It's so easy to be judgmental. Often cowardly as well - different if it's said to a person's face. I've never had a problem with Jim Davidson.
It's like this, if you make a career out of telling racist/sexist/homophobic/lowest common denominator jokes then you have to expect that people are going to be judgmental - it goes with the territory. There's no point complaining about it afterwards...
As for being cowardly - Jim Davidson is also a self confessed alcoholic and wife beater. But let's not be judgmental eh?
So because Lenny Henry told racist jokes that makes it ok for others? Reverse racism isn't much of justification and I recall he got booted off a tv reality show not too long ago for being homophobic. This suggests to me that perhaps he hasn't really evolved that far since the 70s.
As for whether he tells racist jokes now, I wouldn't know, but I did find it ironic that he happily made a career out of making fun of immigrants and then took himself off to live in Dubai...
I think you miss the point about I was trying to make about Lenny Henry. Points are very easy to miss when you don't want to hit them.
As for the Helsl Kitchen issue - he was certainly ill advised and didn't say what he said in the politically correct way - but my judgment at the time (having watched the show) was that his comments were more about the fact he didn't like the person than that he was homophobic. I suppose that show softened my own feelings about him strangely enough - I thought I got a sense of the person, who used to be top of the tree and now everybody wants to kick.
Jim Davidson is in show business which is full of gay people, I'm sure he has friends who are gay - but he is from another time and some people make no allowances for that whatsoever. They judge his humour on the jokes he told when he was in his 20s and forget all the others that were telling the same/similar jokes.
I think you miss the point about Lenny Henry I was trying to make about Lenny Henry. Points are very easy to miss when you don't want to hit them.
I wasn't really sure what the point that you were trying to make was and this sentence suggests you don't really know either.
Lenny Henry I think started off in the Black and White minstrel show - or at least did an early gig in it but swiftly moved on and left that school of humour and entertainment behind. Now it's only people like you that drag it up in arguments like this to try and justify something. Just because it might have been somehow acceptable to be racist then doesn't make it ok, not now and not then either.
Bear in mind in the 70s it was apparently ok to throw bananas at black football players and make monkey chants at them. Presumably that was just something people did back them and so we mustn't judge?
The point is - Lenny Henry is definitely not racist, but he told the jokes he thought people wanted to hear. And they did. I didn't but the market at the time did. Bernard Manning made a career out of nasty nasty jokes, Davidson was never in that area.
Now, our dads and grandads were part of a society that was a lot more racist than it is now -whether they were or not. That it has changed is a good thing, but we hold people accountable for the time they came from. I think programs like love thy Neighbour should be shown on televison today, they tell you more about the time than any history book - but we censor it because the subject is taboo - where as the intention of the show was not to be racist, but expose racist views that a significant percentage of the population held.
Bernard Manning could make a rascist statement - Jim had a black character that he treated with affection. It was patronising and totally unacceptable today but that was the time. Love thy neighbour made the black family the sympathetic characters - that is how ity was at the time. If we jusge them in the modern context, it is unacceptable - if Jim is telling the same jokes now, I'll take it all back.
But I'm not going to hate or judge him because of jokes he told in his 20s. Now Bernard Manning was a sick racist, was then - and would be now. Jim Davidson IMO wan't and isn't.
But to come to that conclusion, I have to really think about it, maybe give people the benefit of the doubt. Try to understand. Maybe today, we are too quick to label people than to do that. Easier to kick him - he deserves it anyway being a tory!
What a lot of people don't 'get' is that Jim Davidsons humour is actually ridiculing those who genuinely are racist and hold such out of touch views.
He might mock accents and use the odd stereotype, but I've never thought any of it to be overly malicious or 'racist'.
When Chris Rock spends 2 hours talking about what black people do day in and day out, does everybody jump on his back and want him off the TV in America?
So JD tells jokes about women as well. Christ, half of Charlton Life are guilty in that case considering some of the (hilarious) threads we've had on here lately.
Today's comedians are so wet and squeaky clean. But then again that just reflects a society that is in constant fear of offending someone or other. Ant & Dec FFS.
Having lived out of the country for the best part of 30 years I can say that Britain has changed drastically over that time. It is no longer the country where we didn't take things too seriously, especially ourselves. Nowadays you can't fart without getting a ticket.
I think you look at the Jimmy Saville revelations and see that there was a lot wrong with that society, but you did have to be there to understand the context to certain things. And there has been great progress, but there is a lot wrong with this society that has got worse too. I don't want a return of that humour, but I do want us to be more understanding than we are now.
What a lot of people don't 'get' is that Jim Davidsons humour is actually ridiculing those who genuinely are racist and hold such out of touch views.
He might mock accents and use the odd stereotype, but I've never thought any of it to be overly malicious or 'racist'.
When Chris Rock spends 2 hours talking about what black people do day in and day out, does everybody jump on his back and want him off the TV in America?
So JD tells jokes about women as well. Christ, half of Charlton Life are guilty in that case considering some of the (hilarious) threads we've had on here lately.
Today's comedians are so wet and squeaky clean. But then again that just reflects a society that is in constant fear of offending someone or other. Ant & Dec FFS.
Or Frankie Boyle. Ant and Dec aren't comedians they are entertainers on family shows.
I don't agree Jim Davidson is mocking racists but I dont believe he is racist. He just says what he finds funny and other people find it funny.
What a lot of people don't 'get' is that Jim Davidsons humour is actually ridiculing those who genuinely are racist and hold such out of touch views.
So... all the lazy racial and sexist stereotypes, the comment to a gay contestant on a TV reality show where he asked "what side are you on" was because he was Charlton's answer to Alf Garnett...
I think it fair to assume that he had that having identified a target audience for this schtick that he very happily and very profitably fed it.
Having lived out of the country for the best part of 30 years I can say that Britain has changed drastically over that time. It is no longer the country where we didn't take things too seriously, especially ourselves. Nowadays you can't fart without getting a ticket.
So you have lived outside the UK for three decades yet you know exactly what the UK is like.
Hmm. Maybe it's my memory playing tricks on me. I could have sworn that on my frequent trips back I've noticed lots more rules and regulations in place but maybe I'm mistaken.
I didn't like the racism sexism and homophobia in the 70s and I dont like it now. Some comedians have changed with the times and some haven't - I have no idea if JD's material has changed since the 70s but his audience appears to be dwindling so I assume it hasn't. Comedy is all down to personal taste - I find some shocking comedy funny and some of it offends me but a lot of that boils down to subject matter. We're all touchy about certain subjects and that will always be the case.
So what if he offends people, the way the world is now, someone somewhere will be offended by something, people often say 'that offends me' so phucking what, grow some balls and get on with your life!
So what if he offends people, the way the world is now, someone somewhere will be offended by something, people often say 'that offends me' so phucking what, grow some balls and get on with your life!
So what if he offends people, the way the world is now, someone somewhere will be offended by smething, people often say 'that offends me' so phucking what, grow some balls and get on with your life!</blockquote
People have been offended since the beginning of time - I don't think that's really changed.
So what if he offends people, the way the world is now, someone somewhere will be offended by something, people often say 'that offends me' so phucking what, grow some balls and get on with your life!
So what if he offends people, the way the world is now, someone somewhere will be offended by something, people often say 'that offends me' so phucking what, grow some balls and get on with your life!
Exactly. Humour has always involved taking the p*ss out of one group or other, Irish, Jewish, Yanks, Pommies, blacks, whites, blondes, brunettes, baldies,shorties Essex girls etc etc. Personally I'd much rather the humour of that era, Benny Hill, Two Ronnies, Faulty Towers, than most of the foul mouthed, often obscene rubbish that we have to endure these days. Have always liked Jim and the fact that he's a Charlton fan and conservative makes me like him even more.
Look at Gervais and Boyle, using kids with cancer and child abuse in their shows in the last 5 years, can you even compare that to JD putting on a Jamaican accent and telling a joke over 30 years ago? Get a grip ffs!
i think all those former marxist "alternative" so called comidians--- Alexy Sail etc ---total shit and offensive.They of course should all be burnt and ashes made into cat litter---but the problem is they have moved on---to live in luxury and wealth like all "good" socialists.
I believe that culturally in Britain we are racist, but for the large part with a small 'r'. Maybe all countries are to some extent. Both my wives have been foreigners born abroad and can see things through different eyes. The other night i watched a program on BBCthree 'How to win Eurovision'. Now i found it very funny, poking fun at all the other nations crap singing (as well as ourselves) but my wife watched the same thing and thought it a cheap racist side swipe at other cultures. She wasn't really offended, more she didn't find our 'let's all laugh at foreigners' jokes, funny.
Maybe that's part of our humour in Britain? Because we are prepared to rip into ourselves we see it as fair game to have a pop at anyone else in the bargain?
NB: For the PC people i use the term 'our' to describe a collective and it is not inclusive of all citizens just those that agree with this view :-)
Comedy was different in the 70s when Jim started out. You had black comedians telling the same type of jokes. It was working men's clubs humour. You had love thy neighbour on the telly! I think it is unfair to label him a racist or a sexist - he told the sort of jokes his audience wanted to hear.
I was never a fan but respected he had talent. I think he was an excellent presenter of Big Break and the Generation game later. I think some people judge comedians harshly for the times they come from.
I respect him for his talent and am not interested in his political views - he isn't a politician. I think some people are a bit precious when it comes to judging him.
Comments
As for being cowardly - Jim Davidson is also a self confessed alcoholic and wife beater. But let's not be judgmental eh?
As for the Helsl Kitchen issue - he was certainly ill advised and didn't say what he said in the politically correct way - but my judgment at the time (having watched the show) was that his comments were more about the fact he didn't like the person than that he was homophobic. I suppose that show softened my own feelings about him strangely enough - I thought I got a sense of the person, who used to be top of the tree and now everybody wants to kick.
Jim Davidson is in show business which is full of gay people, I'm sure he has friends who are gay - but he is from another time and some people make no allowances for that whatsoever. They judge his humour on the jokes he told when he was in his 20s and forget all the others that were telling the same/similar jokes.
By the way, who on here prefers Rangers or Celtic?
I wasn't really sure what the point that you were trying to make was and this sentence suggests you don't really know either.
Lenny Henry I think started off in the Black and White minstrel show - or at least did an early gig in it but swiftly moved on and left that school of humour and entertainment behind. Now it's only people like you that drag it up in arguments like this to try and justify something. Just because it might have been somehow acceptable to be racist then doesn't make it ok, not now and not then either.
Bear in mind in the 70s it was apparently ok to throw bananas at black football players and make monkey chants at them. Presumably that was just something people did back them and so we mustn't judge?
Now, our dads and grandads were part of a society that was a lot more racist than it is now -whether they were or not. That it has changed is a good thing, but we hold people accountable for the time they came from. I think programs like love thy Neighbour should be shown on televison today, they tell you more about the time than any history book - but we censor it because the subject is taboo - where as the intention of the show was not to be racist, but expose racist views that a significant percentage of the population held.
Bernard Manning could make a rascist statement - Jim had a black character that he treated with affection. It was patronising and totally unacceptable today but that was the time. Love thy neighbour made the black family the sympathetic characters - that is how ity was at the time. If we jusge them in the modern context, it is unacceptable - if Jim is telling the same jokes now, I'll take it all back.
But I'm not going to hate or judge him because of jokes he told in his 20s. Now Bernard Manning was a sick racist, was then - and would be now. Jim Davidson IMO wan't and isn't.
But to come to that conclusion, I have to really think about it, maybe give people the benefit of the doubt. Try to understand. Maybe today, we are too quick to label people than to do that. Easier to kick him - he deserves it anyway being a tory!
He might mock accents and use the odd stereotype, but I've never thought any of it to be overly malicious or 'racist'.
When Chris Rock spends 2 hours talking about what black people do day in and day out, does everybody jump on his back and want him off the TV in America?
So JD tells jokes about women as well. Christ, half of Charlton Life are guilty in that case considering some of the (hilarious) threads we've had on here lately.
Today's comedians are so wet and squeaky clean. But then again that just reflects a society that is in constant fear of offending someone or other. Ant & Dec FFS.
I don't agree Jim Davidson is mocking racists but I dont believe he is racist. He just says what he finds funny and other people find it funny.
So... all the lazy racial and sexist stereotypes, the comment to a gay contestant on a TV reality show where he asked "what side are you on" was because he was Charlton's answer to Alf Garnett...
I think it fair to assume that he had that having identified a target audience for this schtick that he very happily and very profitably fed it.
Right....
Comedy is all down to personal taste - I find some shocking comedy funny and some of it offends me but a lot of that boils down to subject matter. We're all touchy about certain subjects and that will always be the case.
Maybe that's part of our humour in Britain? Because we are prepared to rip into ourselves we see it as fair game to have a pop at anyone else in the bargain?
NB: For the PC people i use the term 'our' to describe a collective and it is not inclusive of all citizens just those that agree with this view :-)