Benedict Cumberbatch. Photo credit: Honeyfitz
The background
36-year-old British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who is best known for his turn as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s sleuth in the hit BBC detective drama Sherlock, has revealed he is considering leaving Britain because he is fed up with being attacked over his privileged background.
Cumberbatch went to top public school Harrow and was classically trained. He has appeared in the Oscar-nominated films War Horse and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and spent the first half of this year in Los Angeles filming a Star Trek sequel. He is about to go to New Zealand to film The Hobbit.
“His upper-class image is likely to be reinforced next week when he stars in the BBC period drama Parade’s End, playing an anguished Edwardian aristocrat,” noted Nick Britten at The Telegraph.
What Cumberbatch said
Cumberbatch told The Radio Times “all the posh-bashing that goes on” has made him consider moving to the US. “I wasn’t born into land or titles, or new money, or an oil rig,” he stated, but he said he had been “castigated as a moaning, rich, public-school b******, complaining about only getting posh roles.” He told the magazine: “It’s just so predictable … so domestic, and so dumb … It makes me think I want to go to America.”
Posh bashing in an issue people feel strongly about
Cumberbatch’s comments kicked up a heated debate online. A poll at The Guardian’s Comment is free entitled “is Benedict Cumberbatch right that posh-bashing has gone too far?” attracted almost 700 comments. With two days left to run, 65 percent of poll respondents said they did not feel posh-bashing has gone too far.
Attacks on the posh are just not on
Cumberbatch has found support from fans of his work. Commenting at The Telegraph, Andrea Mum said, “we cannot blame somebody for the environment where he was born, nor the education which he received when he was a child. It is what we make later, when we can choose, which defines us.”
“70 years of class warfare has brought us to a point where being posh (whatever that means) is nearly a criminal offence,” lamented ballnshine at The Telegraph. “The educated are the new aristocracy … Kids have to hide the fact that they’re intelligent these days in order to not have the s*** kicked out of them. If the Olympics should teach us anything it’s that we all need to aim for the top not the bottom.”
Ignore him, he’s just another attention-seeking thesp
Not everyone felt too sorry for Cumberbatch. Commenter Johnfrancis at The Telegraph, described him as “just another self obsessed thespian. What a bunch of wasters they are. Why doesn’t he just slope off to Hollywood where no doubt he’d be given a succession of those really interesting ’baddie’ roles that are reserved for anyone with a British accent.”
So lucky I was born with a disability, on a council estate, to an unemployed family. Can’t begin to imagine how hard it was for Cumberbatch.
— Dawn Foster (@DawnHFoster) August 14, 2012
No one does self pity better than the privileged. Here’s an idea Ben. Go live on benefits for a while and then comment. telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandr…
— Peter Smith (@Redpeter99) August 14, 2012
Posh or not, he shouldn’t bitch about his rivals
“He has a loyal army of obsessive followers, and I’m sure they’ll all hate me for saying this. But I think Benedict Cumberbatchneeds to get off his high (war) horse,” suggested Now Magazine’s TV addict blog, which objected to Cumberbatch’s “catty swipe” at Downton Abbey in the interview: “I love Downton. Everyone who watches Downton loves Downton. It’s amazing. It’s beyond successful … It’s addictive, it’s sumptuous … Now Benny, I’m sure Parade’s End will be fab. But I’d suggest you wait until the show is actually on TV and getting good reviews from both critics and, importantly, the public before you start being mean about your rivals. Just sayin’.”
More on British society
- Is a benefits cap a good idea?
- The Spartacus reform on Disability Allowance
- British high streets at ‘crisis point’
