Post-war chicks and dancing dicks

This is for your film critic Chris Barry (the “man who like[s] naked chicks probably more than most”), who reviewed Mrs. Henderson Presents [Weekly round-up, Jan. 19].

I was eight years old when the bomb dropped on the Windmill Theatre, and 11 years later went to my first vaudeville at the Finsbury Park Empire with my fellow army conscripts. We threw peanuts at the tableaux to see if we could make the “chicks” flutter.

Luckily I saw Mrs. Henderson Presents first and read the review after. During the film I wept copiously, recognizing some of the songs, remembering what, as children, we lived through, getting the anti-war message, seeing what I did not realize as a child—how repressed we British were by the ruling class—and rejoicing when it dawned on me that this was perhaps the start of the post-war sexual revolution, the fruits of which Mr. Barry can now enjoy.

It is not a tired old plot, sir. It is a documentary costume drama, based on fact, more intellectually stimulating than any “Carry On” product and certainly more titillating than Masterpiece Theatre.

Thank you for patronizingly stereotyping me as an old timer, but I read the Montreal Mirror notwithstanding. I also do not use blue rinse in my hair, although I prefer dancing dicks at Club Taboo “probably more than most.”

» J. Christopher Wilson, Bainsville, Ontario

Know when to walk away

In response to your Jan. 12 Insect: When do we start taking personal responsibility for our own actions? The Mirror stated that lotto ticket addiction was the Insect, when, truth be told, if we were really honest with ourselves, we would admit that the real Insect is the no mea culpa attitude that has permeated modern society where everyone else is to blame for our personal shortcomings.

When Quebec coroner Jean-François Dorval recommended that depanneur owners should be trained to spot compulsive gamblers and stop selling these poor souls lottery tickets, he opened the floodgates for a number of issues.

Since when does the depanneur owner know what is best for the average Joe? Furthermore, should this poor dep owner also stop selling cigarettes to the chain smoker, booze to the drinker and puzzle books to the Sudoku addict?

Using the same line of argumentation, should grocery store cashiers refuse to ring up the groceries of overweight patrons?! And then, I guess that the 17-year-old who works at McDonald’s could also refuse to sell McValue meals to those customers who may be slightly portly.

The problem here is that we no longer accept responsibility for our own vices and instead of dealing with our addictions, to gambling, booze, food etc, we expect other people to establish limitations for us. The reality is that the depanneur owner has one responsibility, to serve his customers, and the customer has the responsibility to consume what he wants, when he wants.

But when said consumer’s consumption gets out of hand, the only person who should be held accountable is the consumer, because he made the final decision. And if addiction is a brain disease, one that cannot be controlled without help, then the responsibility falls on the government to establish outreach programs. Isn’t that why we pay taxes in our quasi-socialist-Medicare-is-so-wonderful-society?

» Nathalie Spielmann

Supersystem vs. big tits

What’s up with Supersystem’s Justin Moyer running his mouth with this: “It’s about women with big tits, basically. The line is about big tits for the unclassy, monstrous men that would want to see them.” [“Everything clicks,” Jan. 19]?

Hey, I’m all for preferences—like ’em big, like ’em small, it’s all good—but what a pussy! I’ll bet his girlfriend made him write that after she caught him “accidentally” on the bignaturals.com site.

Kudos, by the way, for not caving on the Karla ad you ran in the last issue—a bunch of media outlets in Toronto pulled the ads. I guess in T.O. being a pussy is genetic. Anyways, the Mirror’s got brass ones.

» Neil Schwartzman

Corrections:

The photograph in the Jan. 12 People column profiling political candidate and filmmaker Eric “Roach” Denis was not of Mr. Denis, but rather of François Belhumeur, proprietor of Aphrodite, an adult video store in Verdun. He will be profiled in an upcoming People column. A real photo of Mr. Denis can be found this week in our Election notebook on p. 7.

Also, Noisemaker Alexandra l’Heureux’s dance company is called BWH2.

We apologize for the errors.

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