Absolutely Fabulous is an award-winning British comedy written by Jennifer Saunders, it has been around for thirteen years and has had five series and six specials, and it has been the focus of my interests for the best part of three years because it is a clever satire which never ceases to make me laugh. I have chosen to analyse the main themes to understand why I am attracted to it and why it makes me laugh. I am looking at relationships, self image and self esteem, fashion magazines/women and work and what sort of messages the show gives to the viewer.

“It [Absolutely Fabulous] provides rare viewing pleasures of self-recognition and humour to women. In addition to having feminist concerns at the core of its structure and themes, it stresses the artificiality surrounding ‘womanliness,’ and celebrates gender as a complex social and cultural construction.”[i]

The Women/Relationships

Edina

“The perpetually agitated Edina flaps around like a distressed turkey, mincing, huffing and pouting with her hands on her hips and her eyes rolling.”

Edina, twice married, twice divorced, with a child to each husband (her daughter Saffron, who lives with her and her estranged son, who lives in New York with his partner).

Edina is always harassing Justin, (her second ex-husband) because he is gay and living with an ‘”evil, ugly, pot-bellied dwarf”, although she works with and employs a large amount of gay people (because they are the only ones who will tolerate her) she represents a double standard because she is openly homophobic toward Justin and his partner, Oliver. Marshall (her first ex husband) has re-married a tall, eccentric, busty, American version of Edina, who is into extreme American fashion (commercialism, crass television infomercials, media religion).

Edina’s daughter, Saffron has taken on the role of the caring mother and Edina is the dependent child. Saffron serves as Edina’s moral consequence, reminding her of the consequences of her actions. Without Saffron, Edina is ‘flapping in the wind’ without reminds of her behaviour. Saffron is subject to constant emotional abuse because Edina can’t accept that Saffron is not like her.

Edina works in Fashion PR, she lies; blames; over-exaggerates; is argumentative; changes her mind, is pathetic, manipulative, she uses people, lays guilt trips. She drinks, smokes, swears, is a drama queen, attention seeker. She seeks enlightenment though lacks enthusiasm, stamina or perseverance. She is practically friendless apart from her best friend, Patsy.

Patsy

“She [Patsy] is a woman of few words and languid movements, indicating her feelings by snots of approval, snorts of disapproval or snorts of cocaine” i

Patsy is very thin, a fashion director (though rarely works), encourages Edina to rebel and do her own thing, she always supports Edina as a friend as long as Edina supports her financially and otherwise. She hates Edina’s children (because she sees them as competition for Edina’s time and attention) especially Saffron.  Patsy “works” at a fashion magazine, but goes so infrequently that she forgot its precise location. She has a rapacious appetite for drugs, alcohol, and very young men. Patsy and Mrs. M (Edina’s mother) get along quite well because Mrs.M favoured Patsy over Edina. Mother knows that Edina and Patsy are inseparable and accepts that.

Mother (Mrs. M)

Edina’s mother is slightly dotty and often forgets where she has put things and makes harmless mistakes which infuriate Edina; she is often an easy target for Edina’s blame. She is a naïve character who supports only Saffron; she also provides insight into Edina’s childhood. It often leaves one wondering as to why Edina doesn’t get along with her mother, Mrs. M gave Edina a lot of freedom as a child but given the culture that Edina and Patsy grew up in it is more likely to be her just trying to be anarchic rather than anything else.

Fleur and Catriona

Fleur and Catriona both work for Patsy’s magazine as editors, Fleur does cosmetics and Catriona does lifestyle, they both just agree with everything that is said. They are both rather vain and useless, they get free samples of all the products they review and spend all day drinking and gossiping.

Magda

Magda is Patsy’s boss, constantly ‘fagging and boozing’ and up for a shag. She spends most of her time telling Patsy and the others what she wants in the magazine, ‘doing lunch’ and travelling.

Bubble

Edina’s hopelessly inadequate personal assistant, who dresses like a teletubby with the brains to match, she is only employed because she makes Edina look good and is great at booking lunches. There is only one time that Bubble has ever done her job well and that was when Edina sent her to a hypnotherapist, in a daydream Edina had.

Claudia Bing

Edina’s arch enemy in PR. Claudia is hard working but manipulative and highly competitive. She also has an incompetent assistant.

Self Image & Self Esteem

Edina has a very low self image, this partly due to her upbringing, depicted in flashbacks as showing Edina’s mother making Edina only eat vegetables and “healthy food” and always giving Patsy nicer food, but is mostly due to the fact that Edina is constantly surrounded by Size 8 models. As far as role models go Patsy and Bubble don’t exactly have realistic weights nor do the countless models featured in the fashion magazines that Edina and Patsy regularly read. Edina’s daughter Saffron constantly reminds Edina that all she has to do is drink and eat less and exercise more, where as Patsy suggests cosmetic corrective surgery as a ‘quick fix’.

Edina doesn’t think very much of herself and therefore any attention given to her she jumps at i.e. her two previous marriages in the show it would seem that Edina has only had four relationships – two husbands, a ‘shag partner’ mentioned in “Magazine” and Pete in “Schmoozin’”

Edina has been compared to Patsy as being a donkey, a companion, whereas Patsy was identified as a racehorse, successful and aloof. Edina doesn’t think of herself as being any better than this, because she lives through Patsy.  Patsy always did the hard drugs, was rebellious and slept with all the men. Whereas, Edina just fell asleep and missed out on all the ‘action’.

Patsy lives a hedonistic, abusive life, constantly bringing about abuse to her own body, be it through drugs and alcohol or promiscuous sex with numerous partners, she survives on the ‘fashion diet’ of cigarettes, champagne and indiscriminate praise. While Patsy does have an ego, she has also been shown as being indecisive and dissatisfied with her appearance and valuing Edina’s advice and comments. Patsy was once a model (in the 1960’s), so there is an air of vanity and pride in her appearance in some parts. I don’t think Patsy cares all that much about how she looks, because her first action upon waking is lighting the cigarette dangling from her mouth.

As Joanna Lumley herself says, “it is a great freedom for women to not always have to look attractive”.

Edina, is the opposite she is completely obsessed with any fad diet or drug which claims to help you lose weight, she has tried them all and still remains two stone overweight, what she doesn’t understand is that you have to stop smoking, drinking and taking drugs and actually exercise while on these diets for them to work. If a celebrity is a doing a diet or exercise regime, Edina is quick to start this, small dolly-sized meals like Elizabeth Hurley which claim to “fool your brain into believing that you are eating a big meal”, military fitness, jogging, she even got a personal trainer and a gym membership, but at the last minute decided not to have cosmetic surgery. In Series Four, “Donkey” she goes on a detox diet and successfully loses a couple of pounds, but is reminded by her colleagues (who were oblivious to the fact that she had actually lost weight) that she was ‘still too fat’, as if she had to be size 8 before she was accepted as being ‘thin enough’.

Edina and Patsy both dress however they like. Edina buys clothes two sizes too small for when she thought she would be smaller. “She combines the worst of the last three decades in one hideous aesthetic statement”.

“True self acceptance is being able to stand in front of a mirror without expectations or demands” [ii].

Edina holds true to ‘inside of me there is a thin person just screaming to get out.” Thus creating a fantasy that she looks fabulous but in fact, when she looks in the mirror and reality returns she is greeted with the image of “Barbara Bush with no clothes on”. Patsy, however, while she does give across a very slaggy, promiscuous image of herself a lot of the time, she dresses very expensively and well, considering.

Edina and Patsy support each others vices, Patsy needs companionship, and Edina needs Patsy for social standing, fame and going places. They are co-dependent on each other for these aspects of their lives, because the other is there supporting it, it makes it okay. The closest relationship they have had is with each other.

Women and Work/ Fashion Magazines

To be a fashion PR agent you need the following requirements: organisation; time management; the ability to liaise with fashion designers, models, icons and celebrities, the ability to organise fashion shows, launches and parties.

Edina makes an effort, on occasion, to do her job, however lacks discipline, expertise, organisation and time management skills. She is also largely dependent on the hopelessly incompetent, Bubble, her impractically employed personal assistant to do her job for her. Although she runs her own company, and has freedom in what she does, she leisurely arrives at work usually sometime after lunch, having been shopping beforehand. Edina often wonders why she never wins any PR awards, though never thinks it could be because she isn’t good at her job like some of her rivals are.

“The role of a fashion editor is to follow the new ‘shapes’ offered at seasonal collections, select the ones that will be most influential, devise a thematic ‘story’ to unify a selection of clothes to be photographed on locations and then presented as a coherent fashion feature.” [iii]

Patsy ‘works’ as a fashion director for a fashion magazine, although her positions change as the show progresses, while with the magazine she ‘worked’ as a fashion director and eventually as a fashion editor, positions which she slept her way into. She seemingly does nothing and is never at work because she is always shopping or lounging around at Edina’s office. She argues that she is always at work thanks to her mobile phone. When her magazine folded, she became the chief stylist, buyer and lifestyle co-ordinator for a concept store called ‘Jeremy’s’  where she sourced expensive things to sell to “rich bitches whose faces are pulled so tight that they can’t see what they are buying”. Her job facilitates her lifestyle because essentially she could be anywhere, doing anything and still be ‘working’.

“Edina and Patsy although ‘working women; actually depend on the largesses of men to maintain their station in life, a cynical vision of professionalism may seem regressive, but at the same time it is a refreshing critique of advertising and fashion, two industries invariably depicted by television as being absolutely fabulous.”[iv]

The fashion industry came about through the growth of advertising and the manufacturing of beauty products and the use of visuals in magazines. The advertisers used (the sexual sell) and played on women’s emotions and fantasies. The image of women in fashion magazines was to do with their appearance and dress. Women were promoted as being merely objects of sexual desire.

The Messages ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ gives to the viewer.

Edina and Patsy are contradictory as characters because they portray people that are caught up in a world of materialistic, conformist, fashion obsessed vanity, while they are in fact sending this up. The characters are gravely flawed – Edina is caught up in the latest fads yet is unable to function in the real world. Edina and Patsy, while trying to come across as best friends don’t support each other – the relationship is superficial because they are both using the other for their own ulterior motives – Edina maintains a friendship with Patsy because she is a wild-spirited hedonistic who has absolved herself of responsibility. Patsy is dependent on Edina for her money, generosity and stupidity. It is almost like Edina is paying for the friendship and Patsy takes advantage of this.

“You have to do it, or you won’t have done it” – Patsy coerces Edina into rebelling by getting her belly-button pierced, because it is ‘the thing to do’. Patsy is apt to do this as she knows Edina’s weaknesses.

“You are a  fabulous, wonderful  individual, and remember I have known you longer than your daughter and anything you do is okay by me, you are my best friend, sweetie … can I use your car?” -  Patsy is only kind to Edina if she gets something out of it.

Edina lacks confidence because she always looks for the latest fashion and fads. In fashion, you can hide your displeasure with your body; Edina uses this to her advantage by buying designer couture to conveniently blame the designer for her appearance. Patsy is over-confident and takes risks at any cost, not caring about the outcome. Edina is attracted to Patsy because she is everything Edina is not. Patsy has an image, whereas Edina buys her own image because she doesn’t fit in, mentally (she can’t just be herself) or physically (she can’t fit into the couture). Both Edina and Patsy sadly focus on their image, [Naomi] Wolf reminds us that “if you reduce people to one aspect of their identities you get a very distorted and ill-functioning society.”

‘Absolutely Fabulous’ has messages about friendship, consumerism, excessive over-using  lifestyles, money not equalling happiness, happiness being momentary, relationships with family and friends and the fashion industry. ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ portrays women as shallow, vain, narcissistic, alcoholics, substance abusers, glamorous but irresponsible, hedonistic, bitchy, responsibility avoiders and self involved faddists.

“Edina and Patsy represent the (gay) male idea of life, based on pleasure and enjoyment and satisfying the appetites of the flesh.” [v]

“[Jennifer] Saunders ridicules not only bourgeois notions of motherhood and family life, but media images of women’s liberation.”

‘Absolutely Fabulous’ has a uniquely feminist flavour, even though it shows women in very unflattering terms, Edina and Patsy are not intended as role models, but serve as reminders that there are people like them, and while they represent people like themselves in the most stereotypical ways, having taken the worst qualities from each industry – they are sending up themselves (those who they represent).

I think this show is important because not only does it present “women’s concerns” in a comical way, it reminds us to be ourselves, and in some ways, if seen in the right light, one would smartly decide to indulge in the delights of ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ but remember to try and ignore the adverse messages the media give to women about their bodies and appearances.