Little Britain

[tallulahhula33]

Just seen an interesting discussion on Twitter regarding Little Britain and how damaging it was to minority groups in the UK. I must admit I liked it at the time (I was a teenager) but can't understand how they got away with it now. And I don't think I've ever seen them apologise for it?

There was the disabled guy pretending to be disabled.
The old lady who threw up when she found out anyone foreign had baked the cake and she was eating.
The university secretary who used blatant racist language.
Also transphobic/homophobic issues.

Were they perhaps double bluffing by poking fun at the views of people who for example think all disabled people are fakers? Or was it really that offensive? It definitely wouldn't be aired now but it wasn't really all that long ago. And Walliams and Lucas are still very much in the public eye.

Little Britain was genius and was very well layered

The issue with Andy in the wheelchair at face level was a joke about someone who could walk but chose not to and took advantage of his carer. On another it was about the naivety of the carer and our but our sensibilities about how immobile people are seen

Same issue with the only gay in the village, on the surface was a joke about stereotypical views about gay men but equally a mickey take of the view a person can have of themselves about being so different and special but they're not that unusual, he often had the wind taken out of his sails when it was pointed out that there was gay club around the corner or something

The other characters were similar although some were just for shock value.

Someone like Marjorie Dawes was absolute genius

I dont have a problem with men dressing as women if they are portraying a character, such as come fly with me and some in little Britain but I would for some of the more extreme drag queens who are just exaggerating and characterizing women's features. Same with a person presenting as a different ethnicity, if its for a character portrayal thats fine but not if its for the purpose of exaggerating features and stereotypes.

www.dailymotion.com/video/xul82e

This is my favourite

Followed by

m.youtube.com/watch?v=cENfeSFpXf4

I dont have a problem with men dressing as women if they are portraying a character, such as come fly with me and some in little Britain

I agree. The likes of Stanley Baxter, Dick Emery and Barry Humphries did this brilliantly.

It was very offensive. People would openly mock minority groups based on the characters on the show. Of course something like that could never be made today. I really enjoy it when people say things like 'woke culture' or 'PC' has killed comedy - it's just such a wayward perspective, one fully borne out of the privilege of having never been the butt of the joke as a result of your race and before anyone says their DH is a black disabled transman and thought it was hilarious I don't care - it wasn't.

To me the title of the programme said it all - the characters were often based on small-minded, parochial types who hated foreign people, poor people, disable people etc. I always felt the show attacked the prejudiced ones, not the victims of prejudice, but yeah, I don’t think the show would get made nowadays!

I loved the tiny Dennis Waterman! 😁

I think Little Britain was kind of ‘of its time’. You can see now how it’s inappropriate, but that’s due to outside influence and a shift in society, not an inner realisation for many. There was a lot of that kind of humour beginning of the 2000s. Everything was just a bit more blunt and brutal and simply tone deaf in many ways. It was just generally accepted, we were just collectively a bit more ignorant back then.

’Come Fly with Me’ which came out about 10 years later is on a whole other level! I mean, there’s full on black face and very racist ‘humour’ - not great at any point in time but by 2012 surely that was an obvious no no. I watched one episode and couldn’t believe what was happening. I don’t know what they were thinking and I really don’t know how Matt Lucas and David Walliams still get work. I’m not an advocate of ‘cancel culture’ my any means, but the fact that Walliams can make shows like that and simultaneously be a children’s author is insane to me.

Unfortunately sometimes you get idiots who are so full of themselves they totally miss the fact that they were actually the butt of the joke....

I don't care that you don't care - it was - and still is funny as. It's comedy. Stop over analysing it.

I was a carer around the time Little Britain was on TV, had several wheelchair using clients. They loved it. DW and ML did some backtracking a few years ago I believe but they made plenty of money out of it so I doubt they're too upset.
I personally thought it was shite and very repetitive but I must admit I thought the Lou and Andy sketches were funny

Oh I absolutely loved it!

I think it was genius.
On the surface, yes very offensive but if you look at the different layers of the individual scetches and characters then it matched Stereotypical British attitude past & present very well.

... and I am not British...

I just found our new series😂 thank you

If you can't see that it was ridiculing racists then you're beyond help.

I loved the first two series and some of the characters were hilarious (as my username alludes to). The third series was less funny. Watching it now there are some moments that make me wince but overall I enjoyed it and still quite Marjorie from fat fighters regularly.

To you it wasnt, to many it was

Most people, at some point are the butt of a joke, its life. And comedy is about taking the piss about people and situations, thats comedy.

All sorts of lives were lampooned.

I love it. Granted we know better than blackface nowadays but the joke was very much on the racists/homophobes/etc than the minorities themselves. The woman from Fat Fighters was overweight and the women who spat out the lesbian jam turned out to be a lesbian at the end. They're all hypocrites.

I'll forever howl at the scene on Come Fly With Me where the immigration officer, Ian Foot is interviewing Taaj and assumes that just because he's brown, he's from Pakistan and loves cricket and curry. I saw it posted on TikTok a while ago and hundreds of non-UK people were asking where the clip was from because they thought it was funny. The joke is definitely on the racist, not the minority.

Fuck me sideways (not wishing to offend anyone with genitals on their hips) but the joke was on some of the narrow-minded attitudes found in 'Little Britain'.

It was quite funny - although I personally find the sketch-show genre a bit repetitive I do recall my young ds finding the 'sketch' where the dog convinced the Old Lady to throw a rock through a shop window very hilarious - not sure why but he did.

Why is there so much focus on characters or sketches involving non white people

In comedy characters over the years there has been inclusion of all sorts of characters, look at Loadsamoney, Kevin and Perry, Lauren, nan, Tim nice but dim, just off the top of my head, you can see these characters in every town, every street.

I can't stand this bullshit of looking back at programmes and saying they shouldn't have been made. They were made at the time they were made. Things change. But it doesn't change the fact it was very funny at the time.

I forgot about Vicky Pollard, my favourite bit was when the SW visited and her baby was missing and she swapped the baby for a Take That CD but regretted because 'theyre shit'.

Like, disabled people don’t have a sense of humour about their disability you mean?

It was shit then, it hasn’t aged horribly because it was horrible then. Punching down, mindless dross.

Well no
I am talking about the small Minded hypocrites it's obviously making fun off

It was very offensive. People would openly mock minority groups based on the characters on the show.

Those people were racist, disableists anyway. The show was actually making fun of them they were just too thick to realise.

If people think Little Britain is offensive, try watching Nighty Night. It wasnt massively big but is exceptionally funny, dark, outrageous.

I think the irony of Little Britain is perhaps lost on you.

Id love to know what kind of boring good clean fun comedy perpetually offended people actually enjoy.

Little Britain was excellent and it had the shock factor. I think the I’m a Lady character made the excellent point that dressing as some grumpy stereotype doesn’t make you any less of a man.

Also I’m sick of people watching old arse TV shows and being shocked that they’re not politically correct. What do you expect watching a show that’s 20 years old?