In the news

Yes, ditto for almost all large German cities. Needless to say, there were thousands of civilian casualties in every city.

Today’s TV news - Fawlty Towers has been taken off some tv channels. The news report mentioned ‘The Germans’.
If this crap continues, a huge amount of tv and films will be removed.
I totally understand that some shows may not be suitable for viewing - The Black and White Minstrel Show springs to mind. There was a mad episode where the white actors with black faces were then changed to Hawaiians or similar. Probably on YouTube somewhere. But as an example of how society has moved on, it’s great. More educational now than entertainment.
Does Inspector Clouseau patronise French people?
Do Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce patronise females in Sherlock Holmes ( the best pairing)?
Where will the madness stop? If people recognise that it is inappropriate now, surely that is a win - removal seems like harsh censorship to me. It’s unlikely that there will be an underground Fawlty Towers fan club - but who knows, it could happen.
Rant over!

The cost I've heard is a minimum of £100,000 per hour for that kind of show.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-television-show-1.3486792

Surely Fawlty towers should have been given the "this program was and is racist and is shown in its original form" treatment.

It wasn't removed because of "The Germans".

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/11/fawlty-towers-dont-mention-the-war-episode-removed-from-uktv

following the publication of this article they confirmed it was under
review because the episode “contains racial slurs”.

The original broadcast included a scene in which Major Gowen, a
regular guest at the hotel, uses very strong racist language in
relation to an anecdote about the West Indies cricket team

The Fawlty Towers episode in question, first shown in 1975, also
features Cleese’s bigoted character apparently shocked at being
treated in hospital by a black doctor

I'm guessing this was more about programs like Nazi Megastructures, Hunting Nazi Treasure or Supernatural Nazis and the like? Rather than something such as The World At War possibly. They still aren't heaping praise on the Nazi Regime but there is definitely a question of which audience they are there to provide content for.

The news report was incorrect in this instance.
The particular episode in question is contentious (racist) because of the use of the words 'nigger' and 'wog' in the script.

God. I had no idea they existed.

I disagree, there comes a point in time where some shows just shouldn't be shown any more if they can't stand on their own with the racist bits cut out.

E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censored_Eleven
And they were doing that back in 1968!

Saying it's historic and for learning how bad it was or how far we've come is fine if it's shown in a controlled environment with appropraite messaging, but not on national broadcast.

Does Inspector Clouseau patronise French people? There are many German stereotypes (Monkey Dust nazi grandpa) and French stereotypes (Allo Allo) in UK shows.

But white Europeans don't get dis-proportionally arrested, beaten up, asked where they are from and all that.

[unless they are East European, and the NI cops seem to be all too happy to report people to the Home Office, in the case of Polish stereotypes there is more of a point]

I can just laugh off the "Shmoking the dope on a bicycle" jokes.

Every day (some fraction of) 383,000 people are going to hear about the world wars for the first time. Approximately. You aren't born with that knowledge.

Yeah, you're probably right. I shall reflect on that.

Quick roundup of the responses.
The point is that someone will find something offensive - people seem to go out of their way to criticise things and find offence in them. I think it’s madness. These shows were ‘of their time’ - this point should be remembered.
I come from Norn Iron and I would bet money that I could get some local people to object to any mention of homosexuality on tv. Small minded and misinformed people but they have an opinion.
I may be stretching this point a little, but are people trying to change history to some extent. This extends to the statue removals somewhat. Will books be next and historical programmes.?

It's not changing history, it's removing things from uncontrolled public consumption that are offensive and oppresive. Because it was allowed then doesn't mean it was right, it just means the people it was offensive to had less of a voice.

History is found in places where the context and meaning can be explained, like books and appropriate shows, articles etc. Not just some guy using the N word in a sitcom.

No-one's burning books, people can still learn about things which happened in the past. But what you choose to broadcast and choose to display publicly should be constantly reviewed.

Sounds like some things have been reviewed right into the sea. :shrug:

I think context is important here. Fawlty towers revolves around poking fun at a horrible, small minded bigot who is constantly out of his depth.

For a slightly less offensive example of this look at Basil's insistence that he can speak Spanish but is incapable of communicating with Manuel because he is seemingly unaware that there is more than one Spanish dialect.

The scene with the major is (in my recollection anyway - it's been a while since I've seen it) actually quite funny because Basil is torn between recognising that the major is being highly offensive and calling him out on it or risking offending one of his most loyal customers. It wouldn't be made today and the language is to put it mildly highly offensive but it does effectively highlight and make fun of attitudes that were prevalent at the time and are still about today.

The bit in the hospital is also an attempt to poke fun at Basil's bigoted attitude.

TLDR John Cleese is the original hipster and was taking the piss out of brexiteers before brexit was even a thing. Ironically the man seems to have morphed into his own character.

Offense isn't a good argument, I agree. It means nothing.
Question is how far you can go with stereotyping people / using slurs and insults.

Those morons you get on the Nolan show complaining about THE GAYS are the majority and often part of the mainstream churches who have done their best to keep LGBT rights down.

Now IF and WHEN things should be aired with a warning or removed, I think that discussion should also be had with the group involved. I just have a little more sympathy with it being on the receiving end of the Brexit shitshow, suddenly you see what it is like to be the minority and singled out.

Maybe adapting TV programs does little, and the news is really THE worst offender (black people are in gangs, polish people are stealing your job bla bla) but that I am not sure about, haven't read any papers on that.

Just have to hope this isn't a sticker plaster on a leaking pipeline and it doesn't do anything much.

One of the reasons the WAW series was so respected is because of the inclusion of participants on both sides, policy makers, combatants and civilians.

One example springs to mind of it being slightly ahead of its time. The laying bare of outdated colonial attitudes and supposed superiority of the white man which directly contributed to the fall of Singapore, the largest British military defeat in history.

Worth watching the full series with introductions by the producer Jeremy Isaacs that contextualise each episode, also the extra programs with historian Stephen Ambrose.

My son is big into his war history, I'll recommend it to him, tx! :)

what about those tv channels that endlessly repeat documentaries about hitler and that whole era

are they history / education programmes, programmes glorifying that regime for those right wing cunts to fap over or just channels under the murdoch broadcasting organisation so standard fayre for them lining up with the bosses politics allegedly .

I occasionally dip into the "Yesterday" channel on Freeview, which certainly falls into that category. 2 things on this...

1. Some of the things they endlessly repeat (e.g. The World At War) have real value. The World At War actually provides a realistic counter to the jingoistic portrayal of WWII that you see in the right wing press. For example, regular contributions from members of the British public for whom the war was a recent memory and who made it very clear that they were very suspicious of Churchill as a politician.
   
2. Whatever value the few decent (and old) bits of content have, most of the newer stuff is sensationalist or highly slanted bilge. Yesterday channel has a whole stable of programmes all of which use the same talking heads with dubious qualifications, really just reading from scripts.
   
   

On the other hand, PBS and the Smithsonian Channel have consistently high quality output, some of it from UK broadcasters, about a much wider range of subjects (not just wars and not just WWII). Which means that when the WWII content does show up, it's in a much better context and isn't just there to a) lend credibility to the dross around it b) stoke the war fantasies of most of the regular viewers.

Paris police protest over chokehold ban:

https://www.france24.com/en/20200612-french-police-unions-protest-chokehold-ban-after-george-floyd-rallies?ref=tw_i

It came days after media outlets published the contents of a private
Facebook group on which French officers repeatedly used racist and
sexist terms and mocked victims of police brutality.

The scene with the major is (in my recollection anyway - it's been a while since I've seen it) actually quite funny because Basil is torn between recognising that the major is being highly offensive and calling him out on it or risking offending one of his most loyal customers.

Doesn't the story revolve around the major taking a woman to a cricket match and her leaving with his wallet? The language is horrendous, but the story is quite clearly making fun of his attitude (and he's shown as hugely anachronistic and hidebound throughout the show). It would be quite strange to censor TV on the basis of offensive language being used, otherwise how would you show programmes and films that deal with those issues (e.g., Mississippi Burning)? The fact that something is a comedy doesn't prevent it from addressing serious issues. It might require a warning about language, but it's not exactly celebratory of discrimination.

Trump administration ends ban on killing Alaska bear cubs, wolf pups