Sitcoms that couldn't be made today

robfosters

robfosters

robfosters

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Got thinking last night of just how many British sitcoms of the past couldn't be made today because of the march of political correctness and well, tbh, just plain decency. Lets save the debate on PC and the like for GD or SC, I'm just interested in the sitcoms and how they crossed the line of what is acceptable today.

I've thought of as many as I could. I'll start with the most obvious ones.

Curry & Chips
Love Thy Neighbour
In sickness and in health/Till death do us part

All guilty of outrageous racism. Now the rest.

Porridge - Racism towards Mclaren and slight homophobia
The likely lads - Racism and Xenophobia
Only Fools - Tenuous one this, but there are examples of casual racism and homophobia throughout
Dad's Army - 'Fuzzy wuzzies' would surely be construed as racist nowadays
Fawlty Towers - The Major in Particular, but Basil could be xenophobic too
Rising Damp - Rigsby was racist towards Philip
Gimme Gimme Gimme - Homophobic language
Men Behaving Badly - Tenuous, but one episode in particular would be thought of as homophobic now

That's all I can think of atm, can you think of any others? Again, lets not let it descend into a racism/PC argument.
 
Thekwango said:
Some of them are a bit of a stretch?

Only fools and horses?
Faulty towers?
Men behaving badly?

Might as well add Queer as Folk ?

But yea, In sickness and in health, oh that would give some folk heart attacks!! Could you imagine the melt down some people would have if that aired again.
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Have you ever seen the scene in Fawlty towers where the major talks about taking a girl to see cricket at Lords :eek:

Del Boy uses the four letter derogatory term for a Pakistani quite often and there is numerous other snippets which would be unacceptable today.

MBB was one episode in particular where Gary thought that Tony was gay and that he would have to move out if he was. There would be a scream up about that today.
 
Meridian said:
Wow, the point of those ones went right past you, didn't it? In each case the racism of the character is explicit, and the character is intended to be unpleaseant, at least part due to their racism. This is completely different to pushing racial stereotyping such as in Love Thy Neighbour, which was oblivious to the racism. But given the tendancy of some people to see Alf Garnett as a role model and wonder why people were laughing at his racism, it's not like you are alone.
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No the point didn’t go past me cleverclogs, I knew exactly what they were. But they still wouldn’t be able to be made today would they? That’s what my OP was about.
 
Shamikebab said:
For suggesting that your statement that Fawlty towers couldn't be made today is ridiculous?
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Shami, to clear things up, I mean, would the shows be commissioned today, using the original scripts. With Fawlty Towers, I believe the answer is no. With regards to the major scene with the cricket, the scriptwriter would probably get warned never to send in a script again!
 
Usher said:
Not sure about quite a few of those, if they still show them now on mainstream TV then how is that any different to making a new series with the same format.
One of the sitcoms that doesn't get repeated however is 'it aint half hot mum' using the words such as 'you is a load of pooftahs' It was last shown on BBC in 1984

One of the reasons reason the beeb banned it is because the Indian character Rangi Ram was played by a white man blacked up ( Michael Bates)
Apparently the Beeb have now relented and you can now download the first series

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/617487/BBC-bosses-It-Aint-Half-Hot-Mum
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They’re shown on mainstream TV but they make a lot of cuts. The BBC cut the majors scene from FT, and Gold always cut out the bits where Del Boy says **** on OFAH.
 
bazzabear said:
I dunno. In many of these, the bigotry is the object of ridicule, not the target of the bigotry.

In which case the overall approach doesn't differ so much from something like Al Murray or Ali G. (Which I know are still not current, but a lot closer.)
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Exactly. The most racist sitcoms like Alf Garnetts and curry and chips were written by Jonny Speight. He was an Eastender who took in all the abuse and bigotry he heard while in the pubs of the east end. He wrote characters like Garnett so the rest of the country could see how ridiculous they were and not laugh with them, but at them.
 
rebel rebel said:
Matt Lucas and David Walliams have both said that Little Britain would be too offensive in todays culture.
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Too right

Ting Tong - racist
The old woman who vomited on kids - racist
Marjorie Dawes - body shaming
Bubbles and Desiree DeVere - body shaming and racist
Emily Howard - LGBT community would have a field day with that one
Daffyd- Homophobia

The likes of Bitty and the bloke who fancied his mates gran would probably get canned just for decency.

Probably missed a few more too.
 
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