The Problematic Gaze

In this episode of The Problematic Gaze, we’re diving headfirst into the messy, hilarious, and sometimes uncomfortable world of early 2000s pop culture.

This time, we head back to 2003 to unpack Bo’ Selecta! (Series 2, Episode 2), a chaotic snapshot of pre-social media celebrity culture. From exaggerated caricatures to shock-value humour, we explore how this episode acts as a time capsule of what audiences once laughed at—and what might not fly today.

We watched this episode of Bo Selecta from 2003 : Check It Out here!

In our Culture Corner, we set the scene: the era of Tony Blair and the Iraq War protests, the rise of early platforms like MySpace and Bebo, low-rise fashion, and the explosion of UK TV hits like Little Britain, Peep Show, and Pop Idol. We also revisit the sound of the year—from Girls Aloud to Dizzee Rascal and The Darkness.

We break down the episode’s sketches and get into the bigger conversation around its humour—looking at how it leans on “punching down,” sexism, homophobic jokes, and racial caricature, including the controversial portrayal of Craig David. We also reflect on how the show was later removed by Channel 4 in 2020, and the apology from creator Leigh Francis.

Funny, reflective, and at times uncomfortable, we ask:

was this just the humour of its time—or something we should have questioned all along?

Click here to visit our YouTube site, The Gaze Channel, where you can watch video versions of our podcast.

Our YouTube site also contains playlists for each episode with provides wider context to each episode.

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And if our fellow Gazers want to comment on what they've heard in our episodes, or to suggest future topics, please email us at [email protected]. We love hearing from you!

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In this edition of our bonus episode, we dive into listener emails, TV comebacks, midlife mishaps, and the relentless pace of modern life. Picking up from last week’s Fight Club debate, we unpack Louis Theroux: The Manosphere and the rise of influencer culture—asking whether it’s all just a phone-fuelled grift.

New listener Fiona writes in with a recommendation for Deadloch and a nudge toward Star Trek—so we ask: where should we even start?

We celebrate the reopening of Camden’s iconic LGBTQ+ venue The Black Cap (now with a Lily Savage tribute), swap our own “getting older” injury stories, and talk honestly about exercising after 50.

Along the way, we take aim at absurd headlines, reflect on how news used to travel slower, and discuss what social media and endless scrolling are doing to all of us. Plus: TV chat on The Comeback, Last One Laughing, and The Apprentice—including one painfully awkward shopping task.

Got thoughts on your own scrolling habits? We’d love to hear from you.

GAZER HOMEWORK: Next week we dissect comedy sketch show Bo Selecta from 2003 : Check It Out here!

Click here to visit our YouTube site, The Gaze Channel, where you can watch video versions of our podcast.

Our YouTube site also contains playlists for each episode with provides wider context to each episode.

Click here to follow us on all our socials

And if our fellow Gazers want to comment on what they've heard in our episodes, or to suggest future topics, please email us at [email protected]. We love hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Check out our YouTube Channel

This week on The Problematic Gaze we revisit Fight Club (1999)—soap, anarchy, and all. We unpack the plot, cast, and reception, and take on the enduring question: is this a razor-sharp critique of toxic masculinity, or a film that accidentally glamorises it?

We place Fight Club back in its late-’90s moment, with a detour through 1999 Britain—Y2K jitters, New Labour optimism, Cool Britannia swagger, Spice Girls-era pop, club culture, and the early days of dial-up and brick-like mobile phones. It’s a “lads, lads, lads” landscape shaped by football and magazines like Loaded and FHM, and we explore how that cultural backdrop speaks to the film’s anxieties.

From male malaise and the lure of support groups to violence as a search for meaning, we dig into Project Mayhem’s cult logic and, yes, that twist. We also consider the film’s afterlife—how Fight Club has been reinterpreted (and often misinterpreted) online, especially within incel and manosphere spaces.

GAZER HOMEWORK: Next week we dissect comedy sketch show Bo Selecta from 2003 : Check It Out here!

Click here to visit our YouTube site, The Gaze Channel, where you can watch video versions of our podcast.

Our YouTube site also contains playlists for each episode with provides wider context to each episode.

Click here to follow us on all our socials

And if our fellow Gazers want to comment on what they've heard in our episodes, or to suggest future topics, please email us at [email protected]. We love hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Check out our YouTube Channel

This week on The Problematic Gazette, we’re back for a chaotic spring equinox catch-up—sharing garden mishaps, recovery updates, and what’s next after our Psycho episode.

We get into what we’ve been watching, from the return of This Life on iPlayer to Channel 4’s A Woman of Substance, a twisty ITVX thriller with David Morrissey and Eve Myles, and Last One Laughing season two on Prime.

Listener messages take us everywhere—from The Two Ronnies nostalgia to pushback on a Daily Mail hair-length article. We chat about post-COVID work-from-home life, the UK coal industry now employing around 350 people, forgotten phrases like “carbon copy,” and the removal of Torchwood’s Ianto shrine.

And yes… we end on a genuinely graphic story involving a dog and a rabbit—before teasing next week’s Fight Clubepisode.

Click here to visit our YouTube site, The Gaze Channel, where you can watch video versions of our podcast.

Our YouTube site also contains playlists for each episode with provides wider context to each episode.

Click here to follow us on all our socials

And if our fellow Gazers want to comment on what they've heard in our episodes, or to suggest future topics, please email us at [email protected]. We love hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube Channel.

We’re checking into the Bates Motel this week on The Problematic Gaze Podcast as we dive deep into Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960)—the horror classic that changed movie history one shocking shower scene at a time.

First up, our Culture Corner spins the dial back to Britain in 1960—a world of lingering post-war austerity, buttoned-up social conservatism, emerging youth culture, and a time when homosexuality was still illegal. We set the scene with the films, music, and social climate of the era before turning our gaze to Hitchcock’s most infamous thriller.

We unpack the production history of Psycho, its box-office smash success, awards buzz, and how it pushed the boundaries of screen violence, laying the groundwork for the modern slasher genre. Then we walk through the film itself—from Marion Crane’s desperate theft and flight, to the eerie roadside stop at the Bates Motel, to the unforgettable shower murder, and the investigation by Lila Crane and Sam Loomis that leads to one of cinema’s most legendary twists: Norman Bates and Mother.

Along the way we debate Hitchcock’s reputation, the film’s portrayal of mental illness, and the complicated ways Psycho has been interpreted through gender and trans-adjacent readings.

GAZER HOMEWORK: Next week get out toxic masculinity heads on and take a look at Fight Club (1999).

Click here to visit our YouTube site, The Gaze Channel, where you can watch video versions of our podcast.

Our YouTube site also contains playlists for each episode with provides wider context to each episode.

Click here to follow us on all our socials

And if our fellow Gazers want to comment on what they've heard in our episodes, or to suggest future topics, please email us at [email protected]. We love hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on The Problematic Gazette, apparently two days in the office is now enough to completely wipe us out. When did that happen? We talk about how ageing sneaks up on you, why work feels different than it did in our twenties, and we ask listeners to weigh in on the eternal struggle of work–life balance.

Then we stumble across a brilliant showbiz connection that sends us down a disco rabbit hole. Legendary producer Biddu wrote Tina Charles’ smash hit I Love to Love — and the track also features Trevor Horn before he became one of the most influential producers of the 1980s. We talk about Tina’s meteoric success and her Streatham roots.

Next up: huge Doctor Who news. Two missing episodes from 1965 have just been recovered, meaning the number of lost episodes drops from 95 to 93 — and they’re heading to iPlayer at Easter. We also celebrate Maximum Power, the documentary about Blake’s 7 icon Jacqueline Pearce, which has just landed an RTS award nomination and lands on Apple TV.

From there we get stuck into a ridiculous Daily Mail headline policing women’s hair over 45 (because apparently that’s still a thing), catch up on the latest chaos in The Apprentice, and dive into the debate around Ryan Murphy’s portrayals of real people — including the controversy surrounding his upcoming series about JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette.

Click here to visit our YouTube site, The Gaze Channel, where you can watch video versions of our podcast.

Our YouTube site also contains playlists for each episode with provides wider context to each episode.

Click here to follow us on all our socials

And if our fellow Gazers want to comment on what they've heard in our episodes, or to suggest future topics, please email us at [email protected]. We love hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

IN A CHANGE TO OUR ADVERTISED SCHEDULE (The Day Jobs Have Swamped Us This Week! Tune in next week for our take take on 1960's Psycho!) HERE'S ANOTHER CHANCE TO HEAR OUR MOTHER'S DAY TAKE ON 'MOMMIE DEAREST' FROM LAST YEAR. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

Greetings from PG Towers! Join social historian Dr Lee Arnott and TV Producer Dave Moor for a lighthearted look at the world of TV, Film and Popular Culture from yesteryear. This week we cast our Gaze over the 1981 film 'Mommie Dearest' starring Faye Dunaway. Much derided by critics and viewers alike upon its release, it has since become a cult camp classic, deeply embedded in gay culture. But do the harrowing scenes of abuse lie easily alongside the fantastically colourful scenes of Hollywood glamour? Just how true is this story? And why you would NEVER want to get into a fight, scripted or not, with Faye Dunaway.

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And if our fellow Gazers want to comment on what they've heard in our episodes, or to suggest future topics, please email us at [email protected]. We love hearing from you!

Click here to visit our YouTube site, The Gaze Channel, where you can watch video versions of our podcast.

Our YouTube site also contains playlists for each episode with provides wider context to each episode.

Click here to follow us on all our socials

And if our fellow Gazers want to comment on what they've heard in our episodes, or to suggest future topics, please email us at [email protected]. We love hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this relaxed Saturday chat, we talk about Britain’s obsession with the weather and the struggle of “wrong jacket season,” before drifting into existential reflections on old student films and Dr Lee’s memories of watching — and later working with — the legendary Siân Phillips.

Dave brings up Dubai influencers facing government crackdowns over missile-related posts, which leads to memories of Bahrain during the 1990 Gulf crisis and a discussion about the limits of influencer freedom.

Along the way we note Shakin’ Stevens turning 78, discover Disney dating site Mouse Mingle, laugh about a long-misheard lyric in “One Way Ticket to the Blues,” and react to Richard Osman leaving House of Games. We also plug our socials and preview Tuesday’s Mother’s Day episode on Psycho.

Click here to visit our YouTube site, The Gaze Channel, where you can watch video versions of our podcast.

Our YouTube site also contains playlists for each episode with provides wider context to each episode.

Click here to follow us on all our socials

And if our fellow Gazers want to comment on what they've heard in our episodes, or to suggest future topics, please email us at [email protected]. We love hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, we begin by digging into gender inequality statistics before turning to one of British television’s strangest dystopias: The Worm That Turned, the 1980 eight-part serial from The Two Ronnies.

Set in a nightmare vision of 2012 Britain, the serial imagines a world where women rule, men are domesticated and forced into women’s clothing, and law and order is enforced by a PVC-clad female Gestapo led by screen siren Diana Dors. We follow the unlikely heroes Janet and Betty (Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett) as they flee the regime, seek out the resistance, and attempt to escape to Wales.

We place the serial in the political and cultural context of 1980 Britain — early Thatcherism, unrest, and rapidly shifting TV and music trends — and ask whether the comedy is mocking women’s power or exposing male fear of it. Along the way, we note the male-gaze elements and fascist aesthetics, but also the moments that highlight just how “shit” women’s lives are under patriarchy.

Click here to watch 'The Worm That Turned' on YouTube

GAZER HOMEWORK: Next week for Mother's Day we focus on the Hitchcock classic: PSYCHO from 1960.

Click here to visit our YouTube site, The Gaze Channel, where you can watch video versions of our podcast.

Our YouTube site also contains playlists for each episode with provides wider context to each episode.

Click here to follow us on all our socials

And if our fellow Gazers want to comment on what they've heard in our episodes, or to suggest future topics, please email us at [email protected]. We love hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to The Problematic Gazette — The Saturday spin off to our main show - The Problematic Gaze- the queer pop culture podcast where nothing is off limits.

This week:

🏋️ Why we’re suddenly obsessed with Gladiators (and yes… it’s homoerotic)

📺 The reckoning of America’s Next Top Model and toxic 2000s reality TV culture

🎭 Celebrating Kenneth Williams at 100 and the genius of the Carry On era

📱 TikTok conspiracy rabbit holes — can social media rewrite history?

🐩 A poodle haircut that channels Auntie Peggy

💌 Listener emails & Pride Month film planning

From noughties body-shaming to modern media literacy, from gladiatorial thighs to archive-based history, we cover it all — with laughs, nostalgia, and just a touch of feverish delirium.

If you love:

✔️ Queer cinema

✔️ British comedy history

✔️ 80s & 90s TV nostalgia

✔️ Reality TV deep dives

✔️ Smart cultural debate with chaos energy

You’re in the right place.

🎧 New episodes every Tuesday & Saturday

Click here to visit our YouTube site, The Gaze Channel, where you can watch video versions of our podcast.

Our YouTube site also contains playlists for each episode with provides wider context to each episode.

Click here to follow us on all our socials

And if our fellow Gazers want to comment on what they've heard in our episodes, or to suggest future topics, please email us at [email protected]. We love hearing from you!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.