Little Britain was a pile of racist wonk, and I’m glad it’s finally getting the takedown it deserved.
Shame on you if you ever felt it was funny.
The joke, for those who don’t remember/aren’t aware, is when the “Linda” character who works in a uni student support office, sees various students having some kind of issue, and has to ring a guy to get further advice. When talking to the guy, she has to describe the student.
The joke is she’s incredibly crass, rude, and eventually completely bigoted – it gets a bit tired, you can see the joke coming from a mile off given the student sat in front of them. Normally something like “that’s right, fatty fatty boom boom” or “moley mole face” and so on. Not exactly Stewart Lee, but not everyone is into that. I think at one point she uses a racist term to describe one student.
So the only way you’d find it offensive or racist is if you don’t get the joke and think just like the bigoted racist character. Speaking of Stewart Lee, to borrow an old Lee and Herring line “ahh, if you think that, it is actually *you* who is the racist”.
I think this is another case of right-wing “liberals” getting their offendotron hats on again, patronising minorities by creating faux-outrage on their behalf.
This shit and it was shit, came out 20 years ago, why is ofcom bothered now.
Things from the past are often offensive to modern viewpoints – something that’s been true through history – what you don’t do is censor and edit them to fit the viewpoint of the day rather than the viewpoint of their time.
Doing that just rewrites the past, and prevents people from learning from it.
I never enjoyed this show, always found it crude and lazy comedy. Do we have any good sketch shows anymore? Honestly, last sketch comedy show I remember making me laugh was the Fast Show and that feels several life times ago….
Some people find “racist and outdated” comedy funny. If you don’t, then just don’t watch it.
I don’t find “racist and outdated” comedy funny because I’m racist and outdated, I find it funny because it’s outrageous and because I see it as mocking racists.
For the record, I think Little Britain is shit.
Oh great, something else for Walliams to be offended about….
What are your thoughts on this? How would you feel if comedy like this was on the BBC now?
Stereotypes remain, but the delivery on the acknowledgement of these steroetypes is what ‘progresses’. Each next generation convinces themselves they are the ones moving things forwards with momentum.
It’s always an illusion. What actually make progress is laws, and little else.
As are many historical British comedies, only fools and horses has plenty of racism in it including the “p” word for an Asian shop owner
I find that show funny despite some ofthe language used but I don’t think it should be edited out of the dvds etc, maybe on Comedy Central or gold or whatever it’s on should though.
To be fair you’re supposed to be laughing at the characters not with them. If you don’t like it then don’t watch it.
One of my favourites was the two old women walking around the bake sale.
“Who made this?”
“It was Linda”
“Linda? Remind me who’s she?”
“The one married to the black man…”
*Violently vomits*
You can look at any comedy from the past and see how well it has or hasn’t aged. The comments saying that a series is widely liked as it has won awards is not an indication of what is good or bad but just represents the attitude of the time. Alternative comedy of the 80s and 90s viewed today shows how crap it was. The likes of ant and dic show that even today that unfunny little shits can appear popular but again are just crap. The general theme is that the louder you shout out your content the worse it is.
I mean obviously, who tf thought little Britain wasn’t outdated. It was questionable at the time so ofc it is now.
It was racist, ableist, homophobic, and just downright shite at the time it aired
The most egregious thing it did was still somehow introducing that weirdo Walliams to the public
People are hypersensitive fannies now, we know.
Hopefully the moral fashion will move on from being consistently uptight.
Yes, it’s offensive. So what? Did someone die? Did the sketch kill anyone? No? Then stop complaining.
Being offensive is not inherently bad. No one has the right to not be upset my something. If you don’t like Little Britain, don’t watch it. It’s really that simple.
I mean plenty of old sketches aren’t exactly kosher anymore so I don’t see why this would be shocking.
Its definitely more racist than outdated. 2002 was way too late not to realise that blackface is bad. On top of all the classist stereotypes and transphobic sketches. Audiences should have known better.
In the mid-2000s, Victoria Wood acknowledged it was funny, but also pointed that a lot of the sketches were misogynist years ago. You’ll notice Wood’s comedy has aged a lot better because its not needlessly cruel.
Matt Lucas has said on record he wouldn’t make it today, because it was generally too cruel and egotistical.
[“If I could go back and do Little Britain again, I wouldn’t make those jokes about transvestites,” Lucas told the magazine. “I wouldn’t play black characters.
I literally could not give less of a shit if someone finds certain comedy offensive. They can just choose not to watch it. But trying to prevent others from watching comedy because you think it’s offensive is pathetic.
Don’t think you needed the word sketch in the title, the whole thing is outdated and several of the sketches would now definitely be seen as racist, sexist etc. Never really got the appeal of the show myself to begin with
It’s still funny, but with the pc culture & people being easily offended these days it gets called racist.
It’s poking fun at stereotypes .
Yeah but, no but, yeah,but no but, shut up!
They’d still be given a series by Netflix though if you look at their more recent adult animation “comedies”. At least little Britain understood how to set up a horribly offensive joke, unlike now where writers just skip the joke part.
Why’s this news? Captain Hindsight working double shifts nowadays.
> The whole series was removed in 2020 but returned last year with some scenes edited out.
Hmm.
It’s weird how even on this sub p, which is supposedly left leaning and woke, the vast majority of people are against deplatforming and cancelling. I really don’t understand why there are so many institutions trying to cancel things they find offensive when they literally have 0 support. Baffling!
Little Britain is shite because it’s shite not because it’s racist.
It was a great show and everyone loved it at the time.
Oh hell, just ban all comedy, someone is always laughing at or about someone else, it’s digraceful. If we witch hunt until everyone thinks the same, nobody can be offended. Everyone who disagrees is an outdated, racist, thought-crime monster.
Never watched that kind of rubbish, but in honesty a lot of our old t.v. shows were frequently racist, misogynist, homophobic etc. Times change, society changes as the civilisation matures. (Well some of it does, the cave people like to try and hold it back though)
It was great and a cultural phenomenon. Same as Ali G.
Ofcom going to start counting how many cry during comedy shows in new study
It hasn’t aged well. It was funny for its time, but the jokes kinda run dry.
The majority of Little Britain was satirising British people and British attitudes, the minority characters were rarely the butt of the joke, the joke was usually the pigheaded ignorance of the character played by Lucas/Walliams. I’d consider Ping Pong to be the most offensive character.
ITT:
Performative contrarians going all in on one side of a nuanced situation.
It’s ok to have found the show funny when it came out, a lot of people did, but that was a relatively long time ago, and culture has changed a lot since then.
It’s also ok to decide that the harm caused by some parts of it outweighs the joy brought by other parts of it. Unfortunately there are people that get joy from the harmful parts of it, that’s not ideal, but what are you going to do about it?
Our opinions aren’t collective, everyone has subjective views that sit on a spectrum, that spectrum changes over time, but the ends of the spectrum have always existed.*
*TLDR: What everyone thinks is ok or not ok is different, and has changed over time.
Parts of Little Britain, and a lot of content from that period of time contain aspects that are now considered not ok. It’s worth noting that some of the harmful aspects were used to criticise and laugh at racists, homophobes, bigots etc. but that wasn’t always the case.
You could say that regardless of intent, these men made content that they probably knew was upsetting to minority groups that they weren’t a part of. They probably recognise that a lot of the content they made wouldn’t be considered ok today.
If you actually care enough about watching it now then there will always be ways of accessing it.
If you don’t want to watch it, no one is going to make you watch it.
It’s up to you to figure out if it’s ok for you to decide what is offensive to groups you’re not a part of. It’s obviously fine to criticise parts of Little Britain that you felt were harmful to groups you are a part of, or not, depending on the context.
It’s very unlikely you’ll change anyone’s opinion by arguing online.
Lots of people here not offended by offensive jokes that aren’t aimed at them. So brave!
Ofcom why now? Surely you could go have noticed this a while back.
Little Britain: a complete pile of shit.
More at 10.
I love these threads when so many racists come out of the woodwork to defend something, without even reading the article. People saying stop complaining, people saying don’t ban it etc., when neither of those things have happened.
OfCom polled people, people gave their view. That’s it.
Meh, with or without the racism – Little Britain wasn’t funny. It was just a collection of soundbites that people with the IQ/sense of humour of a flea repeated in real world conversation as often as possible.
I reckon I’d find the funeral of a close loved one more amusing than Karen at work saying “computer says no” and thinking she’s hilarious when I ask her for a favour.
39 comments
Little Britain was a pile of racist wonk, and I’m glad it’s finally getting the takedown it deserved.
Shame on you if you ever felt it was funny.
The joke, for those who don’t remember/aren’t aware, is when the “Linda” character who works in a uni student support office, sees various students having some kind of issue, and has to ring a guy to get further advice. When talking to the guy, she has to describe the student.
The joke is she’s incredibly crass, rude, and eventually completely bigoted – it gets a bit tired, you can see the joke coming from a mile off given the student sat in front of them. Normally something like “that’s right, fatty fatty boom boom” or “moley mole face” and so on. Not exactly Stewart Lee, but not everyone is into that. I think at one point she uses a racist term to describe one student.
So the only way you’d find it offensive or racist is if you don’t get the joke and think just like the bigoted racist character. Speaking of Stewart Lee, to borrow an old Lee and Herring line “ahh, if you think that, it is actually *you* who is the racist”.
I think this is another case of right-wing “liberals” getting their offendotron hats on again, patronising minorities by creating faux-outrage on their behalf.
This shit and it was shit, came out 20 years ago, why is ofcom bothered now.
Things from the past are often offensive to modern viewpoints – something that’s been true through history – what you don’t do is censor and edit them to fit the viewpoint of the day rather than the viewpoint of their time.
Doing that just rewrites the past, and prevents people from learning from it.
I never enjoyed this show, always found it crude and lazy comedy. Do we have any good sketch shows anymore? Honestly, last sketch comedy show I remember making me laugh was the Fast Show and that feels several life times ago….
Some people find “racist and outdated” comedy funny. If you don’t, then just don’t watch it.
I don’t find “racist and outdated” comedy funny because I’m racist and outdated, I find it funny because it’s outrageous and because I see it as mocking racists.
For the record, I think Little Britain is shit.
Oh great, something else for Walliams to be offended about….
What are your thoughts on this? How would you feel if comedy like this was on the BBC now?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LExYVZ0_790&t=95s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LExYVZ0_790&t=95s)
Stereotypes remain, but the delivery on the acknowledgement of these steroetypes is what ‘progresses’. Each next generation convinces themselves they are the ones moving things forwards with momentum.
It’s always an illusion. What actually make progress is laws, and little else.
As are many historical British comedies, only fools and horses has plenty of racism in it including the “p” word for an Asian shop owner
I find that show funny despite some ofthe language used but I don’t think it should be edited out of the dvds etc, maybe on Comedy Central or gold or whatever it’s on should though.
To be fair you’re supposed to be laughing at the characters not with them. If you don’t like it then don’t watch it.
One of my favourites was the two old women walking around the bake sale.
“Who made this?”
“It was Linda”
“Linda? Remind me who’s she?”
“The one married to the black man…”
*Violently vomits*
You can look at any comedy from the past and see how well it has or hasn’t aged. The comments saying that a series is widely liked as it has won awards is not an indication of what is good or bad but just represents the attitude of the time. Alternative comedy of the 80s and 90s viewed today shows how crap it was. The likes of ant and dic show that even today that unfunny little shits can appear popular but again are just crap. The general theme is that the louder you shout out your content the worse it is.
I mean obviously, who tf thought little Britain wasn’t outdated. It was questionable at the time so ofc it is now.
It was racist, ableist, homophobic, and just downright shite at the time it aired
The most egregious thing it did was still somehow introducing that weirdo Walliams to the public
People are hypersensitive fannies now, we know.
Hopefully the moral fashion will move on from being consistently uptight.
Yes, it’s offensive. So what? Did someone die? Did the sketch kill anyone? No? Then stop complaining.
Being offensive is not inherently bad. No one has the right to not be upset my something. If you don’t like Little Britain, don’t watch it. It’s really that simple.
I mean plenty of old sketches aren’t exactly kosher anymore so I don’t see why this would be shocking.
Its definitely more racist than outdated. 2002 was way too late not to realise that blackface is bad. On top of all the classist stereotypes and transphobic sketches. Audiences should have known better.
In the mid-2000s, Victoria Wood acknowledged it was funny, but also pointed that a lot of the sketches were misogynist years ago. You’ll notice Wood’s comedy has aged a lot better because its not needlessly cruel.
Matt Lucas has said on record he wouldn’t make it today, because it was generally too cruel and egotistical.
[“If I could go back and do Little Britain again, I wouldn’t make those jokes about transvestites,” Lucas told the magazine. “I wouldn’t play black characters.
“Basically, I wouldn’t make that show now. It would upset people. We made a more cruel kind of comedy than I’d do now.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/14/david-walliams-and-matt-lucas-apologise-for-little-britain-blackface)
IMO Come Fly With Me was their best work.
I literally could not give less of a shit if someone finds certain comedy offensive. They can just choose not to watch it. But trying to prevent others from watching comedy because you think it’s offensive is pathetic.
Don’t think you needed the word sketch in the title, the whole thing is outdated and several of the sketches would now definitely be seen as racist, sexist etc. Never really got the appeal of the show myself to begin with
It’s still funny, but with the pc culture & people being easily offended these days it gets called racist.
It’s poking fun at stereotypes .
Yeah but, no but, yeah,but no but, shut up!
They’d still be given a series by Netflix though if you look at their more recent adult animation “comedies”. At least little Britain understood how to set up a horribly offensive joke, unlike now where writers just skip the joke part.
Why’s this news? Captain Hindsight working double shifts nowadays.
> The whole series was removed in 2020 but returned last year with some scenes edited out.
Hmm.
It’s weird how even on this sub p, which is supposedly left leaning and woke, the vast majority of people are against deplatforming and cancelling. I really don’t understand why there are so many institutions trying to cancel things they find offensive when they literally have 0 support. Baffling!
Little Britain is shite because it’s shite not because it’s racist.
It was a great show and everyone loved it at the time.
Oh hell, just ban all comedy, someone is always laughing at or about someone else, it’s digraceful. If we witch hunt until everyone thinks the same, nobody can be offended. Everyone who disagrees is an outdated, racist, thought-crime monster.
Never watched that kind of rubbish, but in honesty a lot of our old t.v. shows were frequently racist, misogynist, homophobic etc. Times change, society changes as the civilisation matures. (Well some of it does, the cave people like to try and hold it back though)
It was great and a cultural phenomenon. Same as Ali G.
Ofcom going to start counting how many cry during comedy shows in new study
It hasn’t aged well. It was funny for its time, but the jokes kinda run dry.
The majority of Little Britain was satirising British people and British attitudes, the minority characters were rarely the butt of the joke, the joke was usually the pigheaded ignorance of the character played by Lucas/Walliams. I’d consider Ping Pong to be the most offensive character.
ITT:
Performative contrarians going all in on one side of a nuanced situation.
It’s ok to have found the show funny when it came out, a lot of people did, but that was a relatively long time ago, and culture has changed a lot since then.
It’s also ok to decide that the harm caused by some parts of it outweighs the joy brought by other parts of it. Unfortunately there are people that get joy from the harmful parts of it, that’s not ideal, but what are you going to do about it?
Our opinions aren’t collective, everyone has subjective views that sit on a spectrum, that spectrum changes over time, but the ends of the spectrum have always existed.*
*TLDR: What everyone thinks is ok or not ok is different, and has changed over time.
Parts of Little Britain, and a lot of content from that period of time contain aspects that are now considered not ok. It’s worth noting that some of the harmful aspects were used to criticise and laugh at racists, homophobes, bigots etc. but that wasn’t always the case.
You could say that regardless of intent, these men made content that they probably knew was upsetting to minority groups that they weren’t a part of. They probably recognise that a lot of the content they made wouldn’t be considered ok today.
If you actually care enough about watching it now then there will always be ways of accessing it.
If you don’t want to watch it, no one is going to make you watch it.
It’s up to you to figure out if it’s ok for you to decide what is offensive to groups you’re not a part of. It’s obviously fine to criticise parts of Little Britain that you felt were harmful to groups you are a part of, or not, depending on the context.
It’s very unlikely you’ll change anyone’s opinion by arguing online.
Lots of people here not offended by offensive jokes that aren’t aimed at them. So brave!
Ofcom why now? Surely you could go have noticed this a while back.
Little Britain: a complete pile of shit.
More at 10.
I love these threads when so many racists come out of the woodwork to defend something, without even reading the article. People saying stop complaining, people saying don’t ban it etc., when neither of those things have happened.
OfCom polled people, people gave their view. That’s it.
Meh, with or without the racism – Little Britain wasn’t funny. It was just a collection of soundbites that people with the IQ/sense of humour of a flea repeated in real world conversation as often as possible.
I reckon I’d find the funeral of a close loved one more amusing than Karen at work saying “computer says no” and thinking she’s hilarious when I ask her for a favour.
Fuck that shite