ian.64 wrote:


There's aspects of this thread which cross-over to the "Slade" and "Nows About That Then" threads.
Lately, theres been so much about the 70s thats been collectivly, culturly obliterated.
But for me, if I never have to experience the aroma of cigarettes, stale booze and dustbins again, I'll be happy.
As long as I can see episodes of "The Brady Bunch" again, I'll be alright.

On a slightly related note, did anyone else feel uncomfortable about the portrayal of the Chinese snowmen (on the left in the picture) in "The Snowman and the Snowdog"?

Bored of Education wrote:


I'm suggesting the exact opposite, Bored.

If you'll allow me, though, I would suggest that if clarity is your aim, saying "the former" when you mean "the latter" is perhaps unwise.

I don't know what "racism is the actor" means.

So you knew what Bored actually meant?

G-Man wrote:


Sorry, are you on about the former/latter thing? If so, no, I found that confusing. Or are you on about something else?

Ideas - such as racism - can clearly exist, and influence people, in a culture without someone constantly & intentionally working on their behalf. They are actors in that sense, surely?

There was conscious intention in the past, from blackface to Bernard Manning, but their works no longer need to be consciously recreated because they are already there. They can cause damage purely by being played around with carelessly and recklessly, which is what LB does. I don't think it's wrong to hold LB and others to account when they don't give due consideration to the fire they are toying with.

The latter/former thing. Your post seemed to imply that you had understood what Bored meant, hence your grammatical reprimand.

Well, you are going to have to clarify yourself then because you seem to be indicating that I need to "convince" you of something. This is either convincing you of my argument which, I think, we are perhaps beyond or my initial intentions or something. I am not sure what it is.



Well, clarity is my aim but it is not one I always achieve hence my need to clarify further often. I assumed that you realised the by former, I actually mean "latter" i.e. LoG, LB and Enfield and Whitehouse. You definitely realise this now, don't you?



The action in my statement is "slyly creeping in", the actor is "racism" rather than the writers of the above. Is this more clear?

Look, WE, I don't want to take this to one of these navel-gazing meta-threads going wildly off the subject but I don't quite get how, possibly for the sake of peace and quiet, you let certain other posters' more wild and/or offensive claims go unchecked and, yet, with a bit of clumsy language on my part (that you appear to worked out for youself where the error lay) you are all over me like an ursus. Now, I know you haven't taken against me and I am fairly sure that you regard yourself as fairly even-handed in your treatment of others so I just thought I would point it out as it is getting a touch exasperating

It's not a "grammatical reprimand"; grammar doesn't come into it. He wrote one thing and seems--though I'm still not 100% sure--to have meant the opposite, which made me unsure what he was talking about. This added to my confusion about what he meant by "slyly"--confusion I'm still kind of mired in, to be honest.

If the claim is that the authors are smuggling in racism on the sly, I disagree entirely. I now think that isn't quite what he's saying, but I don't really understand what he is saying. I agree that not everything can be reduced to authorial intent, and that it's possible, as it were, to be racist without meaning to be. But in this case, I think it's clear that Papa Lazarou bears no relation to an actual black person, and is a kind of theatrical grotesque, and I think that's important.

No, that is not the claim at all and I thought I clarified that since. If not, this is me clarifying it.



This is more along the lines of what I was thinking but I also think, and this is an important point in my argument, that white male comedians have felt that they can start rehabilitating such comic forms as blackface or racist comedians such as Manning and Brown and I don't think they are in a position where they can do this without challenge.



I disagree but both of our views are subjective on this particular point