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Sid the Sexist
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Sid the Sexist (real name Sidney Smutt) is a character from the English comic book Viz.
Sid's Background and Characteristics
Sid and his mates Baz, Bob and Joe, who are all Geordies (meaning they are from Newcastle) spend a lot of time at the pub, using outrageously crude lines in their attempts to pick up women. In an early issue of Viz, Sid approached a woman with the line: 'How, Pet, my name's Sid.
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Encyclopedia
Sid the Sexist (real name Sidney Smutt) is a character from the English comic book Viz.
Sid's Background and Characteristics
Sid and his mates Baz, Bob and Joe, who are all Geordies (meaning they are from Newcastle) spend a lot of time at the pub, using outrageously crude lines in their attempts to pick up women. In an early issue of Viz, Sid approached a woman with the line: 'How, Pet, my name's Sid. D'ya fancy a fuck?' When she answered with a definite 'No!', he continued: 'Well, would you mind lying down while I have one?'
Sid's character is a classic example of the theory that men who talk the most about sex are often the ones who don't actually get any. He and his mates brag continually about their sexual prowess, particularly the former who only does it in order to increase his standing among his friends and, most importantly, to cover up the secret that he is in fact a virgin. Each strip centres around his struggle to lose his virginity, which, of course, he never does (often due to the fact that he still lives with his mother).
Like most comic book characters, Sid never appears to age, and nor do his friends. He is stuck in a limbo of being a desperate 30 year-old virgin: although one strip did state that he had turned 31 last week, his age has somehow returned to 30 a few months later. It is generally left to the imagination what his job is, and the usual implication is that he doesn't have one, or takes a series of casual jobs--in one episode, he attempts to pick up a woman by telling her that he works as 'an assistant to a well-established provider of goods to the younger end of the market'; despite being exposed as an elf in Santa's grotto in a local department store' by his derisive mates, he still desperately attempts to keep up the pretence that his job brings him success with women--'Y'see lasses fancy summat [something] a bit special'.
He seems under-educated and knows little of the world outside Newcastle. He is physically very unfit, cowardly despite his pretence at macho aggression, and always comes off worst in a fight - he is often beaten up by the boyfriend of a woman he tries it on with.
Although his three companions do sometimes succeed with women, they are much like him in their yobbish, misogynistic outlook and never marry, or expand their stagnant social circle (they are also mildly homophobic and racist as well). Bob and Joe usually believe (or at least pretend to believe) every word of what Sid says about his supposed sexual prowess. Bob is often totally in awe of his stories and Joe frequently encourages him in his disastrous attempts at womanising (much to the entertainment of all those present). Baz, on the other hand, is much more openly sceptical, referring to Sid as "all talk and no tackle". He is the only one of Sid's friends who comes close to seeing through his hollow bragging, often resulting in the two falling out or even coming to blows.
The recurrent format of Sid's misadventures is that he believes he has found a new approach to women which will secure him a sexual conquest at long last ('This time... this time! It HAS to be this time!!') - and he invariably ends up being humiliated, often painfully. His attempts have also unintentionally led to several homosexual encounters, which ironically reveal his homophobia.
Sid's Creators
The strip was created and mostly drawn by Simon Donald. After Donald left the magazine in 2003, Paul Palmer took over as the strip's artist. The character was based in part on a friend of Viz editor Chris Donald.
Storylines
- After the lads realise that they could stand to lose some weight, they decide to head to the recreation centre and use the pool in order to get some exercise. Sid promptly stuffs socks in his bathing suit (to give the impression he has large genitals) in order to impress the female lifeguard on duty. However, he shamefacedly reveals that he cannot swim (and so cannot enter the deep end with his friends) and has to go splash around the area reserved for the "bairns". After being caught urinating in the pool ("Missus! That man's havvin' a wee!"), Sid is warned by the female lifeguard that one more infraction will see him and his friends kicked out. True to form, Sid tells his friends that he's "well in" with the lifeguard. Taunted by his friends to impress her, Sid finally jumps into the deep end of the pool "dive bomber" style, immediately panicking and forcing the lifeguard to save him from drowning (causing the socks to spill out of his bathing suit in the process). The lifeguard also bars the lads from ever using the recreation facility again (which prompts a savage beating of Sid by the other three).
- Sid and the lads decide go on holiday to Spain following an argument in the pub over where to go, resulting in Joe giving Sid a black-eye for calling him a "fat git". On the plane things instantly go bad for Sid after an air stewardess on the plane "accidentally" spills hot coffee on his crotch. Once they arrive Sid instantly begins abusing the locals and other tourists, embarrassing the others and earning himself another punch in the face for his trouble. Later on whilst out by the pool Sid refuses to put on sunscreen as he believes that as it's the same sun as the one in Newcastle, it can't do him any harm. As the sun quickly goes to Sid's head he tries it on with a Swiss woman before mistaking her and her partner for Germans, mouthing off very loudly about the 1966 World Cup. The police arrive and try to calm him down and get him out of the sun but he continues to hurl abuse at them, resulting in him being beaten up, arrested and deported. Baz, Bob and Joe see out their holiday on the beach with girls they have pulled whilst a heavily-bandaged Sid tries and fails to chat up a woman on a bench in a rain-soaked Whitley Bay.
- Sid's cousin Shane from Yorkshire comes to visit, and possesses much the same attitude as Sid (at one point asking a woman if she fancies a "feller tappin' on [her] shit-locker"). While the two are out drinking, Sid approaches a lady, only to get violently beaten by her hulking boyfriend.
- The lads go out for Bob's brother's bachelor party in Blackpool, prior to his wedding. As the night goes on, everyone gets progressively more drunk, and at the end of the evening Sid storms off to find a woman, while Bob's brother is handcuffed, naked and protesting, to a street lamp (and his clothes are burned). The next day, Baz and Bob are wondering what Sid got up to (while a somewhat dismayed Joe reads a newspaper with the headline "Youth Dies of Exposure in Blackpool"). Sid, meanwhile, wakes up with a terrible hangover, and sees a head of curly blonde hair in the bed next to him. Thinking he has finally "pulled", he asks his "date" if she fancies another ride...and is terrified when the owner of the blonde hair is a rather large man, who calls him "Sidney, my love" and tells him to "roll over" onto his stomach.
- The lads are puzzled by Sid's refusal to drink his usual bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale, instead ordering orange squash. Sid finally reveals his reason for abstaining: he has driven his recently purchased car (which is of course a clapped-out heap of junk) to the pub. His friends insist on him giving them a ride in the car, which a nervous Sid promptly crashes (in reverse gear) into the front end of a police car. A police officer approaches the car as Sid--despite his protests that he's had "nowt" to drink--gets pennies and other items stuffed in his mouth by the other three, in the hope that the items "neutralises" the smell of alcohol. The officer is revealed to be a policewoman, which prompts Sid to state that he's got the matter handled, whereby he proceeds to relate a rather crude joke about how female officers part their hair. The last panel features another police officer telling Sid "your mates reckon they're gonna kill you", so for his own safety he is placed in a cell with a violent repeat sexual offender (who has pictures of naked men and men's arses taped to his cell wall).
- Going horse riding, in the belief that posh female jockeys are always horny after being rubbed up by their saddle. An upper-class looking woman did indeed offer him a roll in the hay after riding, but when Sid cried out with excitement, a nearby horse was shocked and kicked him hard in the crotch, sending him to hospital.
- Buying a dubious self-help book, one of many purporting to teach the art of success with women by a self-proclaimed super-stud. He brags to his friends that he will reveal the amazing secrets it contains, 'only when me cock's fallen off!' His overconfident attempt to attract a nearby girl, using the method in the book and a vile-smelling pheromone spray supplied with it, only results in a very rude, embarrassing rejection. Later that night, Bob, Baz and Joe have all pulled girls - while Sid wanders home alone, miserable and still smelling foul.
- Making a £1000 bet with his friend Baz that he can seduce a woman within a week. He attempts hypnosis on a nun, who kicks him in his genitals; buys another pheromone spray (Pig Piss) which only attracts a blind woman's guide dog; and makes a desperate approach to fat, bald, ugly uber-feminist Millie Tant, who repays him with yet another vicious kick. The final frame has Sid begging his mother for £1000 to pay off the grinning Baz...
- Attempting to become a biker having read a book about biker chicks. After buying a naff old moped Sid walks into a biker pub and is instantly out of place. Before long he has been severely beaten up, and has had the word 'Twat' engraved on his forehead.
- Going to Barcelona, Spain for Joe's brother's bachelor party, because he knows bachelor parties generally involve at least one sex show. Even though Sid is the best man, all the other guys just want to booze themselves silly. Sid finally cracks and outright demands to go to a sex show, and pays all the entrance fees. At the show, a beautiful woman wants a volunteer for a 'strip' - Sid instantly jumps on the stage. The woman blindfolds him and asks him to bend over - and while everybody is watching, a man dressed in a gorilla suit bangs him from behind. Sid still didn't score, but everyone got a good laugh.
- Sid and his friends travel to Bangkok after hearing that the prostitutes there will sell themselves for as little as a pound. Sid is robbed at gun point by one of these ladies of the night after being tied to the bedpost. The final scene shows Sid trying to earn his flight home by working as a homosexual prostitute. "Just ten more goes and I'll have earned the fare to the airport."
- Setting up his own driving school, in the mistaken belief that the film Confessions of a Driving Instructor is a documentary. When a woman signs up he gets her to drive to a country lane, where he unzips his pants. She ends up panicking and speeding off towards a busy intersection. Sid discovers too late that the dual-controls he's had installed in his car don't actually do anything, and a huge pile-up is the result. To add insult to (literal) injury, Sid ends up getting fined for not being a registered driving instructor and not even having a driving licence. Not to be deterred, he watches another "documentary" in the series and sets up business as a window cleaner.
- Taking part in a pub quiz, hoping to win it and pull women who are impressed by intelligent men. Sid, Bob and Baz form a team and perform abysmally, saying that the dog star is Rin-Tin-Tin (after rejecting Lassie for being too obvious), initially getting the height of the Empire State building correct before changing it to a wrong answer (after Sid realises that it isn't the world's tallest building any more, so it must have shrunk) and saying that JFK was shot by Sue-Ellen (not only confusing JFK with J.R. Ewing but getting J.R.'s would-be assassin wrong as well). They end up with zero points. Joe, usually portrayed as being stupid even compared to the others, gets all but one question right (owing to a slight error over what "Laser" stands for), wins the quiz and manages to pull a pair of classy women.
- During a drinking session with Baz, Bob and Joe, Sid hears about the myth that you get a prostitute sent up to your hotel room if you call reception and ask for "an extra pillow". He dismisses the idea as ridiculous in front of his friends but, sure enough, books himself into a posh hotel later on and calls reception, asking for an "extra pillow". The hotel reception sends a maid up to his room with an actual extra pillow. Sid mistakes the maid for a prostitute and takes his clothes off in front of her, resulting in him being hospitalised after a serious beating. When Sid's friends visit him in hospital he blags off to them that he was in hospital because he had been trying it on with the girlfriends of World Wrestling Federation wrestlers who in turn had only managed to beat him up because The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin had ganged up on him. As usual Sid's friends fall for the story hook-line-and-sinker and leave. Later the doctor asks Sid if he would like "an extra pillow" to make him feel better. Sid takes the offer literally and accepts, only for the doctor to return with a prostitute to his utter amazement.
- On one occasion, Sid heard a rumour that "bords" (women) are always willing to have sex with men in motorcycle gangs. Unable to scrounge up a motorcycle, he borrowed a moped and drove it up to the nearest pub where motorcycle gangs (and their female groupies) hang out. Hoping to impress a "bord", he displayed his ignorance by telling her "I'm planning to ride in that there T.T. on the Isle of Wight." (The Tourist Trophy motorcycle race, "T.T." for short, is actually held on the Isle of Man, not Wight.) The motorcycle groupie corrected Sid with the comment "I believe you meant to say 'Man'", so Sid revised his statement accordingly: "I'm planning to ride in that there T.T. on the Isle of Wight, man."
- Joe points out that Sid, if he had a new wardrobe and hairstyle, bears an uncanny resemblance to a pop star and girls flock to him after being made to look like the artist in question. So he goes along with this deception to pull women and invites them back to his house for a "rock'n'rurl orgy", only for it to be announced that the pop star in question has come out in the press as gay. The girls are disgusted, only for Sid's homophobia to be exposed when he's chased by gay men who fancy him (Or rather, the pop star he's mistaken for).
- One strip featured no serious comic misadventures, instead showing a night out for the lads that might be typical of any night out in Newcastle. Sid and his friends begin at the pub as usual, where Sid receives a black-eye from a woman after a crude attempt to chat her up. Sid and Baz disagree over the reasons behind the rejection, end up fighting one-another and are promptly thrown out. This is followed by a meal at an Indian restaurant where they order the hottest curry dishes. Everyone else proclaims that the food is so hot it's inedible; Sid denounces them as "homs" just before discovering just how hot the dish actually is. The four of them then go out to a nightclub where Sid suffers a string of failed chat-up attempts that get worse as he gets more and more drunk, resulting in him being thrown out for indecent exposure. Finally at the end of the night, Sid vomits outside a kebab shop as Joe places their orders and Bob urinates up a lamp post, Baz comforting Sid by stating "It just shows ye had a good night" and Sid claiming he wants "plenty onions" on his kebab in between heaves.
- In perhaps the closest he's ever come to having actual consensual heterosexual intercourse, Sid is introduced to the friend of one of his mates' girlfriends, who is an attractive dark-haired woman. She proceeds to rattle off sexual innuendos to Sid ("a brandy would make me randy"), who is completely off his game and flustered. At the end of the evening, Sid has taken the lady back to his place, where she has proceeded to strip off and awaits him in bed completely nude. Sid strips (thinking "This is it!"), and admonishes his date to keep quiet (as he's afraid her now-blatant sexual banter will awaken his mother). Unfortunately for Sid, that's exactly what happens, as his mum walks in carrying a tray with snacks, stating she heard him "bring in a friend" who "mustn't stay long, mind." Sid's date is shocked to find out that he lives with his mother; Sid's reply to the situation is a loudly-exclaimed "FUCK!"
On Television
Sid also starred in a spinoff animated cartoon in 1992 (also called Sid the Sexist) which was aired on channel 4, which was released on DVD in 2004 which contained all five of the fifteen minute long episodes.
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