Pc Script Writing On The Bbc, The end of comedy. Options

[The Old Lady]

In this morning's Telegraph, there is a report stating that the BBC have made rules as to what you can or can't say in scripts. Of course, you can't offend anyone. So that's the end of comedy. With these rules, there would have been no Basil Fawlty; the bit in Blackadder goes forth where the General is advised of the unsuitability of a woman and he askes, "Why? Is she Welsh?" ( I am half Welsh, so don't get the wrong idea), or any of the episodes of "Allo Allo", where just about any European is sent up including ourselves. All not allowed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)
The world has gone crazy.
Bev.

[Arundodonuts]

In this morning's Telegraph, there is a report stating that the BBC have made rules as to what you can or can't say in scripts. Of course, you can't offend anyone. So that's the end of comedy. With these rules, there would have been no Basil Fawlty; the bit in Blackadder goes forth where the General is advised of the unsuitability of a woman and he askes, "Why? Is she Welsh?" ( I am half Welsh, so don't get the wrong idea), or any of the episodes of "Allo Allo", where just about any European is sent up including ourselves. All not allowed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)
The world has gone crazy.
Bev.

I reckon in general the only people who take offence are those who like to take offence. I don't mind anyone being offensive about things I like, do, am. To quote the great philosopher Jeff (the Dude) Lebowski "that's just like your opinion man".

In these stupidly PC times it's great to see Frankie Boyle on TV.

[Solari]

The Aussies obviously don't care about all the PC rubbish...

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle6865623.ece

Would Al Jolson have been battered to death in this day and age? The funny thing is, it's perfectly acceptable for a couple of black fellas to be "whited up" in a film called "White Chicks" - no-one said a word. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) As long as the mickey-taking isn't malicious or deliberately done to offend, what's the problem?

It's amazing how a lot of the race-card playing and outrage comes from the white chattering classes. I think that these kind of outcries could be interpreted as insulting in the way that it suggests that the people being sent up can't (a) speak for themselves and/or (b) take a joke.

You rarely hear the same people complaining when someone takes the mickey out of say, Christians and the CofE. One way street it is, then.

[BerkshireMum]

IMO we have sold our birthright, free speech, for the mess of pottage which is political correctness.

I never thought as a teenager that I would live in a Britain where no-one dares say what they really think about things, but I'm afraid that is the position we're in. Don't get me wrong - I think it's good when people don't bash foreigners, gays and other minority groups. But I'd far rather they weren't bashing them because they didn't want to, than because we'd made up laws about it.

However did a once proud nation come to this? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[Solari]

Don't get me wrong - I think it's good when people don't bash foreigners, gays and other minority groups. But I'd far rather they weren't bashing them because they didn't want to, than because we'd made up laws about it.

I take the mickey out of gay friends (as they do me) . They know it's a bit of fun and not malicious at all (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Contrary to popular belief, most minority groups do have the ability to laugh at themselves.

[Tortellini]

But I'd far rather they weren't bashing them because they didn't want to, than because we'd made up laws about it.

I agree! It's no use using politically correct terms but then being a racist underneath. My gran on the other hand can never remember what terms to use (they have changed so much during her life time) and is scared of saying the wrong thing but she is no way a racist. I remember her trying to tell me that my cousin was marrying someone of a different race (just realised - I don't know what to say either!) and she ended up describing him very politically incorrectly as "a friend from the Commonwealth". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

[Mad Tom]

In a country where a councillor loses their job for using the perfectly innocent and non-racial word "niggardly" what hope is there?


On the general subject of loss of liberty and political correctness, David Hockney is quite eloquent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/p...man-513175.html

If you are generally interested in the ever more incredible insanity of political correctness there is a whole web-site tracking it here:

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com/

Here is an extract, to give you some idea (bold added by me):

"When my offspring and their friends have been mugged on buses, or attacked on the street by teenagers, no one has helped. Every passing adult has looked the other way. The idea that it’s the responsibility of grown-ups to look out for one another’s young is disappearing fast. That isn’t making our children safer. It’s making their lives more fearful, more dangerous and more constrained.

Last week the charity Living Streets reported that half of all five to 10-year-olds have never played in their own streets. Almost nine in 10 of their grandparents had played out and so had many of their parents, but now children were kept inside, imprisoned by the twin fears of traffic and paedophiles. As the Play England organisation has found, parents keep them in because they believe that if they aren’t watching over their child, no other adult will do it for them. Older children, too, are affected. Two years ago research by the Children’s Society showed that 43% of parents thought children shouldn’t be allowed out on their own until they were 14.

What began 25 years or so ago as an understandable desire to raise awareness of child abuse is turning into something extremely destructive – an instinctive suspicion of any encounter between grown-ups and unrelated children. It has happened without any political debate or rational discussion. It’s starting to poison our society. And with every passing month it’s getting worse.

Last month in Bedfordshire, 270 children from four primary schools had their annual sports day without the normal audience of proud parents watching them compete. All adults except teachers were banned. The reason? The organisers could not guarantee that an unsupervised adult might not molest a child. They preferred the certainty of ruining the pleasure of hundreds, and the instilling of general paranoia, to the phenomenally slight possibility of a sexual attack.

This is part of an insidious new orthodoxy that’s taking hold: that only authorised adults have any business engaging with children. It is no longer just about sexual abuse. In Twickenham last month the mother of a five– year-old who was being bullied decided to talk to the offender. She knelt by his chair and asked him politely to stop. The next day she was banned from the classroom for doing something that would have been regarded as rational and responsible behaviour at any other time in the past century. "


etc. etc. ...

[barry-clari]

In this morning's Telegraph, there is a report stating that the BBC have made rules as to what you can or can't say in scripts. Of course, you can't offend anyone. So that's the end of comedy. With these rules, there would have been no Basil Fawlty; the bit in Blackadder goes forth where the General is advised of the unsuitability of a woman and he askes, "Why? Is she Welsh?" ( I am half Welsh, so don't get the wrong idea), or any of the episodes of "Allo Allo", where just about any European is sent up including ourselves. All not allowed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)
The world has gone crazy.
Bev.

Sad. All terribly, terribly sad...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[Solari]

They preferred the certainty of ruining the pleasure of hundreds, and the instilling of general paranoia, to the phenomenally slight possibility of a sexual attack.

I don't think you could spend 4 seconds molesting a child inside a sack at sports day without anyone else noticing and the whole audience descending upon you to give you a good shoeing.

The sooner this ridiculous trend of automatic suspicion gets reversed the better.

[PianissiMole]

Yes. I'm afraid I can't recognise the country I grew up in. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[Solari]

In a country where a councillor loses their job for using the perfectly innocent and non-racial word "niggardly" what hope is there?

You can't say "nitty gritty" either now...

[skylark]

In a country where a councillor loses their job for using the perfectly innocent and non-racial word "niggardly" what hope is there?

You can't say "nitty gritty" either now...

WHAT???? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)


Who says, and why ever not... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

[PianissiMole]

I think the whole thing is a shambles. We use word "A" to describe someone or something. "A" becomes associated with that person. Someone considers it derogatory. So we cant say "A" and have to use the word "B" instead. Now "B" becomes assoiciated with that person. Someone considers it derogatory. So we cant say "B" and have to use the word "C" instead. Now "C" becomes assoiciated with that person. Someone considers it derogatory. So we cant say "C" and have to use the word "D" instead. Now "D" becomes assoiciated with that person........ (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

[Solari]

Who says, and why ever not... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

Apparently, it's something to do with the human waste left at the bottom of slave ships.

[skylark]

Who says, and why ever not... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

Apparently, it's something to do with the human waste left at the bottom of slave ships.

I was expecting you to say that it was in case it offended somebody who had nits (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)