Frankie Boyle Gives Racists A Good Laugh: But Not Emily Parr
FOR those of you who missed the racist tones of Frankie Boyle’s joke about Katie Price’s black son Harvey Price trying to rape her, preferring to focus on the fact that Jordan’s son is disabled, the BBC-approved Jerry Sadowitz lite will now use the words nigger and Paki in his act.
A Channel 4 spokesman will now explain the joke. Saying nigger and Paki does not represent a return to the 1970s when comics would get laughs with such words because Boyle is deeply clever. Not once did he say, “Oh, deary-deary-me” and wobble his head. He never stuck out his lips for the black joke nor used the phrases “spade” or “Brixton briefcase”. Know that:
“This cutting edge comedy is clearly intended to ridicule and satirise the use of these words – Frankie Boyle was not endorsing them.”
Yes. Making fun of a partially sighted fat child is ok. The fat and the disabled are fair game for liberal comedy. Our own Ed Barrett puts it well in the case of Bernard Manning, a racist – and a bloody funny one:
His prejudices were real, and his outspoken opinions genuinely held. He was a racist - no point in pretending otherwise – but his claim that he picked on everyone was true. He regularly bit the hand that fed him (hence his absence from TV) and he was more than happy to cause grave offence to the great and the good, to their faces when he got the chance. He never seemed happier than when he was upsetting all and sundry at private engagements, prompting gasps and walk-outs from those unaccustomed to his distinctive brand of comedy.
You TV historians will recall how Channel 4 kicked Emily Parr from its Big Brother show when she used the word “nigger”.
Had only she said “nigger” with a knowing look, she’d have been ok.
Posted: 24th, December 2010 | In: TV & Radio Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
