"Call Jonathan Pie" BBC Radio 4 comedy

[yetanotherusernameAgain]

Episode 6 "Identity Crisis"

Jonathan (fictional radio talk show host) is attending a diversity training session and is basically saying all the things we would. A character in a comedy is saying things that wouldn't be countenanced on a factual programme.

Hope this link works.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002brqn

I'll be interested to know what you think

Reporting back 😁

That was hilarious 😂 As for where my "allegiances" lay, I found myself both laughing at (Alan Partridge/David Brent) and laughing with (good point, well made) JP at different times. Sometimes at same time. That's great comedy writing.

The "on air" reflection at the end was a bit more preachy about "older people" and their views than satire. But equally, it's definitely a fair point that without some focus on diversity, we'd still be way off where we are now in terms of equality. And he did manage to get a couple of good quips in that too.

I found Alice exasperating but also cringed on her behalf (in a "oh no, please stop for your own sake" kind of way) at her gatekeeping of feminism. Again great writing, as she clearly realised she was making no sense but had to plough on.

Thank you for sharing OP.

(My favourite moment was his description of liberal Greece where everyone could apparently just "fuck away" 😂)

Tom Walker/Jonathan Pie really gives me the creeps. There's something not right about him...

Still, I guess it's good to have people jumping on the bandwagon now they think it's safe.

Glad you enjoyed it @BonfireLady ! My fave bits were at the start - the Rolling Stones punchline was beautifully built up, and the throwaway "girl who does the training". But plenty to hoot at later too, on all sides.

Though I thought the "older people" bit was very ageist. Too close to the accusations levelled against GC women - old "dinosaurs" out of touch, or jeering at LGBA conference for not being full of young people. How old are most of the people we've seen standing out against this misogyny and homophobia against the odds?

Yes the ‘older people not understanding’ seemed a bit OTT when he went on to mention having a kid in primary school! The generational divide was probably something worth pointing out once but not to keep harping on about as if the life experience of anyone over 40 should be instantly dismissed.

Though I thought the "older people" bit was very ageist. Too close to the accusations levelled against GC women - old "dinosaurs" out of touch, or jeering at LGBA conference for not being full of young people

The generational divide was probably something worth pointing out once but not to keep harping on about

Fully agree. It felt very much at odds with the (excellent) mocking of the irony that everyone should "educate yourself". The irony itself was covered beautifully i.e. the idea that the more you do so, the more you see the where identity politics doesn't work, particularly so on the enforcement of gender identity belief as fact. I suspect that's why I found the end part so preachy - it felt like it was being hammered home that "older people" (apparently those of us in our 40s - so middle aged and up) will always be in the wrong, even when they're in the right regarding law and biology. That somehow it's morally wrong for us to forget what we actually know to be legally true and biologically true.

In many ways, it highlights why racism, actual homophobia and gender identity should never be lumped together. But I'm not sure that's clear at all from the conclusion, because it seems to do exactly that.

Oh you poor summer child, they're satirising ignorance

Erm.

On a positive note, it's possible that this post is actually funnier than the sketch itself. So, er, thanks 😁

We are getting a lot of ploppers on FWR threads at the moment and some of them are trying a bit too hard to make sure we know they're sneering at us that it is actually quite amusing 👍

It certainly is.

"Satirising ignorance"

Yep, ignorance of both the law and primary school level biology is definitely an open goal for satire 🙃 Alice demonstrates this beautifully in the show.

I thought the bit about the pronouns was interesting. Alice says we use "they/them" as undifferentiated singular pronouns in English. This is true, and documented usage goes back centuries. But she misses the point that it's not just sex that is not being limited. It's everything. If you say "If anyone has any questions can they save them till the end?" the "anyone" is purely hypothetical in every respect. If no one has any questions, then the "anyone" won't even exist. The other use is for someone real but unknown. So, "there's someone at the door. I wonder what they want?" Here, it's a real person, not hypothetical, but you know literally nothing about them, other than they're at the door and have the capacity to press a bell, till you open the door. At which point, they stop being "they".

The point is, you don't use "they" as a singular pronoun for someone specific you know. So it is really weird to have to do so. It violates the use principle for the pronoun. It may catch on, but it's grating weirdness might defeat it.

Yes, @JustSpeculation that's exactly it. We only use they/them about an unknown person, but now we're being told to use it about a specific person, whose sex we know (even if they deny it).

I enjoyed the episode but, like PPs, I could have really done without Pie constantly saying people who disagree with current year views are old and don’t understand the issues.

By Pie’s reckoning I’m old, and I refuse to go along with a lot of the new critical social justice theories but this is not because I’m too stupid to keep up or understand them. It’s because I think these theories fail to adequately describe and explain (or produce effective solutions to) various societal challenges. And also, in a democracy, citizens are allowed to have differing perspectives on political and social issues so I reject the EDI & HR framing of their way of viewing things as being the only correct way.

None of this makes me a reactionary old fart, I’ve always been interested in political theory and I happily take from various schools of thought the ideas that I think best fit whatever situation it is I’m considering. And I’ve always believed in the principle of informed citizens debating issues to achieve better understanding and consensus so I don’t like the current view that asking questions and wanting a discussion is a form of bigotry.