Just read the article in THE Guardian where Bruce Forsyth near enough claims that the work P*** used to have humour in it, and people should lighten up!!!!!!!!!

Does this guy not understand it never used to be humorous, the BBC should really start telling their stars, not to comment on sensitive topics.

Here is the link for the article



http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009...ictly-row?comm

Unbelievable as it sounds in 2009, he's right. Try rewatching a few 70's sitcoms, some of the scripts beggar belief.

Yup, stuff like 'Love Your Neighbour' was the norm - the scripts now would be considered but it was highly rated, prime time TV back in the 70s

It would have been better for Bruce to have said nothing and supported Anton privately. I can't imagine the BBC are pleased that Bruce has said this, he has made matters worse - now we know there are two who find it perfectly OK. Perhaps it was once an accepted word but it certainly isn't now - and everyone working in the media has to know this, even Bruce who comes from a generation where, as he says, such words were acceptable.

I'll bet Brucie wonders what happened to all the "No blacks and no Irish" signs outside hotels.

I'm not sure the word or that language was ever accepable, but it was more accepted and there is a difference. My family never watched Love Thy Neighbour because it was 'off' and I have never found comedians who made race jokes funny. Bad taste comes to mind.

I expect the media have been sitting on Bruce's door step since Sunday trying to ask about the incident. Even now we don't know how and where he was asked or if he was given a BBC line to take.

I see the Guardian has removed the article - I'm not surprised if this thread is a reaction to it.

But in shows like Love Thy Neighbour, people were supposed to laugh at the people using the derogatory terms.

True, they could still say the terms whcih they wouldn't be able to now, even to disgrace the people using them (because, apparently, as with Love Thy Neighbour, a minority of people seem to get hold of the wrong end of the stick and make heroes out of the racists).

He is trying to help I suppose, but as Liz said above, it might have been better to let it lie.

He gave the interview to TalkSport, the OP just posted a wrong link. It's here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009...h-strictly-row

The thing is, this interview might be the end of his career. Rightly or wrongly, people (esp. Daily Hatemail 'readers') are going to call him 'clearly and completely irrelevant' in today's showbiz and all up in arms crying out for his forced retirement!

And I don't even like Bruce.

I am glad the Grauniad has taken the article down.If Bruce said that then the BBC should send both him and Anton to diversity training.

I think that's a bit unfair TLF. One of his best friends is Kenny Lynch; he loves Alesha; and his wife is an exotic ex-beauty queen, which would make their son mixed-race.

Anyone calling him a racist would have their work cut out - I hope.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009...h-strictly-row

Yup, let's see how the Daily Hatemail sorts his personal life (wife of non-Anglo-Saxon origin and son of mixed race) from his 'outrageous' comments he's made to the Guardian.

Probably the same way they deal with all logical contradictions to their spin - ignore it.

Whatever happened to the "Ever gorgeous Anthea Redfern"?

Joking aside, I don't think Brucie is racist; I just don't think he's fully up to pace with the race issue in modern Britain.

Bruce hasn't said anything untrue in that article, just unacceptable to some people.

If I was making the decision at the BBC I would send Anton on some kind of equal opps/diversity training (but not Bruce). IAnton slipped up by using the offensive word and I think a reminder of the reasons why we have certain legislation and also the effect of using offensive language on individuals would be a good reminder and perhaps make him question some of the things he has not really thought about before. Personally I found my equal opps training thought provoking.

Yup, it may seem incredible but the word honestly really had no inherently racist connotations back in the day. It really was what it really isn't now: an abbreviation based on race/nationality, just like Jock and Taffy, though not like N****r, which, 'N****r brown' notwithstanding, has always been used pejoratively.

The word was later hi-jacked and imbued with hate. Because that hi-jack and hate happened, there is nobody today who doesn't know better than to use the word for 'comic' purposes.

oh dear - it would have been better for him to say nothing than this.

I'm not sure the word **** in itself was ever humrous but it was used in sit coms - but then in 1970's wog was also routinely used, people with Downs were called mongols and people with disabilities, flyds.

I would hope no-one would use those words today because we've (hopefully) come to appreciate how horribly derogatory those words are

And if it was more accepted back then (I don't know) why not try and go back to it?

It's only a derogatory term because of people's association and usage.

In a paper someone from around those regions stated it was not just an abbreviation like Brit, or Aussie, but it was derogatory and now all Pakistanis were insulted.

Sorry, but that's where the problem is - it SHOULD be just an abbreviation and if people don't get so worked up about it, it'd all die down and nobody would associate it with racism or not.

I'm from the Netherlands, where the literal translation of N***** is a fully accepted way to describe someone of Black origin. Nobody cares, nobody's offended, as it's a way of describing someone factually. Such as P*** should be.

The problem is in the people getting up in arms about it which just makes it worse as racists galore will continue hijacking the word for their purposes rather than having it in mainstream language.

Bruce's wife Wilnelia is black.

He makes a very valid point. No doubt Anton said something stupid but the reaction is OTT.

You would hope all people with common sense could tell the difference between a genuine racist who said something vidictively and someone who said an inappropriate and silly comment which they didn't mean.

Unfortunately though many of the public seem to have replaced common sense with the longing to be outraged.

I wouldn't ever say they were funny, but such words were considered the norm - personally I never found LTN, Jim Davidson or Bernard Manning remotely funny, but their style of 'humour' and use of language which is generally now considered completely wrong, was the norm in 1970s Britain - whether you found it funny or not, it's an undenyable fact.

I remember an episode of Fawlty Towers (might have been the Germans one) when either Basil goes to see Sybil in hospital or a Dr calls at the hotel (memory's going ), Basil opens the door and the Dr happens to be a rather large black man, Basil recoils in shock and horror - audience fall about in hysterical laughter - not an extreme example, but still something that wouldn't be considered acceptable now.

But, in all honesty Bruce should have just kept out of it, although I'd hazzard a guess he's been doorstepped since this all erupted.

It's probably the same as most people's grandparents thought - I have memories of my grandparents being particularly anti any one who wasn't white and English, and you'd never have changed their minds, so I just resolved not to think like that, and I don't. Bruce is of that generation, and while the world has moved on, most people of that generation haven't so much.

As for him speaking out, the other dancers are all contract bound not to, and Bruce is probably more likely to be the 'front' for the programme in this kind of circumstance than anyone else, so he's probably not quite so silenced. Remember he was used by the BBC quite a bit during all the John Sargeant malarchy last year, so why not again.

I don't agree at all.