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I personally wasn't offended by Garnett and thought the show was well written and I felt guilty about laughing at it and enjoying it but I have to say I used to cringe at the things he used to say which must have been very offensive to a lot of people.
I doubt anybody was influenced to be racist because a TV character was racist. Given he always came out on the losing side being outsmarted by a "savage", it's imo silly. If he was presented as a likeable chap, giving the impression that his views were acceptable then I'd agree... but that's the complete opposite.
If the view is that those words should be banned in all circumstances, then it raises a large number of issues.
1) Documentaries of far right groups, exposing their racism would be banned.
2) Other offensive language would also have to be banned; documentaries showing the extent of and build up to Holocaust would also be banned.
3) Fictional TV gets affected - police drama showing racist being arrested, tried, jailed - banned due to the language.
I'm not defending the language, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying it's far more nuanced than offensive / non-offensive and removing context is fairly draconian
Sorry, don't agree with you mate and I was around at the time. The main character was not someone you admired. Anyone with half a brain knew that Alf Garnett was a hopeless racist bigot who spouted bile intended to shock. Even his long suffering family struggled to put up with him. The intention was to highlight bigotry that was far more prevalent than it is now not give someone a platform on which to galvanise a very small section of society.
Anyone with half a brain is not everyone, we have already read a story about somebody congratulating the actor on taking the mickey out of non whites, his character often used the C word for Black people and I noticed that word became more in vogue than the N word for a time coinciding with his show, might have just been coincidence who knows.
I sense the point has flown over your head.
Alf Garnett was shown to be shitty human being, little to no redeeming virtues. He was nowhere close to being a sympathetic character, he was there to be shown as a vile misogynistic racist... anybody championing his racism no doubt already shares those characteristics.
No, here's the original script, it was 3 not 8, but there's a "wogs" in there as a bonus:
EaTShhMXYAAt-ue.jpg
The joke is that the Colonel is a relic of a different time but probably for the best it's been edited eh
Context isn't everything, but it is important.
When Till Death Do Us Part was on TV originally it was surrounded by casual racist depictions and normalised bigotry passing as humour. Bernard Manning was on prime time, the Black And White Minstrels had a mid evening slot, a lot of TV drama had black and asian characters as caricatures (often criminal or defined by curry), and Enoch Powell (and sadly, the London dockers) has just done their bit for race relations. Alf Garnett in that context was cutting edge anti-racist satire. He even did a very good job of making a hero out of the 'Scouse git'.
Great news Cleese hit the nail on the head with his comments .
Leaving aside The Major and the Manuel baiting, the next focus of Fawlty Towers attention is clear:
Fawlty Towers OReilly.jpg
The whole point of Johnny Speight’s writing was to depict Alf as a prick that nobody who want to be like.
I think my point has flown over your head, thick people or young impressionable teenagers might be influenced by his character, I have read about the actor being in character in the theater saying something racist and getting a clap or cheer from the odd person in the audience and the actor feeling awkward about it.
For a few minutes there I had you mixed up with the guy who said Naturally born UK citizens are in a minority in some UK cities, who will never buy another Chinese takeaway because of what they did on Covid-19 and the reason why had not seen the levels of infection and Covid-19 deaths compared with Italy and Spain was because of our genes and DNA.
You might want to check whether your account has been hacked. Possibly just now!
My favourite Fawlty sketch is the took the girlfriend to see India job, lol.
A bloke I worked with it was his favourite sketch also, was it ok at the time......hmm
Is it ok now ?, same with most Alf Garnett sketches are they ok now ?