Not a funny comedy?
Its been often said that British humour does not travel very well with exceptions like MONTY PYTHON,BENNY HILL,MR BEAN and a dozen or so overs, and to be honest as I now travel a lot I see that my British humour can cause stunned looks as its perhaps is based on sarcasm as the main thrust of the humour.
A well known comedy duo in UK have done a running sketch for months and recently brought in a Filipino character that took the sketch further as a way of showing how some people use others as slaves without understanding they are human beings.
Now the original sketch that ran for weeks was of a man from Northern England being treated badly by people from Southern England and it was showing through humour how absurd it is to treat people like this. The last sketch showed a maid from the Philippines being brought in to the story line again showing the absurdity of treating people like dogs.
The whole series takes a mockery of ourselves the British people and its seen as proactive humour, but now the Philippine Embassy has put a complaint in to the BBC and just like the DESPERATE HOUSEWIFES last year completely over reads and causes a problem that is not there.
For goodness sake it was a comedy, just look at local TV here where even during daytime TV scantly clad women are forced to dance on screen and parade themselves daily. I do not see any complaints regarding that!!!
Hi John,The words “double standards” spring to mind.BTW here in UK the hugely popular” Little Britain” i don’t think would travel well, regards Chas.
Hi John -
When I saw the “Harry & Paul” skit, I considered the maid’s “gyrating and grinding” similar to that of the Wowowee dancers or other Phil variety show dancers, but with the maid wearing much, much more clothing than the latter groups!
Always enjoyed the humour of “The Goodies” (circa 1970s), myself.
Aahhhh yes… I am a fan of British humor whilst my friends don’t understand. I cringed at the Desperate Housewives petition and now feel the same with this one. Can you imagine if Ricky Gervais went to Manila? Or like Chas said, the duo of Walliams and Lucas from Little Britain? They’d probably be driven out like the Beatles.
Aye, yer quite richt. I cannae see how folks dinnae understand it’s aw aboot humour. Richt enough, oor British humour is frequently based oan sarcasm, and an awfy lot o foreign folks just dinna get it! Whit can we dae? Probably nithing at aw! As a far travelled chappie, I often hae to think first, and amend my jokes first.
John: chas is right regarding “Little Britain”. I brought most of the DVD’s with me, along with “The Young Ones” and “Black Adder”. What I’ve noticed is that the more slapstick and visual comedy translates very well. (Black Adder is more “witty” and relies on sarcasm, which also didn’t translate well) When Becky and a group of her family were here, I put Little Britain on, and, while certain things were understood, they had trouble with the very thick British accents.
Chas
Little Britain in America went out last week not sure if its understood in US.
Paul
The maid was sexy dancing in the video and that caused concern but treating the silly English Northerner as a Dog caused no upset. Do you know why? Because its a comedy!!!
Mia
You will be upset to know that a mass e mail campaign is going out in the Philippines demanding an apology and wait for it showing the offending video, maybe I will replace the video with wowwowwee or pictures of starving children.
JIM
Aye Jim yyu be so correct so yu be
John M
I too showed my friends LITTLE BRITAIN and apart from the visual slapstick the rest was lost in our cultural differences
Jim Hannah that was classic - we Texans don’t often get y’all’s humor, but that was downright funny, I don’t care who you are…
Gary, glad to see you understood my Scottish Dialect. I thought it might provoke a few puzzled replies.
Jim
Hi Jim Hannah- Never mind Little Britain and selling our humour world wide. When Rab C was first shown in England they had to have sub titles with it but it was still enjoyed by all. Our ability to laugh at ourseves is second to none and long may it continue despite how the rest of the worls see’s us.
Regards.
Jim.
Sorry for highjacking your page John.
Hi John,
From the perspective of those doing the “kicking and slapping”, the ribald Harry and Paul show, may appear like any other funny comical parody. But for those who are on the receiving end of the abuse and degradation, it can never be. This may explain the disparity between the Brits´ delighted amusement from that of the Pinoys´outraged reactions.
Hi John - I saw the show via YouTube. Admittedly, I had not seen the earlier shows, so I don’t have the full context. What I saw, though, I found demeaning. Just my thoughts.
I guess I’m the exception because I do enjoy me a dose of Scottish, British and Irish comedy. Being Catholic I ought to be flabbergasted at Father Ted but I find myself rolling in laughter with that one. Then there’s the short lived Velvet Soup, and the British mystery stories… I swear I can have the tv running just on BBC America and you won’t hear any complaints from me!
John, I saw Little Britain USA but I’m a bit disappointed. The original Little Britain was way funnier and I feel like they ran out of ideas with the USA one. My favorites from the old series were Ray McCooney, Dame Sally Markham (Barbara Cartland, is that you?), Mr. Mann (Margaret! Margaret!)
I can never have enough of UK tv and is one of things that keep me glued to my friend’s flat when I visit her instead of going around and seeing London. Boo to the petition!
Addendum, I just watched the clip and it made me uncomfortable but no different from other parodies they’ve made (i.e., Thai TingTong Macadangdang in Little Brit, etc.) of other characters. I cringed watching it but I think the petition is taking it too far.
hi john
watched out of context like Bob did, it would be cringeworthy and so the reaction is to be seen in the light of people who don’t get “it”.
me too i don’t find this type of humour funny but i understand it, paul whitehouse and harry enfield are just not funny any more, they are grasping at copying little britain style and are just not funny….again this will lead to the misunderstanding in the “what is funny about that” question, eerrr nothing actually
Filipino humour is also about making fun of somebody directly in their face at times and we think this is too straightforward and really not very funny
i get some american humour like bill murray but some like chris rock i saw one of his stand up acts and it passed me by
just a point on the bikini girls who seem to be on most of the day on tv here, i don’t think they are exploited, i bet there are girls queueing 10 deep to replace any drop-outs. They provide a decorative backdrop to the show, may be politically incorrect to say so, but i like them, the only reason i watched the singing bee was the “honey bees”, i miss them now….joke john, come on smile
Jim Hannah, oh that Scottish Dialect? I jyst thot yer spayl chekr wannt werkin
ok so I broke down and watched the clip (not enough context to laugh) - demeaning? yes! that was the point i think, a la actual exploitation “…girls queueing 10 deep to replace any drop-outs…”
I will never find the exploitation of hard working Filipinas funny.
My favorite form of British Comedy ? Noel Edmunds and Mr. Blobby ! , Too bad ” Noels Houseparty ” stopped production a few years ago. Fortunately I still have some of them that were recorded on VHS and sent over to me.
Sarcasm=1: a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
2 a: a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual b: the use or language of sarcasm
John, for a moment I had to check the definition of sarcasm as maybe I don’t get it. Maybe I still don’t. What I do know is sarcasm serves only one purpose–to give “pain” albeit in an indirect way. Example: An American was in front of me and asked me if I need to get something infront of him, to which I said “no, I just love looking at your back”. He said “oh, you’re being sarcastic now”. then we laughed if off.
The reason why most Filipinos–I, included– cannot find humor or in this case humour in that comedy skit it’s because it brings a very personal reality of how we think we are perceived by westerners. Certainly, this is not a positive image that we want other people to have of us. The skit clearly targeted a large portion of Filipino OFWs in UK. I don’t want people to look at me and say ” you’re mostly domestics who double as whores”. While it cannot be said, it never happened, we still don’t like to be stereotyped as such. I think nobody would want that either.
As for your plans to show wowowee girls and pictures of starving children just to see if there will be an outcry, I think the images in question are not the same. The girls in wowowee ( I’m not a fan of this) are background dancers who interact w/ the hosts, w/ the audience. The fact that they are scantily clad here is just for production values. Wowowee aims to be like a “musical concert”. The host pretends to sing & the back ground dancers aim to up the production values. Imagine Wowowee w/o this? It will be like the short, perfunctory televised drawing of lotto. As for the pictures of starving children, I think that just because we have many of them, it doesn’t mean that we will not be outraged in doing something to stop or at least minimize it. My point is the “sarcastic” comedy skit about the gyrating Filipina domestic is not the same as the gyrating wowowee dancers and starving Filipino children. Wowowee dancers could be a subject of a funny joke but the stark realities of Filipino domestics & starving children are potentially cruel jokes which are designed to denigrate, humiliate, make fun or trivialize the poor plight of Filipinos.
Mia
Agreed with regard to Little Britainas the USA version was not as good as the UK, however it took me several months to get the joke when I first watched it.
Rick
Again that clip out of context is uncomfortable but is it worth the petition, I feel it would be better targeted to the home grown problems that cause children to beg in the streets and the explotation of many workers in the Philippines.
Bob
Now Noels Houseparty was fantastic but poor Mr Blooby I am sure he was forced into doing those things on screen lol
Roy
Its very true to say that British humour leans a lot to sarcasm and does not travel well and you make very good points about how the Fillipino may feel hurt about this.Howvere the point I was trying to get across is that the running sketch originally showed a man from the North of the Uk being treated as a fool and being mocked and used, the audince understood that he was being used and to show how some people in power abuse that power and took it further to prove how bad it was the next scene was of an OSW being further used too.
There was no outcry in the North of the UK about this or from any Americans that were targeted in previous sketchs infact the reaction of the Filippino is a big surprise to the people of the UK and the BBC and in some areas is seen as a form of censorship.
Ok, John, I see your point. That scene that was objectionable for most Filipinos is just a portion of a long sequence. Am I not supposed to be upset w/ this because the skit showed a Filipina domestic/tramp as one of the people being abused, with the man from north england being the first? Or more importantly, that the Filipina role was necessary to show how powers are abused. In other words, the objective of the show is to caricature men who abuse their powers by abusing other people, the english guy & the Filipina. Obviously, the writers thought so and we cannot take that from them. Most english and americans cleary get that. Filipinos don’t. Why? Simply because it is uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that we forget that the altruistic purpose of the skit which is to show the evils of abusive people, never mind that the cameo role of your kababayan in an english TV show is that of a domestic who insists of stealing the show by acting a trashy seductress. Quite frankly, now that I think about it she didn’t look like she was being a victim here.
Anyway, I appreciate John your response. We are having a cultural exchange here on a textbook case of one form of art being received differently. Beauty truly lies in the eye of the beholder. Case in point: Filipinos who may know about the english grammar might laugh when we purposely declare “I’m so excitement” or “it’s raining, aren’t we….?….LOL ..”….aren’t we going inside?” In both instances, native speakers of english would go “what?”
Roy
Thanks very much for an excekllant reply. Its through forums like this I can learn and challenge my ways of life and it gives me the ability to understand my adopted country more. Again thanks.
John, I also saw this episode in YouTube and I found it very tasteless. I enjoyed reading Roy’s point of view and your discussion on the subject. Have a good day!
Great to see John Grant covering this somewhat touchy subject, as always John speaks the mind of what others are thinking, and as he is our resident Brit in the Southern Philippines, I find myself supporting his stance on the BBC Sketch about the Filipino Maid.
I do not claim to be a resident BRIT in the Philippines, I am at present one of those wanaby’s who talks about it, but never quiet wants to leave the comfort of my secure career in this vastly sprawling economic pariah that is now the United Kingdom.
The BBC is funded by the British people through a licence fee that government levies on each household for the right to keep and maintain a t.v. system which receives terrestrial or digital signals.
Thats where the control ends, the BBC is totally independant of government, and is known throughout viewers as producing extremely high quality programming, especially BBC drama’s and is known for superb news reporting around the world.
Whilst the sketch involving the Filipino maid may seem to have been in hindsight a little out of taste, it could be said by some that the complaints received from a foreign embassy and the Philippine Centre, and the Philippine foundation, an over zealous barrage of rhetoric which could at best be laughed off by those who felt offended, should those ones be a little at ease with their own identity.
For one who has extensively travelled around the Philippines and for one who keeps a home there, it appears to me, that the Filipino appears a little uneasy about their place in the world, and suffers a collective identity crisis.
My own people have a tendency to take every opportunity to make fun of each other that is because we have a strong identity of who we are, and what our place is in the world, we do not protest to foreign governments about foreign television programs that seek to poke fun at our heritage, and we do not expect our Home Secretary to request interviews with foreign ambassadors because when a Filipino has a pop at our culture on ABS CBN OR GMA .t.v.
As I must stress, the sketch, may have sort to offend some, but a broad view is needed if we are to refrain from being offended at the drop of a hat, and as others have already pointed out, the wiggling of the maid concerned in the sketch, is actually no different from the ASF dancers who regularly wiggle their bottoms on day time t.v. in a popular noon time game show.
John Grant is right to say, that come on folks, this is just a comedy sketch, its mean to be in a light hearted spirit, not for the philippine government to start rolling out the Gun boats.
Hi from Spain, John….hmmm….what can I say about the Pinoys’ reaction to that
silly sit-com using a Pinay actress to do the character of a maid? I guess the
Pinoy reaction was one of over-reaction—they seem to have lost their sense
of humour–which is rather sad since they too love to have a hearty laugh. Indeed,
if they have become touchy then there’s not much room for future comedy for
others, right? I mean, come on, even the national government joined in the public
protest. Remember that Amercan actress whose name escapes me but I think her surname is Dunn—when she came to th e Philippines during the time of Joseph Estrada, she was misconstrued about giving her opinion about the country. Instead of the President (Estrada) inviting her back and perhaps, made her promote the country, he declared that she should be persona-non-grata.
If I were a politician or a Tourism minister, I would have found a way to tell her to
promote the Philippines instead of getting offended for a trivial thing. If these elected politicians do not want to be put to shame, or others embarrassing them, they they should not give others a reason to somehow criticise/insult/or make fun
of the country or its people. No country is safe without others expressing their
negative attitude, or personal opinion. The more people fuss, the more they get
the flack from others. It’d be ignoring kids when they are trying to be awkward and
you wanted to be left alone. Reverse psychology should be applied by elected
politicians instead of moping and feeling sorry for themselves. Heck, tell them to
grow up! There’ just too much self-pity. As my British husband would say, self-pity, no recommendation….point taken, mate!