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Tabloid Culture and Modern Fears
- Bennett's original Blackmail script included tabloid-era anxieties about women's safety.
- These anxieties, amplified by Ravenhill, resonate with modern concerns about violence against women like Sarah Everard.
Ethical Complexity in Blackmail
- Blackmail presents a complex ethical dilemma, unlike a melodrama with clear heroes and villains.
- The play's knotty moral situations make it difficult to judge characters as entirely right or wrong.
Blackmail as Revenge
- The blackmailer, Tracy, is a likely gay man, flipping the typical blackmail narrative.
- Ravenhill suggests this represents a marginalized group using the weapon of blackmail, usually wielded against them.