Brianna Parkins: Children tend to be the first to pull parents up on outdated attitudes

Richard Curtis, the director and writer behind noughties British romcom supremacy and praised choreographer of Hugh Grant’s fringe, has some regrets.

Curtis is responsible for films many of us tend to sit down and watch when we stumble across them on telly, even though we’ve seen them loads of times.

He is the reason we watch Love Actually in our Christmas jammies, surreptitiously picking all the green triangles out of the Quality Street, burdening our loved ones with the grim toffee pennies left behind.

Curtis is the reason floppy haired, awkward British men had their market value inflated, the reason we can get W.H Auden right at the pub quiz and the reason for Bridget Jones and her bunny tail leaping off the page and on to the screen.

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In his spare time Curtis co-wrote both the Mr Bean and Blackadder series. He has a depressingly stellar resume of creating stories that millions of people have loved over the years, so what, if any, regrets could Curtis entertain?

Making jokes about women’s weight for a start.

At the Cheltenham Literature Festival, when pushed by an interviewer on his movies featuring jibes about the size of women characters in his earlier films, he said “those jokes aren’t any longer funny”.

In Love Actually, Natalie (the very average-sized and attractive love interest of Hugh Grant as the British prime minister) is referred to as “chubby” and even nicknamed “Plumpy” by her own father.

Bridget Jones, whose weight in the books ranges at about the 60kg mark (a measure I personally surpassed by 15), is constantly described as fat.

The person taking Curtis to task on stage over all of this was the same person who caused him to start his self-reflection years before – his daughter Scarlett.

“I remember how shocked I was five years ago when Scarlett said to me: ‘You can never use the word fat again.’ Wow, you were right,” he told the crowd.

Children tend to be the first ones to pull their parents up on outdated attitudes. “Mummmmm you can’t say that any more!” they roll their eyes, cringing at our faux pas. You feed them, you love them and they get embarrassed. Charming. It can be hard to be lectured or learn something new from the same person you taught to use a fork, but that’s how life goes. You did it to your parents.

“Christ Nan, don’t go around using that word in public,” we all find ourselves saying at least once in our lives. Swearing that we’ll never become like that when we get old.

To his credit Curtis took it on the chin. As he did other criticisms regarding the lack of diversity in many of his films which seemed mainly to be about the lives of posh, white people. Particularly Notting Hill, which was set in Notting Hill, a traditionally multicultural neighbourhood with a history of race riots and the home of Carnival.

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“I wish I’d been ahead of the curve,” Curtis told his daughter and the audience.

“Because I came from a very un-diverse school and bunch of university friends, I think that I’ve hung on, on the diversity issue, to the feeling that I wouldn’t know how to write those parts.”

Previously in 2022, Curtis said the lack of diversity in Love Actually, a movie made 20 years ago, made him “feel uncomfortable and a bit stupid”.

Curtis created movies that featured mainly all white and upper-middle class characters because he and his friends were just that. He wished he knew what he did now. Don’t we all.

But while he should be commended for holding his hands up, Curtis still profited from those movies that contributed to damaging narratives in the cultural landscape.

Many have had beliefs, ignorance or used language they would be ashamed of now. People should be encouraged to grow and challenge problematic parts of themselves, but how much grace should they be given for past mistakes? Are there some things, actually, that cannot be waved away with “well I know better now”.

Ask Lunden Stallings, the influencer under fire after her old tweets using the N-word and telling people to “go back to their country” resurfaced days after her well-publicised wedding. Stallings interrupted her honeymoon with an apology video alongside wife Olivia to explain she had posted the offending tweets in 2012 when she was a teen but was now “utterly disgusted and ashamed” with what her past self did.

“I wholeheartedly take responsibility for this. I am sorry,” she said at the end of the nearly 10-minute long clip.

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But the internet was not so forgiving, pointing out that Stallings, a 26-year-old white woman from a southern US state, should have been more than aware of the racially harmful nature of her tweets just more than 10 years ago. Even if she was a teenager at the time. Even if some were rap lyrics or things she had told her friends “as a joke”.

Some people have praised her honesty and willingness to take accountability. PR crisis expert Molly McPherson told Time magazine she expected Stallings to survive the storm with brand deals intact.

“They’re part of a long list, an ongoing list, of people who get called out for racist tweets from their past; I don’t think by any means they are going to be the last ones,” McPherson said.

Is there a time limit on our past transgressions? Can we come back from things said or done 10, maybe 20 years ago that don’t represent who we are today? Or should there be some things that are inexcusable and deserve a spot on the nastiest naughty step in existence – large scale public shaming on the internet.

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In the end it could be our children and the values their generation have moved on to, who decide. Just ask Sigmund Freud whose great- great-granddaughter happens to be Scarlett Curtis, the woman who called him “horrible” and “sexist”.