Metal Reviews

Not hard to do after Major and Thatcher, but in the long term I suspect he may have made it worse, or at least done little to improve it. Firstly, because the working class can no longer regard Labour as a genuine voice for their interests, and trade union links have been demoted, meaning their political representation has been weakened. Secondly, because he's actually furthered the "neo-liberal" policies of Thatcher etc, and placated the casualties of that with extra benefits. In other words, poor people have more disposable income but just as few opportunities to develop careers etc. As far as I know the number of working class people going to university has decreased as a percentage since 1997!

As for his comments on "black culture", it's bullshit, plain and simple. From that Guardian article:



How about we drop the "political correctness" and recognise that the fact that these people live in communities that are run down, filled with poverty and failing schools, and have no faith in the political process, whilst all the time they see fucking stockbrokers throwing their wealth about on tv, is more likely to make them criminals than the fact that they are black?

it was mostly bullshit, but he has a point - there's too much political correctness sometimes.

i was a bit surprised his statements didn't cause a bigger splash.

I see what you mean, Charles, meant short-term. What with Cameron hugging hoodies, the barriers are eroding very quickly.

And interestly, I just picked up Thatcher & Sons, by Simon Jenkins. How Blair and Brown are continuing Marge's legacy, not bad so far.

The reason his statements didn't cause a bigger splash is because nobody gives a shit what he says about black people. And the reason nobody gives a shit what he says about black people is because they've been relentlessly drip fed this line that "ooh everyone says you can't offend minorities, but go on... if you do you'll be a real hero and you'll have said what everyone's thinking". The idea that there is some sinister "political correctness" virus going round is the most powerful tool anyone has if they want to spout racist shit like Blair did then. And the reason people can't stand up to it and counter it is because they'll have this gang of media attack dogs calling thm "the pc brigade" or some other shit.

But seriously, if you can find an example of pc that isn't either mainly or completely fictionalised, then I'll be surprised. People were using exactly the same arguments around the time of the abolition of slavery. It pisses me off

I always thought I was the only one who thought that. I remember when Kilroy called Arabs "women repressors and limb amputators" the gutter press didn't stop far short of calling him a hero, though (thankfully) It destroyed his TV career. Goddam gypsy-hater.

I hate Kilroy!

Been reading up on John McDonnell, the only challenger to Gordon Brown. Here's an article on the subject by Mark Steel in the Independent:

http://comment.independent.co.uk/column ... 548736.ece

Were any Brits by chance listening to Radio 4 earlier from 6.30 pm to 7? This exact subject came up on a comedy talkshow thing, 86% of the audience agreed that political correctness had gone mad...

Well, it has gotten to the point to where comedians can't even tell jokes anymore without some brat getting their panties in a wad about it. I hate the idea that people think they have the right to not be offended, and try to silence someone for saying something they don't like. People need to be more willing to laugh at themselves.

I think there is still a difference between real, genuine criticism of say, religions such as Islam, and cartoons with bombs in them. Are they funny? Not really. Do they deserve such a fuss? No, and by making one the Islamists played into the right-wing's hands.

Jokes really depend on who you tell them to for how effective they are. If you're in a fundamentalist Islamic society, and you're telling the one about Mohammed, the three camels and the Sheik's wife then fair dos, free speech, etc. BUT in a free western society, it loses its impact, and is pointless. As someone with the odd radical view myself, it would certainly help if people took things a little seriously instead of seizing the insulted reactions of admittedly culturally backwards (in western standards) folk as proof that they're out to get us all...

Then again, look at the tabloids after Iran royally raped us over the captured sailors incident. What, a huge insult? Where's the sense of humour?

I wasn't. I don't think political correctness has gone that far. You can still be "edgy" and tell a racist joke that's not really racist, but could still offend a few people. Little Britain often flies in the face of PC, but it's popular so it's okay .

But most comedy IS pc. Take Borat for example, his entire act is based around taking the piss out of racists, homophobes, and general bigots. What the hell could be more politically correct than that? "Politically incorrect" doesn't just mean anything that's offensive.

What I think is that the phrase is used SO MUCH as a random term of abuse today that it HAS no meaning anymore. How is Little Britain un-pc? Because it has some adult dude still breast feeding? What does that have to do with anything? How about because it has that woman that's sick all over the foreign kids? Seems to me that that's exactly the same principle as the Borat case above... it IS politically correct because the joke's at the racists expense. The only thing that springs to mind on LB as being genuinely politically incorrect is that fucking Thai Bride bit, and I'm sure most people would agree that that's one of the show's suckiest moments.

What's even stupider is when people try and translate market decisionmaking into some sinister liberal pc plot. I remember Bill O'Reilly talking ad nauseam about Wal-Marts forbidding its staff to say "Mery Christmas" or whatever, and saying that this is because of political correctness. Even if that were true, I'd wonder what was so pc about it. It's simple capitalism, they want money so they do whatever they think will attract customers. So much "pc gone mad" is just the old demographic being confused about why they're no longer the sole focus of marketing.

I guess I made a bit of an overstatement. The thai bride bit is Un-PC, which is what i based my opinion on. I made a mistake. Hey, hindsight is 20-20 (unlike my real eyesight, which is deteriorating rapidly. Maybe I'm going blind.)

Borat is making jokes at racist's expense. Unfortunately idiots will

a) go "OMG dat's teh rasist!!!!!11111"
b) think it's funny to genuinely make fun of Jews and gypsies, in an unironic way.

And we all know there are a lot of idiots out there. On a Borat related note, I preferred it before the moviecame out and Borat wasn't everywhere. Seeing 8-year olds walkingh down the street going "Jagshemash! Jagshemash! Jagshemash!" is mausetaing. Borat is still damn funny though.

Over here, the so-called PC movement has extended beyond just racism though. You can't parody religion, somebody will sue. Can't parody vegans, somebody will sue. Can't parody Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart will sue. It's gotten to the point of just plain ridiculous. The sad part is, is that these Special Interest groups aren't really offended, they just know that money can be had by acting all shocked ant then suing for so-called defamation. It's really just a money grab.

Take Don Imus (American radio personality) for example, he got fired for referring to the Rutger's College Women's Basketball Team as "nappy headed Hos." Now sure, that can be constured as being racist of course, but in reality it's just plain stupid. Nothing more, nothing less. But the entire country go into an uproar about, and tried to make a whole hubbaloo about it, when in reality, such a completely retarded comment didn't even deserve 5 seconds of attention. Then a month later, Opie and Anthony, feeling the need to get some attention to rescue their ratings plummet, make a completey tasteless joke about raping Condaleeza Rice. They felt like they could garner the same kind of media attention as Don Imus by doing soemthing that stupid and felt safe being on Satellite Radio. In essence, by making the Imus situation such a big fiasco, we emboldened two complete morons into making racist and sexist comments in hopes of getting a ratings spike. we've created a monster whre people on both sides of the fence are using it to further their own agendas. Like I said, it's not even about being truly hurt over anything, it's about getting attention for a 'cause".

And some people were highly offended by the Borat movie. Namely the Mid-Western rodeo attending crowd.

Sure but that's what I mean about poiltically incorrect not necessarily meaning offensive. "Political correctness", or what I understand by it, means the stigmatization of narrow-minded thought towards groups that are generally regarded as being disadvantaged or under-represented. So, if Borat was getting laughs out of some gay guy getting angry about not being allowed to get married or whatever, then that would be un-pc. I think whether we view offensive jokes as un-pc or not depends on societal groupings. I know a lot of people would think that is inherently stupid, to dictate who it's fair to offend and who it isn't, but I disagree. I don't think it's hypocrisy that as a British person I'd disapprove more of jokes about Pakistanis than the English people, because the former have had a century of getting bricks chucked through their window, and to this day have fairly well-known political parties whose ultimate aim is to get them kicked out of this country.

Yeah, I was following that Imus story. But I didn't see it as a politically correct decision, more a market one like I said above. I just thought the channel was of the opinion that it would lose ratings if they kept him on, not because of some insidious cultural factors. And if they believe that their market (ie, any American with a radio) would react negatively to what he said, then it reflects fairly well on you guys, IMO.

As for Little Britain, don't worry Mintrude I probably sounded annoyed above but am not really, I was just on my soapbox

In fact, as someone who is interested in the idea of class warfare, I could even say I was offended by Vicky Pollard. It is interesting that despite the purported pc invasion, it is still perfectly acceptable (in fact, extremely profitable) to get laughs at the expense of class...

That's true, but you can be lower-class without being a chav. In fact many chavs where I live are very middle-class.

The thing about Imus is though Rio, that women of the Rutger's Team didnt' even care about what he said. When confronted with the situation, they said "Who's Don Imus?" the man was culturally irrelevant, and the media went out of their way to be offended for the Basketball team. The actual people he made the comment about didn't give a damn, and only commented on the situation after intense prodding from the media. That's somewhat unsettling to me for some reason, people who weren't even involved made a huge crusade to stick their noses in it. never mind the fact that the man had said much, much worse over the airwaves, and yet, that dumb nugget was what got him axed.

Yeah, that may well be true, the only coverage of it I watched was on Fox, so I can't speak for other networks

I suppose a good comparison on this side of the pond would be Chris Moyles and his usage of 'gay' to mean rubbish. I still think the Beeb were wrong to defend him (and not that anyone listens to Radio 1 anyways) but it's an interesting topic.

And there was that bizarre "yo yo yo I'm a black guy" he did in front of Halle Berry, and when she got offended he basically said "Oh get over yourself".