Mailwatch(ed) Forum

As did Harry Enfield about 10 years ago.

I read a review of Curry and Chips, which noted that as well as a string of racist comments, there was quite a bit of sexism too (e.g. "I'll say this about the p***s, they know how to keep their women in line"). And this was the 1970s - not long after Malcolm X and MLK had been killed. It wasn't performed in the rubble of the war, with the Windrush pulling up, but in an age when people did know better. Milligan claimed that as he was born in India, he had the right to do material mocking Asians. Doesn't explain all the jibes at the West Indian character, though.

With TLOG I'd argue that they were dealing with layers upon layers and understood the nuances and complexities of humour. I'd also argue that many who watched them weren't clever enough to understand that, and just lapped up the easy laughs.

Oboogie wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 4:40 pm Rory Bremner blacked up to do Nelson Mandella and Trevor McDonald in the 80s/90s, I don't recall a backlash then, or since. Of course they weren't the target of his jokes and his versions of them were affectionate more than anything else - but it was still a white man blacking up which would be roundly condemned today. It doesn't seem that long ago to me but the times have definitely changed.

Bremner was aware of the demeaning history of minstrelsy and blacking up. Whether his decision was right or wrong and spoke thoughtfully about the decision and didn’t proceed lightly, which I doubt you could say about Leigh Francis or Matt Lucas.

David Harewood’s enlightening documentary on blacking up in Britain traces its origins back to the US performer who devised the Jim Crow character shortly after the slave trade was abolished. He felt Britain had forgotten the sub human nature of black people and needed ‘educating’ through grotesques. In other words, too much political correctness had prevailed in British society. Each generation has to fight the same battles.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001p474

Scourge of the nanny state and possibly the most amoral Randist libertarian in politics is doing his Victorian grandad cosplay. Is he even bright enough to be conscious of his contradictions?
https://x.com/gbnews/status/17042156666 ... Dkr8MiQKBg

Because of course rape & sexual assaults never happened before the 1960s.

Youngian wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 7:34 pm

Oboogie wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 4:40 pm Rory Bremner blacked up to do Nelson Mandella and Trevor McDonald in the 80s/90s, I don't recall a backlash then, or since. Of course they weren't the target of his jokes and his versions of them were affectionate more than anything else - but it was still a white man blacking up which would be roundly condemned today. It doesn't seem that long ago to me but the times have definitely changed.

Bremner was aware of the demeaning history of minstrelsy and blacking up. Whether his decision was right or wrong and spoke thoughtfully about the decision and didn’t proceed lightly, which I doubt you could say about Leigh Francis or Matt Lucas.

David Harewood’s enlightening documentary on blacking up in Britain traces its origins back to the US performer who devised the Jim Crow character shortly after the slave trade was abolished. He felt Britain had forgotten the sub human nature of black people and needed ‘educating’ through grotesques. In other words, too much political correctness had prevailed in British society. Each generation has to fight the same battles.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001p474

Re Bremner, I also recall a particularly godawful Ainsley Harriott take off which made me wince even back then. Honestly I’m not sure the ‘I am an enlightened liberal who has given this much thought, and thus it can’t possibly be racist when I do it’ doesn’t somewhat make it worse.

Philip Marlow wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 4:33 am

Youngian wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 7:34 pm

Oboogie wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 4:40 pm Rory Bremner blacked up to do Nelson Mandella and Trevor McDonald in the 80s/90s, I don't recall a backlash then, or since. Of course they weren't the target of his jokes and his versions of them were affectionate more than anything else - but it was still a white man blacking up which would be roundly condemned today. It doesn't seem that long ago to me but the times have definitely changed.

Bremner was aware of the demeaning history of minstrelsy and blacking up. Whether his decision was right or wrong and spoke thoughtfully about the decision and didn’t proceed lightly, which I doubt you could say about Leigh Francis or Matt Lucas.

David Harewood’s enlightening documentary on blacking up in Britain traces its origins back to the US performer who devised the Jim Crow character shortly after the slave trade was abolished. He felt Britain had forgotten the sub human nature of black people and needed ‘educating’ through grotesques. In other words, too much political correctness had prevailed in British society. Each generation has to fight the same battles.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001p474

Re Bremner, I also recall a particularly godawful Ainsley Harriott take off which made me wince even back then. Honestly I’m not sure the ‘I am an enlightened liberal who has given this much thought, and thus it can’t possibly be racist when I do it’ doesn’t somewhat make it worse.

I must admit I'd completely forgotten Bremner's Ainsley Harriott impression, possibly because I never watched Ainsley Harriott's programmes anyway so the gags would have been meaningless to me and I therefore would've been unable to appraise it.

It was…not good, to put it mildly. I won’t swear to this because I couldn’t immediately track it down online, but I’m fairly certain that one of the sketches involved an excitable Ainsley cutting off a piece of his own arm to cook, which…blackface…cannibalism…Good God Rory no!

As to the actual subject of the thread, I do wonder whether any other comedians - besides Daniel Sloss, who appeared in the documentary - will now come forward to talk about Brand publically. I’m sure he can still afford big, scary lawyers, but one of the advantages of him not being a part of the U.K. comedy scene anymore is that I doubt he has the connections to get people blacklisted or sacked from jobs they already hold. He’s not Louis CK, who absolutely was in a position to do harm to people’s careers until, all of a sudden, he wasn’t.

Philip Marlow wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 11:58 am It was…not good, to put it mildly.

Very mildly.

After a couple of seconds he's already doing black stereotype "you'd like a bit of Ainsley, eh girls?" which doesn't seem to have much to do with Ainsley.

And the all time winner.

I think it was during the debate about Baddiel that someone on here said that blackface and the like were seen as more acceptable in the nineties because we thought we'd won. Things are, to put it mildly, different now.

Stewart Lee has said as much himself. The idea that no one is really prejudiced like that anymore, it’s all terribly ironic etc. To be fair to him, he was honest enough to fess up to his own errors in this regard, and to how lazily naive that way of thinking was, even at the time.

I’ve actually been thinking a bit about Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker’s Nathan Barley, having found the complete series in a charity shop a few weeks ago. When it was first broadcast, it seemed like a very limited portrait of a tiny Hoxton/Shoreditch hipster corner of the media world, but now it seems to stand for a whole strain of jeering, grubby performative cruelty (which some of Brand’s comments about women are absolutely of a piece with).

If anything, the original TV GoHome "Cunt" bits were even more blatant about the hipsterism merely being a sheen over a core of creepy, grasping nastiness. I didn't like how "innocent" (or perhaps oblivious) Nathan became in the series

Nathan's too silly to hate all that much, but he's not very nice.

Philip Marlow wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 1:43 pm Stewart Lee has said as much himself. The idea that no one is really prejudiced like that anymore, it’s all terribly ironic etc. To be fair to him, he was honest enough to fess up to his own errors in this regard, and to how lazily naive that way of thinking was, even at the time.

I recall Al Murray speaking of his horror when he realised that some of his audience were laughing with, rather than at, his jingoistic, xenophobic, sexiest "Pub Landlord" character.
Forty plus years earlier Warren Mitchell had a similar experience.

We haven't heard from straight talking common sense Liz for a while. Unfortunately, we have now.

Journalism isn't "trial by media". "Prime time entertainment", like Pop Idol, right? I'd like a lot more of this sort of thing at prime time, personally.

You've no idea if the accusers want the police involved, Liz. Not uncommon among victims. Again, journalism. It protects its sources.

There’s a clue in the name ‘Sunday Times’ as to why Dispatches moved this episode to a Saturday night slot. Have another think why Liz.
I can just about remember World in Action in a prime time mid week ITV slot, that was back when Mike Yarwood was impersonating the politicians featured.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 6:27 pm We haven't heard from straight talking common sense Liz for a while. Unfortunately, we have now.

Journalism isn't "trial by media". "Prime time entertainment", like Pop Idol, right? I'd like a lot more of this sort of thing at prime time, personally.

You've no idea if the accusers want the police involved, Liz. Not uncommon among victims. Again, journalism. It protects its sources.

So by that logic was ITV's exposure of Jimmy Saville trial by media as well?

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Fri Sep 22, 2023 8:39 pm

So by that logic was ITV's exposure of Jimmy Saville trial by media as well?

Or Weinstein. Or phone hacking. Or Watergate. Or MPs expenses.

Friday and Saturday night TV haven't been prime-time for a long time, if indeed the concept can even be said to exist in 2023.

Oboogie wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 3:25 pm

Philip Marlow wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2023 1:43 pm Stewart Lee has said as much himself. The idea that no one is really prejudiced like that anymore, it’s all terribly ironic etc. To be fair to him, he was honest enough to fess up to his own errors in this regard, and to how lazily naive that way of thinking was, even at the time.

I recall Al Murray speaking of his horror when he realised that some of his audience were laughing with, rather than at, his jingoistic, xenophobic, sexiest "Pub Landlord" character.
Forty plus years earlier Warren Mitchell had a similar experience.

It apparently failed to twig with certain people that a Jewish socialist might not be entirely in sympathy with Alf Garnett, however well he played him.