Very interesting, I thought! Why is so much comedy left-of-centre? It becomes cloyingly predictable after a while.
Quick links: NewsBiscuit Home • Chat Room • Writers' Room • Top Ten
Interesting article about BBC bias
(58 posts) (26 voices)
-
waylandsmithy
offlineMemberPosted 9 months ago # -
charlies_hat
offlineMemberagreed. I find Jeremy Hardy the epitome of this - News Quiz is excellent and he is also very funny on ISIHAC and on the NQ, but he SO OFTEN goes for the easy "all police are bastards / all tory mp's are evil / all public sector workers are 70 hr a week saints" it lets him down.
Posted 9 months ago # -
The reason why comedy is left-of-centre is that power is often held by the right, and comedy is nearly always about puncturing the pretentions of people in power.
That and the fact that a lot of middle-age comedians arrived during the Thatcher era...
On the other hand the bias of the BBC is getting worse and not better
Posted 9 months ago # -
kga6
offlineMemberYep. Very interesting. I often notice articles on the BBC site for example that fail to report the 'right-wing' arguments along with their favoured liberal points.
I also regularly attempt subs that poke fun at 'liberal' attitudes but they tend to end up sounding rather like a rant/attack. Whilst the opposite argument is accepted without a blink of the eye.
Here's one of my favourites that made it. I'm still annoyed they cut the last line - was that 'taking it too far'? Or just an example of how comedy is allowed to make a right of centre joke as long as it doesn't expose what is actually a fair point. (i.e. Why can't I claim benefits to have a dog!)
Posted 9 months ago # -
waylandsmithy
offlineMemberYou've been directly compared with someone else in bed, Bonjo? That's pretty liberal. I'm sorry no-one's told you that you're funny or intelligent, though.
Posted 9 months ago # -
nickb
offlineMemberRight wing humour? Mike Yarwood was ideologically quite right wing. Private Eye has a very Conservative smell about it, often. Richard Littlejohn etc. Er, Jim Davidson. I saw a very original political comic, Matt Forde, at Edinburgh. He opened very sincerely, by saying he was a Blairite. Original, I said. Not funny. He declared an admiration for George Bush. Tried to do material round that. It was dire. Some of those right wing US journalists can be funny. Quentin Letts has a go, but has to adopt a faux-posh style, which is a bit shit. Clarkson's a cunt. Where are the struggling right wing comics shown the door by the BBC? Are the hoards of them, holding their own unsuccessful comedy festivals somewhere, sponsored by Deloite Touche and the Spectator? Nah. Do public schools run comedy classes in order to redress the balance? Nah. They just turn out natural targets. There is only one good right wing running gag and it's the old "political correctness gone mad" line, and it can be versatile. People getting the state to feed their dogs, teenage pregnancy tests to get harder. blah blah. Teenage pregnant dogs getting free council kennels while working families with dogs have to eat dog food so they can afford dog food for their dog. The left's got better comics like the North has got better football by and large. Get over it. And I support a southern team.
Posted 9 months ago # -
Cracking link that kga, I seem to have missed that first time round too, but thoroughly enjoyed it.
Posted 9 months ago # -
Here's one about sterilising the untermensch. Can't get much more right wing/illiberal than that.
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2010/06/30/asda-to-sterilise-all-customers-to-protect-gene-pool/
To be fair, some measure of liberal guilt kicked in. It was later analysed at hand-wringing length in the forum because some thought that the target of the gag was indeed poor people and not "the sort of snob who might advocate this kind of thing" and that we had better not mock poor people / advocate their castration.
Search chat room for the "is eugenics funny" thread.
Posted 9 months ago # -
waylandsmithy
offlineMemberDVO, good point about liberal/conservative versus left/right. Gordon Brown was actually the most conservative PM we've had in decades (introduced mountains of legislation and bureaucracy), whereas Thatcher was one of the most liberal in some ways: she wanted to eliminate controls and red tape. But no-one wants to think of Thatcher as 'liberal', because it's regarded as a left-wing trait.
Personally, my politics are extremely liberal, and marginally to the right.
Posted 9 months ago # -
beau-jolly
offlineMemberWhen I were a lad Right meant fascist, Left meant communist and the liberals were in the middle. You knew where you were then. Blue, red and yellow. Now it's all a kind of muddy brown.
WRT comedy being left wing. I'm sure someone has pointed out that comics attack the establishment. Its been a long time since we had a left wing establishment. It was Harold Wilson I think. Mike Yarwood, among many, did a good piss take then.Posted 9 months ago # -
cinquecento
offlineMemberJermey Hardy is very clubbable - like a baby seal.. The platform he is given really winds me up. The Beeb recruits and then programmes in its own orthodoxy - a fair few from my university days got in, and they were to a Person from the 'trendy lefty' ranks who would have spent about as much time questioning their own views as an Alabama Creationist
Posted 9 months ago # -
nickb
offlineMemberAll this misguided bleating about discrimination dodges the question - where are the tory comics? Seems to me the media seeks comedy from available sources, none of which comes with parfum de Gove. Ever heard Hugo Rifkind on News Quiz? A Times "humourist"? nuff said. Not to say anti-pc jokes aren't funny (Asda etc) ie "What are those little cube shaped things you see attached to satellite dishes? Council Houses."
Once again I ask, particularly of Cinquecento: is there any evidence of right wing comics being discriminated against by the BBC? Step forward tory funsters and show us the funny!!!
Posted 9 months ago # -
Simply The Past
offlineMember@cinquecento - You think baby seals are very clubbable do you? what is it about them that makes you want to beat them to death with a piece of wood?
Am i the only one who finds it quite ironic that The Telegraph publishes an article about left wing bias in the BBC when the overwhelming majority of newspapers in this country are biased completely the other way?
Posted 9 months ago # -
cinquecento
offlineMemberno idea why you'd think I would have done that research... I agree with the article that there is an overall cultural bias and the examples of orthodoxy given. The BBC is arguably the most significant media market - if I were a comedian looking to make a living, I wouldn't be developing right wing material to take to it; and that itself shapes the overall 'comedy supply'. Even the use of the term 'tory', which is nowadays pejorative, is very BBC and indicative of a mindset that non-Left = Tory and Tory = Nasty - it's perfectly possible to have right-of-centre (or rather 'right of Left') views but not be a Conservative supporter. Personally I have no party adherence and a mixture of policies - I just object to being railroaded.
Posted 9 months ago # -
waylandsmithy
offlineMemberSimply the Past:
If the overwhelming number of papers are right wing, it's because they sell. That would suggest the majority of people have a right wing view. I'm all in favour of market forces.
Market forces don't apply to the BBC: they are effectively a state broadcaster with guaranteed funding whatever they choose to churn out. The only difference between the BBC and a state broadcaster is that the BBC can set their own agenda.
Posted 9 months ago # -
wallster
offlineMemberLove it or hate it the Beeb does produce some of the best quality TV.
If it was forced to compete in the commercial market against ITV, Sky and all those shitty independent niche channels (Dave, Challenge etc) then we'd just end up with another load of channels churning out more awful American imports, reality bollocks 'talent' shows and inane Z list celebrity rubbish.
In the hunt for ratings and advertising revenue it would end up as just another tabloid TV provider.
Posted 9 months ago # -
nickb
offlineMemberif I were a comedian looking to make a living, I wouldn't be developing right wing material to take to it; and that itself shapes the overall 'comedy supply'
Oh please. The "comedy supply" is shaped by what people generally find funny. Comics and consumers. Yet, as Wayland rightly points out, the majority of people have right wing views, as demosntrated by newspaper sales.
So, you might think there's a thirst for right wing comedy. And legions of discriminated-against Cameroonian comics maintaining a vigil outside broadcasting house. In other words a healthy conservative comedy market. Why is their neither BH vigil nor a massive 21st century alternative comedy circuit made up of humorously tweed-wearing Boris-fanciers? Because of a BBC plot? Oh please. There is an answer, but it isn't British Broadcasting Conspiracy.
Posted 9 months ago # -
Mark66
offlineMemberWould it be because left wing comics stand up for other people while the right wing one's keep their heads down, make their money and avoid their taxes?
Why is it the BBC which get accused of left wing comedy bias. I hadn't noticed that ITV, Channel 4, Sky have many right wing comedians either.
Posted 9 months ago # -
SuburbanDad
offlineMemberThere are fewer right wing comics because right wing policies require less imagination - and you need imagination to make jokes - and there are fewer right wing big project failures (dictators notwithstanding) - and comedy relies on failure. Old fashioned Tories say "why can't the world be like it was in the good old days ?" which needs no new ideas at all. The fact that this translates as "when I was 18, I briefly thought I knew how the world worked, and, although I now realise that this was by gross oversimplification of the issues at stake, I can't get over the feeling that things were better then anyway" can give rise to a few laughs. Reforming Tories say "Why can't everyone just see the world for what it is - dog-eat-dog?" which is not an imagining but an empirical statement.Those tories that care focus their reforming policies on dog training; those that don't on removing all muzzles. But if their plans go wrong it's not the plans at fault but the immutability of impersonal forces such as "the market" or "nature red in tooth and claw".
Only socialists have ever tried to build a new Jerusalem based on mutual co-operation, then, when the majority refused to join in because they either liked the status quo, or were too busy eating a dog, had no choice but to laugh about it. Socialism, with its vision and its failure to reach that vision, wins ofsted outstanding as a comedy nursery on all counts. That's not to say conservatism doesn't nuture humour, but true blue jokes struggle against inbred disadvantage of attitude as much as bright kids from council estates struggle to get into Oxbridge.
Posted 9 months ago # -
Simply The Past
offlineMemberThanks for the lecture, i had no idea the BBC was publicly funded! wow, do the media know about this?
to suggest that all newspapers are only publishing what people want to read is a real cop-out, especially considering all the coverage of News International and it's grubby dealings with the cabinet. It's a well known fact that Rupert Murdoch controls the political stance of The Sun so give it a rest with the market forces spiel. Of course it is a factor but there are plenty of others as well. Sorry i took a while to reply but i don't live in here like some people
Posted 9 months ago # -
nickb
offlineMemberhere's my attempt at right wing comedy. http://newsbiscuit.com/forum/topic.php?id=46941
It may be shitPosted 9 months ago # -
waylandsmithy
offlineMemberIt doesn't become right-wing just because you mention the Telegraph. It's actually left wing, because you're taking the piss out of Gove, private schools and the establishment.
Posted 9 months ago #
Reply »
You must log in to post.