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Fawlty Towers has had an episode, The Germans, removed from UKTV’s streaming service which made me think: UKTV have a streaming service?!
Other shows have also been subject to this practice in the past week, even though no-one was bothered about it before and would’ve not chosen to one programmes purely because they think they’re a bit rubbish.
These include Little Britain and the subsequent Come Fly With Me. I watched one episode of the latter and it was dreadful. When Little Britain started as a radio show, it was entertaining. Then it moved to TV, and was fine. It’s been taken off for ‘blackface’ characters, such as Desiree DeVere, played by David Walliams, who appeared alongside Bubbles, played by Matt Lucas. At the time, I never thought of Desiree as being racist, but just a continuation of the nonsensical gross-out humour that the pair had fallen back on, rather than writing decent scripts.
The same accusation has also been levelled at The League Of Gentlemen for Papa Lazarou (below), Keith Lemon for Craig David and others; and a 2003 Ant and Dec episode. I haven’t watched their shows in years and think they’ve long since had their day, but surely something better to concern yourself with is when Ant McPartlin was drunk and crashed his car into another car carrying a child?!
Then there’s The Inbetweeners. I’ve never watched more than the films and the odd TV clip of the show. Someone suggested it could be relating to a scene commenting on Arabs, while another person said it’s just a rights issue, instead, and that it’s only gone from Youtube but not All4. I know Youtube tried to make a bunch of TV shows, but only Cobra Kai stuck long-term. Problem is, Youtube isn’t for TV. It’s where people go when they want cat videos.
And then yesterday, country music group Lady Antebellum changed their name to “Lady A”, they state in order to reduce racist connotations with Civil War history including slavery, as the original name is based on the Antebellum South.
Another rumour came about that Gavin and Stacey was ditched on some platforms because of “Chinese Alan”. The character is just called Alan. However, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen this programme, bar the terrible 2019 Christmas special, but I’m reminded that upon entrance, he jokingly exclaims “(Did) someone order a Chinese?”
Like Little Britain, this was a programme which was reasonably funny at first, then lost its way and was woefully lacking in humour or any entertainment value by the end of its main run. Maybe we can also scrap Mrs Brown’s Boys? That’s never been funny.
However, if we’re looking at causing offence based on race, nationalites and the words that are said, wWhatever next? Removing I’m Alan Partridge because of an episode where he mocks Irish visitors, even though it’s meant to show what a moron he is? And I’m not sure if The Young Ones is on any streaming platforms currently, but I rewatched both series recently, and was reminded of several occasions when the police were shown using the N-word, even though they were talking to white men and it was highlighting how racist and stupid the police can be. That said… you see? I can’t say the word, either. As I understand the unwritten rules, I can’t say it because I’m white and I can’t even use it in a friendly term where it ends with an ‘a’ instead of ‘er’.
At this rate, there’ll be no-one left on TV. Ceelo Green, who sang the vocals for Gnarls Barkley’s No.1 hit Crazy, said he “took 19 years to become an overnight success”. Hence, I’m expecting a knock on the door any day now, asking, “Look, Dom, you did five minutes on Right 2 Reply in 2001. Can you manage an ITV Saturday night live show?”
In addition this week, JK Rowling‘s been cancelled because she made a series of rather odd tweets that I tried, but failed, to understand. They were deemed transphobic, and not only did Daniel Radcliffe (Escape From Pretoria) cancel her – whose Harry Potter movies are long since finished, but then so did Eddie Redmayne, and his current series of films haven’t yet ended. 2016’s Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them was a massive hit, and was planned as the first of five films in this series. 2018’s follow-up, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was still entertaining, but underperformed. It wasn’t as good, for sure, but as a result, they’ve scaled back the films to just four. After all, they don’t want to overreach themselves and find themselves like the Divergent series which was cancelled just before it could end.
As such, and with No.3 getting forever delayed until November 2021 at the earliest – although I’d heard it could subsequently be delayed until November 2022 as a result of the COVID19 situation, I bet they’ll just can the rest, now.
I can’t pretend to know a huge amount about every last reason why statues should or should not be removed, and quite frankly, I reckon the same is the case with most people pulling it down! They just do what they’re told by others, or what they gleamed from a brief chat that morning.
When it comes to protests, there’s a little matter of the COVID19 outbreak and the fact that social distancing measures should be observed, with a 2 metre distance between people when they’re not from the same household. Sadly, that goes out the window for certain individuals who just follow what others tell them to do.
Naturally, the murder of George Floyd is horrendous and the police involved are now charged with Second Degree murder at this time. I understand First Degree murder is not appropriate because it would have to mean that the cop who killed him was actively looking for him for some time before, and so if he was charged with that, he would be found not guilty, and the entire case would collapse.
I understand the protests have followed as a result of that, and that these will take place regularly in the US and I can understand that. However, why are they happening in the UK and right now? It never normally does. In my mind, it’s because a lot of the people involved have been in lockdown for up to three months (except those who took time off to crowd on a beach), and they just fancied a day out. They’re not doing it for any form of activism; they just want to follow the crowd and be told what to do.
The same goes with pulling statues down. I don’t live in Bristol and I’d never heard of Edward Colston, but due to slave labour links, the townsfolk had previous submitted a petition to the council for its removal, nothing happened, and so now with mob rule in full effect, they pulled it down on Sunday and threw it in the water. That was removed yesterday and will have cost the taxpayers of Bristol a fortune. So, you’ve all put your own council tax bills up. Well done, guys(!)
Along the way, other statues have been called for their removal, such as Robert Baden-Powell, who founded the pop group Scouting For Boys; and even that of Winston Churchill, as well as the Cenotaph have been defaced with graffiti. Toppling statues and daubing graffiti is nothing short of criminal vandalism. Have a word with yourselves.
In fact, brains were also in short supply in one case in the US after a black-owned ‘mom and pop’ store was looted, with some people trying to justify this. For a Us protest that’s centring around the campaign, Black Lives Matter, such wanton destruction really makes no sense.
Now, what about Bryan Ferry?
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.