So in the wake of the BLM protests streaming websites such as netflix are banning TV shows such as Little Britain, The Inbetweeners & Come Fly With Me. The 'Germans' episode of Fawlty Towers has also been banned. What are people thoughts on this?

I’m glad I have the Fawlty Towers collection on VHS then! Now I just need a cassette player that works.

People I know are always banging on about DVD's been defunct thanks to all the streaming sites. I've got all the UK comedy classics on DVD so i guess I win!

Don't mention the war in front of the Germans. Is that really the reason Fawlty Towers is banned? I will go on record and say I have watched that show over over and love it. I see nothing wrong with that show. People are really getting ridiculous. Give me a fucking break.

imho it's ok to be bigoted towards germans so i think this is taking it a bit too far

EDIT: oh wait a second, is this the same episode where one of the characters says the N word? understandable, but i think it could have been cut out instead. maybe it's just the mandela effect but i'm pretty sure it's been done before.

George Carlin had a thing years ago in his stand up where he said heres a funny thing... you have a remote control and if you press the buttons it changes the channel. All these people that are selectively offended by anything you happen to like, they don't have to watch it! It's pathetic in my opinion but I think we are at the very start of something huge right now. The world is changing and not in a good way.

The BBC cut the racist language from broadcasts of that episode years ago - having one of their fits of 'missing the point', as the scene is a clear satire of dusty old upper-class bigotry. The below article from 2013 -

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2013/jan/23/fawlty-towers-isnt-racist-major-gowen-is

From what I've seen, there's actually not one group demanding the banning of that Fawlty Towers episode; this is wholly on the BBC.

As usual. I remember the Star Trek DS9 episode where Jadzia kisses another woman and in the USA it was shown in the deepest depths of the Bible Belt and didn't receive the a single complaint, it was however banned in England cause the BBC thinks women kissing is scary to the audience.

Absolutely, if someone is offended by Slayer or Marilyn Manson, there is a very easy solution, don't listen to them.
I remember in 2005 porn director Max Hardcore was arrested on obscenity charges. The movies in question involved visiting, pissing and vomiting. Not my cup of tea, but he did 46 months in prison over it. I saw an interview with his lawyer, who was a very clean cut, "normal" looking guy. He said something along the lines of I'm not into this, but I'll defend his right to freedom of speech. It all involved adults. If I'm not into it, or I am offended I can choose not to watch it. Very simple solution.

Agreed.

I'll never believe in censorship as a means to real change.

None of this has anything to do with change. As has already been mentioned with the examples named, the idea came from the BBC, same with the famous Gone With the Wind story, the idea came from HBO Max. It's not a response to anybody being offended by it like some here already claim, it was done purely by the companies to raise their profiles.

If you really think the kids making memes about how the puppy from Paw Patrol is a class traitor are both dead serious and the same people making the decision to take an episode of Fawlty Towers off of a streaming service then I'm sorry that there's no other way to put this but you're a fuckin' dolt.

Count me in.

1. I have a really hard time seeing this as anything close to censorship. That's watering down real censorship and free-speech issues.

2. Like droneriot wrote; this has nothing to do with "the world changing". You're being all Don Quixote here.

N word?

Nickel? Nathan? Nada? Nigeria? Necktie?

If you had a hard time seeing it as censorship before, this will make it even harder: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-53032895

Australian "comedian" Chris Lillee has had various shows banned, such as Summer Heights High and his various spin-off "comedies" from it that depict racial stereotypes among other things.

If anything, this should be cancelled because Chris Lillee is the worst comedian ever and Summer Heights High is the worst show in the world.

Sucks about Fawlty Towers, though. I might have to go get the DVD's of that.

The joke doesn't carry the same weight as it did back then, though. The upper-class are virtually extinct in the UK save for the royal family, who are slowly growing more unpopular. At this point it's a joke that appeals to nostalgia. There's no reason to leave it in because today's viewers don't want the word "nigger" to be used in any context. TV channels don't want angry viewers. Changing times, what are you going to do. I think removing the episode was too much however, and was probably done by a paranoid executive at UKTV who isn't really in touch with modern politics.



Excellent news! I think you guys are safe from the big bad PC brigade once again. All is well now that one episode of an old sitcom is back on the air. Don't let human rights issues get in the way of your TV.

Yeah everybody already had their favourite quotes together, from George Orwell books that they've never actually read, and then it's all nipped in the bud faster than it started.

If they hadn't announced it I bet nobody would have noticed or cared. Ask yourself: what's bothering you more, real human beings getting murdered by the police, or an episode of television getting pulled from re-airing?

It's largely meaningless, not actual, necessary change that protestors have been fighting for, but companies and media outlets are going to keep pulling stunts like this for a little while. Did anyone else see the band-aid thing?

There is a very vocal fringe element who are fighting exactly for this. There's a reason Gone with the Wind was also pulled from streaming services, or the statue of Edward Colston was destroyed in the UK. Not only are they fighting for change, they are fighting to rewrite history. They want any reference to slavery and racism removed from history books, and by extension, films and tv shows.

Hey remember like ten posts ago when people made it clear that it's not "erasing history" to take down statues and not watch an episode of Fawlty Towers? I guess attributing the exact opposite beliefs is close enough though.

Imagine seriously thinking that wanting shitty parts of history to remain in history books but not erected reverently in public spaces or flippantly joked about is wanting to erase history but wanting to enjoy certain problematic things without being reminded of the shitty things they represent isn't.

The vague "certain fringe/radical groups" want "x" without actually naming them or pointing to where they say the [insert ridiculous thing of your choice] is getting really tired.

Take the current protests as a classic example. There were about 5 different protests in London yesterday. When do these protests end? When racism is wiped from the face of the earth? (Sorry, white people being racist. It's okay to be racist in reverse) If so they will be protesting until the earth dies.

Protesting, banning TV series or books, telling people how they should think, writing lists of songs that wouldn't be tolerated today, ANTIFA getting black metal shows shut down, all of it is pointless if the end result they desire is to stop fascism, end racism, sexism, transism etc.

The reason being that people are people and the phobias, xenophobia, hates and pettiness isn't going to go away because you rock up to a protest and attack police horses.

It's typical of the world we live in now. The Premier League will have a month of rainbow corner flags to show solidarity with the LGBTQ community... wonderful. Do you honestly think that will change the minds of some knucklehead on the third row calling the someone a queer? Like he/she is going to see the rainbow coloured corner flag and think, shit what have I done with my life!!!

Ribbons, bracelets etc for various causes... It's all virtue signalling that you such a caring person whilst doing nothing of any significance whatsoever because in reality there is nothing any of us can do to change the way people are.

I have never once, throughout my entire life, seen the phrase "virtue signal" in an argument that wasn't total horseshit. That hasn't changed today.

Basically nothing you said has anything to do with the BBC taking a handful of shows out of circulation, something that no amount of antifa supersoldiers can accomplish, and is instead basically an aimless rant about how sjws should just give up since racism/sexism/whatever will never go away. Fuck making the world a better place, just keep living in fear under a discriminatory society because that's just the way it's always been and there's no need to change that.



He says during a massive protest movement that has so far led to the police department in Minneapolis being broken up



Because nobody has ever had a change of heart and learning is for squares. The people who want change know damn well that it's an uphill battle and most avenues for enacting meaningful change have been blocked off for eons because the people who benefit from an unequal society aren't stupid enough to allow it to change, and stubborn enablers like you are just one of the many, many, many roadblocks in the way.

Keep changing the subject to control the conversation though, it's rad and absolutely not tiring.

So who is keeping law and order in Minneapolis? Who is stopping the criminals who still live and operate there?

I'm not being a stubborn enabler and the banning of TV shows this week has stemmed from the protest so this is entirely on topic. I don't know what the situation in the US is, but here in the UK there is a vast element of people just trying watch the world burn. A girl I work with went to protest. Now you don't know her but I do and she is an attention seeking idiot who despite being Indian makes racist / terrorist jokes in the office, but is now protesting that racism should be abolished. Yes that is one example of one bad egg in the crowd but she is not alone in having selective principles.

In no way am I saying that I don't want the world to change. I don't want to live in a racist world, there are nice and nasty people from all different walks of life. I turn 38 in August in my nearly 38 years I've seen a lot and from what I can see nothing is going to change, certainly not long term. that isn't enabling, that's just pessimism!

This won't change anything though. The problem with the police is institutionalised. Until the police are publically held accountable for their actions, instead of the mafia style circling of the wagons and silence, nothing will change.

No doubt there's plenty of great cops doing great work. But the toxic cops are cancer, and the entire system is rotten. When you're living in a country where plain clothes cops can barge in into a living premises without declaring they are cops, and shoot dead one innocent occupant, and then arrest the other innocent occupant accusing them of attempted murder, something is badly broken. if these are the cops meant to protect, who are civilians supposed to rely on?

Saying because you can't change nobody else can is not pessimism, it's narcissism.

Doesn't even make sense. If people couldn't change their beliefs then why hold elections every four years? You could just do it once every 40 years if people's beliefs were written in stone.

@HeathenHordes people are demanding social justice for a reason. It's not up to you to decide whether it's a good or a bad thing, or whether it's constructive or not. It's just history. That's how civil rights movements work. When enough people are dissatisfied enough with life they will take collective action to deal with it. Welcome to the human race.

Nothing about what I've said is narcissism. I suggest you go and look up what the word means.

I'm not talking political views (Although in the UK certainly there is a large proportion of people who will vote for 'their' party without even reading a manifesto or watching/listening to debates.)

I'm taking about racism and homophobia. The majority of people are set in their ways and as previously mentioned no amount of colourful wrist bands is going to change that. It's the same with the current protests. This weekend (In the UK - As I've said previously I can't comment on the US situation as I don't live there and our news in this country is woeful) as we all the BLM protests we now have the right wingers out protesting before the left wingers are protesting. No attitudes are being changed, it's an eternal stalemate of bickering and quarrelling. (Pretty much what this has turned into)

But is it really "banning" when a production company takes something off the air? Something they own the rights to? That notion is like claiming you're censored when you don't get record deal for your band.

Okay you seem to have some very basic difficulties reading and understanding which explains things a bit more. If your brain has difficulty processing new information as you have just demonstrated then yes, in your case it will be impossible to change an internalised mindset. Most people do not have these difficulties though, and yes, assuming that they do is a textbook symptom of narcissism. For a normal healthy person it's certainly possible and not even too difficult with the right tools to change an internalised mindset.

I quite agree, but then the statues that are being torn down around the UK are also history but that doesn't stop them all of a sudden being taboo. They want to remove Nelson's Column in London now because whilst not being active in the slave trade he didn't speak out against it. So basically his crime was being alive at the same time as slavery. Does that mean that because we are alive now we are all terrorists because we are not actively bringing down local cells?

I understand how civil rights movements work but take Dr King as a classic example. He achieved so much using non-violent measures. I think he'd be appalled for what passes as protesting in this day and age.

I'm for neither side in this, left or right. Both are as bad as each other in my eyes and neither side seems to have any coherent ideas! You say 'welcome to the human race' ... well the human race is one long history of violence, oppression and death. What makes you think that a few protests are going to change anything?

Is there a reason that in order to make a point you feel the need to ridicule and insult me on a public forum? I've made my points without bad mouthing anyone on this thread yet you seem to have to resort to such base tactics.

I'm perfectly capable of processing new information and I'm not talking of my internalised mindset. Be clear, I'm against police brutality, racism, homophobia. That doesn't mean that I have to agree with the tactics being employed by certain groups at the moment.

The majority of people in the world will never change their mindset on issues such as race/sexuality. This is just fact taken from centuries of human experience. We are a barbaric race who are too busy in-fighting to ever truly evolve.

So in your opinion the BLM protests have in no way influenced the BBC & Netflix into removing certain shows (Just a few days after the protests) that are now seen as offensive to certain people? It's a typical knee jerk reaction from big corporations who don't want to be seen hosting anything even mildly edgy.

That is not a fact, that is a fantasy. Centuries of human experience teach us that people need to be intensively brainwashed into behaving in a barbaric way. If it was natural behaviour we wouldn't have even made it past the stone age as a species. There have been countless studies on it, countless decades of scientific research in a dozen different fields, yet you wish to sell a fantasy as fact?

That's actually a mindset one encounters in a lot of different discussions these days. The basic idea for some people is that if you have 1,000 scientists, 999 of them say one thing, one says another, then the one says the truth and the other 999 are trying to cover it up. It's been seen a lot in the pandemic discussions in recent months, but the same applies here. The fringe pseudoscience theory that it's basic human nature that people fuck each other over and kill each other is not an oppressed truth by a deep state conspiracy of the majority of science, instead it's the same as pretty much always, the simple Occam's Razor fact that the majority of science is right, the fringe pseudoscience theory is wrong.


Don't even try to shapiro me. I call people by how they behave and I'm perfectly happy with that.

You said it yourself; it's a knee jerk reaction from private companies that can do what they want with their product.
Getting episodes of shows cancelled is not the BLM movement's agenda. BLM hasn't influenced them into doing shit. The existence of BLM on the news and social media and the general discourse has influenced the BBC and Netflix. Not the same thing.

And don't try to shy away from the fact that the whole question and the thread title is disingenuous and paints a scenario that isn't even real. Nothing has been banned or censored.

Also, you haven't answered my question: Is it really "banning" when a production company takes something off the air of their own volition?

Shapiro??? I'll need an explanation on that one friend!

Clearly we are not going to agree and that's fine. I do get annoyed with how things are right now but what can you do?

[quote='matras] And don't try to shy away from the fact that the whole question and the thread title is disingenuous and paints a scenario that isn't even real. Nothing has been banned or censored.[/quote]

I think you are seeing an agenda from me here that isn't there. I'm a fairly simple beast as 'dronerot' will no doubt attest too by now. In my eyes there is a very clear link between the two facts and it annoys me that basically in the next few weeks all my favourite shows are going to be dropped. Not an issue for me, I have them on DVD. But it's sad that younger people are going to be denied some epic British comedy series!

I apologise if this thread has offended anyone, it wasn't my intention. I'm going back to the music and wrestling threads where I can do less damage!

Sorry Matras I missed that. I suppose in of itself no. It's simply the timing that bothers me.