or was Peter Kay homophobic on Strictly?

[ThisPasadenaHomemaker]

His bit with Rinder made me cringe so hard.

That kind of 'humour' based on the idea that gay men are predatory sex pests belongs in the 70's with Alf Garnett type sitcoms rather than 2016 doesn't it? Felt dated, lazy and really awkward.

Not that I expect Peter Kay to be at the cutting edge of comedy of course but still.

Just me?

When you deconstruct anything you can make it look anything.

And if you believe PK is a nasty pernicious homophobe then it's damning. But if you don't, and I don't, I think it's a joke that he would have made regardless of sexuality or sex of the butt of the joke.

I''m no deconstructing it. I'm just saying what happened.

And if you genuinely think he would have said that if he was pretending Claudia had pinched his bottom, then I can only think that you are Peter Kay's mother!

Then why did he move people aside so that he could stand next to Rinder?

And what would 'this case is closed' mean if he'd done the joke with a straight man/straight woman? Would it still have been funny?

"And if you believe PK is a nasty pernicious homophobe then it's damning"

I have no idea whether he is or isn't. I don't watch him- not being stuck in the early 1970s. But he certainly on this occasion told a homophobic joke.

Would it have been funny had Judge Rinder been a straight man?
Or would the "this case is firmly closed" not have worked because of the double entendre of that particular line - being both a reference to the courtroom and a reference to homosexuality. - Just wouldn't have worked with a woman or straight man now would it?

So then it stands to reason that homosexuality was the butt of the joke (excuse the pun). Which is very poor taste and very outdated.

Did no-one watch the fantastic Car Share? 70s humour is not normally PK's thing.

I agree though this incident was embarrassing and he got it badly wrong.

How is 'this case is closed' even a joke if it's not a double entendre about legal stuff and being gay?

I watched it and was just confused as to why he'd turned up in a high vis jacket and a hat half over his face. I only recognised him when he started to talk. If he was supposed to be in character why was he introduced as Peter Kay? If the joke was supposed to be on the character and how awful his jokes were it fell very far short. He just looked like a thoroughly over-indulged, unfunny, dated comedian.

Bertrand, my husband is a lowly working class man who has very much in common and can easily hear echoes of his own childhood in PK's work....

I find PK funny, inoffensive and sharp. He's someone I don't mind my teens watching, knowing that he won't say anything untoward.

As for this being homophobic I still don't think it was, or that he is. I think had JR been female or straight he would have made the same joke. You clearly don't and think he wad out to make a dick of "the gay".

I agree RR looked very uncomfortable with it. I thought he didn't look too impressed with Craig's Grindr joke either. RR may be high camp but he has never played it as over-sexual, and I think it's inappropriate to put that stereotype on to him just because he's gay.

FRET please, can you explain how the joke would have worked/been funny had it been done with a straight man or woman? Bearing in mind that by 'this case' he meant 'my arse'.

But if he has said "Steady- this case is firmly closed" to a woman or a straight man how would it have been a joke? It would have been completely meaningless.

FRET - he moved Claudia out of the way and walked over to the other side of the stage to single RR out in order to make his joke. There were plenty of female or straight people he could have done it to instead. He didn't.

Rufus Hound once said that "Peter Kay isn't funny, he's just good at remembering things"

Which is true,
but I don't particularly find RH funny either (Lee Evans is my fave stand up comedian)

[now trying to think if Lee Evans has ever said anything to offend people]

FRET I can definitely see how one might be certain it is a joke about his character's assumptions about gay men, and may have no relation to PK's own feelings.

I can not, however, agree that it doesn't reference a gay man's sexuality in particular. But in some ways, it's rather pleasant we're having this discussion. You, right here, right now, show that we have progressed so far that someone can grow up without enough exposure to these jokes to recognise the implications.

But those implications are still there. We've got fake arse-pinch+ "this case is closed". The latter, if, you're not picking up on that, is an anal sex ref.

I am not engaging in any literary deconstruction here, or stretching my brain. It's a very basic joke that most people on this thread would 'get' instantaneously 'live' on air. Trying to deny its nature is like saying ye olde allotment joke "she sits among the cabbages and leaks" isn't toilet humour.

PK isn't stuck in the 70s normally, although I agree that he was on this occasion and got it badly wrong.

"PK isn't stuck in the 70s normally"

His whole act is remembering space hoppers, Arctic Roll, flare jeans and other 70s references.

Can I explain the intangible elements of a joke and why some people ,might find it funny? Erm, possibly not. Would that make it funny to me or anyone else? No.

"He walked to other side of the stage" yes huge walk.... took about a second at least.

He doesn't only do standup.

"He walked to other side of the stage" yes huge walk.... took about a second at least.

Yes, but it was deliberate, and purposeful.

You don't have to make us laugh at the joke, you just need to explain what the joke is, because afaics, unless it's a reference to RR's sexuality, there just is no joke.

Oh, for goodness sake, FRET- he moved Claudia aside so that he could stand next to Rinder!

Can I ask why it's so important to you that this is not a sexual innuendo?

FRET, it's not intangible elements that you're being asked to explain.

I'm asking again, with reference to the audible and thus very tangible elements of the joke –the stuff he said:

What would 'this case is closed' mean if he'd done the joke with a straight man/straight woman? Bearing in mind that by 'this case' he meant 'my arse'.

I think it was homophobic (pretty bloody obviously so) but to those posters who disagree, surely you can see that that sort of joke, where you force the victim into a position of denying they did something, is rather bullying? It's like when kids shout "you farted!" at someone and they then have the embarrassment of having to persuade people that they didn't.

I thought it was all rather unnecessary. They should bring back the Barbershop Quartet next time.

Bertrand, my husband is a lowly working class man who has very much in common and can easily hear echoes of his own childhood in PK's work....

What a weird way to refer to your husband. lowly?!?

FFS unhappy. It's a reply not a without context statement.

I do think it's a sexual innuendo about someone pinching someone's arse.

However:

I don't think it's homophobic
or about anal sex
or the same as Jimmy Saville pinching a teenager's arse.

I think it's a silly old joke.