Anne Robinson Is my New Pinup Girl
by Patrick Flanery

I've always had a weakness for ruthless women. As a boy, I had a frowning picture of Maggie Thatcher swagged in Union Jack bunting hanging over my bed. But in her increasingly senile dotage, Maggie has been replaced by Anne Robinson, host of the game show "The Weakest Link." I have a serious crush on the new Queen Bitch of American airwaves.

Anne's first reviews in America have been, sadly, tepid at best — cruel and unnecessarily personal at worst. Her job as host is to mock those who are deemed by their teammates unworthy of continuing on in the game, of being, per the show's title, the weakest link. The critics argue that Anne herself is unnecessarily mean, her delivery confusing, her put-downs lacking the zest to stand up in primetime. They clearly don't get the joke, but Americans seldom do, unless you hit them over the head with it. Even my admiration faltered after hearing her say "theeeeee WEAKest link" several dozen times. We were barraged with publicity, we thought we were going to see the wickedest wit since Nöel Coward. Anne's certainly much nicer to look at, but I wish she'd have a little more fun with her nastiness. A smirk or a chuckle — some hint of her humanity, other than the infernal final wink — would infuse those verbal barbs with an extra punch of poison.

American television is increasingly barbaric. Professional wrestling has even spilled over into the Saturday morning kiddie venue. It was only a matter of time before our game show hosts transitioned from the likes of the sycophantic Regis Philbin, host of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", to the great goddess of grisly one-liners. Regis is as clean and inoffensive as a freeze-dried potato, with the accompanying texture and flavor. He may dress like a Fleet Street don but his ethos is pure American pedestrianism. He speaks to what those of us on the coasts refer to as "the fly-over states." He's the sanitized urbanite for the rural middle class.

Anne, black tulip of television, is a breath of mean-spirited fresh air, with an unusual crossover appeal: trash TV heat-tempered for the young, urban, educated classes. We enjoy watching her demean our social and intellectual inferiors. She acts as a critical extension of our own psyches, saying all the nasty things we'd like to say in everyday life to postal clerks and American presidents. On the flipside, others seem to enjoy watching public humiliation almost as much as drinking warm beer and eating soggy chips: see the success of such atrocities of popular culture as "The Jerry Springer Show" and its countless clones. (Though by the third week of its American incarnation, "The Weakest Link" was showing signs of slipping in the ratings.)

What is most surprising is that Anne breaks the mold: She is old, as female celebrities go. She looks, in spite of her polished hair and dominatrix gloss, unexceptional. She is, frankly, a little on the short side. She wears spectacles. She looks like a nightmarish schoolteacher; a creature conjured by Roald Dahl to warn errant boys off imprudent forays into the girl's loo. She's no Vanna White, and she's no Rosie O'Donnell, either (though Rosie is, in spite of the public persona, rumored to be far from the sweet-natured everywoman she pretends to be).

Anne is not, praise heaven, anything even remotely like Oprah. Neither sex kitten nor pandering self-mocking blob of gab, Anne is a threat to the mainstream American male establishment — many of whom staff the ranks of our country's TV critics. She is middle-aged female power personified. One can imagine those legions of critics collectively asking, "What right does she have to deride poor Americans who are just trying to win a little cash in hard times?" Would they be happier if she were sympathetic in a Vicar-of-Dibley-pleasantly-patronizing kind of way: "Actually, no, sorry, Elton John is not officially the Queen of England"? I doubt it; she would still be a woman doling out cash and American men never like that.

So far, the contestants on America's version of the show have performed pretty miserably. Not only did the producers dumb down the questions for us poorly-educated colonial upstarts, but they also increased the money at stake, just so that it wasn't too embarrassing. On the nights that I've watched, the winning player has always gone home with less than $100,000. (They could, if they all played flawlessly, win $1 million, but that would undermine the very premise of the show.) Admittedly, though, if I were faced with Anne's bulldog pose and AK-47 delivery, I very well might say that Sir Elton was the legitimate Queen; he certainly dresses as if he thinks he is.

Quite coincidentally, some friends and I were playing a drunken game of Trivial Pursuit the other night. The edition we were using was well over 15 years old; there were multiple questions about Ron and Nancy and even Glenda Jackson. Surprisingly, at least a dozen of the questions we had were used, nearly verbatim, on the previous evening's episode of "The Weakest Link." What's this? Cultural recycling? The '80s really are fresh again — repackaged in Anne's hard-candy shell, who herself was probably playing boozy games of Trivial Pursuit at two in the morning on a warm night in the spring of 1985. (We'll all know soon enough; Dutton will publish her "Memoirs of an Unfit Mother" in the United States; Little, Brown will publish in the United Kingdom this October.)

But where does Anne go from here? Watching her hold court, I couldn't help thinking that the repetition would have to get to her after a while. If she had any sense, she'd stand for Parliament, elbow her way into the next Conservative Party conference and turn her ruthless wit on William Hague and Ann Widdecombe. "You are the weakest links! Goodbye!"

Just imagining her at Prime Minister's Questions makes me weak in the knees. Either as tough-nosed front bench opposition, a rougher version of Madam Speaker, or, dare I dream, as PM herself, she'd wipe the floor with all those pansy-legged sophists who pass for Tories in contemporary Britain. One would hope, of course, that her personal website would not contain embarrassing personal information about pets, or mawkish air-brushed portraits. The Conservative Party could use a solid dose of bitch. Just look at what Hillary did for the Democrats. The Welsh wouldn't stand a chance.

Now where did I stash that bunting?

E-mail Patrick Flanery at pdflanery@hotmail.com.