Spitting Image - Thatcher

In satirical comedy series Spitting image Margret Thatcher is portrayed in her usual stereotypical ways of witch like features and crooked nose, but one significant visual change is that she is dressed in a suite.  This could be seen as Thatcher, a powerful female leader conforming to the masculinity or ‘ The default man’ (Perry,TheDesentOfMan,p14,2016 ) . Given that politics is a male dominated profession as a woman coming into it you need to fight to be heard, so conforming to their way of acting and dressing could be the only way to be taken seriously. It took politicians a while to take Margret Thatcher seriously. So as a result it was suggested that she had voice coaching in order to make her voice deeper lower and more authoritative for public speaking, more male and dominant. She has to meet parliaments embedded ideals of how a politician should behave and act. Spitting image really highlights this fact up in it sketches but also dose still show her as a powerful figure and above the men in her cabinet for example ‘ Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet of vegetables ‘ (Spitting image,(1984-96), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPzzgE34YQY, date viewed (17/12/16). the waitress ask what Thatcher ( who she refers to as sir) wants a raw stake. Then say ‘what about the vegetables’ Spitting image,(1984-96), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPzzgE34YQY, date viewed (17/12/16). , Thatcher thinks she is referring to her all male cabinet and says they will have the same as me. This belittles and makes the male politicians appear stupid, therefore making Thatcher appear more intelligent than her peers. It also is still portraying the ruthlessness of Thatcher too as she orders a raw stake, like a vicious predator would eat.  Spitting images aim was to reflect popular public opinion back onto the public in order to get them more engaged with politics. And During the 80’s it was a time of upheaval but now politicians are more protected from satirical comedy and don’t tend to offer as much to bounce off. However the internet and social media allows anyone to do satire for example the sorry song which was a collection of Nick Clegg saying sorry to a tune.  But it would be so good for another show like spitting image on TV mainly to make people more in tune with politics and this may lead people to see the floors like a lack of diversity within our own parliament which leads to certain sectors of people like women and black people being poorly represented.