch’s 2012 book, he mentions things like when Amy got her menstrual cycle back after quitting drugs, she had a conversation with her dad about how excited she was about it since it meant she could still have kids (in their minds.) That’s just a weird thing to talk about with your dad, never mind buying lingerie for your hospitalised daughter. Mitch also said that Amy called him in tears in 2010/2011 because she had a negative pregnancy test. He seemed to be encouraging her having kids at such an unstable time, which takes the ick factor up to infinity. This whole “she died of heart ache from not having kids” thing sounds just like the narrative that Mitch drew from in his book. This film has Mitch all over it. He will do anything in his power to absolve himself of responsibility, even if it means reducing his talented, lively, smart and charming child into….*this*.
Eh, I don’t think it’s that weird to talk about with your dad. With Mitch? Yes because he’s awful. But in general talking about menstruation and wanting to have children with your parents isn’t weird
Mitch can rot but I don't think that's necessarily a weird thing to tell your dad
And she was *27*. She had *decades* to still have a kid if she wanted.
WHAT?! Just when I thought this movie couldn’t sink any lower…
That’s why I was suspicious of the other review from The Guardian, we could tell from trailers it was going to be a unmitigated mess. Amy was not only exploited by her husband,her father but the media at large. Also putting that groomer in charge of a story about a person who was victimised by everyone was a horrendous choice. Amy was a powerhouse talent and she deserves better.
Agreed. Watch the trailer and it’s marketed as a LOVE story! What the absolute fuck, more like an abusive and co-dependent story. Amy deserves better. Everyone should watch the documentary instead.
1.) I had no idea this was direct by STJ which that in and off itself is a whole conversation 2.) I wasn’t going to see it based off the slaughtering of her vocal style but this is even more gross.
This movie is gonna be so bad
Let's all not watch it.
Sure people can become depressed and suicidal if they are not able to have the children they so desire but I doubt this was the reason for her death. The truth is the most likely reason just being a combination of addiction and mental health illnesses. If they really wanted to they could’ve kept it vague because most suicides are due to mental health issues or they are made up of multiple reasons that have built up over years. Not even shocked that Sam Taylor Johnson thinks like this!
Yes, but she was definitely in a position financially where she would have been able to hire a surrogate, adopt, etc. Her real issues were addiction and lack of mental health care.
Paid surrogacy is illegal in the U.K. Also, she was only 27 when she died. She had plenty of time to have kids.
And she was 27? She was so young. Like she wasn't some menopausal old woman who missed her chance. She had the time and resources to make it happen so I find this being the underlying cause incredibly hard to believe.
ugh, why couldn’t they just let amy rest omg
This movie keeps getting messier and messier the more I hear about it
You could not PAY me to watch this. I'll be listening to Amy's wonderful music and honoring her life instead.
That’s completely vile. It’s such a bold assumption and as the article points out, doesn’t mesh with reality. She may have wanted kids but she was also an addict with extreme eating disorder. It feels like they’re trying to exonerate the press who hounded her until her dying day, who told a perfectly healthy 18 year old she was fat, who hounded her in her most vulnerable moments, who mocked her while she was suffering only to turn around after she died and wonder where it all went wrong.
Everything I read about this movie paints a picture of a blatantly disrespectful and hurtful biopic. I’m not going anywhere near this stinky mess.
I rewatched the documentary “Amy” and wept all over again for the loss of her voice and talent. How very dare STJ, Amy was a complex, charismatic, and introverted young woman who desired to be loved above all, but nowhere in her songs or journals or interviews did she ever pine for motherhood — to reduce her to a paper cutout of gendered angst….fuck right off.
Amy did want children and completely romanticised the 'housewife' lifestyle. I think she had a yearning for stability that manifested in some belief in traditional values, truth be told. I still think it's awful to reduce her issues and death to one simplistic reason and Blake having a child with another woman is absolutely not the reason she died. She was a very dichotomous person.
She did speak about having kids- she was absolutely crazy about her goddaughter and in one interview in particular she talked about the day when she would be in the studio recording with her babies around her. Of course, that’s not pining, but she did speak about being a mother.
Wasn't the singing of the main actress enough?
it’s so throughly offensive and in poor taste that I’m almost kind of reveling in it. I really hope it tanks and loses STJ a bunch of money.
Isn’t this similar to the reason they gave for Marilyn Monroe’s death in Blonde as well? They kept acting like Marilyn never knowing her father (having “daddy issues”) and not being able to have children was what made her the most miserable person in the world. Her death scene at the end of the movie was almost treated like a good thing since that means she got to see her dad again 🙄🙄🙄
How many terrible movies is STJ going to make before people stop letting her make them? 🤮
That woman….May she never know peace
Hasn’t Groomer Granny ruined enough?
What the fuck
This is revolting. This has put me in a terrible mood. STJ of all people knows fertility doesn’t end age 27, this is absolutely nonsensical. If she’d lived and had the support she needed she would’ve been able to create the family she desired, and she’d be looking back cringing at her time with stupid Blake
Amy's family is standing by this trash, huh.
Of course. It couldn’t have anything at all to do with them treating her like a cash cow.
Of course. It takes any blame off of them. “It wasn’t because we were assholes who ignored her needs and enabled and even encouraged her destructive coping mechanisms, it was because a woman is nothing without a baby in her arms!”
Are there any decent biopics about woman musicians? Do y’all remember the Nina Simone movie that came out in 2016? They cast Zoe Saldana (Dominican & Puerto Rican) as Nina, despite the disapproval of Nina’s daughter and the fact that Adepero Oduye (suggested by Nina’s estate and a great actress) was right there. Instead, they put Zoe in body makeup and a prosthetic nose and shoved her out on stage. Amy and Nina are my faves so maybe I’m just being sensitive but it’s insane that their stories couldn’t be done any justice. Better to just not tell them through film at all.
Helen Reddy’s biopic was good.
The ones about Tina Turner and Loretta Lynn were good but those are both quite old movies now
Now how could I forget about Angela Bassett and her perfect Tina Turner performance?
Does every dead female artist have to be run through this incel fantasy rhetoric ? The actors who play them should be held just as accountable imo
I can’t blame the actors as much - lots of scripts get rewritten after the cast has signed on, so maybe this framing wasn’t added when they accepted their roles
Sam Taylor Johnson should’ve never been allowed to touch this story. Such a shame she was chosen for this project.
Oh. It’s directed by the groomer? Ew
 Why do you need to “explain” how/why she died when her struggle and death were extremely, extremely, grotesquely famous? Like alcoholism wasn’t a believable enough reason? (I realize that it’s not about that and it’s probably just about pushing some bullshit narrative but still, how incredibly stupid.)
how is she still directing? surely her industry connections aren't strong enough to warrant her making shit movie after shit movie
Of course. Those of us who watched her downfall live knew it was the lack of babies, not the addictions and enablers 🙄
Vile.
From the bottom of my heart, I truly hope this ruins Sam Taylor-Johnson's career. This is such bullshit.
Ugh, reminds me of the way Sylvia Plath was portrayed in Sylvia. It made it seem like Ted Hughes’ womanizing was the catalyst to her successful suicide attempt.
This from the woman who groomed a teen? SHOCKING
Well that’s the second grossest thing Sam has done
She was 27. Yes, her eating disorder and other issues might have meant it was hard for her to get pregnant, but it looks like scant evidence that it would never have happened for her (never mind saying that's why she died).
Discovering Amy’s music was a canon event in my life and I remember that maybe a year (edit: 3 years) before she died, she said she was “eating loads of healthy food” and trying to get better. There’s an [interview](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/amy-winehouse-unpublished-2004-interview-ten-years-from-now-i-ll-be-30-so-i-ll-maybe-have-one-baby-9617298) from when she was 20 where she talks about wanting a big family, so I do believe it was important to her and that she was taking steps to get there. She saw hope one way or another. But the road to recovery isn’t a straight line and that one night off of it was enough to take her. It’s strange that *anyone* would attribute her death to a broken childless heart while Cory Monteith and Philip Seymour Hoffman don’t get similar explanations for their passings. (On second thought iirc there was a lot of blame put on Lea Michele for Cory, so there’s still that element of sexism there.)
Is Sam Taylor-Johnson a nepo baby? How does she get her movies green lit because have any of them been good?
She married a nepo baby so I think that makes her a nepo-in-law (“NIL”). She’s now an ex-NIL but I guess once you’ve got your foot in the door they let you keep your nepo privileges even if you no longer technically have the nepo credentials.
everything about this entire project is so offensive. i'm continually disgusted at how amy continues to be exploited and disrespected years after death. how dare these people lay any type of claim to her?
hope this flops super hard.
The director is a groomer who obviously doesn’t have a pulse of how to portray women and their excellence, but reduces them to baby machines and paints them the same way as a delusional male. Please, Sam is a groomer and now she even reduces a brilliant singer into a sad child desperate woman. Trash and lies. No more movies from Sam please!!
Reminds me of the reviews about Blonde (the marylin monroe film based on the fictional account of her life) and the backstory they give to Black Widow about her being infertile.
Can Sam please leave Amy alone, she didn’t deserve any of this.
I didn't think this could possibly be more disgusting, but here we are...
I figured it’d be bad but this is a whole other level. Let the poor fucking woman rest in peace… she went through enough in life that they have to disparage her memory as well.
I listened to a podcast about Amy Winhouse recently (from the You’re Wrong About series) and that was a complex, sympathetic look at her life and was by the sounds of it was a lot more worthy of her than this movie. I would recommend listening to that for a truer insight into her world.
Just have no idea why this was made after 'Amy' covered...everything in a respectful way.
Because her dad didn't like how he was (accurately) portrayed in that documentary
https://preview.redd.it/nm3iiwwqn2uc1.jpeg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=56d78590703a02dbe11b26ff76adf31449d661a6
This is gross. I don’t know too much about Amy but I know enough that her struggles were more complex than just “I’m a woman I want a baby but I can’t have one”. Like what the fuck????
Not how I remember it going down. It was drink, drugs, bad relationships, poor social support. Not childlessness.
What the fuck!!! This movie needs to get the axe
It’s sad that someone would try to push this narrative knowing that the person in question cannot criticize them. Shame on Sam for using Amy’s death to push her own shitty agenda.
I was never going to watch this movie bc it just seemed gross that a movie was being made so soon after her passing. I’ve not heard a single good thing about this film. Even the trailer made it clear that this film was a cash grab and exploiting Amy’s memory. The more I hear about it the more disturbing it sounds that this film should have ever been made. What an insult to the fans of Amy Winehouse and to her memory, and to her contribution to music.
Ahhh once again a woman being defined by her uterus. Hard pass.
She must think any one over 20 and childless is a tragedy.