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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask what you feel about the complaints about Gavin and Stacey Christmas episode

102 replies

QueenViki · 29/12/2019 18:43

Ness and Bryn were seen singing Fairytale of New York in the pub, which of course includes the word faggott (and also slut but nobody seems upset about that!). So there’s been complaints. I realise it’s a horrible word but in the context of the show it wasn’t intended in an offensive way and those characters aren’t known for being particularly politically correct. If the song is being played on the radio surely it will inevitably appear on tv unless it’s banned but then who decides what is allowed to be heard and what words we can and can’t deal with? Censorship always makes me a little uncomfortable but maybe some words need to be wiped out.

OP posts:
augustusglupe · 29/12/2019 21:44

I love that song!! Some people will moan about anything ffs Xmas Hmm

Indella · 29/12/2019 21:45

@Littlecaf It’s also shortsighted to assume someone else’s point of view. Just go on any social media site to see gay people are arguing that the word should remain in the song in the context it’s used in.

BackforGood · 29/12/2019 21:49

@FlamingoAndJohn We LOVE (Mr Brain's) faggots in our family. Mmmm

Littlecaf · 29/12/2019 21:58

@Indella exactly my point.

DingDongSchadenfreudeOnHigh · 30/12/2019 08:05

If you are taking it as a homophobic insult when it means nothing of the sort, then that’s on you. Those that are completely missing the original context of this word, stop fucking forcing your English or American English translation onto Irish expressions. That’s really fucking xenophobic!

Thank you!

Some sense.

churchandstate · 30/12/2019 08:49

I find it more unreasonable that nobody is picking up on the whole thing about the photo of Stacey and Nessa and there being 17 years age difference. Is nobody thinking that Nessa could be Stacey's birth mum? I don't know how that'd work with Gwen, but I really think it's what they were hinting at!

I really hope not. Didn’t they have a threesome with Russell Brand?!

FlamingoAndJohn · 30/12/2019 08:54

I didn’t think about Ness being her birth mother.
Thinking about it there is very little resemblance between Stacey and Jason. (Obviously I know they are actors but straight blonde hair vs curly dark hair)

Witcher · 30/12/2019 09:00

I loved gavin and stacy from moment it started! Loved the Christmas special...
I dont see the problem it's a song, the world is going a bit mad.. there has been plenty of times through the seasons the characters have said something offensive to someone... but are we all so PC all the time.. wonder if the same people complained about the terms Dyke, big fat sue, and sheep shagger in the earlier episodes all offensive to some people !!
I think they did the scene brilliantly, nessa isnt the type to mince her words, so it was true to her character, and gavin, because he responded with a look of shock and oh shit....he is the type to pussy for around someone, but it's a song the world is going mad

Witcher · 30/12/2019 09:04

None of my hay froends or family where offended and for my uncle it was one of his favourite Christmas songs, we sang it together every christmas we went out to karaoke he was amazing I killed it.... (he passed suddenly in june) he also thought the world was going mad with how offended people get,

TheNameGames · 30/12/2019 09:10

11 viewers complained.

Thousands of people on Twitter ranted and were outraged.

Media lifted the Tweets and claimed “viewers” were “furious”.

Comments were left dividing opinion.

And the wheels on the bus go round and round.

HandsOffMyRights · 30/12/2019 09:14

Love the song in all its glory and I enjoyed their version - reckon it was done deliberately as the writers' way of sticking two fingers up to the wokery.

TigerOnATrain · 30/12/2019 12:03

@HandsOffMyRights

Love the song in all its glory and I enjoyed their version - reckon it was done deliberately as the writers' way of sticking two fingers up to the wokery.

I absolutely love it too, and I love that it winds up, and upsets the angry little lefties. Grin I also wonder if it was done to stick two fingers up at the wokery, but it is the BBC, and they are VERY bloody 'woke,' so I am not so sure... Wink

@TheNameGames

Thousands of people on Twitter ranted and were outraged.

The toxic far-left on twitter will complain about ANYthing that is not super, uber, ultra-leftie. They are pathetic whingers who gripe and moan and parp on about anything and everything, and many of them are vile and toxic.

India Willoughby made a comment about how lovely ADELE looks after losing weight 'you look like Jerry Hall' she said. Cue a MASSIVE onslaught of hate and vitriol aimed at India, saying she is a vile cow and a bitch (and other nasty names,) because she was obviously saying Adele was ugly before. Hmm

Ludicrous!

Also, although Adele is very pretty, whether she is 16 stone, 14 stone, or 12 stone, there is absolutely no doubt that she looks better with less weight on her, like most people do!

Like it or not, most people look better when they are between around 6 pounds underweight, and 10 to 15 pounds overweight.

People don't generally look better at 4 or 5 stone (plus) heavier than they should be, (than they do at a weight that is close to their ideal weight.)

TheSquitz · 30/12/2019 12:11

Well at least I know what I'm having for tea tonight.

Alsohuman · 30/12/2019 12:13

And Adele’s weight has what precisely to do with using the word “faggot”? Incidentally wokeness and left leaning aren’t synonymous.

FlamingoAndJohn · 30/12/2019 13:26

What does Adele and her weight have to do with anything?

Beelzebop · 30/12/2019 13:29

I asked three of my friends who are not straight, they didn't give a hoot!

Cookit · 30/12/2019 13:33

They had to sing really, Ness and Bryn signing together were some of the highlights of the previous series ... and then you think what Christmas song to sing. Fairytale of New York is the only one I can imagine being quite so funny the way they sing it. “I wish it could be Christmas everyday” etc just wouldn’t have been funny.

Cookit · 30/12/2019 13:35

I don’t think it’s really much to do with the BBC though. I think Cordon and Jones devised the script, filmed with the production company of their choice and sold the product to the BBC. I guess the BBC could have cut it but anything more (changing the song, changing the lyric) not possible.

paranoidmum2 · 30/12/2019 22:26

@Cookit as the broadcaster and holder of the Ofcom license, the BBC has ultimate responsibility for everything that is broadcast on their channels.

FedUpMum40 · 30/12/2019 22:43

It's lyrics to a song I think they done it really well, I just need to know what happened on that fishing trip.

tillytrotter1 · 30/12/2019 23:07

I was more upset that they left it on a cliffhanger of Nessa proposing to Smithy and we might never find out the answer.

And the fishing trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tillytrotter1 · 30/12/2019 23:09

Well at least I know what I'm having for tea tonight.

Sounds the same as OH had last night, a pile of the inevitable left-over potatoes, etc fried up and a couple of faggots, he thought he was in heaven.

PhilSwagielka · 30/12/2019 23:13

Don't care. I liked the fact they had Ruth Jones doing Shane's bit and Rob Brydon doing Kirsty's bit, though.

PhilSwagielka · 30/12/2019 23:16

@TigerOnATrain I am a massive lefty and I fucking ADORE the Pogues. Fairytale isn't even the most offensive thing they've done - The Old Main Drag and The Sickbed of Cú Chulainn are worse. Also, I don't know how familiar you are with their music but the Pogues themselves were pretty left-wing. Birmingham Six/Streets of Sorrow springs to mind. So was Kirsty MacColl. Free World is clearly a critique of Thatcherism.

'Woke' is a black American thing btw. I don't know how it's come to mean 'anyone who's remotely left-wing'.

Defenbaker · 30/12/2019 23:24

@FainaSnowChild - your post was spot on, my thoughts exactly.

It seems that there are some hard of thinking types around who find taking offence easier than critical thinking.

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