Hey, there! Log in / Register

SMILF star challenges South Boston councilor to actually watch her show

Frankie Shaw, the creator and star of that SMILF show, suggests City Councilor Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Downtown) should maybe watch some of her episodes first before yammering about how it impugns the fair maidens of South Boston.

In most popular movies and television, South Boston is generally portrayed as extremely violent, corrupt and notoriously racist. We at SMILF are none of these things. SMILF's Southie is about a woman striving for a better life for her kid. I have a feeling that the judgement comes from underlying gender-bias more than anything else. And I get it, these deep-seated unconscious judgements are centuries old and very hard to recognize. But just like Ben Affleck and Seth MacFarlane, who came into town to make their very male art of chasing women, robbing banks, and getting high with teddy bears, I'd like the same consideration to tell the stories that are important to me.

I'll admit, I get why you don’t like the title. To me, it was an attempt to reclaim a terrible term, a term that men use to categorize women.

Shaw notes her Southie roots, although she indirectly admits she did not herself grow up in the neighborhood. She does not thank Flynn for raising the profile of her show in much the same way books and movies banned in Boston used to get a boost in the rest of the country.

Neighborhoods: 
Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

Per need to chill in general.

*I also haven't watched the show, but I will watch it now.

up
Voting closed 0

I remember Pete walking on East Fourth St. with cup of coffee in hand, old ripped t-shirt and sneakers with the heels flattened down greeting everyone with a big hello.

up
Voting closed 1

Seth MacFarlane? Odd choice of counter-example, considering the more obvious choice.

up
Voting closed 0

Disgusting pig trying to jump on the me too bandwagon with her attack on Flynn. You do not have to watch this show to know it's a steaming pile of excrement.

up
Voting closed 0

Always taking an opportunity to slam Rosie O'Donnell. But thanks for expanding your social media beyond Twitter.

up
Voting closed 0

Only morons judge things before they experience them. You should not be proud to be ignorant.

up
Voting closed 0

Hey Kinopio, I have never experienced you, but I know you're a douchebag without ever having to.

up
Voting closed 0

You cannot make an informed judgement about the show without watching it. You seem to be attacking her solely because she dared to respond to Ed Flynn's attack on her show. Smacks of the tribalism many of us associate with the worst aspects of Southie culture.

up
Voting closed 0

seen the show?

Sounds like someone needs to protect you from the sewer in your own mind.

up
Voting closed 0

But she writes as if nobody local objects to the way Bennie A. and Matty D. portray Southie (and Charlestown) as nothing but one square mile of pure blood-soaked evil because they're all blood-soaked misogynists themselves. Maybe if she spent more time talking to people in the neighborhood, she'd learn otherwise.

I'm also not so sure growing up in a suburb, even with a mother and uncle from the old neighborhood, gives you quite the same perspective on the place as actually growing up on those mean streets (I say this as somebody whose father and aunts grew up in a poor but proud and kind of tribal neighborhood; I would never presume to be able to write to the experiences of people there).

And shouldn't she be thanking Flynn for all the free publicity he's gotten her? It's like in the old days, when publishers would slap "Banned in Boston" on their book jackets in the rest of the country.

up
Voting closed 0

And it has 100% to do with the name of the show.

The name is a sexual connotation for females and I assume is there because it is catchy, gets attention, sex sells, etc, etc. That is all fair game in the long run but I can't fault residents for being upset at it but hey, this is America too, get over it.

up
Voting closed 0

It is about a character. Frankie Shaw writes "I am not claiming to represent every single woman in South Boston. How could I? I'm writing about the people I know.."

up
Voting closed 0

up
Voting closed 0

I hadn't thought of the obvious until Seth wrote that. A city councilor, an elected official, "the government", just censored something. He didn't just write a letter or meet with his community. He says he was responsible for getting the ads down. (Even though he wasn't.)

Like, how chilling is that.

What does he think about Call Me By Your Name?

up
Voting closed 0

And yes, this is the extreme that every controversial internet posts eventually ends up at, but what if instead of some stupid TV show, we were talking ads denying the Holocaust? Would an elected official getting those ads taken down also be censorship?

In the end, there was something offensive about the ads to people. And yes, even though I wasn't clutching my pearls when I saw the ad at Roslindale Square every day, I thought the S stood for "Southie" and MILF was, well, MILF and could see how a neighborhood was offended by it.

Sadly, people get offended by ads all the time. If we are going to gripe about the poorly designed ads at South Station, griping about these ads being in Southie seems about right.

up
Voting closed 0

Did anybody in the area of Chicago where they film Shameless get their local politicians to grandstand on how they had all been maligned?

That show is really quite unwatchable a little ways in. This sounds far more reasonable.

How about Always Sunny in Philadelphia? Rather depraved, too.

up
Voting closed 0

Let's all remember that this show is called Southie Mom I'd Like to Fuck

up
Voting closed 0

If nobody had a desire to F your M, you wouldn't exist. All this acronym and show do is remove the subtlety.

up
Voting closed 0

I watched the first episode. It stank of poverty porn and I can see how it would really rub people the wrong way.

up
Voting closed 0

was more of a Beacon Hill thing?

up
Voting closed 0

The S stands for Single, not Southie. Try again. Better yet, don't.

up
Voting closed 0

OK. Single Mom I'd Like to Fuck. So much better.

up
Voting closed 0

You sound like one of those trolls who tries to demand that your ex has no sex as a condition of having custody in divorce court.

In any case, it sounds like the place of residence is entirely inconsequential. Game over.

up
Voting closed 0

You sound like one of those trolls who tries to demand that your ex has no sex as a condition of having custody in divorce court.

That's a thing? Link please.

up
Voting closed 0

And women have had their kids taken away because of it.

Next?

up
Voting closed 0

Nothing wrong w fucking any mom you want. Just don't plaster it everywhere and expect people to want to see something that stupid when they take the bus or walk down the street. Biggest hag troll in the universal hub universe is yerself old swirls. Want to watch Trump style lowest common shite tv? Knock yourself out.

up
Voting closed 0

Step back and think. You're clutching your small pearls complaining about the implied title of a show you consider crass, yet you're calling strangers "hag trolls" and "douchebags" left and right. You're not exactly contributing to a civilized society, are you?

up
Voting closed 0

Women with brains who call you out on your priggish nonsense get called nasty names, eh?

So feminist.

Your "defending women" veneer has just broken. We all know what you are protecting - it is called patriarchy.

up
Voting closed 0

And that's why Councilor Ed Flynn objected to the posters in the bus terminals. The title of the show is degrading to women. Frankie Shaw is smart enough to know that, but her Hollywood overlords wanted it -- and they got it.
She talks a good game about "taking back" this degrading term, but in the end, with all due respect to Milton Academy and Barnard, it's a cheap shot.
You can do better, Frankie.
And you must do better, Hollywood.

up
Voting closed 0

But she's trying to reclaim a terrible term!

up
Voting closed 1

It's called SMILF.

I'm not aware of it being spelled out formally anywhere. If not, it's your interpretation. It just might be Southie Mother in Love Forever. (read the article, shrugs)

up
Voting closed 0

Like father, like son unfortunately it appears.....

up
Voting closed 0

Cardinals no longer get the last word on what the public in Boston watches.

up
Voting closed 0