To which I would simply respond..
1:
Anderson is not giving a great performance, it is an impression. Hence you are not buying her as Maggie. Hence ‘conflicted’ because you are thinking about the actor rather than character.
2:
This cut and paste hatred of Thatcher is a nauseating inanity. Were you unemployed because of her policies? Had your community torn apart? Um. No. You are a generation, possibly even THREE generations removed from her tenure now. And your freedom, economic mobility and petulance are in some way a product OF that Thatcherite regime.
3:
Baroness Thatcher was indeed a tough politician. Uncompromising. Scary. Not likeable. She went too far on occasion, notably an obsession with premature privatisation and that pesky poll tax thingie. ‘No such thing as society’ is every bit as misread and misjudged as ‘rivers of blood’.
4:
But the lady was the first woman to become Prime Minister of the UK. Also, her expertise extended to chemistry and law, as a graduate of both disciplines.
She won elections; presided over a war; and got Britain back to some functionality and mobile ambition. Beat that!
As any child born in the winter of discontent will tell you: this Iron Lady was precisely what Britain needed then and indeed, one could argue, now. Cometh the hour and all that.
5:
Sadly, in this era of watered down watch every word please everyone yet nobody culture? A Thatcher could never rise and no Boris is not her successor anymore than was Blair.
6:
One is reminded of that ghastly display back in 2013 when you had revellers actively celebrating the Thatcher death. Many of whom had little to any idea of why they were expressing themselves in that way.
7:
Margaret Thatcher had bigger brains, balls, beauty and brilliance than any of you whinging wally whelps on Twitter.
Gillian Anderson is a fine actor and mesmeric to look at, even when not glamming it up.
But her Thatcher role is woefully miscast in every way and a second rate version of what’s been done before and better.
See: Meryl Streep and Andrea Riseborough, as well as Lindsay Duncan, Patricia Hodge and Greta Scacchi.
The End. You’re welcome.
