I'd like to tackle the question of racism on TV, especially in the seventies and especially in the UK and Ireland. Particularly on comedy shows, there were serious racial stereotypes that always cropped up - the drunken Irish navvy, the Indian who owned (anyone) an Indian takeaway, the Sikh with his turban, the Chinaman - there to give a few laughs. I was brought up in that climate, and when young I of course saw nothing wrong with it. Looking back now, I kind of still don't but I wonder: was it for cheap laughs, was it lazy writing, was it to "include" these other races or was it evidence of a more deep-seated and dark dislike and prejudice towards these other people?
When you're racist and funny about it, it seems not to matter as much. There were a glut of TV shows in the 70s here that survived on racism -
It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Minder, Till Death Do Us Part (of which more later),
Only When I Laugh, Are You Being Served? The Sweeney, and hundreds more. Some were comedy, some were drama with a little humour thrown in. But all used things like gay stereotypes (
Minder used the cockney term "Iron" for gays, and for a long time I could not make the connection. It's "Iron hoof" - Poof. Sigh) and even blacks were referred to as anything from wogs to chocolate bunnies. Later shows, too, and popular ones, like
Only Fools and Horses continued this trend, and though it was all tongue in cheek, how much was it meant to be "just a laugh"? Were the writers saying "Ah you're one of the lads" to a black/Irish/Chinaman/Insert here, or using their writing as a way to mock and racially abuse them under the guise of comedy? Have we now swung too far the other way, afraid to make any reference that might be construed as racist?
I was on a trivia quiz website a while back and made reference in one of my quizzes to an "oriental gentleman". I was told that term was racist. Really? How could "gentleman" be racist?
Seriously: oriental used to describe someone from the Far East/Asia, which was known as The Orient, so how could calling someone oriental be racist? Might as well say it's racist to call me a Hibernian, or a native of Maynmar a Burmese.