Staying seated: Janet McTeer
15 August 2014
Last night’s explosive penultimate episode of BBC 2’s The Honourable Woman left us reeling; but also pondering the odd sexual politics of height. The gripping Israeli-Palestinian espionage thriller sees the Olivier award-winning actress Janet McTeer play the ball-busting boss of MI6.
Her character has no qualms about savagely cutting her colleagues down to size, or aggressively pursuing an affair with Stephen Rea’s top spook. And yet we only ever see her when she’s sitting down.
Could her immobility have anything to do with the fact that, at 6ft 1in, McTeer has a good three inches on her onscreen lover? We didn’t realise that having a woman towering over a man was such a TV taboo. Could the magnificent McTeer please be allowed to stand up?
