Friday, January 19, 2007

"It's unpleasant, but is it racist?"

Asks the Scotsman about CBB:
"THE head of Channel 4 defiantly refused to pull the plug on Celebrity Big Brother yesterday, despite the loss of a multi-million pound sponsorship deal as Jade Goody branded an Indian contestant "Poppadom".

Andy Duncan, chief executive of the broadcaster, which has consistently courted controversy in recent years, insisted the issues raised by programme were "undoubtedly a good thing".

However, as Channel 4 officials admitted for the first time that they could not say categorically whether the comments on the show were racially motivated, Mr Duncan's claims were branded "absurd" by Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London."
For once I find myself agreeing with our Ken. Is it racist? Expressions with words like 'Pope' and 'Catholic' immediately spring to mind.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

There certainly has been a racial element to some of the bullying and bitchiness that has been taking place.

Nevertheless, I agree with Andy Duncan and Krishnan Guru-Murthy (interviewed on 'This Week' yesterday) in their view that it is a good thing to air the issues raised by the programme. Let's openly address the fact that a significant minority of British citizens hold racist attitudes (often displayed by the labelling of Asians as 'Pakis').

I wonder what the role of this racist undercurrent has been in alienating many Asian youths and what part it plays in turning them against the state.

Robert Jackman said...

There's something really disturbing about the widespread reluctance to label the behaviour as racist.

Thankfully we're not the only ones sure that it's racially motivated - there have now been 45,000 comments.

i've just blogged on the issue; let me know what you think:
http://roberthenryjackman.blogspot.com/2007/01/comment-it-will-only-get-worse-for-jade.html

Robert :)

Anonymous said...

This entire witchhunt is insane. You can call someone a fat stupid chav or a dog or a minger or a dirty northern monkey or a batty boy and that's ok but calling someone a poppadum is the epitome of evil? The historian Macaulay once said that there was nothing more disgusting than seeing the British public having one of its periodic fits of morality. (Sorry, couldn't be bothered to find his actual words) How true. How sad for this country/union. The response has been far more frightening than the original crime. I get on well with Asians myself and would never abuse one but I won't abuse a fat minging chav either. Criticise her behaviour yes, attack her personally for things she can't help, no.

Anonymous said...

And I thought this would be a CBB free zone.

Please could all those knaves and/or dupes and/or fools out there:-
stop making the programme;
stop appearing on the programme;
stop watching the programme;
stop voting for the programme;
stop burning effigies of the makers of the programme;
stop apologising for the programme;
stop commenting on the programme on radio, television and in printed press, especially if you are a politician, and especially prefacing your comments with “I have never seen the programme.”, and especially if you start drawing large conclusions about race or culture or class or anything else;
stop blogging on the programme with links to the above;
stop commenting in the comments box to the blogs as above;
in short, please switch off and shut up.

Anonymous said...

I’m with Anonymous on this. When that American actress was mercilessly bullied on the last Celebrity Big Brother, and reduced to tears, and called a shallow American bitch, nobody batted an eyelid. All good entertainment, wasn't it? I don't remember demonstrations on the streets of Los Angeles, or Gordon Brown intervening.

Frankly I think our sensitivies have become absurdly unbalanced. You can bully and abuse and humiliate your victim however you choose, and who cares? But include the 'P' word in the mix and twenty billion people around the globe find they're indignant and have to burn things. This is such piffle.

Frank Partisan said...

I would never kick a hot Bollywood diva out.

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