Racism and comedy

In my mind, alot of people get offended by stuff they perceive as racism, when it was meant as comedy. I think about this sort of thing alot, and today I heard some interesting comments that made me think alot.

A fair few years back, there was a comedy show in England called "It ain't half hot mum", which at times poked a fair bit of fun at chocolate people. There was also "Please Sir", a fantastically un-PC programme, which based its comedy around a classroom of stereotypical foreign students learning English. It was acceptable back then, but nowadays, would be leapt upon by the PC bleeding heart liberals as completely racist.

These days, whats happened? We cannot make fun of any people from other countries due to political correct bollocks, so where do we look? Some of the more recent comedy succeses have been Vicky "yer, but, no, but, yer, but no, but etc." Pollard, and the Catherine Tate "do I look bovvered?" character.

These are both apparently fine, and nobody complains, because its taking the piss out of English white peeps - but both these sketches are based on two things - pikeys, and chavs. Its fine for anyone, libs, leftys and commies alike to rip the shit out of chavs, or pikeys, yet the same leftys would jump on any "racism" faster than a horny man could mount a thai whore.

I reckon its human nature to want to look down upon, and take the piss out of something, anything. Race is always an easy option here, but is taking the piss out of chavs and pikeys any "better"?

Worth thinking about when somebody posts that some racist/nazi/bigot should be lobbed in the "pikey pit".

i don't think so

i've met quite a few people recently who've told me that they won't post on or have anything to do with Toytown due to the pikey 'jokes', and i personally find them just as offensive as i would racist jokes, because i basically can't see the difference

but i've been told by certain "regulars" that apparently means that i have no sense of humour, so fuck it - i just don't have that much to do with Toytown as i used to, either

and FWIW i think Little Britain is an offensive totally unfunny pile of shite as well

Just watch Bo Selecta, then you will realise how crap comedys like the one you mentioned were.

I agree, little britian is big crap. The sketches with the Thai and suggesting that the Thai's mother would also stoop to a menage-a-trois just to stay the night in a crappy council flat is in poor taste and shiow no respect.

Damn right. They much prefer doing their business in the 5 Star Marriot complexes with 75 year old businessmen looking for a bit of 'ow's yer Father for little to no money with the locals...

Crawlie - I dare you to say that to my family - be careful

@Topsy
You're one of the few leftists who is consistent all across the line though and avoid abusing anyone. I know scores of champagne socialists, on the other hand, who will make the most demeaning and condescending "jokes" on groups which are considered fashionable to bash (usually poor whites or Christians), but have hysterical fits if you say the slightest little thing about Arabs or anyone else which the intelligentsia have decided needs defending...

This raises an interesting point (for me anyway). I heard about the fact that there would be a thai bird sketch before the series came out, and I was quite looking forward to seeing it, because frankly, there is a potential humour there - but it was pathetic. Seriously shit. I enjoyed some of the first series of Little Britain, but it never really went anywhere. It just turned into a shitty bunch of lame catchphrases and little more. In a way, it reminded me of early Harry Enfield - loadsamoney was a swipe at the 80's building trade, and plasterers in particular, earning disproportionate amounts of cash, but turned into a few crappy catchphrases. Harldy anybody remembers the buggerallmoney character - the other side of the proverbial coin.

Bo Selecta BTW, is some of the piss poorest comedy I've had the misfortune to see. Fucking awful.

erm, did you miss the infamous pikey wars?!

People did and do complain. Lots of us. But we get shouted down as being too PC.

Personally, I get as sick as the next person of ultra-PC individuals jumping on every little joke, but what I do find scary is that some people really can't see that attacking groups of people based on certain traits is not ok whatever those traits happen to be. There are a lot of people who think it's definitely not ok if it's skin colour or religion, say, but absolutely fine if it's class or sexual orientation.

And if you replaced "pikey" and "chav" with "Jew" and "Asian" on some of the threads on here, the very same people who posted in the first place would probably be horrified.

Yeah I know, but I meant the British public though, not really TT.


I agree. Thats exactly my point.

Do you think it's the same instinct that makes some people gang up on newbies or people who fail to use the search function? And other people form cliques? Maybe it's all different degrees of the same thing - excluding/attacking others to boost your own security or sense of belonging.

Ok so what about Kiddie fiddlers?


why stop there why not change it to white, black, christian, man, woman, cat, dog ,tree, apple,

You can change it to what ever you want it doesn’t make the slightest bit off difference, 99 % of pikey are still thieving bastards.

No that I like to be controversial, but do you think that its the same "instinct" involved in countries where all men are seen as equal under god, but can at least look down upon females?

OK, I do like controversy.


Where the FUCK did you get that 1% from?

how are you defining "pikeys" in that context?

THe same way they are always defined by one side and defended by the other. It is pointless revisiting old ground in this case. We may as well start having a go at bloody Americans if this is where the thread is going to end up

I don't believe that attacking them is ok either, no. Do you? In an ideal world, I think they should be brought to justice, treated wherever possible and kept well away from any possible temptation or opportunity to reoffend. But what would attacking them solve? (Your pent-up aggression, perhaps?!)


Yep.

Well, thats just it isn't it? There is no context. You let people apply their own context to a gag. Little Britain, Catherine Tate=popular because people see it in a context that they believe to be more acceptable than saying "black people are all thieves, and also like fried chicken. Thats why asians are preferred as KFC employees, as they won't eat your profits."

Sort of like the 99% who move onto campsites for genuine travellers and decide they aint moving and spend the next 15 years living there causing nothing but trouble and grief.

Its Magic Roundabout time again init


dont wanna be accused of labelling them all the same do I, im sure there must be the odd one

the last time i asked someone how they were defining "pikeys" when they posted something about "pikeys" all being scum, i was told they were talking about working-class sun readers. in that instance iirc it was [adminabuse]small-minded cunt[/adminabuse] small town boy.
so i don't really think it's a redundant question. the question of definition still seems to be an open one.

i dont remember that tbh, i couldnt say anything about the sun anyway, i buy it most days. Page 3 init

Totally. Some people use it interchangeably with chav, others make a big distinction between the two. Other people use it as a label for the whole travelling community, but then it turned out that some people were only using it as an insult anyway, to describe thieving or violent members of that community, kind of like "thug".

So in that sense it's completely different - "pikey scum" is offensive if "pikey" also includes innocent members of the community, but not really if it doesn't, I guess. Think that's where a lot of the misunderstanding came from in the first place.

Well I think that actually certain people were deliberately misunderstanding how people explained their own definition. That was the main problem

what's to misunderstand about this post? (which was in answer to the question "are you defining pikeys as the minority of the travelling community who break the law?")

Christ Topsy. If you are willing to use his definition to form an argument then you really are clutching at straws aren't you?

Well how totally pointless - no wonder the discussion ran on for so long then! I'm not even sure how it turned out in the end - gave up somewhere around page 500 - so they were just the definitions I picked up before I lost the will to live. No doubt there are many more...

Sin calls me a pikey all the time. Don't bovver me none. For somebody to get offended by being called a pikey would be admitting to being a pikey I reckon.

Anyway, its getting late, so everybody should just fuck off to bed (so you won't notice me nicking the wheels offa ya motor, ya wankers. Fuck you all)

why am i clutching at straws?
fact is that some (maybe even a lot of?) people *do* define it that way, and that is exactly what makes it offensive, imo

I see why it's offensive to attack those people, but is it offensive just having a name for them? Is the name offensive in itself?

Definition of a pikey?

Anyone that "society" perceives to be an underclass. "Niggers live on the dole and do nothing other than breed" would be considered offensive, but "pikey scum live on the dole and do nothing other than breed", a la Vicky Pollard with her 50 kids is apparently award winning comedy.

How d'ya get a pikey/paki/nigger/turk/etc pregnant? Cum on her feet, let the cockroaches take care of the rest.

Humour don't really change, just perception of offensiveness. It's all interesting shit.

Eeeeeeeeeew. That reminds me of that horrible Wycliffe advert... and I've been trying to forget that for years! I think I'm traumatised. What was it even for? God it was awful.

@Don_riina,

Nobody complains is not true...I've read one or two if not three guardian columns decrying Little Britain and claiming it to be old time snobbery etc. etc. etc.

But to be honest, I would point out that much class comedy points fun at the extremes in society be it: Nesbit poor or some Upper class toffs more so than the decent working class! or sturdy middle-class.

Regarding racial comedy, I'd argue that Brits are more sophisticated than just PC (non-guardianista Britian that is)...For example, when living in Spain in the mid-90s I saw many a comedy sketches showing black natives living on a deserted island and jokes about what they did or didn't do to white shipwrecked people who ended-up there. (Sketches inc. the blacks having bones thru their noses!) All very British 70s TV and it was not funny not only because I'm black but it is such a out-dated and untrue stereotype.

In Britain our cultural knowledge means just blacking-up for comedy doesn't cut it as social commentary or irony. So instead we have more up-to-date parodies like Ali G or intra ethnic jokes via Goodness Gracious Team which the Great British family got despite it being many in-jokes about Asian coconuts or Asian traditions... Recently the funny one from three natural blonds has done some excellent work taking cultural jokes about Nigerian/West African culture on to British TV...

So alas...I don't totally buy your analysis that many of the 70s sitcoms are not funny because of PC as we also move on and so does humour... But the ones that played better with racial sterotyping - seemed to have dated better, than those that were just 'those dumb foreigners or immigrants', for example Mr Rigsby in that Guests house comedy show...the one with the African chap that Mr Rigsby thought was an African Prince...

I blame it all on Globilisation!!!

PS. Coconuts is a black or brown person who is black or brown on the outside but white inside i.e. they have gone too native...too white...too English...

I do think PC is going overboard, I have good friends who are gay, the can laugh wholeheartidly about gay jokes, know lots of Poles and Turks who can laugh at Polish and Turkish jokes, being black I can laugh at joke about black people.

Obviously such jokes are to be told with care and in company of people you know can handle them. I don't get offended easily and friends of mine make jokes about my skin coulour (in a friendly way) one friend of mine (a Turk) always call me "choco crossie" I find that OK, but however if a stranger called me that, I would possibly take offence - there's a time and a place for such jokes.

Racist jokes have always been around, society has now become very PC and everyone takes offence too quick.

One of my favourite quotes comes from Brendan Behan:

"It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's simply that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody."

I’m pretty new around here but I was a bit shocked at the offensive nature of the Pikey and Chav jokes.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my humour as black as Welsh coal but some of the jokes were not only lame and unfunny, but base and just an excuse for a swipe an ethnic minority. On the other hand, I agree with the sentiment that too many have jumped on the PC bandwagon for the sake of bleating with the flock, but it has always been a very fine line between risqué and damn outright offensive.

Some people just need to chill and other ignoramuses need to get a life and stop being such bigots.

Ooooh, Janx Spirit, you used the "B" word!
I know lots of off-color (no pun intended) jokes and have made up a few myself but I only tell them to choice people who know me and know that the humor in them doesn't reflect any racial or national prejudices on my side. Taking a stereotype and grossly exaggerating it the way Dylan Moran did with his routine about the French couple was hilarious but in no way offensive. Kaya Yanar, a German-born Turkish comedian, does the same and regularly takes the piss out of Germans, Turks, Italians and Indians and fails miserably at the latter, his Rasheed is just plain stupid and boring.

Now there are 3 words you don't see together alot.

I know, I'm a bad, bad man!

I make risky jokes sometimes too, but as you say, we choose the time and place and to whom we make the jokes. These throw away pikey "jokes" that were/are sometimes bandied around here just jar...

Dylan Moran is great:

Manny: I want the weekend off. I want a life.
Bernard: This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!
Manny: We have needs! Fran wants to learn the piano, I want some time to myself, you want to go out with a girl...
Bernard: Don't make me laugh... bitterly. Fran will fail, you'll toil your life away, and I'll die alone, upside down on the floor of a pub toilet.

Anyway you're all missing the most important point.

It was "Mind your Language" that was set in a language school.

"Please Sir" was set in a comprehensive school where all the pupils appeared to be in their 30's.

I'll get me blazer...

Ah yes, of course it was! Mind your language. Class. That's what started me fancying french birds.

remember Love Thy Neighbour too? the men never got on & gave as good as they got to each other.
have the feature film on DVD if anyone wants to borrow it.

Don that programme was Mind your language not please sir. That was the one with John alderton. The film has the irritating Cilla Black song La la la lu which you have just given me an ohrwurm with you git.

Well, cheers mate, now I bloody have it too

Can even remember the kyrics:

Come to the party come to the dance
I only gonna ever give you one more chance.

How sad is that?

Apparently Ricky Gervais makes critical reference to Little Britain in Extras (laugh tracks, catch phrases, wigs, etc.)

Gas everyone.