Quote: charley rance @ June 20, 2007, 2:27 PMWas he racist, well we will need to ask those who are on the recieving end of his jokes. If those people deem him a racist, then yes he is.
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That's nonsense. You don't need to have been on the receiving end of racism to recognise it.
If you saw a BNP goon spraying "pakis out" on a wall, you would - I hope - see that it was racist.
He might be setting up a collection point for backpaks.
Quote: Alan Alexander @ June 20, 2007, 2:33 PMThat's nonsense. You don't need to have been on the receiving end of racism to recognise it.
If you saw a BNP goon spraying "pakis out" on a wall, you would - I hope - see that it was racist.
Alan I was talking about a guy who told supposed Jokes, not some twat headed biggot from the BNP. Of course you dont need to be on the recieving end to recognise racism. However I believe that the true understanding of the implications of racism is with the person it is aimed at.
Quote: charley rance @ June 20, 2007, 2:27 PMI think if someone says something in an abusive way then that is intolerable. Can humour in some instances take it to another level.. Eg. The ethnic guy in The Simpsons. Apoo. Is that racist?
How about the way Mr Gervais acts with the guy in the wheelchair. Is that demogatory.
Little Britain with fat fighters, Marjory who always asks the asian woman "Can you say again". Is that racist.
Where is the line drawn.
You honestly can't tell the difference between the things you listed and Bernard Manning? Little Britain uses the racist character of Margery Dawes to show what a horrible bigot she is, Ricky Gervais uses shocking humour to prove a point about the awkward areas of social interaction (although some would argue it is merely to create nervous laughter). Your reference to Apu in The Simpsons is pretty tenuous, to be honest; why would anyone consider simply having an asian character in a sitcom to be racist?
If something can be reasonably justified as a joke, and not something clearly intended to incite hatred, then that is where the line is drawn.
Bernard Manning: “I see we’ve got a black fella in tonight. Where are you from, son?”
Keith Palmer: “London.”
Bernard Manning: “Where are you from before that? I think he thinks he’s English! Just because a donkey’s born in a stable, it doesn’t make it a horse.”Manning went on to suggest that he would pay for Keith to go to any country he might care to choose.
“Where is he? How are you, baby? Having a night out with nice people? Isn’t this better than swinging from the trees? – You’re black, I’m white. Do you think colour makes a difference? You bet your bollocks it does!”
“They used to be happy people in the cotton fields, singing their bollocks off day and night. A fella used to go around with a whip… ‘Oh, massa, give us another crack of dat whip. I love dat whip’…”
This can't, really.
As I said before I dont know much about BM he is NOT to my comedic taste. I know someone who is offended by Apu in the simpsons, and majory from LB. I also know someone who find RG's comments to the disabled person as demogatory.
I was not saying I do I was asking a question. Simply stating in maybe a roundabout way that all things can be deemed racist, sexist, demogrative.
demogrative?
'I doesn't matter if you are black, white or asian... but just those three'- Sarah Silverman.
Quote: Alan Alexander @ June 20, 2007, 3:37 PMdemogrative?
I do apologise Alan, I mean derogative. Thankyou for pointing that out for me.
Charley makes some valid points here, so don't be so quick to shout her down.
It seems that the line that defines racism can be drawn just about anywhere within a certain range. In many ways it's to do with your own personal preferences and experiences. If someone is offended by Marjorie Dawes, does that make it racist because one person found it insulting? Or is it not racist because so many people didn't think it so? If that's the case then racism is at the fickle mercy of the majority view. But that's clearly nonsense, racism is racism, it's not up for a democratic vote.
If you like Gervais (RG) then he can't possibly be racist or derogatory, despite getting laughs at the expense of racial minorities or the handicapped. You can't argue that it's his onscreen character that we are laughing at because if it was happening in the high street you wouldn't be laughing at the person, you'd be lynching him. The source of the laugh is purely to do with 'implied difference' between the victim / target and the audience. If the target was not in a wheelchair or was from the same ethnicity as RG then where would he get that laugh from? Short answer is, he wouldn't get a laugh. It's a clever way of getting you to laugh at race without you thinking that you are. The guilt-free laugh yet we can still feel morally clean afterwards.
"But that's different," cry the people who want their racism cake and eat it. Take Little Britain. If you like Little Britain, you can't possibly be offended by a copper shouting some of the most offensive racial language I've ever heard on TV at a boy in a car. Its fans claim it's not racist because the boy is white. At the time the copper was shouting his filth, I don't think you see that the lad was white. It was a laugh concerning race and an even cheaper laugh at the flagrant use of certain words. We're not bigots but we laugh when those words are bandied on TV by people whose comedy we like. Is there a contradiction here?
It's all to do with preference. If you like LB or RG you are predisposed not to see their comedy as racist or derogatory. People slam so many shows from the seventies because of the race issue when the racists in those shows were often lampooned and held up for ridicule in the same way people claim that modern 'acceptable' stars do today. So what is the difference?
"Today's audience is more sophisticated," says the defender of LB / RG. "They know we are laughing at the racist and not the racism." Not so. Are you saying that the Big Brother handfed goldfish mindset is more sophisticated than the viewers that could actually watch an episode of Panorama without flicking through MTV or Men and Motors after the first five minutes?
Today's kids can't even identify the three main political party leaders. So how the heck are they supposed to define and understand ever-increasing (for ever-increasing read: non-existent) sophistication in comic racial 'nuance'? People draw the line in different places, as and when it suits.
Little Britain fans see Marjorie Dawes on TV as funny, but if they saw a person acting in the same way in the street it would be horribly racist. There's a double-think going on here that Orwell would have been staggered at. Racism is racism, wherever it occurs - on the TV or on the street.
Re: Apoo. Charley has a perfectly valid point. If he was performing any other job in the Simpsons apart from the corner shop keeper then defenders of Apoo not being a racial stereotype would have a point but he is placed in exactly the job that a racial stereotype dictates. Again the Simpsons is popular, so it can't possibly get uncomfortably close to racial stereotyping.
Racism is totally wrong but a generation of people seem to believe that racism has been booted out of comedy, when it's still there. The clever shift was not hiding it. The clever part is that it's still exploited for comedy value and in full display but the mindset of society has been shifted to percieve the racial remarks as funny because now we focus on the racist that utters the filth rather than the victim or target. Yet put the same words in Bernard Manning's mouth or Alf Garnet's or any other 70s character and there would be outcry.
This debate is flawed because none of us are capable of being purely objective. It's double-think. It's the ability to hold an immoral 'moral position'.
*applause* Well done Slag A.
The problem is that some people just don't see it. Alf Garnett was hailed as a working class hero, and was in some ways indicatie of his time and seen as speaking for a certain sort of person.
However, it was a satire of that sort of thinking that was above the sort of person who thought 'good on yer, Alf'
I hate blueberries but love blackcurrants. Am I a racialist? I love saying racialist. It sounds wrong.
Quote: zooo @ June 19, 2007, 8:50 PMBut isn't it nicer (and funnier) if you imagine it said in Les Dawson's voice?
No.
Quote: ajp29 @ June 20, 2007, 11:22 AMI don't like Peter Kay for two reasons
1. He's rich He's not funny.
2. I'm bitter He comes across as, and by all accounts is, a right c**t.
I also don't like seeing DVD extras on a primetime slot 
