[News] Fawlty Towers episode removed from UKTV

[wellquickwoody]

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.

How did you become the judge of who is or isn’t stupid/idiotic/racist? What makes you correct? It is just an opinion. At least if these things are not ‘taken down’, as you call it, it leaves people able to decide for themselves. Or is that not allowed by those who think themselves superior?

 

[Guinness Boy]

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.

I don't agree with that at all.

Manuel is an offensive stereotype in many ways but he's there to highlight Basil's appalling treatment of him. The joke is almost all on Fawlty. Similarly the Major is there to highlight the awfulness of many upper class people in the 1970s. It's dated a bit but if people can't work that out then they are far too dumb to save.

People need to be free to work out racism for themselves and then mock and reject it. You are creating far more dumbos with censorship.

 

[mickybha]

Link deleted

get to **** with your Tommy Robinson propaganda, thanks.

 

[Springal]

Link deleted][/QUOTE] What has that helmet got to do with Fawlty Towers?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

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.

Superb post.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Pulling the episode seems an over-reaction - if indeed that is the case. If the intention is to edit the most offensive line only, I think most would be more comfortable with it.


As ever with these stories though, it’s amusing how the supposed OUTRAGE of those ‘offended’, is always surpassed a hundred-fold by the OUTRAGE of the broflakes.

Has anyone actually SEEN any of the supposed (original) outrage??

 

[Westdene Seagull]

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.

I've given you a thumbs up with a caveat .... stop the Macintyre bashing. Not everyone's cup of tea I will accept but until you've seen him live you don't realise he can actually be very close to the mark. Forget the clean and squeaky TV image you see. But of course that's the same for many comedians - TV execs get too worried about people being 'offended' to allow comedians to do their proper standup act. They sanitize the act. Boy would I love to see the outrage if the BBC aired a Jim Jefferies standup show at 6pm on a Saturday. We have too many 'professionally offended' people at the moment.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

How did you become the judge of who is or isn’t stupid/idiotic/racist? What makes you correct? It is just an opinion. At least if these things are not ‘taken down’, as you call it, it leaves people able to decide for themselves. Or is that not allowed by those who think themselves superior?

He probably won't reply to you because he's such a snowflake he has about 80% of NSC on ignore. It does make you wonder why he bothers to connect in a discussion if he's not prepared to hear all sides.

 

[Acker79]

I can watch it and know 'hey, it's an old programme, and the sensibilities are of its time, a time I lived through and can gauge to a certain degree how society has changed'. Many younger people can't do that. They don't have the perspective of societal change, they don't, on the whole, look at TV shows from the past and contextualise them in that past they have now real experience of. If they are on TV they are 'now'. (And I don't mean to over simplify things, there are probably older people who think if it's still be broadcast there must be nothing wrong with it).

As such, as many people seem to agree, contextualisation (warnings etc) is a good thing. There are two issues with this:

1) you have to take the programme down to add the context - yet everyone seems to be jumping up and down crying censorship/end of civilisation/whatabout/PC gone mad! and not really taking a step back and saying 'yeah, ok, they need to do a bit of work, but it'll be back up eventually. Let's just cool our jets for five minutes.

2) Look at the Colston statue - they agreed in 2018 that there needed to be a second plaque added to contextualise his position, acknowledge the slavery he profited from etc. But two years later they were still struggling how to actually word that plaque, with some trying to downplay the horrors of slavery, and others trying to encapsulate as much of the history to it no matter how emotive, brutal or linked to that man it is. There is a debate to be had as to what sort of format the context should be (a simple note - how is it worded? A short conversation/debate, like Mark Kermode's BFI movie intros? Do they slip them in the episode where ad breaks would be (even BBC shows tend to design moments for ad breaks for when they sell the shows abroad)?), and there will be various positions fighting their corner - is John Cleese or his family going to be happy that people are slapping a 'warning, people were racist back then' label on his work?

 

[Guinness Boy]

I've given you a thumbs up with a caveat .... stop the Macintyre bashing. Not everyone's cup of tea I will accept but until you've seen him live you don't realise he can actually be very close to the mark. Forget the clean and squeaky TV image you see. But of course that's the same for many comedians - TV execs get too worried about people being 'offended' to allow comedians to do their proper standup act. They sanitize the act. Boy would I love to see the outrage if the BBC aired a Jim Jefferies standup show at 6pm on a Saturday. We have too many 'professionally offended' people at the moment.

Fair enough, I've defintely not seen him live because his TV stuff is so shite (in my opinion). I've kind of prioritised people I already like.

Jim Jefferies on primetime, uncensored? There's a small libertarian corner of my soul that would absolutely love that. Sure, you'd have to lock the kids in the bathroom when it was on but he'd probably do a gag about that, right off the bat. He's certainly less beige than Macintyre

 

[Sussexscots]

I would have been about 12 when that episode of Fawlty Towers aired.

All my friends watched it too. Not one of us thought about calling anyone a N+++++ or a W**. Rather, we laughed at the stupidity of a daft old buffer.

Can't see why this episode shouldn't be shown with a warning that it contains language which may offend.

 

[darkwolf666]

I would have been about 12 when that episode of Fawlty Towers aired.

All my friends watched it too. Not one of us thought about calling anyone a N+++++ or a W**. Rather, we laughed at the stupidity of a daft old buffer.

Can't see why this episode shouldn't be shown with a warning that it contains language which may offend.

I watched 1970s sitcom Love Thy Neighbour and have never felt the need to call a black person Sambo, Nig Nog or any other such name - equally I've never been called a white honky!

Maybe I move in sheltered circles...

 

[lost in london]

An episode of Fawlty Towers famous for coining the phrase, “Don’t mention the war!” has become the latest “classic” British television programme to be taken down from a BBC-owned streaming service, as broadcasters continue to conduct a reappraisal of old British television content.

The episode of the 1970s sitcom – in which John Cleese as Basil Fawlty goose-steps around a Torquay hotel while shouting the phrase – was recently removed from the BBC-controlled UKTV catch-up service."

Bloody snowflakes.....



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Sweet Jesus. What the hell is going on??

The PC brigade has taken over....

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****ing ridiculous

All they needed to do was have a short warning......’the following programme contains scenes that Nazi sympathisers may find offensive’ ?

So if there is an issue, why not just cut that scene.

Because it doesn't need cutting, it is quite clear that Cleese as the script writer is putting words into the mouth of a rather dim character in this scene in order to make his views seem ridiculous and offensive. It is VERY funny by the way - I must have been keen on her because I took her to see India

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN7L_cte7PA

Perhaps best to ban comedy altogether - after all, most comedy will offend someone somewhere.
We should probably start with banning repeats of the Les Dawson show for fear offending mothers in law.

Sorry to challenge all the outrage, but let's get some facts straight shall we?

(a) It wasn't pulled because of the war

(b) It was pulled because of repeated use of the N word

(c) BBC edited out the offending scene in 2013

(d) Cleese fully approved of the editing

(e) Netflix and UKTV were using the unedited version

(f) This whole nonsense could have been avoided if rather than pulling it they simply made it clear they were replacing the unedited 1975 version with the 2013 edited version - that would be a tiny step in the right direction of the markets (in this case TV companies) adjusting to a new normal.

 

[Brian Fantana]

Have people totally forgotten that a) an off button exists and b) no one is forcing anyone to watch any of these shows if they don't want to. It's not like it's the days of three TV channels, and there's nowhere else to get any form of content. Seems a bit overkill, IMO.

 

[Is it PotG?]

Have people totally forgotten that a) an off button exists and b) no one is forcing anyone to watch any of these shows if they don't want to. It's not like it's the days of three TV channels, and there's nowhere else to get any form of content. Seems a bit overkill, IMO.

I think that has been mentioned on here before about calm logic and common sense having no place on NSC.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

Sorry to challenge all the outrage, but let's get some facts straight shall we?

(a) It wasn't pulled because of the war

(b) It was pulled because of repeated use of the N word

(c) BBC edited out the offending scene in 2013

(d) Cleese fully approved of the editing

(e) Netflix and UKTV were using the unedited version

(f) This whole nonsense could have been avoided if rather than pulling it they simply made it clear they were replacing the unedited 1975 version with the 2013 edited version - that would be a tiny step in the right direction of the markets (in this case TV companies) adjusting to a new normal.

I've not followed the discussion as the responses are all just too predictable. But thanks for posting that. That makes a lot of sense even if it is not what the seemingly permanently enraged want to read.

 

[NorthstandRacoon]

He either is, or he's a hypocrite. You can't say 'if my jokes offend you, so what? that's comedy!... Your jokes are offensive they need to be banned' And therein lies the problem. Either we accept there is a line where "it's a comedy" isn't a defence for things that offend people, upset people, harm people, in which case we also have to accept we all place that line somewhere differently. Or we say 'anything goes, no one is allowed to be offended if the speaker cries "it's a joke"'.

I think he's getting at the overly sensitive types. He's not advocating racism/racist jokes.

The Fawlty Towers jokes in question, are what we see as maybe crossing the line/offensive today. I don't what difference removing them will do though. People just have to make their own judgements or not on whether they are offended by them. If they are offended, then just don't ****ing watch it or turn off. Not everyone finds the jokes within Fawlty towers offensive.

 

[A1X]

So much outrage. So much ignorance of the facts.

[TWEET]1271341519010701312[/TWEET]

 

[Pretty pink fairy]

He probably won't reply to you because he's such a snowflake he has about 80% of NSC on ignore. It does make you wonder why he bothers to connect in a discussion if he's not prepared to hear all sides.

Typical lefty ,censor out what they don't like and carry on preaching , a bit like poor old H
Regards
DF

 

[Westdene Seagull]

So much outrage. So much ignorance of the facts.

[TWEET]1271341519010701312[/TWEET]

Not seen anyone suggest it was because of the war - feel free to point me towards evidence of that. Equally, Cleese has been in the press today saying the pulling of the episode is "stupid".