Diary – 2 August 2008

Every six months the tabloid press shakes its pudgy fist in ecstatic indignation over some new film (usually French and about as offensive as a French actress’s unveiled breasts). Last week, it was a British film called Donkey Punch which prompted the ever-raging question ‘Is this the vilest film ever?’ The answer, as with all headlines ending in a question mark, is no, but it is quite possibly the worst. The title, for those of you who missed the disgusted though voluble explanations in the newspapers, is a term used to describe a mythical, sado-masochistic sexual act. The storyline? A group of guileless, cerebrally bankrupt girls from Leeds head to Majorca for a fun weekend — ecstasy, sex with strangers, the usual — when, as usual, the whole thing turns nasty. During the course of the donkey punch, the tarty, expendable blonde (they are a prolific species) dies. Never mind that the acting was as gruesome as the visuals — more troubling was the reaction of the (largely male) spectators.