Domestic Violence shown as humour...

[SpongeBobJudgeyPants]

TV on in background, this morning. Old film, 'Holiday on the buses' is on. I realise this is a pile of misogynistic crap, but I actually saw Olive's 'D'H strike her in the scene where the luggage falls off the motorbike into the river, as he blamed her for stopping him suddenly. Even in its time (70's) how did this pass for humour? How was it allowed to be shown, without at least cutting that bit out? I realise it was a terrible series, but I had never seen that bit before. Anyone else? And why are tv channels (ITV3 in this case) showing this shit? The idea that 'they were different times' just doesn't it, does it?

Some were, some weren't. Mind Your Language wasn't poking fun at racists they way Alf Garnett did.

For sure. What I find worrying? I guess, interesting? is that some people don't seem at all able to pick up on that kind of criticism. I wonder how anyone can miss so much, people who are supposedly educated? It reminds me a bit of Biblical literalism. It makes me disinclined to hand over the censorship pen to anyone.

I also do wonder how much our perception becomes skewed around what was considered bad in the past. When there was the big controversy around Trudeau's costume photos I was interested to lean, really by chance, that Al Jolson, far from being a horrible racist which was the impression I had, was involved in anti-racism and was respected in the African American community. It made me wonder if people now aren't making some unjustified assumptions about the feelings and motives people had with regard to his shows.

There seems to be a lack of ability to consider that people may have been thinking in a way you don't expect - I'm afraid I'm not describing what I mean very well, but I can't think of a better way.

The violence goes both ways - Olive hits Arthur at least once in that film - from memory, when he falls asleep after the end of holiday disco, when she was hoping for sex.

The point of the comedy was that Arthur was an awful husband and Olive was a terrible wife. It doesn't seem very funny now, but it's a product of its time and very interesting from the perspective of cultural shifts.

The segment where the toilet explodes is still quite funny.

The films take place in a different canon from the series, where Olive and Arthur have a child. In the series, they eventually divorce, with no children involved.

Al Jolson, far from being a horrible racist which was the impression I had, was involved in anti-racism and was respected in the African American community.

That's interesting. I guess if we cancel everything that can be deemed problematic we lose all of the actual history, which is rarely as straightforward as we paint it.

All media represents what its owners want it to, Blue Peter never represented my childhood, it's some TV guy's idea.

That said, TV in particular was very influential in the late 20th century so if students in 2040 want to actually see what was broadcast in the 70s, better to show them it unedited, with the Miss World pageant, cigarette advertising, and ten hours of the test card.

Let us not forget Little Britain.
It was somewhat racist and fatist at the Fat Club.
Ageist and misogynist at the care home.
And somewhat transphobic at the seaside.

And not that long ago.

Comedy. It makes us laugh.

FlyingOink
Blue Peter never represented my childhood, it's some TV guy's idea

Good point, the TV guys and camera crew have had it their way for far too long.

That said, TV in particular was very influential in the late 20th century so if students in 2040 want to actually see what was broadcast in the 70s, better to show them it unedited, with the Miss World pageant, cigarette advertising, and ten hours of the test card.

I suppose it's like looking at old texts. It's easy for people who don't know much about a particular time period to read something that is 100, or 500 years old, and really misinterpret it, because they don't have the references or mindset that the readers it was intended for had. It may take for granted certain kinds of experience, a particular sense of humour, knowledge of tropes, even just conventions of language.

Television almost seems too recent to think that would have such an effect, but now that I have a longer memory of seeing things at the time, and the way people see and interpret them now, it can actually be pretty significant.

The first On the Buses film was an enormous box office hit in 1971. The plot involved the male bus drivers waging a campaign to get rid of the newly-appointed female drivers, which they did by such guaranteed-to-get-rid-of-women methods as putting spiders in their cabs.

It's a reminder that back in the 1970s, it would have been perfectly OK and normal for a company to specify that bus drivers must be male. There was no legislation to prevent it in those days.

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.

Personally I wouldn't like to see old films having bits sliced out of them to make them "acceptable now" - it's our cultural history

This
I love On The Buses.
Where would it end? There's loads of comedies that aren't PC and wouldn't get away with now.
I've noticed old programmes get chopped when they're repeated now - Only Fools and Horses, Friends, etc being just two of them.
I see it like burning or censoring books - surely it's better to have a conversation about the subjects rather than outright censoring them?