Definitely agree with that.
I hate censorship! In fact I might be censorshipist.
Has PC ruined the British Sitcom? Page 3
no one has given a single example of political correctness ruining the British sitcom.
Quote: Frankie Rage @ July 13, 2007, 11:43 AM
Great contribution to the debate... well done!
That argument must have took some time to formulate!
;-)
Quote: Wildjesusfishkid @ July 13, 2007, 11:54 AMRight, I'm a little bit pissed off with that comment. This is a comedy website concerning itself with sitcoms and written comedy for critique. This is not aa comedic argument. It's a political one. I suggest if you want to have this type of argument that you go to one of the many political forums to vent your teenage angst. Don't vent it on me.
Mmm, 'tough-tit' would seem to be the only reasonable thing I can say to you...
I think my post was a totally legitimate response to your rather illegitimate one... how is YOUR 'acne' by the way?
<lighten up mate!>
I don't think political correctness has ruined anything.
I think health and safety has.
Quote: zooo @ July 13, 2007, 6:20 PMI do find Ting Tong offensive. But I know that Lucas & Walliams aren't the least bit racist. I'm not really sure what they're aiming at with that character.
Ting Tong is about those sad old men who get brides by post. it's not rascist.
The WI woman who throws up is to show how middle class people sometimes react.
Marjorie Dawes is a bigot.
They're all charicatures of people.
Thinking about it, it might not be the characters themselves that make me uncomfortable. It's the fact that I know there is a section of their audience that are intolerant wankers who then shout 'Ting Tong' at strangers who look oriental. (as I once saw happen).
Quote: Retinend @ July 13, 2007, 6:39 PMno one has given a single example of political correctness ruining the British sitcom.
The classic ITV sitcom Only When I Laugh springs to mind. Do u remember the two nurses, Doctor Thorpe (Richard Wilson) and Gupte (Derrick Branche). There was complaints because Gupte the Indian Nurse was incompetent and it was seen as racist. For starters Doctor Thorpe, the white one, is twice as incompetent as Gupte. Because of the complaint Gupte was dropped from later episodes. This was unfair not only on the viewers who lost a very funny charactor, but on the fine actor Derrick Branche (he played the Cuban priest in the opening scene of the Father Ted episode- The Passion of St. Tibbulas), who would have much preferred to be in the sitcom. The Gupte charactor probably didn't offend one asian viewer, it was probably some white morans sat at home with nothing better to do.
Yes, definately! In the 70's and early 80's, black comedians could make fun of white, and white comedians could make fun of black, and everyone laughed along, nobody really cared and no-one was offended! And in society in general everyone got along (those are my experiences having known Black and Asian families).
Now in the current climate everyone is offended by everything! Anything realistically could be deemed offensive in society generally, not just comedy! However this has negetively impacted on comedy per se, as there was talk of editing the master films of shows such as 'mind your language, till death do us part, love thy neighbour' and so forth, which just seems like pc gone mad! Well that's labour Britain for you! Pathetic!?!
Really good discussion thread!
Quote: Columbo @ July 13, 2007, 8:00 PMNow in the current climate everyone is offended by everything! Anything realistically could be deemed offensive in society generally, not just comedy! However this has negetively impacted on comedy per se, as there was talk of editing the master films of shows such as 'mind your language, till death do us part, love thy neighbour' and so forth, which just seems like pc gone mad! Well that's labour Britain for you! Pathetic!?!
Really good discussion thread!
I don't think everyone is offended by everything. I just think that certain people in positions power tell us we're offended - or that we should be offended!
Quote: Retinend @ July 13, 2007, 5:03 PMYou've said nothing about what political correctness has done to affect the British Sitcom
I was making a general point about the question: Does non-PC = Racism? Which a few people seemed to be equating as one and the same thing. You can't discuss PC without actually knowing what we all mean when we use the term, as we may not be talking about the same thing.
The question is "Has PC ruined the British Sitcom?" and not "Has Racism destroyed the British Sitcom?" which is a completely different discussion.
So apols for going off thread on that.
Quote: Retinend @ July 13, 2007, 5:03 PMI don't think the words "black" or "coloured" are offensive terms.
If you don't think 'black' and 'coloured' aren't offensive then you haven't used them when a PC nazi is within earshot. At several moments in my life I've been told that both these words are racist ... oddly always by white people.
Plus if 'black' hasn't been viewed as offensive then it doesn't explain why some schoolbooks went to the stupid lengths of replacing 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' with less racially 'hot' words.
Quote: Retinend @ July 13, 2007, 5:03 PMbut what has that got to do with making derogatory words like "coon" and "nigger" unacceptable in daily use?
As to the use of those words, it's all context. On the stage with Bernard Manning, it's something other than in your post. You'd deny any racial intent when you used them and I wouldn't think that you had racial intent, because of the context. The whole point is that a word is only a word. It is an empty container. The meaning is attached by the speaker, the listener, and the context.
The primary values we attach to a word are firstly personal ones. When I read the word 'father' I associate with it the qualities of my dad, as I'm sure that you do too (but your own father). For me, father is a warm word, for others it has unpleasant meanings. That's why a phrase I utter can take on terrible meaning to you, because the images the words create in my mind are different to yours.
Values attached to words are personal but also social. If we're told a word is bad then suddenly the word is primed with new meaning that we can avoid or use for good or evil. But up until that moment the word was (to us) neutral and useless as a tool or weapon.
Make up a new word. Give it a meaning and tell someone the word and the meaning and they'll use it in ways you couldn't have imagined because language is alive. Words mutate, meanings mutate, the values we attach also mutate. So 50 years from now, if the word 'father' is deemed non-PC does that mean we are all non-PC now because we write it, read it, and say it now? (Brave New World gives a great example of how the word 'mother' is viewed by a future society as the filthiest pornographic word you could use)
When we judge the past by the standards of the present the only winner can be the present but the paradox is that the standards of the present are always in flux. For example, there are many examples of the use of Nigger in literature which had no negative racial connotation at the time, but are now loaded with unintended racial connotation by us in the present.
We teach our children "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me" and then hypocriticaly fail to follow our own advice. One day when we (as a society) have grown up enough to realise that racial words actually have NO power other than the power we CHOOSE to give them, we may have a better world. But while we run around shouting 'racist' at the past, we actually only reinforce the old cultural meanings on a new generation. Even the particularly negative conotations are relatively modern. Perhaps history will judge the biggest racists as the do-gooder brigades that piled more and more poisonous meaning into words that should have been allowed to die out.
As an example, none of us have any direct personal meaning attached to the origins of those racial words other than the social meanings we've been told they contain. We know they're bad because we've been told they're bad. That's why after so many years since the rightful end of slavery we're still enslaved to the power of certain words and arguing over them when the situation that brought them about has long faded in importance. The world moved on, the human condition hasn't.
Quote: ajp29 @ July 13, 2007, 3:39 PM...it was one of the first shows to have 'gay' characters as lead even if they were caricatures.
Sorry Adam, but I really take objection to that kind of comment. All characters are cariactures of some kind. If they weren't, then they'd be direct carbon copies of single, real people, and the channels would get sued to buggery. Ever seen the closing credits on a film? "The characters and events in this motion picture are not based upon reality, and any similarities are purely coincidental." (Might be paraphrasing that slightly.)
In my experience, gay groups are most guilty of screaming about cariactures and completely false stereotypes and blah blah other such rubbish. A prime target of that misplaced agression is of course the wonderful Mr. Wilberforce Clayborne Humphries (Are You Being Served?). But I swear to God, not a word of a lie, I saw a quite obviously gay man on a train this week (they let them on trains now?! 
) who fulfilled and exceeded the camp characteristics of every gay I have ever seen on television. They do exist, they are shown on TV, and so are less flamboyant types.
Quote: zooo @ July 13, 2007, 6:20 PMI do find Ting Tong offensive.
Ditto. Offensive to my sense of humour.
Quote: zooo @ July 13, 2007, 6:42 PMI don't think political correctness has ruined anything.
I think health and safety has.
It's all part and parcel of the same thing.
Quote: zooo @ July 13, 2007, 7:48 PM...intolerant wankers who then shout 'Ting Tong' at strangers who look oriental. (as I once saw happen).
Zooo, that's not intolerance. That's just f**king stupidity and immaturity. )And possibly quite a good case for compulsory sterilisation. )
Quote: SlagA @ July 13, 2007, 9:03 PMPerhaps history will judge the biggest racists as the do-gooder brigades that piled more and more poisonous meaning into words that should have been allowed to die out.
A very good point, and I both suspect and hope so. People wouldn't get offended and riled by phrases and words if they weren't told that they should (well, certainly nowhere near as many).
I was informed relatively recently that the term "lady" should not be used in reference to a female, because it carries connotations of being all "prim and proper". Bullshit. If anyone seriously reads that meaning just into the word "lady", then that's their own problem, and I pity them for being so small-minded and overly sensitive. I wouldn't have even thought of it having such connotations, and even if it did or does, how they can be the slightest bit offensive just escapes me. It's just ridiculous. These people put the words and the perceived negative meanings into people's minds themselves.
The idea that putting Bernard Manning on stage and then laughing at him making himself look ridiculous as he spouts 'racism' is an idea that no one would find appealing, ironic, or post-modern.
So why do people insist on using this idea as a defence for laughing 'at' racism rather than laughing 'with' the racism that's present in LB and Ricky G?
And whoever mentioned patronism (Adam I think), I agree wholeheartedly. In cases where phrases and words have been changed to the benefit of people such as myself (I do not wish to go into what that is), I find it incredibly patronising and insulting that anyone could possibly think that I need protecting and shielding, or that I'd be so immature as to read some kind of negative meaning into it. IT'S JUST A FUCKING WORD.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. People getting offended by sounds and shapes need to lighten up a little. Context is the problem, not the word.
Quote: Aaron @ July 13, 2007, 9:22 PMI wouldn't have even thought of it having such connotations.
Exactly, the most timid word (Lady) can be given extra meaning by insidious minds. Similarly, meaning can be defused from a word, if we choose to.
For example, when a racist slur is intended, the intent to harm is in the speaker, but if the listener chooses not to empower the word with the same meaning then the slur becomes useless, and the word dies.
Long live that day.