Black & White TV

London Fields # 70
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 14 October 2009
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

Perhaps the most contentious section of comedian Richard Herring’s Edinburgh show Hitler Moustache began when he chose to use the term “Paki” to make a point. In the UK it is no mere abbreviation, but one of the most taboo terms of racist abuse, a derogatory catch-all for anyone from the Asian subcontinent. I felt myself catch my breath as he uttered it, for it’s dangerous territory to tread. Herring is not a racist by any stretch, but there’s a risk in being quoted out of context, such as the furore that surrounded his “maybe the racists have a point” comment from elsewhere in the show. His expansive conjecture was that an extreme racist’s ‘us and them’ mentality was only one step away from the truly enlightened state of seeing that we’re all the same; so those liberals who see hundreds of separate races on Earth were hundreds of steps further away from the ideal. He went on to illustrate that if people from India and Pakistan saw themselves as a racist sees them (the same), they’d be no conflict between the countries. Now this was never meant to be a serious proposition; the whole point of his show was to challenge perceptions and assumptions.

There’s been another recent TV race row playing out in the papers, where Strictly Come Dancing contestant Anton Du Beke saw the spray-on tan of his partner Laila Rouass and exclaimed “You look like a Paki”. The comment was made off air, and apologies were quickly made and accepted. Yet it’s still shocking that such a remark could be made, even in ‘jest’. ‘Only joshing’ was Carol Thatcher’s excuse earlier this year too, when she used the word “golliwog” to describe tennis player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. It was also an off-air remark – the difference was that she refused to apologise (at least initially), saying there was nothing wrong with it. Rightfully, the BBC dismissed her, yet there are those who claim that the Beeb has not been even-handed in its handling of such incidents. Both the Celebrity Big Brother affair and Manuelgate are still fresh wounds in TV Land, and the BBC faces an uncertain future, particularly if there is a change in government at the next election.

Hence the BBC Trust’s latest broadcasting guidelines are reactionary, and the new restrictions on bad language feel like a visit from the ghost of Mary Whitehouse. Yet the modern world is one wherein you need to be more aware that certain, seemingly innocent words may carry a hidden weight. Only the other I week a responded to a ribald remark from a fellow employee with “cheeky monkey”, only to then freeze as I remembered that in England that word has nasty associations to anyone of black decent. And a few weeks earlier I was completely dumbfounded when a handyman at my flat started expressed some pretty hateful opinions, and used some racist expressions I’d never heard used in real life and hoped had been lost in the 1970s.

Yet the most shocking example of TV gone wrong recently wasn’t any of these, but the Jackson Jive act on Hey Hey It’s Saturday. It’s thirty years since Bert Newton wrongfooted Mohammed Ali with his infamous (yet genuinely innocent) “I like the boy” remark, and longer since The Black And White Minstrel Show was consigned to the cultural dustbin. So you’d have hoped that a true multicultural society might have become more attuned, yet the “Where’s Kamahl?” cartoon genuinely served to bundle all races of colour into the one basket that Richard Herring satirised. It isn’t about political correctness; it’s about being aware of a wider world - one in which the Lucky Country, with its detention camps and belated ‘Sorry’ is sometimes viewed as backward, homophobic and racist. Personally, I was simply embarrassed, and somewhat glad that this didn’t become a bigger story here, as it would have been impossible to defend my homeland. It’s not necessarily a question of racism, but it’s certainly one of sensitivity and awareness. Would they have been allowed to perform in blackface holding boomerangs, didgeridoos and a copy of the Mabo Treaty? To put it simply - “Wake Up Australia!”


© James McGalliard 2009