After seeing It Ain't Half Hot Mum on BBC2, I think we should have an active debate about racism in comedy.
Is blacking up always racist? What about last week's 'satirical' episode of Operation Good Guys? What about Fur-Q? Or Ali G (remember him?)? Or Spike Milligan in Curry And Chips? After all, he was smarter than all the other characters.
Why is a white man blacking up considered racist yet it is acceptable for a straight man to camp it up and play a homosexual? Or for an English man to play a heavily-accented Scottish, Irish, Jewish, etc. man? Is a man dressing in drag sexist? If not, why is a man blacking up racist?
Is It Ain't Half Hot Mum typical harmless 70s fare with it's roots in Dad's Army or a violently racist piece which may cause a national uproar if shown on TV? SHOULD it be shown on TV? It may have been a reflection of its time but so was many things we wouldn't want to revisit.
Why isn't The Goodies being repeated?
Dare I mention 'The Fitz'...
I saw an episode of It Ain't Half Hot Mum recently (although it was one of the later ones where a real Asian actor had replaced the other guy as the char-wallah) and I thought it was of the funniest things I'd seen for a long time. I'd forgotten how funny it was. And it's quitely progressive in its own way. It's spot on about the class system and the military. The Melvyn Hayes character is the traditional stereotype camp gay but he is accepted and liked by the other soldiers - only Windsor Davies has a problem with him, and his homophobia is more the butt of the jokes than Hayes is. As far as the ethnic characters are concerned they are often portrayed as bemused about the clearly insane behaviour of their white 'superiors'.
I don't really think blacking up itself should be considered racist - it's the context that matters. Lenny Henry and Eddie Murphy have both whited up to considerable comic effect because the aim was a comic mimicing of actual white characters rather than a blanket stereotype approach. As with so much in the comedy offensiveness debate context is all.
Yes
And again, I never said I thought the Goodies was racist.
What I meant was, too be fair, you can see why the BBC would have anxieties about some aspects of it as regards repeats today.
The fact that currently fasionable comedians can get away with the same things doesn't matter.
Consciously or subconsciously a tv exectove allows more freedom to a person they feel is cred, than to a show from 30 years ago which is not generally regarded to be a classic.
i.e They Think It's All Over is regarded by TV execs as a success, and pulls in viewers, so would be allowed to use language that other things wouldn't be.
Again, before you all go off on one, I am not saying The Goodies is not a classic, but it is not regarded as one by top brass at the BBC, obviously, so nobody would be prepared to stick their neck out for it.
None of the things you have all gone on and on about for hours here contradict the very simple and obvious point I made.
Not that I'm trying to turn this into a music chatroom, but, what do you think of the band CARDIACS, Mr Lee? You're a fan of arcane music and I'm interested to know your opinion?