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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Matt Lucas and David Walliams prog

46 replies

GabbyLoggon · 28/12/2010 14:36

Was red hot on the phone-ins this morning they did a bit of blacking up....did you find it funny or offensive? I thoughtLittle Britain went OTT at times

OP posts:

NetworkGuy · 28/12/2010 18:57

I was never one to bother with Little Britain, but downloaded LB Abroad, and 'Come Fly With Me'

Well, they were interviewed the other day and said they were given quite a lot of freedom, which is how they were allowed to do 'Precious' (coloured lady running coffee and tea kiosk) and so on.

I just found the portrayals particularly weak, but perhaps some of the props were deliberately shoddy to remind people these were not real people, just a couple of actors/comics playing stereotypes.

I did not find it offensive, and had a giggle here and there (rather like scoobytoo, because some of the individuals on Airport/Airline etc had some parallels in this show), but it was nothing to compare with comedy of old, in my opinion.

It may also have been a touch funnier for me because I missed out on a few years of Airport/Airline shows and they are being re-run on Sky etc so I have seen some recent reminders.

Lucas and Walliams as the airport photographers missing the 'star' was funny in that they were doing a silly sing-song as she walked past, but the two in the original TV show were a bit daft as well, trying to get a special photo and sometimes messing up...

GMajor7SwansASwimming · 28/12/2010 19:08

Total shite. I'm off to watch Tramadol Nights

pigletmania · 28/12/2010 21:26

Aghhhg Gmajor

MainlyMaynie · 28/12/2010 23:20

I thought it was dreadful. The blacking up is uncomfortable, but the truly awful thing was the racist stereotypes. The lazy black woman, the mean Jewish woman, the Japanese schoolgirls who actually sang something like 'ling ding ling ding'. Lazy, offensive stereotypes. I found it a lot more offensive than Frankie Boyle.

Original poster

GabbyLoggon · 29/12/2010 11:54

Is Boyle doing it deliberately to up his profile?

OP posts:

TiggyD · 29/12/2010 12:21

The blacking up bit for playing people who just happened to be black didn't really bother me. It was the Japanese schoolgirls I didn't like because the whole joke was 'don't Japanese sound funny with their ling ping ding and guttural sounds'. It was laughing at not laughing with.

I think it was racist.

charliesmommy · 29/12/2010 12:23

I thought Come Fly With Me was really funny. I cant understand the complaints at all. It was sketches done by two white people portraying various characters.

It was set in a South East airport (which anyone who has used any of those will know there is a high number of multicultural employees in them), and if all the characters had been white, then the same people would probably have complained about that too.

I really do fail to see how it was in any way racist.

Original poster

GabbyLoggon · 29/12/2010 12:35

well little Britain did divide the viewers
and it appears the Christmas programme did too...

Is all mickey taking done against people
who you assume are stupider than yourself?

There seems to be harsh comedy and gentle
comedy....Spittin Image was harsh; but some of it was funny.

I would not be saying that if they had targetted me....

I half like Matt Lucas. But I have problems with Walliams. Even though he swam the Channel for charrity

OP posts:

LaWeaselMys · 29/12/2010 13:06

I don't like their sketches because although they are supposed to make fun of stereotypes they invariably end up being used to make fun of people, not the people who think such stupid things.

I didn't find the make-up offensive, but didn't like the school girls or precious.

SpringHeeledJack · 29/12/2010 14:02

Matt Lucas had geeeeenius potential as a very young fellow, imo

he shouldn't've chucked his lot in with Walliams, though, who is a talentless twat. In my very 'umble

mangoandlime · 29/12/2010 14:14

I was looking forward to this, it stood out from previews as one if the best things on the box this Christmas. It was okay. Just okay. Not terribly funny. I certainly wasn't offended, though.

The one bit I did laugh at was when the Disney lady was asked why she liked Disney and she said it was because she was a bit thick!
(You had to be there).

NetworkGuy · 29/12/2010 15:06

I hadn't twigged the elderly lady was meant to be Jewish, just a crafty old lady... and a ridiculous 'customer satisfaction' fool. Nobody would fork out for a passenger, so a purely fictional scenario.

As for 'Precious' nicking the tin of coffee to take the day off to go shopping, had not taken it as a lazy black woman, but in similar vein to a person calling in 'sick' when they were wanting a break from a humdrum job... her colour didn't make any difference except for the (Pentecostal?) "praise the Lord"

The Japanese schoolgirls - broken English, strange tonal variations during song, but would not have felt it even a tiny bit racist, just suggestion of having rich parents such that they'd be able to travel a third of the way around the world to see some idol... If you had ever seen the numbers of Japanese tourists visiting Chester, albeit on a whistle-stop tour of the UK, you might not consider it anything but 'usual'.

I could never put it in a similar category as FB's cruel and sometimes sickening brand of offensiveness, let alone consider it worse, but it is clearly an area where we can agree to differ.

MainlyMaynie · 29/12/2010 18:10

The thing is, you can say colour is irrelevant and that it just happened to be a black woman who was lazy and workshy, but there was a running theme of the characters portraying traits which are negative stereotypes for their races. Lazy black people is clearly one, the mean Jewish woman clearly another (loads of racist signals she was intended to be Jewish, like saying 'my son's a Doctor'). This isn't coincidence, they are playing on racial stereotypes. Not nice IMHO.

charliesmommy · 29/12/2010 18:14

playing on racial stereotypes is not racist though.. well not as far as I can see...

Fibilou · 29/12/2010 19:11

"there was a running theme of the characters portraying traits which are negative stereotypes for their races."

Yes. And all the white people were also either workshy, weird or paranoid. It's not as if they were portraying the white people as some wonderful superrace, is it ? If you swapped the characters around and made the black characters the pilots having a marriage crisis that would have been wrong.

When it comes to portraying VME characters in comedy, unless you are of that ethnicity yourself it seems that you are safer to leave well alone. And then of course be accused of racism by not including VME characters. Whichever way they do it you can guarantee they one thing - they'll offend someone.

Fibilou · 29/12/2010 19:16

and maybe I'm just not so alive to racial slights but it didn't occur to me that the 1st time flyer character was jewish. The "my grandson's a doctor" scenario could easily have come from many an elderly lady who is excessively pleased about that fact. My own next door neighbour never stops going on about her son's wonderful career despite the fact that he is now nearly retired and has grandchildren of his own. She is catholic.

MainlyMaynie · 29/12/2010 19:16

"playing on racial stereotypes is not racist though.. well not as far as I can see..."

? I'd say racial stereotypes are the very foundation of racism.

Fibilou - no, it wouldn't have been wrong to swap the characters, so that it was black characters having a marriage crisis. By removing the characters from negative stereotypes associated with their race, you can focus on the humour in the character, rather than the "humour" in making lazy jokes about supposed racial characteristics.

Fibilou · 29/12/2010 19:19

well to be frank, I've heard a lot of racist bigotry in my line of work (police) and I have never, ever heard of the racist stereotype black = lazy.

sweetandtenderhooligan · 29/12/2010 19:22

Lucas is Jewish, so he was playing up to his own stereotype with the mean old lady character.

My friend's mil is a religious Jamaican woman with a strong accent and she found Precious fucking hilarious.

No one's mentioned the Irish gay air steward on "Our Lady Airlines", one of ten children who's mother has never flown due to her being pregnant all the time. I'm Irish and I thought this character was really funny.

It was bloody funny!

MrsMooo · 29/12/2010 21:00

fibilou-really???!!?
And why would it have been wrong to swap the characters around

Having canvassed the opinion of my mostly west Indian extended family, they all found the Precious character highly offensive btw so it's not just a load of White liberals rafting over nothing

Tbh I think it played to a very base level of humour mocking various stereotypes rather that trying to push ideas/boundries or poke fun at bigotry as the vomiting old lady did in little Britain

they may have been funny 10 years ago but this was utter shite IMO

WinkyWinkola · 30/12/2010 11:37

The first time flyer was so obviously Jewish to me! My son's a doctor/lawyer/Prime Minister is the classic line.

The show was rubbish.

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