Comedy you love but begrudgingly recognise is starting to date

[Famous Mortimer]

I don't know if there's a right answer.  I don't even know if there is an answer.  I just know that when someone tells me that I'm displaying toxic masculinity for liking The Cannonball Run because of its "casual misogyny", I tell them to fuck off and stop being so obtuse.  True story.

Perhaps it's slightly less easy to angrily dismiss criticism of something you happen to like when you're the target of some of the jokes that we're talking about? Not many old-school sitcoms whose main target of abuse was straight white men.

[Shit Good Nose]

Perhaps it's slightly less easy to angrily dismiss criticism of something you happen to like when you're the target of some of the jokes that we're talking about? Not many old-school sitcoms whose main target of abuse was straight white men.

Nearly every joke in OFAH after granddad died were at the expense of Rodney Plonker weren't they?

Unless he was revealed to be gay towards the end.  I never saw the last series/specials.

[thenoise]

Not many old-school sitcoms whose main target of abuse was straight white men.

Really? I thought most of them were comedy vehicles for straight white male comics. One of my problems with this kind of revisionist is it leads to a deliberate dismissal of 'minority' comics of the past, because they portrayed stereotypes for laughs in a way that is unacceptable nowadays, while the white / straight comedies are seen as less problematic.

[buttgammon]

That's true. I think a young person watching now would probably need to have it explained to them that they were what passed for celebrities in the '90s.

I'm nearly 30 and a lot of them are people I only know from being on Brass Eye - but the programme has aged remarkably well in other ways. I put off rewatching it for a long time for fear this wasn't the case but when I dipped in again recently, I was very pleasantly surprised.

[thenoise]

The celeb 'gotcha' bits were always a bit cringey weren't they? And a lot of them has-beens even at the time.

[Thomas]

Friends has definitely dated badly, at least for a show that pretty much never seemed offensive at the time. It's a weirdly conflicted show - they bothered to create a normal, loving lesbian relationship at a time where that wasn't especially common, but then there are so many homophobic jokes that someone created a montage of them that lasts FIFTY FUCKING MINUTES.

Just watched a few minutes of that compilation. The jokes featuring Carol seem aimed at Ross' awkwardness more than any homophobic malice toward lesbians; he comes off as a stumbling social klutz, whereas she and Susan are likeable and ordinary - but all the Chandler stuff does rely on enjoying the trope of Man Scared To Be Thought Of As Gay, which is half the character's personality. In an interesting character twist they should just have revealed him to be gay.

OH WELL TOO LATE NOW

[Andy147]

Does it make a difference that David Crane (who co-created Friends) is gay?

There's a link from his Wiki page to an interview in which he says "As someone who is gay, I certainly feel it's my responsibility to make sure we don't do anything that's offensive or stereotypical or makes a negative impact".

[bgmnts]

Susan and Carol aren't that likeable when you think that they had an affair. Not a very likeable thing to do. Plus Susan is always a bit of a cunt to Ross for no real reason.

[jamiefairlie]

Doesn't Brendan the Irishman in Fools And Horses subvert that cliché though? He's a bit of a schemer (though ultimately outfoxed by Del) and even loses Del a bet by ordering a Martini rather than a pint!

"Man with Beard" in Fawlty Towers is definitely pretty dodgy as far as that stereotype goes, but the appalling Dublin accent is far more concerning to me. I suppose O'Reilly is supposed to be thick and incompetent too, but David Kelly fills the role with so much charm and warmth it's difficult to find anything too offensive there for me.

Bullet Baxter right?

[buttgammon]

It's not a sign of the programme being dated per se, but there was a funny thread a while back about Frasier in the present day, which featured stuff like Bulldog being cancelled, Daphne getting deported and some side plot where Niles struggles with smart home equipment.

[gilbertharding]

Not many old-school sitcoms whose main target of abuse was straight white men.

Immediately think of Till Death Us Do Part/In Sickness And In Health, where Alf Garnett wasn't the 'target of abuse', but he was certainly the butt of the joke.

Even Love Thy Neighbour tries to have its cake and eat it (apparently - I've seen much less of that than Alf Garnett). Isn't it the wives who are the reasonable voices in that?

Depicting racists as three dimensional characters you can laugh at/with instead of just condemn unreservedly doesn't seem to be something which happens anymore.

[Shit Good Nose]

Even Love Thy Neighbour tries to have its cake and eat it (apparently - I've seen much less of that than Alf Garnett). Isn't it the wives who are the reasonable voices in that?

Yes, both wives were the reasonable voices.  My mum loved it so the repeats in the 80s were always on in our house - Rudolph Walker (Bill) and Jack Smethurst (Eddie) were both level pegging in terms of "superiority" (for want of a more apposite word), with Bill having far more "wins" (again, for want of a more apposite word).  To my young and (then) inexperienced eyes it all seemed very edgy and ahead of its time, as Bill was the much better educated of the two and was quickly promoted above Eddie at work.  Also the flip of Bill being a staunch conservative and Eddie being a staunch lefty (in political terms).  I also seem to remember that both Bill and Eddie got on fine with the other wives (as in Bill got on fine with Eddie's wife and Eddie got on fine with Bill's wife), which could be read as being a comment on how pointless and unnecessary Bill and Eddie's warring was.

And then of course in the film you have both sets of parents meeting and they get on like a house on fire and can't understand the constant warring of their respective sons.

That all sounds brilliant, even now, but that progressive thinking was let down by fairly lazy writing and repeats of the same jokes over and over again for 8 fucking series. 

I know Rudolph Walker has always defended it, and I think I'm right in saying that the intent of the show was good and forward thinking, but you can't get beyond poor writing however you cut it.

[gilbertharding]

...and then we're into the discussion about how 'fans' of the show perceive it.

ie if Love Thy Neighbour (or Alf Garnett) encourages people who are too stupid to get the actual message to behave worse - or maybe they cause real-life victims of racism to feel unhappy about watching comedic depictions of racists... should the people who commission these series be more mindful?

[sick as a pike]

I haven't watched Eastenders for about 20 years, do they all still live in 3 storey town houses and work on market stalls and in pubs?

Largely.  Albert Square was based on Fassett Square in E8. I've just looked and a four bedroom house there sold for £1.5M in 2016

[Shit Good Nose]

...and then we're into the discussion about how 'fans' of the show perceive it.

ie if Love Thy Neighbour (or Alf Garnett) encourages people who are too stupid to get the actual message to behave worse - or maybe they cause real-life victims of racism to feel unhappy about watching comedic depictions of racists... should the people who commission these series be more mindful?

(The bit in bold) - these days yes, of course, absolutely.  But back then times and thinking "were different" - you can't retrofit current thinking to past events lest you start to attempt to re-write history.

I've not seen any of Love Thy Neighbour or the Garnett shows since I was a child in the 80s/very early 90s and do wonder whether, in these more enlightened (and, yes, sensitive) times, people would pick up more on what they were trying to do with the progressive thinking, or whether all that good intent (I think we have to accept it WAS there, in both shows - Garnett obviously did it better) would be lost amongst the questionable material.  But, fully admitting the time commitment, I just can't be arsed.  Plus I was never really a fan of either show anyway (although that's more down to being forced to watch them because my parents watched them, than anything else).

[gilbertharding]

Of course the answer to the bit in bold is 'yes' - I agree with what you wrote. Perhaps the question should be 'would it be worth the effort to try to depict race relations in a similar way today'? Probably not.

ON a complete tangent, last night I watched a BBC4 documentary where Fab Five Freddy (minus the Fabulous 5) went to look at renaissance Florence and Venice - mainly (but not exclusively) to look at depictions of black people in art. It was a very odd, but very interesting programme. The way it seemed to simultaneously skate around, and directly confront the issue of slavery was... amazing.

[Utter Shit]

ON a complete tangent, last night I watched a BBC4 documentary where Fab Five Freddy (minus the Fabulous 5) went to look at renaissance Florence and Venice - mainly (but not exclusively) to look at depictions of black people in art. It was a very odd, but very interesting programme.

[Shit Good Nose]

ON a complete tangent, last night I watched a BBC4 documentary where Fab Five Freddy (minus the Fabulous 5) went to look at renaissance Florence and Venice - mainly (but not exclusively) to look at depictions of black people in art. It was a very odd, but very interesting programme.

I didn't see that one, but I have seen another art show he did (also on BBC4 if memory serves) a while ago.  Had no idea he was an art connoisseur and historian first until I saw that.

Sort-of related - in our old-old house (which I can barely remember as we moved out of it when I was nearly 3) we did have one of those prints of The Green Lady.  It got "lost" during the move.  Pretty sure my dad binned it, cos he hated it.

[Jockice]

Yes, both wives were the reasonable voices.  My mum loved it so the repeats in the 80s were always on in our house - Rudolph Walker (Bill) and Jack Smethurst (Eddie) were both level pegging in terms of "superiority" (for want of a more apposite word), with Bill having far more "wins" (again, for want of a more apposite word).  To my young and (then) inexperienced eyes it all seemed very edgy and ahead of its time, as Bill was the much better educated of the two and was quickly promoted above Eddie at work.  Also the flip of Bill being a staunch conservative and Eddie being a staunch lefty (in political terms).  I also seem to remember that both Bill and Eddie got on fine with the other wives (as in Bill got on fine with Eddie's wife and Eddie got on fine with Bill's wife), which could be read as being a comment on how pointless and unnecessary Bill and Eddie's warring was.

And then of course in the film you have both sets of parents meeting and they get on like a house on fire and can't understand the constant warring of their respective sons.

That all sounds brilliant, even now, but that progressive thinking was let down by fairly lazy writing and repeats of the same jokes over and over again for 8 fucking series. 

I know Rudolph Walker has always defended it, and I think I'm right in saying that the intent of the show was good and forward thinking, but you can't get beyond poor writing however you cut it.

Obligatory mention of the week-long argument i had with a twat on another forum who insisted that LTY had 'encouraged thousands of people to join the National Front' and I was somehow racist for asking him to actually prove it. You know, I'm sure if a TV show - a TV comedy show no less - had such a huge effect on race relations it would be documented somewhere. And then telling a black mate from schooldays about it and him saying that as far as he was concerned the show was anti-racist. But what would he know about that sort of thing, eh?

[Shit Good Nose]

Obligatory mention of the week-long argument i had with a twat on another forum who insisted that LTY had 'encouraged thousands of people to join the National Front' and I was somehow racist for asking him to actually prove it. And then telling a black mate from schooldays about it and him saying that as far as he was concerned the show was anti-racist. But what would he know about it eh?

I think it's blatantly obvious that it was against racism (or, at the very least, trying to show that racism was a ridiculous thing - it was probably too light-touch and surface-level-only to be considered as properly "anti"), but even back then during its original run a lot of people considered it to be lower-rung, at least when compared to Garnett (mum liked LTY, dad much preferred Garnett ["the same but much better and more layered" dad always said]).

Not sure how anyone can claim LTY beefed up NF membership given that Eddie always ended up with egg on his face.  What a bizarre claim.

[Jockice]

I think it's blatantly obvious that it was against racism (or, at the very least, trying to show that racism was a ridiculous thing - it was probably too light-touch and surface-level-only to be considered as properly "anti"), but even back then during its original run a lot of people considered it to be lower-rung, at least when compared to Garnett (mum liked LTY, dad much preferred Garnett ["the same but much better and more layered" dad always said]).

Not sure how anyone can claim LTY beefed up NF membership given that Eddie always ended up with egg on his face.  What a bizarre claim.

the twat (Howard Strange his name was. Very apt) wouldn't let it drop though. Every morning I'd log onto a new barrage of accusatory posts. It only stopped when I told him I wasn't going to reply to anything he wrote from that point on to which he did a big SEE THAT PROVES YOU'RE RACIST bit to which I didn't reply. Then someone else, who I don't think had even posted on that thread up till then did and basically said: "I agree with Jockice,'' which resulted in him flouncing off, saying he didn't want anything to do with people like us. See you then Howard. Have a nice life.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Wasn't it a case of the comedy white feller in LTN massively fancying Rudolph Walker's missus rather than getting on with her as such?

[gilbertharding]

Not sure how anyone can claim LTY beefed up NF membership given that Eddie always ended up with egg on his face.  What a bizarre claim.

Well to take your question at face value - and taking for the sake of argument that NF membership WAS boosted by LTN, then the fact that the black character always ended up with the upper hand WOULD work as a recruiting tool. Most racism is a form of xenophobia, after all. The secret fear that 'they're actually our superiors'.

[Shit Good Nose]

Wasn't it a case of the comedy white feller in LTN massively fancying Rudolph Walker's missus rather than getting on with her as such?

I don't remember that being the case, but that's not to say it wasn't.  EDIT - it could be that the "wooing" was too subtle (relative to the show, of course) for my young child eyes, whilst all the racial stuff was obvious.  If that WAS the case, and this may be giving the show FAR more credit than it perhaps deserves, then that really was quite progressive for a British sitcom at that time.

Well to take your question at face value - and taking for the sake of argument that NF membership WAS boosted by LTN, then the fact that the black character always ended up with the upper hand WOULD work as a recruiting tool. Most racism is a form of xenophobia, after all. The secret fear that 'they're actually our superiors'.

Yeah, fair point well made that.  Hadn't considered it like that.

[TheBrownBottle]

I rewatch the The Office from time to time and, over the years, Tim's casual homophobia has drifted from feeling authentic to the sort of person portrayed to disappointing and jarring.

Absolutely.  Rewatched it for the first time in well over a decade recently.  Apart from the homophobia, both him and Dawn just come across as nasty, bullying little cunts.  Utterly unlikeable.  I'm not sure The Office holds up well at all - I know it's a nearly a couple of decades old, but it has dated worse than most.  I wonder how high it would now finish on those listicles it used to top?

OFAH's racial politics has dated better, if only as an accurate portrayal of the time, rather than the actual content.  My folks, like Del, would refer to 'Chinkies' for Chinese Takeaway or 'p**i Shop' - I don't think they were racist in the '80s then stopped being racist later; unfortunately that was the language of the time for many - particularly amongst the working classes (unwitting racism is still racism, but they weren't out shovelling poo through letterboxes).  if anyone uttered those terms today, they'd be absolutely jarring (though they do make an appearance in Peep Show's finest episode).  I was watching an episode the other week with the better half when the term 'p**i Shop' was uttered.  We had a chat about it, and whether or not it should be edited out (we came to the conclusion that it should remain in post-watershed & on DVD/BD releases - though we wondered whether a warning or information screen should play beforehand), and she was telling me how her old man used to refer to the newsagents by that term.  He's Indian, and she thinks he DID mean it offensively - his family went through the partition in the Punjab.

[Konki]

I know a couple of Sikh lads who have recently used the word 'p**i' several times when referring to Muslims whereas I don't think I've heard a white person use it for at least twenty years.

Not sure what my point is other than it does still get used although my jaw did hit the floor.

[RFT]

I happened to watch the first episode recently, that massive flat they're renting in north London is £90 a week!

They call that out in the DVD commentaries as being implausible or outdated possibly even at the point they filmed it, never mind broadcast.

[Shit Good Nose]

I know a couple of Sikh lads who have recently used the word 'p**i' several times when referring to Muslims whereas I don't think I've heard a white person use it for at least twenty years.

Not sure what my point is other than it does still get used although my jaw did hit the floor.

There is a bit of a move around there - a mate who lives in Glasgow has a few sikh friends and, whilst I've never heard them use p**i or any other racial slur, I know that they REALLY don't like muslims.  I'm not saying that's true of all sikhs, but it is of those.  Admittedly that's probably as much to do with them being sick to the back teeth of people assuming that they are muslims as anything else. 

I've also mentioned on here before about how another mate's Chinese girlfriend and her family HATE being referred to as Asian and now use Oriental (often previously considered to be a slur) because they don't want to be lumped in with people from the middle East. 

Funny old world innit.

[gilbertharding]

Back on topic to 'Comedy you LOVE'.

Seeing as someone's already mentioned Friends, this means - under international Comedy Forum Rules - that someone has to mention Seinfeld.

There's the risible fashion sense, the attitude to women, the idea of observational comedy being something new. Anything else?

[Autopsy Turvey]

I'll just clodhop naively in to wonder aloud that as the word 'p**i' is so ugly and offensive, is it a source of shame, embarrassment and upset that the first half of the words Pakistan and Pakistani is a racial slur? It feels so wrong using the word in any context, yet it's unavoidable just talking about the country and its people.

Everyone used the prefix before 'shop' in those days, with no malice, just to quickly distinguish it from the other shop in the village (which is less friendly, less efficient, more expensive, open fewer hours etc). "The people who run the p**i shop are lovely" is surely better than "These South Asian people of colour are all cunts" (George Carlin may have said something similar).

Comedy I love but begrudgingly recognise is starting to date: The Pickwick Papers.