My last entry brought about the wonderful topic of "matters of perspective". My thanks to those who took the time to show me the R18 perspective - I may not agree, but at least I will (begin to) understand.
Along similar lines, a relatively recent article on Stuff about the humour of the BBC TV show Little Britain caught my eye.
Little Britain, as I am sure you know, is a very offensive television show, poking fun at some English stereotypes by presenting them in the most extreme light possible. This, according to the article, promotes hatred by inviting us all to laugh at groups of society.
What really struck me about the article though was this: isn't that really what a lot of humour is all about? Jokes about Irishmen, Scots, the French; pratfalls and farce; misunderstandings and double entendre - aren't they all, in one way or another laughing at people, and ourselves, as well? Does this mean these types of humour promote hatred of other nationalities; clumsy people; and the slow or stupid?
From my perspective, I cannot imagine a person who hated the Vicky Pollards or the Daffyds of the world watching a show that is all about them. Does that mean those that do watch these shows, such as myself, are slowly (or quickly) developing a hatred for those stereotypes I am invited to laugh at?
The surveys on which these kind of articles are based are beginning to annoy me. Of course these types of shows are offensive. Of course they "push the envelope". But isn't bringing the obscure into the mainstream also a way of destigmatising them, of showing the behaviours as either harmless or harmful rather than just "unknown"? I would choose to see this kind of show as forcing us to look at our own perceptions of things, of reassessing the prejudices and judgements we make about groups of people we may know nothing about, rather than actually forcing a point of view upon us. I choose to laugh at my ignorance of those different from myself, and hopefully learn something about the things that we share in common.
Verdict. I am up on my pulpit looking down on the masses, pointing my judgemental finger at those who try to crush humour in a misguided attempt at curbing hatred. One snort of derision out of a belly laugh.
1 comment:
Hmmmm except where humour or any other media reinforces stereotypes. What is worse, being invisible or having a stereotype reinforced? The thing of course about stereotypes is that there is often an element of truth in them. Being gay myself, I'm not at all offended by Daffyd....and who makes up the large part of the audience for Pam Ann?....flight attendants. Indeed, sometimes in order to truly understand the humour you need to be part of the group that is having the piss taken of it.
Does such humour promote or reinforce stereotypes, I would say it does. Certainly for those people looking for such reinforcement.
What I think is more important and where the true damage is done is the lack of positive stereotypes (can you have such a thing) and positive images. Even watching Wall E I was dismayed at the complete void of any same-sex reference. Much less the stereotype of a white man being the captain of the ship. If nothing else, how boring.
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