Normal 0 As the dust settles inside the BBC over Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross’s prank call gone wrong to Andrew Sachs, it seems the question of tastelessness is holding centre stage in a debate about what’s funny and what’s not.
The British public registered opinion quickly and furiously after learning that Brand and Ross phoned up the treasured actor and left a message informing him that Brand had sexual relations with his granddaughter. Never mind that no one would have paid much attention to the incident if it hadn’t made headlines, prompting thousands to complain.
Behind it all, I can’t help but wonder if the bad taste incident can be chalked up to not just a misjudgement on Brand and Ross’s part, but a prevailing culture of meanness that washes over entertainment. Were Ross and Brand the victims of a culture that makes cruelty to others humorous?
Meanness prevails in countless programming from the contestants on The Weakest Link to X Factor to the Dragon’s Den. Even cooking shows seem to get popular when the celebrity chef abuses participants with profanity. If you were surrounded by an entertainment culture that applauds cruelty to others, wouldn’t it just come natural to pick on someone during a prank call to amuse your audience?
As Ross remains in self-exile waiting out his sentence to remain off-air, mulling over and over his mistake, he is perhaps also contemplating the nature vs. nurture argument to make sense of what and why he did it. Joking at the expense of others feelings is nothing new in comedy and Brand and Ross are hardly alone among they’re peers who make good livings off of cruelty. Here are three that deserve top awards for leading the culture of meanness:
Mean – Sir Alan Sugar
Meaner – Gordon Ramsay
Meanest – Simon Cowell
Let’s face it folks the meaner people get to each other the more the ratings go up, so rather than blaming Brand and Ross as punishable bad boys, maybe we should all take a look in the mirror and point a finger right back at ourselves. If we don’t want to see mean entertainment then speak up about programming and not just one incident among a sea of insensitivity.
Beware the consequences of unleashing complaints though, as you might find yourself in a climate of censorship similar to what happened in America following Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction during the Super Bowl. There is a fine line between clamping down on entertainment for taste’s sake and stepping all over the right to free expression.
Brand and Ross have gotten the point, they’ve admitted and apologized for the mistake, let them back to do their jobs. If you want to clean up the airwaves then simply turn off a show if you don’t like it.
Missing Jonathan Ross,
-Lisa
No. Judge individual activities on their own. We do live in a tolerant society, but Ross and Brand stepped over the line. With Sugar, Ramsay and Cowell, people put themselves forward for whatever comes their way. Andrew Sachs did not. There is a difference between meanness and criminality. What Ross and Brand did, condoned by their BBC team, was to abuse someone verbally on the phone then broadcast that abuse. What Russ-Ross-BBC did was to promote a verbal version of happy slapping, at a time when both government and mobile phone companies are trying to clamp down on this practice. They paid a price that we are not asking Sugar, Ramsay and Cowell to pay, because these people have not crossed the line. Learn to discriminate. As for seeing Ross and Brand as victims, they know very well what they're doing - using the BBC as a shop window for multi-million careers that are going to take them way beyond. The BBC stands for something that they don't and they used it and abused it. You won't miss Ross for long. He'll be back, on some commercial channel, earning twice as much for being twice as gobby. But the BBC, and licence payers, are well rid of him and Brand.
What rubbish. They are not victims and theiir behaviour epitomises 'meanness'
@Mark - so close to a reasonable response. They are not victims, you are right, and abusing someone who's permisssion hasn't been given is a far cry from people being tv dickheads, however you seem to have lost your way in the same way as most people in this argument. Just because you don't like Brand or Ross, doesn't make what they did more wrong. If you take a stand on what they did being wrong, adding on some random hate about them in general just makes you an idiot. Either they shouldn't be on TV because you are so appauled by their actions, or you wish they weren't on TV because you don't like them. Combining the two is just hate-based censorship.
hate-based censorship - or just two opinions linked together that undermine the power of a point of debate?
I keep telling my 4 year old that 'hate' is a very strong word and shouldn't be chucked around willy-nilly.
She still hates smoked ham, brown bread, the cat, getting up and going to bed...
I really doubt Ross is "mulling over and over his mistake". According to Holy Moly last week, his advisers were meeting with Sky the week the story broke and Brand resigned. And according to reports this week, he is considering taking legal action against the BBC for the £1.5m in wages he will lose while suspended. Ross and Brand are the propnents of the humour you describe as mean, not victims. I think the only victims in all this are licence fee payers. Brand and Georgina Baillie have had a career boost. Her grandad is turning into a rent-a-quote and seems to actual enjoy keeping the story going. Meanwhile, BBC licence fee payers get even less value for money with £18m Ross off-air in enforced exile.
These guys aren't victims, rather the straw-that-broke-the-camels-back! I think you're right in that this is all to do with the mood-of-the-nation, and we've had enough of meaness, but I think it's these sort of over-indulgent and over-paid characters that are making the nation feel like victims. There's a credit crunch on, why can't they earn their living through intelligent, quality work.....after all, they're not bankers, no tax payer is going to bail them out.......Doh! Sorry, it's a license fee payer who will! Doesn't sit well for those eating beans for dinner, does it?!
An article that’s wrong on so many levels. Yes, we’re all capable of being mean and delighting in meanness – but that’s not really the point. We’re not talking about two immature teenaged schoolboys but two professional broadcasters. Anyway, if Ross and Brand are victims, so are Messrs Sugar, Ramsay and Cowell… except that the latter three are renowned for fair but harsh (and often tactless) feedback. The “Radio 2 Two” tried something that they thought would be funny and acceptable but it didn’t work. They overstepped a boundary – admittedly a boundary that they’re both well-known for dancing close to – and they’ve had to face the consequences. Okay, so there are plenty of people who are pleased to knock them off their pedestals, but these are pedestals they need to vacate. Not only have rules been broken but laws have been broken, too. Rather like Janet Jackson’s decision to expose her ***. I’d suggest that fans of Mr Ross keep quiet and give him a chance to lick his wounds instead of dragging this three-week-old incident back into the headlines.
What - I get asterisks for my mammary reference? "Beast" but with an added "r"? Now THAT'S censorship!
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Normal 0 Previously on this blog, I wrote about the prevailing culture of meanness that is witnessed
Lisa Devaney
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Member since: 14 Jun 2008
Last login: 04 Nov 2009
Total Posts: 94
