Quote: A Horseradish @ 21st April 2015, 12:44 PM BST
That needs to sit in an election context if it is to be here. It probably does have relevance to policy on the future of the BBC. No party can be trusted. UKIP would reduce funding by two thirds. It is not at all clear to me whether it favours let it all hang out before the watershed or back to Mary Whitehouse.
Your posts are interesting to me as there are chunks with which I agree completely and others chunks I don't get at all. Alas, you are right that rebellion and subversiveness are now measured in how many times one can say f**k in half an hour of The Inbetweeners. I describe it as extreme conservatism when once it would have been considered the opposite. It isn't just the regularity of it which means that it can lack impact but that it is set aside 1950s mores. Bear in mind here that sexual intercourse began back in nineteen sixty-three between the end of the "Chatterley" ban and the Beatles' first LP.
Plus, of course, f**k is, as in so many areas, Americanisation to the point of colonialism. Obviously good old fashioned Anglo-Saxon started here and it has been with us since time began. Then, yes, it turned up on people's sideboards briefly in 1965 with Tynan. But surely it only stuck itself in the nation's letterboxes with the home viewing of early 1970s' films like Mash, Billy Jack and Shaft. And that took quite some time because there was a legal requirement on broadcasters to wait before showing any film - was it five years? - and, also, video didn't properly arrive for almost a decade.
As just one generation removed from being a genuinely working class male, a part of me even now has a 1950s angle on it all. That is, I feel entirely comfortable and even reinforced by robust banter in the context of a football stadium - one that is mainly working class and male - and less comfortable with it emanating from middle class vicars in a church even if they too are male. Except I then have to do an adjustment and accept that football crowds are now mixed, most of the clergy are female and while church goers would tolerate the occasional shit, I would get booted out for saying it at the Emirates Stadium. A musical appreciation helps helps to join the lines. It's long been lyrically liberal.
But we do live in an increasingly wacky and illogical world. You can't rebel against it easily or even be particularly subversive. To do either requires some sense that society is consistent and cohesive. Jo Brand, I think, sits at the start of the curve. She has seen tampons move from being the ultimate unmentionable to what was all the fuss about and yet somehow thrives on a lot of the original act.
At the other end, I guess, are Boyle and Carr. They would at least recognise that the banning of condom adverts on posters until 1979 could never translate into humour now. Attempts to raise laughter by the mere mentioning of those items would almost certainly fall flat. Perhaps that difference indicates that there is actually still an acute difference between male and female comedic outlooks. So what you get instead as an angle is a sort of cruel clever jibe from them. I take little notice of it, to be honest. That is especially true where it aims to be controversial just for the sake of it. Whether any of it is more edgy than tax evasion or avoidance is a very moot point and all of the immediate above indicates subversion resides mostly in the establishment. To quote Lydon out of context, No Fun.
So I a not sure what you want exactly and whether it can be achieved. If you want subversion or rebellion, go and plant roses, meditate or live on an island. I am now largely in that sort of region. It can feel like post punk rock. As for my position on comedy, I couldn't give a toss if someone said f**k thousands of times in a half hour programme if the rest of it was beautifully crafted. And it always adds something substantial to dumb and dumber productions so The Inbetweeners wouldn't be the Inbetweeners without it. But that isn't the main point today if there is a point to anything at all.
If there is no demand for an It Ain't Half Hot Mum or Love Thy Neighbour type of comedy being made today and hence the 'danger' is entirely hypothetical, what isn't hypothetical? I really do think we need some examples from you. Presumably you are not going to suggest a slot at teatime for Jihadists' Stand-Up Night so where are you going to go? New production styles? Structure? Surely not content!
Well, first off I think we need to be a little careful regarding all things said needing to be 'in an election context to be here'.
One could easily point to some paragraphs of your own post, which... 
Also consider that I drifted onto the BBC pc-ism from a broader political malaise. But if one can't digress then a thread very quickly boils down to pithy one liners.
But no, I don't see jihadis standup night on the schedule anytime soon. Not least as one of the defining characteristics of jihadis appears to be a nigh psychotic lack of humour.
But the absence of meaningful satire on telly is telling.
So is the fact that only a certain metropolitan attitude seems to gain purchase these days. For all the claims of plurality, there is a sort of 'official set of values' in operation from which no one is permitted to digress.
The product of this is a strange monoculture, enforced by threat of exclusion.
Where are the awkward people? The UKIP fruitcakes, if you know what I mean.
The religious? The doom mongers, the ludicrously patriotic, the die hard socialists, etc, etc. British eccentricity no longer exists.
Everyone is to subscribe to the world view of a Blue Peter presenter.
For all the claims of liberalism we live in a country increasingly governed by doctrine.
This is a concept which came from the self-imposed behavioural code of politicians determined to offend no possible voter which has since been implemented in the media and has increasingly found its way into law.
What once was the domain of the whip's office, now seems to govern all of us.
In a sort bizarre twist to this, 'immigration' has recently been deemed a permissible subject. This no doubt do to UKIP's antics and success in the polls.
Thus what was once unmentionable, now gets rammed down our throats at a ridiculous rate.
Anyway, I'm rambling again...
Regards Jo Brand, I'll readily admit she's one of those pet hates of mine. I'm fairly cynical about most of the 'alternative comedy' oiks, as I largely see the whole 'alternative scene' to have been a PR stunt. The very idea that the two most prominent protagonists nowadays work with Andrew Lloyd Webber or the Great British Bake Off sort of puts their supposed punk rock rebellion toward the establishment in perspective. But I'm digressing again...
