Even Woke Comics Aren’t Safe - TPQ

Tom Slater on how PC is bad for comedy of all political persuasions.

Russell Howard claims the BBC asked him to tweak a routine in case it offended ISIS claims the BBC asked him to tweak a routine in case it offended ISIS …

In the wake of the Paris attacks, he wrote a bit for his then BBC show, Russell Howard’s Good News, lambasting the ISIS killers as ‘warmongering pricks’ and insisting that they aren’t Muslims, but terrorists. This apparently set off alarm bells with the executives, who made him change it to say that the jihadists aren’t ‘devout Muslims’.

‘Are you worried we are going to offend ISIS? Are they going to write in?’, joked Howard, on his Sky show last week: ‘Dear Points of View, Imagine my horror when I was misrepresented on a late-night satire show. Farouk and I will be cancelling our TV licence. Please excuse my handwriting, I have a hook for a hand’ …

... But it reminds us that political correctness, for lack of a less tired phrase, isn’t just about silencing certain opinions. Rather, it’s a kind of free-floating speech phobia that can take over whenever someone strays into controversial territory – even to make, as in Howard’s case, a thoroughly right-on remark.

Continue reading @ Spiked Online.

Even Woke Comics Aren’t Safe

Tom Slater on how PC is bad for comedy of all political persuasions.

Russell Howard claims the BBC asked him to tweak a routine in case it offended ISIS claims the BBC asked him to tweak a routine in case it offended ISIS …

In the wake of the Paris attacks, he wrote a bit for his then BBC show, Russell Howard’s Good News, lambasting the ISIS killers as ‘warmongering pricks’ and insisting that they aren’t Muslims, but terrorists. This apparently set off alarm bells with the executives, who made him change it to say that the jihadists aren’t ‘devout Muslims’.

‘Are you worried we are going to offend ISIS? Are they going to write in?’, joked Howard, on his Sky show last week: ‘Dear Points of View, Imagine my horror when I was misrepresented on a late-night satire show. Farouk and I will be cancelling our TV licence. Please excuse my handwriting, I have a hook for a hand’ …

... But it reminds us that political correctness, for lack of a less tired phrase, isn’t just about silencing certain opinions. Rather, it’s a kind of free-floating speech phobia that can take over whenever someone strays into controversial territory – even to make, as in Howard’s case, a thoroughly right-on remark.

Continue reading @ Spiked Online.

2 comments:

DaithiOD9:30 PM, June 21, 2019
“...insisting that they aren’t Muslims, but terrorists...”

Unintentionally his best joke.
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Ciaran Goggins11:51 AM, June 22, 2019
I am based.
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Anthony McIntyre