Shocked ..... by Ironside!!

[ali-cat]

Last week while I was watching a repeat of an old Ironside episode something was said that totally shocked me.

They were compiling a list of stats for their yearly review & said (something along the lines of ) "murder down 1% & rape up 2%".  At that point one of Ironsides detectives said "at least they're making more love than war" 

I couldn't believe it!!  They certainly wouldn't be allowed to come out with a line like that on a TV programme today, but surely even in the 70's this sort of comment couldn't have been acceptable?!!  

[Framboise]

Quite so.   If you watch some of the original series of Only Fools and Horses (which I have to regularly as OH is a fan!), you will discover there are some "blips" in the soundtrack where references have been edited out.   When you see these episodes on DVD the remarks are still there, only on tv the BBC kindly removes them for you in case it upsets someone.  

 Not so much Big Brother as Big Auntie Auntie is watching over you   [:P]

[NormanH]

But in the fantastically popular film "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis " which has just come out in France there is great mirth made out of the fact that an able-bodied man pretends to be disabled in order to get preferential treatment for a good posting:

he mimics spasms ( supposed to be a funny movement) and the lame joke (!!) at the end is that when the person checking on him leaves he forgets he is supposed to be wheelchair-bound, and stands up.

On another thread on this board I was mocked as being PC Norman when I pointed this out.

[Chancer]

Twas I Norman[6]

Please dont take it personally as you are not in a minority, I speak of in England but I think that you too live in France.

I thought that sketch was hilarious but you are right it probably would come under fire from the PC brigade if it were in an English film.

Clearly the humour is different here in France and also between individuals like you and I, also society evolves with temrs like "politically correct" but my humour I guess is stuck in the 70's.

I wanted to ask you if you liked Benny Hill in the 70's and also do you now in these PC days?

I felt very sorry to see how he was rejected by the UK media as a symbol of old fashioned non PC humor yet the French loved him and continue to do so, perhaps he should have retired here!

[NormanH]

No bad feelings!

I quoted it really to underline your point that France is not nearly as PC as the UK

They still use "Nègre " for example which I find extraordinary or 'cretin' as an insult...

I didn't like Benny Hill, but I did enjoy 'outrageous' humour  like Round the Horne.

[Gluestick]

Some years back, when I was a Rotarian and member of the first mixed gender club in my county, some fool asked me to take over as ed of the magazine.

Becoming somewhat fatigued at the lack of support for fresh articles, I became determined to shake 'em up!

It must be said that the publication I inherited, to which I was a frequent and copious contributer had, thanks to my predecessor, won a national award. He also had worked tirelessly to overcome the apathy.

For my last issue, I determined to print a rather contentious item I had submitted to Hislop (Ed of the Eye) which was a PC - English: English PC Dictionary, since I had become peeved at the way more and more members were allowing their better judgement and clarity to become warped and constrained by all this over-bearing nonsense!

At least I proved one reality: the bu**er$ did read it, but their lack of response was due to lazy apathy!

When I was 16 I had a very dear friend, who shared both my love of guitar and keen interest in electronics: I so well remember Brian saying to me one day, "You can say"See": I use my hands to see!"

Brian was blind and had been from four: he was sitting on the loo when a bomb fell on his house in London.

Despite this, he played accoustic guitar with more feeling than did I: and he worked as an electronics technician, assembling hard wired circuits for Plessey and used a Brail Megger to measure values.

He also taught me to be quite natural around disability, rather than patronise people who despite handicaps are often far better adjusted than we able bodied individuals.

So, let's not fall over our own feet in our eagerness to patronise others and serve the master of Left Wing politics gone rather mad.

Poking vicious "Fun" is not amusing: sharing certain things is.

 

[woolybananasbrother]

There are other sorts of censorship too. In the DVD version of MASH, one of the characters, a surgeon, is sewing up a patient and asks whether he is an officer or an enlisted man. On hearing from a nurse that he is an elisted man he says, "OK that's alright then, enlisted men get fewer stitches than officers". This line is blipped out.

[Chancer]

I am not familiar with Round the Horne Norman - blimey that acidental lack of punctuation has created an equally good nickname for you[6]

Can you reccomend to me a humorous French film currently showing?

Failing that a TV feuilleton? - I dont have UK TV.

I ask because aside from the nonPC I dont share much of the French humour and they certainly never understand my jokes, I enjoy French TV but miss a good comedy, I remember watching the 7th battallion or something named like that a sort of comedy WW2 "Kellys heroes" I laughed but perhaps I would have laughed at anything at that difficult time.

[Chancer]

Gluestick

You wouldnt still have a copy of the dictionary would you?

I enjoy your postings and dry humour and reckon that I would really enjoy the translations!

In Viz magazine or perhaps one of the annuals they printed "Rogers profanisaurus" (Roger Melly, the man on the telly) which was hilarious, I would love to find a bi-lingual version to improve my colloquial French.

[cooperlola]

Not familiar with ROUND THE HORNE JR?  Then you have really missed something.  This was required listening when I was a kid - my parents couldn't miss an episode.  It all went over my head at the time but is as funny today as it was then.  Treat yourself to a tape.

You should meet my friends Julian and Sandy....

[Hoddy]

What makes people laugh isn’t always matter of PC though is it ?

I just don’t find Benny Hill funny. On the other hand Round the Horne sometimes makes me laugh so much that I miss the next joke. It’s just a matter of a different sense of humour.

I struggle to find anything amusing on British television lately. It seems largely to be another bunch of recently post adolescent young men who think it’s funny to mention body parts. I wonder if France is suffering from the same thing and that’s why we don’t find French television funny either ?

Hoddy

[Gluestick]

Of course, in these strange blighted days of PC nonsense, even Round the Horne would probably be in for some stick, owing to its constant sly references to camp homosexuality: the use of the word "Bona" for example is a core word in the secret language used by closet gays, called Polari.

http://www2.prestel.co.uk/cello/Polari.htm

[nectarine]

Isn't challenging all this politically-correct stuff what the series "Little Britain" was about?  It may have been puerile humour, but there's still the disabled character Andy in his wheelchair who, when his carer isn't looking, gets up and dances, swims, runs about, etc. and then returns to his wheelchair before the carer turns round.  There's the Women's Institute character who does jam and cake tastings but vomits when she learns that the cook is black.  I'm surprised it ever got shown on the television these days because, in the start, I was watching it through my fingers and saying "you're not allowed to show this stuff". 

I didn't always find all of their sketches funny (although  Bubbles, the overweight pampered divorcee living at a health spa, who took every opportunity to drop her clothes, made me laugh out loud!).  But I thought it was refreshing to have a programme that declared, it doesn't matter if you're black, disabled, whatever .... nobody was safe from having a joke made about them. 

[Gluestick]

Many years ago I had the pleasure of many Jewish friends: indeed, my business at the time was located right in the heart of a very Jewish residential area.

Once they knew I both loved appreciated and understood Jewish humour, customers would come in to the garage and demand to see me!

Only to tell me the latest Jewish joke: often against themselves.

I also had the pleasure of meeting the Black comedian Charley Williams in 1973: we exchanged banter and of course, he threatened to "Come and live next door to me!" which was one of his then stock lines. I later saw his one man show: I was in hysterics to the point where my sides hurt for a couple of hours.

Part of the secret of real humour, for me, is the capacity to both poke fun at yourself: and never mind when others poke fun at you; all provided the "Humour" is not vicious.

Most PC nonsense IMHO, comes from either people who take themselves far too seriously, or those who have some illogical axe to grind against society: if you like,a severe chip on their shoulder.

 

[Chancer]

I was reflecting today about the disabled sketch in Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis and thought that the humour was aimed at the desperate man who found that the only way he could get a mutation (job transfer) to the côte d'azur was by pretending to be disabled and making a right horlicks of it, his punishment was to be mutated to the Ch'Nord.

Where was the harm in that I thought? Should films ignore either disabled people, minorities or positive discrimination completely and pretend that none of them exist?

If the sketch had been slapstick Benny Hill type humour showing a disabled person making a mess of daily tasks like eating, washing or going to the toilet I would agree that it shouldnt be screened.

Where does it all end?

Perhaps of the four principal characters one should have been coloured or mixed race, one handicapped and another an ex-pat driving a UK registered car[6]