Causing offence
22/06/04 11:58 Media
issues
I was watching the BBC's 'Comedy Connections'
programme last night. It was about the story of The
Goodies - the comedy team. One thing in particular
caught my attention; the presenter's (or her
writer's) reaction to the use of the word 'nig-nog'
to refer to black people in one of the scripts. It
was a predictable condemnation.
In most contexts I'd agree, but this was a little different. The episode under discussion was a satire on South Africa in the 1970s. The boers had finally got rid of all the black people and had to find someone else to bully. Tim ends up acting as a cleaner - he admits this is beneath him but "all the nig-nogs have gone" (TIM BLOCKS HIS MOUTH UP).
The commentator suggested that it was a pity the Goodies' language didn't match their satirical, liberal intentions, but I think it did. What Brooke-Taylor did was to use one word that highlighted the British double-standard - the outrage we all felt at apartheid combined with a then-common willingness to import black people as a cheap workforce whilst unofficially denigrating them, insulting them and watching the National Front run riot. It stands as a period comment.
In much the same way there was a recent furore about Only Fools and Horses. Grandad, in one of the episodes, refers to a 'Paki shop'. The BBC has excised the 'p' word from its print. Here there is a related issue - people of Grandad's generation at the time would probably have used the word in that exact context, so as a piece of characterisation it stands up OK. That episode is a 1980s period piece and if its terminology makes us wince then fine - that's one way in which we can measure our progress as a society.
The real issue with the Only Fools episode, it seems to me, is that it still gets presented as current programming instead of the 20-year-old archive piece it actually is. And that says more about the state of our current TV productions than any liberal hand-wringing ever did.
In most contexts I'd agree, but this was a little different. The episode under discussion was a satire on South Africa in the 1970s. The boers had finally got rid of all the black people and had to find someone else to bully. Tim ends up acting as a cleaner - he admits this is beneath him but "all the nig-nogs have gone" (TIM BLOCKS HIS MOUTH UP).
The commentator suggested that it was a pity the Goodies' language didn't match their satirical, liberal intentions, but I think it did. What Brooke-Taylor did was to use one word that highlighted the British double-standard - the outrage we all felt at apartheid combined with a then-common willingness to import black people as a cheap workforce whilst unofficially denigrating them, insulting them and watching the National Front run riot. It stands as a period comment.
In much the same way there was a recent furore about Only Fools and Horses. Grandad, in one of the episodes, refers to a 'Paki shop'. The BBC has excised the 'p' word from its print. Here there is a related issue - people of Grandad's generation at the time would probably have used the word in that exact context, so as a piece of characterisation it stands up OK. That episode is a 1980s period piece and if its terminology makes us wince then fine - that's one way in which we can measure our progress as a society.
The real issue with the Only Fools episode, it seems to me, is that it still gets presented as current programming instead of the 20-year-old archive piece it actually is. And that says more about the state of our current TV productions than any liberal hand-wringing ever did.
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