Quote: charley rance @ January 19, 2007, 1:37 AMEvery day i turn to a small paragraph on page 23 of any newspaper and read about some girl was killed here, some lad was battered to death there. Some father was stabbed, some granny was mugged.
On pages 1-22 i get to see pictures of people i realy dont give a f**k about.
Posh spice is wearing this, Jade f**king ogly Goody is doing that. Yardey yarder yar........F**k the hell off.(God i wish i had tourettes)
You want to read The Telegraph love. 
Ermmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!! No spankyou.
I spell wrong, i read wrong, lordy me...
That paper is still filled with tosh!
They all are
Going back to the Little Britain thing (which I don't actually like) in reference to this Celebrity Big Brother thing (which I despise), I'd say that in Little Britain this character that pretends not to understand an Indian character and then says she must be saying something about curry is making a joke of racists themselves. Whereas the women on CBB don't seem to be making a joke about themselves. They seem to be making jokes about another woman because of her culture. If I'm wrong, please help me out 'cos I haven't watched this gobshite but sadly can learn enough about what happened from internet news services.
I'm not a PC junkie by any means, but I just saw quite a clear difference between the two things when someone made a point about it on the first page.
BB is a fairly unpleasant programme, but I would say that out of all the TV shows in the last ten years, Big Brother best reflects the age we live in. And you can't say that about many of the comedies discussed on this forum. Sure, The Thick Of It is a nice attack on the Blairist style of government, and Little Britain/Catherine Tate both have nice digs at the chav menace within our country, but I couldn't point at one particular comedy and say it defines our age.
In what way does it reflect the age we live in?
Double-standards in our liberalism; after all the things which have taken place on that show, people complain at a bit of name-calling and immature, uneducated comments from a few supposed-celebrities?!
A "big brother" state where virtually no one seems to notice or be concerned that they are constantly under surveillance.
Utter, utter shit is considered "entertainment".
Television producers go for the lowest common denominator.
Quality comes last.
And other such things. Yeah.
Fairly unpleasant? In the words of Newman from Seinfeld, a more offensive spectacle I cannot recall. A nauseating pig woman and her cretinous boyfriend clinging to the limelight despite having no discernible talent. And when her latest venture dips in the ratings, she teams up with a failed beauty queen and a failed pop star to pick on and racially abuse an Indian woman. Next thing you know, the ratings have shot up and it's all over the media. On a scale of 1-10, I would say that's an 11 in terms of unpleasantness.
As for CBB best reflecting the age that we live in...it reflects the age that media types, TV execs and a few million sad cases live in, but not the vast majority of people in this country.
Quote: Aaron @ January 19, 2007, 3:32 PMDouble-standards in our liberalism; after all the things which have taken place on that show, people complain at a bit of name-calling and immature, uneducated comments from a few supposed-celebrities?!
A "big brother" state where virtually no one seems to notice or be concerned that they are constantly under surveillance.
Utter, utter shit is considered "entertainment".
Television producers go for the lowest common denominator.
Quality comes last.And other such things. Yeah.
Oh, ok. I thought it was meant that the format of the show was a reflection of the age we live in, rather than the shitty end product.
Does "a bit of name-calling" refer to the racist stuff or is it some other shite?
Yes, the supposedly "racist" stuff.
In what way is it supposedly 'racist'? If Shilpa had been white then there is no way that she would have been bullied like that. Therefore that must be racism. Things like 'Shilpa Poppadom', 'she should f off home', 'Indian people don't wash their hands' are blatantly racist comments. No sensible human being could deny that. The fact that they were made hatefully with an attempt to bully only makes them worse.
Quote: Nick @ January 21, 2007, 12:22 PMIn what way is it supposedly 'racist'? If Shilpa had been white then there is no way that she would have been bullied like that. Therefore that must be racism. Things like 'Shilpa Poppadom', 'she should f off home', 'Indian people don't wash their hands' are blatantly racist comments. No sensible human being could deny that. The fact that they were made hatefully with an attempt to bully only makes them worse.
No I'm with you on that Nick, I was being a bit vague 'cos I haven't watched it so didn't know if I could wade in with commitment and say it was racist.
It's not at all sitcomedic, but I wonder if anyone on here's read 'There Ain't No Black In The Union Jack' by Paul Gilroy? It's about minorities being represented in the British media I think pre-1980s but I might be wrong. It's really worth a look especially as it includes all the flim-flam excuses that people say about "them" having "chips on their shoulders" and how people preface racist comments with stuff like, "lots of my friends are Indian, and they wouldn't mind me saying..." etc. I presume Jim Davidson's got a well-thumbed copy for the excuses alone.
Quote: Nick @ January 21, 2007, 12:22 PMIn what way is it supposedly 'racist'? If Shilpa had been white then there is no way that she would have been bullied like that. Therefore that must be racism. Things like 'Shilpa Poppadom', 'she should f off home', 'Indian people don't wash their hands' are blatantly racist comments. No sensible human being could deny that. The fact that they were made hatefully with an attempt to bully only makes them worse.
Admittedly, taken out of context, those all sound highly racist, but particularly the washing hands comment, if you take it along with the rest of the conversation, there's nothing racist about it. It's just utter, total, undeniable f**king stupidity. Apart from that "f**k off home" comment, I have yet to see anything which is being labelled as racism that I believe actually is. Just stupid (1) celebrity (2) females (3) in the Big Brother (4) house. Four things which are individually (let along collectively) a perfect recipe for bitching, name-calling, bullying and such.
I'm pretty certain that "bitching, name-calling, bullying and such" - when centred around a person's race - constitute a form of racism.
The fact that the people saying these things mightn't be highly intelligent doesn't excuse them.
Well quite. But as I said, apart from one or two odd comments (not from Jade Goody, who seems to be the scapegoat as she's the first out), I don't see it as around race. A discussion about whether Indians ("or is that the Chinese?") eat and cook with their hands or not isn't racist. It's just f**king stupid and picky. And if you're trying to tell me that calling someone a fake, a liar, untrustworthy and so on is racist, well, I fear for the over-sensitivity which has gripped the world. In my experience, every time someone from a so-called ethnic minority is insulted or argued with, they play the race card. Maybe that's just the small-mindedness of the people I was forced to grow up with, but as far as I can see, that's what's happening here.
Nobody has said that calling somebody a liar or any of the other things that you mentioned makes them a racist.
But even if there have only been one or two racist comments (and I think there have been a few more than that) then that is still unacceptable and the Indian people and British people have a right to complain about it.
I agree that sometimes people play the race card but I don't think that accusation can be made here. I've studied this subject in the past and the response to this situation, while exaggerated slightly by the media, is fair enough.