to wonder about this?

[misshardbroom]

I've just been reading the Jim Davidson 'Paki' thread, and it made me wonder this:

When Jade Goody was (rightly, IMO) pilloried for her racist insults towards Shilpa Shetty, one of the issues was that she'd referred to her derogatorily as 'Shilpa Poppadom'.

It was all nasty, bullying stuff, as I expect most people agree.

But in 'Fireman Sam', the Italian owner of the pizzeria is called 'Bella Lasagne' and nobody has any problem with this at all.

Genuinely not trying to be flippant here - my grandfather arrived in this country as a refugee and I abhor any sort of racism. But I just wonder why one name is unacceptable, and the other is (apparently) acceptable.

Does the difference lie in the intent / attitude?

[melpomene]

I agree. It seems to be regarded as permissible to show stereotypical Italians on children's programmes (running pizza places and adding "a" to the end of every word), when they'd never get away with showing Asian or black people in a similar way. Fireman Sam's not the only programme that does this - I've seen it on other programmes too.

[pingping]

Because it was made a big issue by the tabloids to sell more papers the whole Jade goody thing. Shilpa Shetty didn't even think Jade was being Racist.
Your notice since that instance if any Big brother contestant said even something slightly bad towards another contestent they were branded a bully for instance this years BB with Alex it was blown out of proportion by The Sun newspaper and they actually endangered Alex and her daughters life.

I am sure if they could make alot of money out Fireman Sam being a racist it would be front page news.

If your members of FB there is a group called thats Baitly racist and it shows adverts and Tv shows cartoon charcters that in fact are racist.

[childrenofthecornsilk]

Jade was using the term in a derogatory context though and it was one of a series of bullying/race related incidents. The name Bella Lasagne is used in a different context.