6 ms·

From Matt Lucas himself regarding Little Britain: 'Speaking in October 2017, Lucas stated that if he were to remake Little Britain he would avoid making jokes

From Matt Lucas himself regarding Little Britain: 'Speaking in October 2017, Lucas stated that if he were to remake Little Britain he would avoid making jokes about transvestites and would not play the role of a black character, saying, "Basically, I wouldn't make that show now. It would upset people. We made a more cruel kind of comedy than I'd do now... Society has moved on a lot since then and my own views have evolved".' Basically the risk taking has gone in modern comedy.

Ar-Curunir 1y ago
That’s what you got from the quote? Not the part about being cruel?
- JFingleton 1y ago
  Yes i did... The risk of being cruel, and other things.
  - croes 1y ago
    Cruel against whom? Cruelty against the already marginalized is an easy target. Kicking downwards is easy.
glimshe 1y ago
My son is a teenager but loves to watch old politically incorrect comedies like "Airplane". There's no way you could make that movie today... but there's certainly a market for it, cruel or not. Now that I think about it, it's no more cruel than what most kids watch on YouTube today.
- nkrisc 1y ago
  It's been a few years since I watched Airplane, and while I absolutely love it, I recall it being rather tame even by modern standards. I can think of a few gags that might not land as well today, but I don't think it was mean-spirited.
  - lmm 1y ago
    "Oh, stewardess! I speak jive" would absolutely get you cancelled today. I don't think it's mean-spirited either but that's not enough to save you these days.
    - nemomarx 1y ago
      change jive to aave and I think the joke works pretty similar now? just needs modern slang
    - anton-c 1y ago
      Black man uses heavy black slang isn't an offensive joke. They sound cool. When I watched it recently the joke that kinda flops is the heavily stereotyped gay man. Whether it is offensive I have no idea. Its not flattering.
      - lmm 1y ago
        > Black man uses heavy black slang isn't an offensive joke. They sound cool. Sure, the old white woman using heavy black slang is where the joke comes in.
        veridies 1y ago
        In Blindspotting (2018), a white protagonist is shown as being able to fluently speak an incomprehensibly dense version of AAVE, and it’s revealed later he has no idea what he’s saying (despite communicating effectively). I’ve never seen anyone criticize that joke.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
        anton-c 1y ago
        The first time without her is funny though too I don't get it does that make her a racist or something? She tries to help. The joke is: their slang is so heavy its another language. Personally make fun of zoomers all the time for this.
- bryanrasmussen 1y ago
  Airplane could be made today, the central premise would hold up well, some of the skits in it would have to be dropped or altered. Most things that were made in one period could not be made whole cloth in another period.
  - OJFord 1y ago
    You think they'd do the jive bit (or an equivalent)? Closest I'd expect would be gen whatever slang with the yeeting sigmas to Ohio etc.
    - bee_rider 1y ago
      I think either way it would be unfunny because 1) jive isn’t something many people have encountered nowadays and 2) “internet slang is incomprehensible” is an overdone joke.
      - OJFord 1y ago
        1 is why I said or an equivalent - you could do the same with pidgin or any creole or, I don't know if this is a PC way to say it, but any kind of 'hood' or 'ghetto' type slang. The joke is just person is 'fluent' in an unlikely dialect/way of speaking. If cockney rhyming slang were more prevalent you could do that, with you know a black American or Asian person or whatever being the unlikely fluent one. 2 is is not really the point, sure it could flop, my point was just that I couldn't imagine it going further than that, not that that would be funny.
    - AngryData 1y ago
      There are tons of dialects and accents and group slang that the joke could be done with. Doing basic generational slang would likely flop, but you could easily use something like a thick accent from Texas like Boomhower in King of the Hill, or a Louisiana Creole accent, or some deep Appalacian accent, or some Spanglish.
  - TMWNN 1y ago
    >Airplane could be made today, the central premise would hold up well, some of the skits in it would have to be dropped or altered. In other words, not Airplane!.
- teamonkey 1y ago
  There’s a sequel to Naked Gun coming out soon, starring Liam Neeson. Whether it’ll be any good or do well at the box office is a different question.
- isaacremuant 1y ago
  You could absolutely make airplane today. It just depends who does it and some people may attack it but who the hell cares.
  - gosub100 1y ago
    not in Hollywood, is what I think the poster meant, due to the political sickness that has infected them as of late.
    - foldr 1y ago
      Airplane is mostly physical humor and dumb wordplay. 90% of the jokes would be fine as-is. There are a few you'd have to update, but that's hardly surprising for a movie released 35 years ago. You could have said the same in 1980 about most comedies made in 1945.
      - gosub100 1y ago
        the scene of the arabs walking into the airport with RPGs and machine guns wouldn't make the cut.
        foldr 1y ago
        Are you talking about this scene from Airplane 2? I don't remember a scene with 'Arabs' going through security in the first one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meFJCeUWDyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meFJCeUWDyY
        gosub100 1y ago
        we're both right|wrong - no, I was wrong that the person passing thru security was in any possible way "arab" - yes it's from Airplane 2 - No it's not from the metal detector scene - Yes it's from Iranians - No Iranians are not "arabs" - Yes They are engaged in a stereotypical crime - No it doesn't involve an RPG - yes it involves a battle rifle / something that doesn't belong at an airport https://postimg.cc/0rTzkhyR https://postimg.cc/0rTzkhyR
cam_l 1y ago
Yeah, none of that was what was funny about little Britain... and I think you missed the point.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
thinkingemote 1y ago
A lot of comedy back then was about laughing at the absurdities of a shared life. The absurdities of yesterday have been changed - and there can be no actual normality today when there are no absurdities. Laughing at absurdities was not considered cruel. With no common shared understanding of what's funny or not. Today we can laugh at cruel people only. The cruel and those who think others are weird are the strange ones. Comedy used to be "look at us, hahaha" now it's "look at them, heh". Real comedy has truth and the truth is always about ourselves not some external other. But such vulnerability is very risky.
mgkimsal 1y ago
I suspect the same number of people were upset in 2006 as would be upset in 2017. But there wasn't a social media platform for those upset views to be expressed and easily measured. This idea of "oh everyone is offended these days" is a bit weird to me; the 'these days' part I mean. There was a lot of comedy from the past that was... awkward to me as a kid, or just... felt unnecessarily cruel. But I was in a minority, or at least felt like it, with some of those. And... I don't think I changed, but I now can hear/read about others who share the same sensibilities on comedic topics. The notion that it's somehow "more" people getting "offended" today just strikes me as odd. It may be that as more folks have a platform to share their views, that influences some folks, but I'm not sure that works on all topics. Certainly... on comedy, I've heard many of complaints about some comics/topics. Rarely has anyone's view of a comedy bit made me change my position. If I found it cringe/bad, I found it cringe/bad.
- enaaem 1y ago
  During my childhood it were always the Christian conservatives who try to ban video games or get outraged when they say half a nipple on TV.
- StefanBatory 1y ago
  back in days you'd just be "allowed" to make fun out of minorities with them not being able to fight back. now you aren't, and thus the majorities are "oppressed" and everything is "politically correct". i'm bi. sometimes I watch old Polish comedies or standups. The amount of "jokes" that are just good old bigotry is stupendous. so when people say they're tired of "political correctness", I do wonder if they mean - I am no longer allowed to be bigot openly, why can't I kick those who I consider to be below me.
  - generic92034 1y ago
    Well, looks like in some countries at least open bigotry and discrimination have a comeback.
  - ipaddr 1y ago
    People made fun of others and themselves. Now it's only okay to "punch up" which makes things unfunny. It's great you can make fun of religion well only one religion but the rules constrain novel ideas that push outside of those rules to make actual humor. Tell me something I haven't heard before with some truth. The repeated going back to the well makes everything unfunny. The first time a Polish joke was said was in Poland many Polish watching laughed because their was kernel of truth that made it funny but years later hearing it repeated like it's gospel makes it awful because people have changed but the joke doesn't so it doesn't land as true anymore. Once we start looking why the joke is untrue instead of why it's true the joke is dead. Saturday night live always tries to go back to a joke that was never really that funny.
kristianc 1y ago
Little Britain just hasn’t aged well. The sketches were always more about repetition than wit, relied on caricature a lot and mistook shock value for satire. You couldn’t make Little Britain today mostly because it wasn’t very good, and the standards of the time were lower. You could absolutely remake The Day Today, Brass Eye, Goodness Gracious Me or Peep Show today and they’d be just as good.
- rightbyte 1y ago
  I think Little Britain kicked downwards. I really distasted it when it was running.
  - kristianc 1y ago
    I agree, it’s often held up as a “risk taking” show but I don’t think it wasn’t really anything of the sort. At the moment post 1997 when Britain was starting to change and become more diverse and sure of it itself it reinforced an identify of Britain as it used to think of itself: silly voices, binary identities and oddballs. It has more in common with Love Thy Neighbour than anything that came after.
    - rightbyte 1y ago
      The contrast to Monthy Python's take is quite stark. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jF-CkMpQtlY&pp=ygUUdmlsbGFnZSBpZGlvdCBtb250aHk%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jF-CkMpQtlY&pp=ygUUdmlsbGFnZSB...
  - fidotron 1y ago
    Yeah, that whole era of things like the Jimmy Carr gameshows were honestly a sort of mass nastiness as entertainment. This business where we're all supposed to be surprised by what Russell Brand was up to despite him being incredibly open about it at the time is the same thing: society wants to blame the highly visible individuals of that era but in truth it was the audience that wanted this stuff that were the problem.
- rozenmd 1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
krisoft 1y ago
> Basically the risk taking has gone in modern comedy. As if the only kind of risk you could take is punching down at trans and black people.
arp242 1y ago
There's an interview with Bob Monkhouse about making TV in the 50s/60s; he wasn't allowed to say "condom" on TV, and would get fined if he said "bloody". There's as always a "taboo" on some things. Lots of jokes about sex and religion today that would see you completely crucified in the past. Do you think The Thick of It could have been made in the 80s? I never cared for Little Britain and haven't seen it, so I can't comment on their "jokes about transvestites", but this whining about "PC gone mad!" has been going on for 40+ years. A few decades ago it was about "you can't make fun of the pakis and nig-nogs any more!"
foldr 1y ago
Little Britain was always crap and completely mainstream and non-edgy. It's a series of one joke sketches based on familiar stereotypes. I don't want to 'cancel' it, and the occasional sketch gets a titter out of me. But to hold it up as an example of edgy, groundbreaking comedy is quite absurd. You can find oodles of much edgier and funnier shows on British TV today.

Ar-Curunir 1y ago

That’s what you got from the quote? Not the part about being cruel?

JFingleton 1y ago
Yes i did... The risk of being cruel, and other things.
- croes 1y ago
  Cruel against whom? Cruelty against the already marginalized is an easy target. Kicking downwards is easy.

glimshe 1y ago

My son is a teenager but loves to watch old politically incorrect comedies like "Airplane". There's no way you could make that movie today... but there's certainly a market for it, cruel or not. Now that I think about it, it's no more cruel than what most kids watch on YouTube today.

nkrisc 1y ago
It's been a few years since I watched Airplane, and while I absolutely love it, I recall it being rather tame even by modern standards. I can think of a few gags that might not land as well today, but I don't think it was mean-spirited.
- lmm 1y ago
  "Oh, stewardess! I speak jive" would absolutely get you cancelled today. I don't think it's mean-spirited either but that's not enough to save you these days.
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    change jive to aave and I think the joke works pretty similar now? just needs modern slang
  - anton-c 1y ago
    Black man uses heavy black slang isn't an offensive joke. They sound cool. When I watched it recently the joke that kinda flops is the heavily stereotyped gay man. Whether it is offensive I have no idea. Its not flattering.
    - lmm 1y ago
      > Black man uses heavy black slang isn't an offensive joke. They sound cool. Sure, the old white woman using heavy black slang is where the joke comes in.
      - veridies 1y ago
        In Blindspotting (2018), a white protagonist is shown as being able to fluently speak an incomprehensibly dense version of AAVE, and it’s revealed later he has no idea what he’s saying (despite communicating effectively). I’ve never seen anyone criticize that joke.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - anton-c 1y ago
        The first time without her is funny though too I don't get it does that make her a racist or something? She tries to help. The joke is: their slang is so heavy its another language. Personally make fun of zoomers all the time for this.
bryanrasmussen 1y ago
Airplane could be made today, the central premise would hold up well, some of the skits in it would have to be dropped or altered. Most things that were made in one period could not be made whole cloth in another period.
- OJFord 1y ago
  You think they'd do the jive bit (or an equivalent)? Closest I'd expect would be gen whatever slang with the yeeting sigmas to Ohio etc.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    I think either way it would be unfunny because 1) jive isn’t something many people have encountered nowadays and 2) “internet slang is incomprehensible” is an overdone joke.
    - OJFord 1y ago
      1 is why I said or an equivalent - you could do the same with pidgin or any creole or, I don't know if this is a PC way to say it, but any kind of 'hood' or 'ghetto' type slang. The joke is just person is 'fluent' in an unlikely dialect/way of speaking. If cockney rhyming slang were more prevalent you could do that, with you know a black American or Asian person or whatever being the unlikely fluent one. 2 is is not really the point, sure it could flop, my point was just that I couldn't imagine it going further than that, not that that would be funny.
  - AngryData 1y ago
    There are tons of dialects and accents and group slang that the joke could be done with. Doing basic generational slang would likely flop, but you could easily use something like a thick accent from Texas like Boomhower in King of the Hill, or a Louisiana Creole accent, or some deep Appalacian accent, or some Spanglish.
- TMWNN 1y ago
  >Airplane could be made today, the central premise would hold up well, some of the skits in it would have to be dropped or altered. In other words, not Airplane!.
teamonkey 1y ago
There’s a sequel to Naked Gun coming out soon, starring Liam Neeson. Whether it’ll be any good or do well at the box office is a different question.
isaacremuant 1y ago
You could absolutely make airplane today. It just depends who does it and some people may attack it but who the hell cares.
- gosub100 1y ago
  not in Hollywood, is what I think the poster meant, due to the political sickness that has infected them as of late.
  - foldr 1y ago
    Airplane is mostly physical humor and dumb wordplay. 90% of the jokes would be fine as-is. There are a few you'd have to update, but that's hardly surprising for a movie released 35 years ago. You could have said the same in 1980 about most comedies made in 1945.
    - gosub100 1y ago
      the scene of the arabs walking into the airport with RPGs and machine guns wouldn't make the cut.
      - foldr 1y ago
        Are you talking about this scene from Airplane 2? I don't remember a scene with 'Arabs' going through security in the first one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meFJCeUWDyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meFJCeUWDyY
        gosub100 1y ago
        we're both right|wrong - no, I was wrong that the person passing thru security was in any possible way "arab" - yes it's from Airplane 2 - No it's not from the metal detector scene - Yes it's from Iranians - No Iranians are not "arabs" - Yes They are engaged in a stereotypical crime - No it doesn't involve an RPG - yes it involves a battle rifle / something that doesn't belong at an airport https://postimg.cc/0rTzkhyR https://postimg.cc/0rTzkhyR

cam_l 1y ago

Yeah, none of that was what was funny about little Britain... and I think you missed the point.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

thinkingemote 1y ago

A lot of comedy back then was about laughing at the absurdities of a shared life. The absurdities of yesterday have been changed - and there can be no actual normality today when there are no absurdities. Laughing at absurdities was not considered cruel. With no common shared understanding of what's funny or not. Today we can laugh at cruel people only. The cruel and those who think others are weird are the strange ones. Comedy used to be "look at us, hahaha" now it's "look at them, heh". Real comedy has truth and the truth is always about ourselves not some external other. But such vulnerability is very risky.

mgkimsal 1y ago

I suspect the same number of people were upset in 2006 as would be upset in 2017. But there wasn't a social media platform for those upset views to be expressed and easily measured. This idea of "oh everyone is offended these days" is a bit weird to me; the 'these days' part I mean. There was a lot of comedy from the past that was... awkward to me as a kid, or just... felt unnecessarily cruel. But I was in a minority, or at least felt like it, with some of those. And... I don't think I changed, but I now can hear/read about others who share the same sensibilities on comedic topics. The notion that it's somehow "more" people getting "offended" today just strikes me as odd. It may be that as more folks have a platform to share their views, that influences some folks, but I'm not sure that works on all topics. Certainly... on comedy, I've heard many of complaints about some comics/topics. Rarely has anyone's view of a comedy bit made me change my position. If I found it cringe/bad, I found it cringe/bad.

enaaem 1y ago
During my childhood it were always the Christian conservatives who try to ban video games or get outraged when they say half a nipple on TV.
StefanBatory 1y ago
back in days you'd just be "allowed" to make fun out of minorities with them not being able to fight back. now you aren't, and thus the majorities are "oppressed" and everything is "politically correct". i'm bi. sometimes I watch old Polish comedies or standups. The amount of "jokes" that are just good old bigotry is stupendous. so when people say they're tired of "political correctness", I do wonder if they mean - I am no longer allowed to be bigot openly, why can't I kick those who I consider to be below me.
- generic92034 1y ago
  Well, looks like in some countries at least open bigotry and discrimination have a comeback.
- ipaddr 1y ago
  People made fun of others and themselves. Now it's only okay to "punch up" which makes things unfunny. It's great you can make fun of religion well only one religion but the rules constrain novel ideas that push outside of those rules to make actual humor. Tell me something I haven't heard before with some truth. The repeated going back to the well makes everything unfunny. The first time a Polish joke was said was in Poland many Polish watching laughed because their was kernel of truth that made it funny but years later hearing it repeated like it's gospel makes it awful because people have changed but the joke doesn't so it doesn't land as true anymore. Once we start looking why the joke is untrue instead of why it's true the joke is dead. Saturday night live always tries to go back to a joke that was never really that funny.

kristianc 1y ago

Little Britain just hasn’t aged well. The sketches were always more about repetition than wit, relied on caricature a lot and mistook shock value for satire. You couldn’t make Little Britain today mostly because it wasn’t very good, and the standards of the time were lower. You could absolutely remake The Day Today, Brass Eye, Goodness Gracious Me or Peep Show today and they’d be just as good.

rightbyte 1y ago
I think Little Britain kicked downwards. I really distasted it when it was running.
- kristianc 1y ago
  I agree, it’s often held up as a “risk taking” show but I don’t think it wasn’t really anything of the sort. At the moment post 1997 when Britain was starting to change and become more diverse and sure of it itself it reinforced an identify of Britain as it used to think of itself: silly voices, binary identities and oddballs. It has more in common with Love Thy Neighbour than anything that came after.
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    The contrast to Monthy Python's take is quite stark. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jF-CkMpQtlY&pp=ygUUdmlsbGFnZSBpZGlvdCBtb250aHk%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jF-CkMpQtlY&pp=ygUUdmlsbGFnZSB...
- fidotron 1y ago
  Yeah, that whole era of things like the Jimmy Carr gameshows were honestly a sort of mass nastiness as entertainment. This business where we're all supposed to be surprised by what Russell Brand was up to despite him being incredibly open about it at the time is the same thing: society wants to blame the highly visible individuals of that era but in truth it was the audience that wanted this stuff that were the problem.
rozenmd 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

krisoft 1y ago

> Basically the risk taking has gone in modern comedy. As if the only kind of risk you could take is punching down at trans and black people.

arp242 1y ago

There's an interview with Bob Monkhouse about making TV in the 50s/60s; he wasn't allowed to say "condom" on TV, and would get fined if he said "bloody". There's as always a "taboo" on some things. Lots of jokes about sex and religion today that would see you completely crucified in the past. Do you think The Thick of It could have been made in the 80s? I never cared for Little Britain and haven't seen it, so I can't comment on their "jokes about transvestites", but this whining about "PC gone mad!" has been going on for 40+ years. A few decades ago it was about "you can't make fun of the pakis and nig-nogs any more!"

foldr 1y ago

Little Britain was always crap and completely mainstream and non-edgy. It's a series of one joke sketches based on familiar stereotypes. I don't want to 'cancel' it, and the occasional sketch gets a titter out of me. But to hold it up as an example of edgy, groundbreaking comedy is quite absurd. You can find oodles of much edgier and funnier shows on British TV today.