[News] Fawlty Towers episode removed from UKTV

[Mo Gosfield]

Tory rag The Holy Grail is responsible for inflaming and propagating more hate, racism, small-minded, Little Englander bollocks amongst working class pensioners and 40-60-something thick people in this country (the classic closed-minded demographic it targets) than arguably anything else outside of Tommy Robinson or Farage.

Oh dear....use of ' thick ' again.....intellectual snobbery rearing its ugly head, as it does over and over again on this forum. Why not 16-40 something thick people while we are at it or is that your age bracket and its too sensitive. Every far right march contains mainly people in this age bracket spouting bile. Presumably, you went to school with plenty like this, called them out and felt very smug about it. Or is it an opinion you have formulated in the last four years, like a lot of people on this forum. Perfectly happy before 2016. Then the world changed and everyone else became racist, xenophobic thicko's.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

So saying N****r is okay? Because it's not glorified?

If you just take the single words out of the scene and therefore the context then no, it's not OK. The problem is that's what many people appear to be doing and I suspect many of those doing so have never even seen the scene in question. Cleese and Booth were very clever writers as well as quiet social campaigners ( Cleese still is ). The purpose of that scene was to highlight the ridiculousness of racism, of a racist generation, that a racist slur was unacceptable even then but sadly built into the psyche of a particular type of person from a particular generation. Even Basil Fawlty seems a little taken back by the Major's comments - and his character is a racist snob. I note nobody seems to have taken offense at Fawlty's racism early in the episode when he is treated by a black doctor. That suggests to me that those complaining are feigning mock offense, or have never actually seen the episode, or, as it more likely, this is just TV execs being stupid.

There are moral stories all through Fawlty Towers - how different races / nationalities are exactly the same as us and have the same feelings ( The Germans ), how pathetic it is to fawn over the titled upper class ( Touch of Class ), how we shouldn't make judgements on people we don't know ( The Hotel Inspectors ).

To remove and sanitise these types of things risks actually making things worse .... not better.

I'm with [MENTION=29192]Brighton Lines[/MENTION] on his two excellent posts on this thread.

 

[cunning fergus]

Why is it uncalled for? I don’t understand the reactions from some people on this thread. I can only assume that they are unaware of exactly how racist this episode of FT actually is. I see some posters that were fine with pulling down the statue now saying removing an old racist episode of a much loved British sit-com as “a step too far.” We’re currently going through a period of attitude adjustment with regards to institutional racism and old sit-coms that used racist language are as much a part of this as statues of slave traders. There are no exceptions or excuses. This episode used racist language. It’s gone. And there will be more to follow.

You are lucky, you clearly understand what is happening and why. There are evidently many people like you that understand all the technical nuances of what is acceptable today and what is not.

I think there are a lot of us that are just trying to keep pace with all this new fangled relationship between acceptability and offence. So let me explain.........

a) Slave traders statues bad - yep got that.
b) Slave trader street names bad - yep ok, but how much is it costing councils to change these street names and are we having public consultation?
c) Statues of non slave traders to be moved, because of apparently some sympathetic views on the Nazis and once met Hitler - er, so it’s not just slave traders then?
d) statues of non Slavers to be moved, completely against nazis and Nazis but some unpleasant views - whoah there.......can we discuss this .
e) Films........
f) Comedy series........
g) Art.......
h) take your pick.

People like you are on f), I reckon 85% of the country are still on a) and whilst many are sympathetic on a) they are feeling nervous that a) might just be the thin end of the wedge.

They are not as stupid as the clever clogs like you might think.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

You are lucky, you clearly understand what is happening and why. There are evidently many people like you that understand all the technical nuances of what is acceptable today and what is not.

I think there are a lot of us that are just trying to keep pace with all this new fangled relationship between acceptability and offence. So let me explain.........

a) Slave traders statues bad - yep got that.
b) Slave trader street names bad - yep ok, but how much is it costing councils to change these street names and are we having public consultation?
c) Statues of non slave traders to be moved, because of apparently some sympathetic views on the Nazis and once met Hitler - er, so it’s not just slave traders then?
d) statues of non Slavers to be moved, completely against nazis and Nazis but some unpleasant views - whoah there.......can we discuss this .
e) Films........
f) Comedy series........
g) Art.......
h) take your pick.

People like you are on f), I reckon 85% of the country are still on a) and whilst many are sympathetic on a) they are feeling nervous that a) might just be the thin end of the wedge.

They are not as stupid as the clever clogs like you might think.

Have to admit, I raised an eye brow about the Lord Baden-Powell one being removed. I'd suggest that Churchill held some of the view LBP did and so are all his statues coming down ? Will Churchill Square need re-naming ?

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Mrs T now tells me that episodes of Boosh and League of Gentlemen have now been pulled too.

So this is where my complacency recedes and my left eyebrow starts to arch.....I no longer have any smug 'I'm not racist' comfort zone left.

Asearch on t'internet shows me:

Netflix has withdrawn League of Gentleman becaue of @papalazaru, and Boosh for 'The spirit of Jazz'.

I will now have to acknowledge my own racism, and confess that I am keeping my DVDs and will continue to watch them.

I will be interested, additionally in whether [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION] requests that @papalazaru change his user name.

More than one NSC member maybe looking over their shoulder at choice of username in the current revisionist climate. Yes I mean you, OP, [MENTION=28453]TomandJerry[/MENTION]. Clearly inappropriate to reference a cartoon show whose near enough sole human character is an amply-proportioned African American housemaid. Thomas you bad cat!

And don't get me STARTED on The Simpsons

 

[southstandandy]

Perhaps Only Fools and Horses will be the only comedy left standing...

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Possibly not. There are numerous references and jokes made in the early seasons about foreigners, gays, and ethnicity in certain episodes. Expect this will join the banned list too at this rate.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Some may be surprised to know I'm mostly with the "broflakes" here.

Just as there is lazy, rightwing whataboutery in response to real issues of inequality, so there are lazy, over the top, politically correct risk managers doing untold damage to the very cause they think they are supporting, by giving the Littlejohns of this world the opportunity to indulge in said whataboutism.

Now, if I'm black, poor and living under the Trump regime in the States, then out of a) not being targetted and killed by the police b) having an equal opportunity to better myself and c) seeing one episode of an old British sitcom disapper off a streaming service I'm probably going to choose a and b. Just guessing.

But more than that, comedy is supposed to be offensive, of its time and lampooing. It's why the dreadul Macintyre is so lambasted and hated (warm diarrhea as Stewart Lee calls it) by anyone with an ounce of understanding about the art. Personally Fawlty Towers has always been one of my favourite shows, just as South Park has, for the same reason - it cleverly sends up everyone and everything. It seeks to mock, to offend but to also call out. It's nuanced and the best comedy is. There are racial stereotypes in FT (Manuel being the obvious) but mostly Cleese is sending up the white English and their snobbery and ignorance.

South Park sends up EVERYTHING. There isn't a group of people that they haven't offended. In fact, it was ok for Isaac Hayes to do jokes like "now I know how all the white women felt" but he got the strop and left when they sent up Scientology, as he was a Scientologist. If you're going to do comedy that pokes fun at everything that's fine and Fawlty Towers does.

If, however, you are going to spend most of your time on a message board, posting only right wing tropes on threads with a racial theme then I have less time for you. Sending up everything? Not racist. Making excuses for policemen killing black people? Racist.

Sadly that simple truth hasn't reached the brains of a lot of younger people, who are as guilty of censorship as some older ones are of bigatory. "No platforming" in universities is the exact opposite of what a university should be for, taking a difficult subject and talking about all sides of it like adults. It's also what the banned, like Milo Yiannopoulos actually want. "Look at these brainless snowflake lefties censoring me". It gives him and Bannon the opportunity to sow more division and push a far right agenda.

That said, FT has not been made illegal. One episode has been removed from one streaming service. The person who did it is an idiot but I would assume that anyone who really loves it already has it on DVD or downloaded? I know I do.

 

[Is it PotG?]

Father Ted OUT.

Disgusting TV.


“I don’t care who he gets so long as I can have a go at the Greeks...they invented gayness”

 

[Saunders]

That would work for me.

Actually although I pissed myself the first few times I watched the 'silly walk' the last time I watched it, maybe 10 years ago, I found even that unfunny. The basic premise is that when an englishman gets concussion he thinks he can make germans laugh by impersonating Hitler. In the 70s I was too busy laughing at the silly walk to pick up on the fact the 'Germans' were upset. It was only when I went to Germany that I realised how shocking that scene would be to many of them. For the same reason I had to turn that Tarantino war film off when I saw the reaction of the German I was with.

We laugh at Henning Wehn when he gets us all to sing along to a song that 'hasn't been heard in Germany since 1944', but it may be that in 20 years his rather gentle humour is regarded as a bit off colour.

Actually, on second thoughts, leave FT online, unedited. It serves a purpose in some respects - it shows us how times a-change.

Watching that for the first time never sat well with me mainly because it was uncomfortable to watch. Cleese was trying to show his character as bigoted, trouble is a lot of people close to me at the time sided with the hotel manager and all they could do was repeat what he did. Years later when a German friend of mine asked me to explain this episode as they dont have any animosity over the wars was a very difficult conversation for me and exposed that there are people that still have a hatred of them. Comedy from this period often was a failed attempt at teaching see love thy neighbour and Alf Garnett as well but that has long since not been shown. His treatment of his spanish waiter seems to have wooshed a lot of people it is the same thing many wanted it banned for this alone until spanish people said they loved manuel and got it.

TLDL some thought it was funny because they were taking the piss out of the Krauts and missed the whole message. I dont think we should be banning it eventually people may get the message that it is the hotel owner that is the facist bigot that we should be laughing at.

 

[Mo Gosfield]

It was acceptable in its time. You cannot educate people who know no better and are in no position to receive your counsel. Thus you are in no position to judge them in the same way as they were in no position to judge you. But you are in a position to cast judgement upon what those ages have handed down to you in the present. Yet you must address context and intent.

So the question would therefore be better asked. Was Fawlty Towers racist ?

The sketch in question is through the image of a bumbling and ignorant old fool and the repressed and angry Fawlty. So the show does not offer credence to the character's values or standards. A bit like Alf Garnett and Rigsby.

Fawlty Towers wasn't racist. But Major Gowen was.

So should it be shown ?

It's 1975, that programme will always be in 1975. I was six years old and may well have already have used the 'N' word by that point. If we are truly to face the realities of where we once were then this sort of production, which has no racist intent must remain accessible. The practice of putting warnings on before such programmes is fitting.

In the same way as you cannot convict someone for past acts by a law that has only appeared in the present, shows such as this should not be sentenced either. This is not to say that some shouldn't be removed. The Black and White Minstrel show should never be shown again because it is actively toxic and of dubious intent. There are grey areas.

But why are many folks that upset ?

From my personal perspective...

The removal of some of these programmes is ripping up our personal history and presenting us as flawed in character. Because of this rightful shift in cultural values, it feels like my childhood is somehow invalidated and I should be ashamed for having inherited the views of the time and also having found stuff like this funny. The two are linked.

You will see from my many entries how much I support this new stream of consciousness. And have supported it for a long time. How much I loved seeing that statue dumped in the drink, how much I believe we need to go further, and how much I hate right wing ideology. Although the pace of enlightenment has varied from one to another. In NSC there still remain some who haven't and will never change.

But no-one, having changed with the shift in cultural consciousness, should be judged, child or adult, for who they were in 1975, and de-facto, that is why I think people are uncomfortable about the removal of shows like this. They feel they are being judged.

They are also uncomfortable about the removal of statues. What gives local authorities the right to instantly remove historical artefacts without consulting local people and canvassing their views. They pay their taxes for the maintenance of such and should have a say. The Colston statue had been in place for 125 years. If it was so sensitive, how has it lasted so long? Have most of the world suddenly woken up and learned about the slave trade? Did preceding generations pay no heed to it. Were children not taught about it in school. I was. If I had grown up in Bristol, I would have seen the statue and reflected on his legacy and thought...' thank goodness that era is over ( although there is still slavery in many forms today ) It was there as a reminder and an historical legacy. If it offended people, well that was up to them. Its most important role was to educate each succeeding generation and there is nothing more important than that.
If we start air-brushing everything in history, tv programmes, films, statues etc, we start going backwards. We play into the hands of those that have spent the last 30-40 years trying to tell us what is acceptable and what isn't. We are now in a time where people consider themselves more intelligent and more capable of judging the past, which is interesting when all academic studies show that we are losing ground against many other countries.
People are upset that they are considered incapable of making their own judgement calls. The PC police are coming down on us. We cannot be trusted. Trust us, we know what is best for you. We are rushing headlong into movement after movement, wave after wave and each one pushes us further and further back into our repressive shells, afraid to talk or do anything out of line for fear of censure. It results in one of two things. Apathy or Anger. This time it will be anger and it won't be pleasant.
The BLM movement is to be applauded but in all honesty, the fantastic work done by previous civil rights leaders, was allowed to stagnate and instead of natural progression, we got slow simmering unease that eventually had to find an outlet. The black people in America lacked true leaders, evangelists, apart from phonies like Farrakhan. Now they have a movement but they need a strong leader again. These protests have given too many people the opportunity to cross over into other areas to suit their own agenda's. It is starting to spiral out of control and an uneasy tension is starting to grow out there. It won't end well unless we see moral courage and strong leadership.

 

[TomandJerry]

More than one NSC member maybe looking over their shoulder at choice of username in the current revisionist climate. Yes I mean you, OP, [MENTION=28453]TomandJerry[/MENTION]. Clearly inappropriate to reference a cartoon show whose near enough sole human character is an amply-proportioned African American housemaid. Thomas you bad cat!

And don't get me STARTED on The Simpsons

You leave Tomandjerry out of this.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

 

[nicko31]

That's a bit silly and I'm a bit of a snowflake...

 

[Guinness Boy]

The Colston statue had been in place for 125 years. If it was so sensitive, how has it lasted so long? Have most of the world suddenly woken up and learned about the slave trade? Did preceding generations pay no heed to it. Were children not taught about it in school. I was. If I had grown up in Bristol, I would have seen the statue and reflected on his legacy and thought...' thank goodness that era is over

But then you're not black, are you?

[TWEET]1269650228208185344[/TWEET]

 

[cunning fergus]

Have to admit, I raised an eye brow about the Lord Baden-Powell one being removed. I'd suggest that Churchill held some of the view LBP did and so are all his statues coming down ? Will Churchill Square need re-naming ?

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.

https://insidecroydon.com/2020/06/09/call-to-remove-churchill-mural-puts-labour-council-on-spot/amp/

But radical movements are like this, and sadly the stormtroopers of change are not motivated by reason, it’s change at all costs. In the end you can’t appease extremists and there will have to be a reckoning otherwise the Red Guards will win out. It would appear many in public institutions and the media are too.

The new normal we thought about was social distancing, the new normal could be closer to living in East Germany.

 

[Guinness Boy]

The new normal we thought about was social distancing, the new normal could be closer to living in East Germany.

Ah, the irony (again). Since

a) if you're an ethnic minority living under Trump it's more like living in 1930s Germany and
b) I'm sure you once claimed to be a socialist on here

 

[cunning fergus]

But then you're not black, are you?

[TWEET]1269650228208185344[/TWEET]

I’m not black but I wish I had the chance to go to a school like Colstons.

https://www.colstons.org/

The one I went to in the 80s didn’t even have cricket bats.

Privilege eh.

 

[Springal]

I’m not black but I wish I had the chance to go to a school like Colstons.

https://www.colstons.org/

The one I went to in the 80s didn’t even have cricket bats.

Privilege eh.

Oh dear. You've had a nightmare there haven't you? Liam didn't go to that private school.

He went to https://www.cothamgardens.co.uk/ - which used to be known as Colstons Primary School but was renamed in 2018. But as a Bristol resident you knew that right?

 

[Guinness Boy]

I’m not black but I wish I had the chance to go to a school like Colstons.

https://www.colstons.org/

The one I went to in the 80s didn’t even have cricket bats.

Privilege eh.

Ah, the old “reply to a different post with some whataboutism” ploy. Incorrect whataboutism.

WHAT ABOUT the privilege involved in going to the football in nice designer clothes?




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[wellquickwoody]

Who is actually asking for this stuff to be banned though?

Genuine question.

Are there legions of overly PC dicks shouting, writing emails etc to get Fawlty Towers removed from iPlayer?

Or is it just a few execs, running around like SpongeBob and Patrick, desperate to be seen to be doing the right thing?

Almost certainly the latter, unfortunately there are far more than just a few, and they are experts at virtue signalling.

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

In Fawlty Towers, The Major is there to be a racist old ****, and for us to go - "Wow! Look at that dumb old codger!". However, stupid people (and this may shock you, but there's often a big overlap between stupid people and racists) don't get that the man on the telly is supposed to be laughed at.

They think he's right.

These racist old TV shows need to be taken down lest future generations of idiots forget that The Major's racial slurs are now unacceptable in modern society. It's uncomfortable but we need to adjust our attitudes and stop trying to think up excuses to try and keep accessibility to these shows.

Are you OK Honky
Regards
DF