Not enjoying the Janey Godley pile on....

[rabbitwoman]

Haven't seen a thread on this, although there is a bit on the end of the NS thread at the moment.

But Godley was very outspoken against anyone questioning the trans rights agenda, and is someone who gleefully and happily reports, blocks and let's lose a barrage of very foul mouthed abuse to anyone who disagrees with her on twitter.

However, I am not enjoying her twitter take down this evening. I would much prefer a complete turn around and all the oldest voices to use this as an opportunity to call for a more reasonable debate.

.......

Alf Garnett was an interesting one. Warren Mitchell would tell of fans who'd come up to him and who regarded Alf as simply a hero, telling it like it was. Mitchell's reaction was always that the racist fan was an idiot and it was hilarious that they couldn't see the truth so he was the winner. But whenever I heard that story I wondered why it never made him think that maybe there was a problem with giving the racists a hero on prime time TV and validating their views.

IME modern criticism of TDUDP is completely aware that Garnett was a satirical figure. They're not accusing Johnny Speight of being a racist. They're criticising it because the harm done by showing those views in a reasonably subtle portrayal on prime time telly watched by a lot of children had real negative consequences regardless of the good intent intent. As Sanjeev Bhaskar said: the playground was always hell for non-white kids on the days after TDUDP was on TV.

They're criticising it because the harm done by showing those views in a reasonably subtle portrayal on prime time telly watched by a lot of children had real negative consequences regardless of the good intent intent. As Sanjeev Bhaskar said: the playground was always hell for non-white kids on the days after TDUDP was on TV.

Tell me about it! In the 70s/80s, was part of the only brown family growing up in a white, working class (but fairly socially conservative) area. A lot of 70s/80s TV would illicit that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and having to brace myself for the school playground the next day. Even fairly innocuous stuff. I remember when Electric Avenue was no.1 in the charts, I spent weeks being followed around by one group of lads doing their rendition of Eddy Grant with their own amusing lyrics about "Pakistani Zoos".

I agree. I think the problem with the series was that Speight gave Garnett all the best lines, and Warren Mitchell was such a brilliant actor he made Garnett an almost-sympathetic character. As Blake (I think) said of Milton: he was of the devil’s party without knowing it.

But it never seemed to have occurred to Mitchell that if you're subtle enough that racist idiots think you're a hero maybe you're too subtle for prime time TV.

I think that's the problem though - intelligent comedy requires an intelligent audience. We watched TDUDP as a family and knew Alf was the figure of ridicule, and laughed at him, not with him. The same with programmes like Love Thy Neighbour. We could see that the white racist bloke was meant to be the figure of ridicule - his own wife thought he was an idiot! But being "other" ourselves, maybe we could see the caricature.

I saw the Pub Landlord chappy a couple of times but several years apart. I saw him when he first developed the character and the crowd were of the "young professional" type, lots of women there. When I saw him again, the crowd had become much more blokey and lairy. Watching it, I felt that the caricature had changed into character trotting out well worn lines, without irony, to a crowd who were lapping it up at face value.

@KimThomas

I agree. I think the problem with the series was that Speight gave Garnett all the best lines, and Warren Mitchell was such a brilliant actor he made Garnett an almost-sympathetic character. As Blake (I think) said of Milton: he was of the devil’s party without knowing it.

He was a sympathetic character - to the working class - for good reason. Being working class in the 70s and Thatcher's Britain was bloody scary. His views were fairly normal. People felt threatened by change. We lived next to Alf Garnetts. My dad worked with, picketed with and lost his job as a miner with many Alf Garnetts. They weren't monsters. The character was written for an audience of middle class spectators to laugh at, not for the working class to reflect on their own prejudices.

I've worked in "celebrity selection" for gov comms.
Janey Godley would have been chosen to reach a particular demographic as someone who'd "get the message across."
The civil servants normally do due diligence, then the selection is forwarded to the appropriate Minister to review and sign off.
So either the background research wasn't done or the results were just ignored.
Her previous SNP politics make me raise an eyebrow,,,

@GrimDamnFanjo

I've worked in "celebrity selection" for gov comms. Janey Godley would have been chosen to reach a particular demographic as someone who'd "get the message across." The civil servants normally do due diligence, then the selection is forwarded to the appropriate Minister to review and sign off. So either the background research wasn't done or the results were just ignored. Her previous SNP politics make me raise an eyebrow,,,

Upthread, PlayYouLikeAShark posted this Twitter thread:

twitter.com/leyanelle/status/1436400686586081281?s=21

Do you have any insight into what is likely to have happened there? Did [X] do their diligence, know about all of the problematic posts and decide that they weren't relevant or were they attempting to cover their lack of appropriate reseearch?

Honestly I think it was ignored. Leyanelle (tweets above) flagged this on twitter with sturgeon in 2020 when sturgeon did the alter ego post.

The SNP and sturgeon should never have elevated Janey the way they did.

mobile.twitter.com/Leyanelle/status/1319737393373728770

1. Struggling to understand the relationship between those tweets and being a professional comedian.

2. The SNP really don’t have a leg to stand on if they did nothing about this when they were made aware of the tweets almost a year ago!

They go their own way. And assume that the general public is stupid and/or beneath contempt. The remind me of the mullahs.

The civil servants normally do due diligence

The problem here is that even the Scottish civil service is compromised on its integrity over what's acceptable & what isn't. There are SJW activists in every sphere & SJW are very selective IMO over who gets the 'cancellation' treatment. Even when there's a tendency to lean towards the BLM/take the knee stuff (as Leslie Evans cringingly did by posting a pic of herself 'taking the knee') someone in the good graces of the FM gets a pass, even with the sort of stuff Godley posted. In embracing & adopting the SJW model on standards (as it seems is the case), there's still an element of personal opinion in play when carrying out due diligence - and the response that Leyanelle got to her complaint illustrates that perfectly.

Remember, the SNP equalities convener feels empowered to determine who should be 'removed from communities' and who doesn't. Same applies even in the civil service when the due diligence is supposed to pick up what was pointed out in the complaint about Godley.

They're now seemingly unable to spot when someone's background is questionable for fear of being seen as 'shaming' any transgressions, or simply being sympathetic to someone that's deemed useful. The drag queen that Mhairi Black took into a Scottish primary school is another example - the school should have done their due diligence but the drag queen was warmly welcomed despite what children could find if they searched him online.

It reminds me a bit of HAL. If you don't have clear directives about what is ok and what not, and worse they are contradictory, civil servants can't make clear and consistent decisions, and what you get will be a hot mess.

@TedImgoingmad

I think that's the problem though - intelligent comedy requires an intelligent audience. We watched TDUDP as a family and knew Alf was the figure of ridicule, and laughed at him, not with him. The same with programmes like Love Thy Neighbour. We could see that the white racist bloke was meant to be the figure of ridicule - his own wife thought he was an idiot! But being "other" ourselves, maybe we could see the caricature.

I saw the Pub Landlord chappy a couple of times but several years apart. I saw him when he first developed the character and the crowd were of the "young professional" type, lots of women there. When I saw him again, the crowd had become much more blokey and lairy. Watching it, I felt that the caricature had changed into character trotting out well worn lines, without irony, to a crowd who were lapping it up at face value.

This is it, I think - do we really want the lowest common denominator to win out?

It's not just comedy - I touched on this in the other thread about children's literature. You have parents now who read a book like The Giving Tree, or The Story of Ping, or anything that doesn't hammer the reader with the "right" moral, and they can't deal with it "in case some readers get the wrong idea."

A show where the character being made fun of was clearly a bad guy, not "regular." and not sympathetic, might be ok. Because then the audience would be clear they were meant to despise him. But is that really a true story about human beings?

But what I find weird is that SJW and transactivists tend to go to great lengths to be, or appear to be, anti-racist, always displaying BLM stuff, talking about intersectionality, slagging off "white feminists" etc.

Now, I think they are wrong (in that in fact genderism is very white /MC/first world and as recently discussed, doesn't give two hoots about the black, Asian etc women around the world for whom sex matters very much in their oppression - not to mention paralleling black women with trans women as a "kind of woman" and soo on).

BUT since they are very keen to appear anti-racist, why is it that racism is given a pass just because someone is mates with NS / SNP / a genderwoo advocate? You'd think they would be really careful to keep racism out of it - even if they don't actually care, but for the sake of optics. I mean if I was Nicola and had had the facts presented to me as described here, I'd be saying "Sorry Janey it's not a good look, we need someone squeaky clean" - that can't be that hard surely?

@PlayYouLikeAShark @EmbarrassingAdmissions
Aargh can't quote a quote!

I'd suspect the complaint never made it to the correct inbox!

Civil servants working in marketing/press, are employed to explain government policy. A "celebrity" can help to reach a particular demographic, so at the start of a plan, research would have identified those who were unaware of a policy or not complying, and a campaign built around reaching them.

This doesn't always mean using a celeb, I once managed a campaign to communicate a key policy to a section of the community, which involved info delivered outside mainstream media, think beer mats, takeaway cartons...

Using a celeb you'd normally identify someone who'd appeal to the target audience, research them, get a shortlist, approach agents etc then get the campaign approved at ministerial level.

However, there is another group of civil servants who are able to be politically motivated, the Special Advisor.
They are in a position to influence and push a party political line, so suggesting a celebrity of the "correct" political leanings could be something they'd do...

I would have expected Janey's social media to have been looked at, so personally I think a decision was made to ignore "problem tweets" in favour of reaching the campaign objectives...

@QueenPeary

But what I find weird is that SJW and transactivists tend to go to great lengths to be, or appear to be, anti-racist, always displaying BLM stuff, talking about intersectionality, slagging off "white feminists" etc.

Now, I think they are wrong (in that in fact genderism is very white /MC/first world and as recently discussed, doesn't give two hoots about the black, Asian etc women around the world for whom sex matters very much in their oppression - not to mention paralleling black women with trans women as a "kind of woman" and soo on).

BUT since they are very keen to appear anti-racist, why is it that racism is given a pass just because someone is mates with NS / SNP / a genderwoo advocate? You'd think they would be really careful to keep racism out of it - even if they don't actually care, but for the sake of optics. I mean if I was Nicola and had had the facts presented to me as described here, I'd be saying "Sorry Janey it's not a good look, we need someone squeaky clean" - that can't be that hard surely?

I absolutely agree, even though I normally believe in cock up rather than conspiracy...

I mean there are plenty of lovely and beloved scottish stars who could have done it. Hesitant to list them in case they all turn out to have a history of dodgy tweets :o, but Martin Compston, Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, David Tennant, Jane McCarry, Jackie Bird etc spring to mind.

(I mean who could have potentially done it obv - they'd have to find someone who was willing, available and politically on board and I don't know if those specific people are - but my point is there are plenty who could have been approached.)

I'd suspect the complaint never made it to the correct inbox!

Oh dearie me, no Leya@Leyanelle followed up her complaint in June this year by letter and got a hard copy reply brushing off her concerns.

@KimikosNightmare

I'd suspect the complaint never made it to the correct inbox!

Oh dearie me, no Leya@Leyanelle followed up her complaint in June this year by letter and got a hard copy reply brushing off her concerns.

What I meant was that it was acknowledged but never forwarded to anywhere else where it could have been logged properly and action taken to avoid this current debacle...

@QueenPeary

I mean there are plenty of lovely and beloved scottish stars who could have done it. Hesitant to list them in case they all turn out to have a history of dodgy tweets :o, but Martin Compston, Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, David Tennant, Jane McCarry, Jackie Bird etc spring to mind.

It depends on who they wanted to target the message to? I'd love to have seen the strategy....

What I meant was that it was acknowledged but never forwarded to anywhere else where it could have been logged properly and action taken to avoid this current debacle

A letter was sent, read and replied to. The reply even said that if Leya @Leyanelle thought the tweets were hate crimes she could report them. You are making very flimsy excuses.

It depends on who they wanted to target the message to?

Yes, but the ideal person would be someone who's generally liked in Scotland and there are a good choice of therm - whereas Godley, even if you love her (/think she's your alter ego), is clearly divisive.