Sweary Hypocrisy
Posted: Sun 14 April, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cinema, Cynicism, Hypocrisy, Offensive Repetition, People, Reviews(ish), Seeing Films, Sweary, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »I’ve found a new source of amusement – the “Parental Guides” for films on IMDB.
A perfect example is here, for the new Tom Cruise film “Oblivion”
Why is it so amusing? For wondrous things like this…
bitch used 2 times bastard 1 time ass 4 times shit 6 times 1 use of fuck. Son-of-a-b***h is used once.
It’s the hypocrisy of it all – coupled with the tweeness. In the example above, it’s OK to write bitch, bastard and fuck, but son-of-a-bitch gets asterisked out? Fuck me.
Shock, Horror
Posted: Wed 6 April, 2011 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Daily Mail, Hypocrisy, Offensive Repetition, Pedantry, People, Thoughts 3 Comments »At least two different media sites are today carrying the story about the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) telling clothing company Jack Wills (ever heard of them? I hadn’t) to not continue publishing their current catalogue until certain images are changed.
The story’s on the BBC here – and on the scumrag Daily Mail here.
Only one of the two stories manages to also show the image in it’s full “offensive” version. Guess which one?
Yep, you got it – good old Daily Fail, making sure its readers know precisely what they should be offended by.
[Oh, and if you do want to know what the image is, look below the ‘More’ link]
Shit for Brains
Posted: Fri 20 August, 2010 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Offensive Repetition, People, Sweary, Thoughts 1 Comment »I love the story on the BBC this week about a council who’ve used the word “shit” in their adverts about dog-fouling. (even though it’s starred out to “S**T”) Supposedly a number of people have complained about the word “S**T” appearing in print. Which strikes me as pretty Mary Whitehouse at the best of times.
Way back when I was working with the council in Oldham, this was something that we discussed heavily. One of my projects there was working on a lexicon of expressions that people actually used, and then translating them into council-ese. For example “roadworks” becomes “Highways maintenance”, “bins” becomes “refuse collection” and the like. I always said – and could prove with the search logs (pardon the pun) – that “dog shit” was the most common search-term when people were looking for information about dog-fouling, reporting issues with dog-shit etc. But the powers-that-be in the council at the time were very sure – despite all the evidence to the contrary – that having “shit” in the lexicon was A Bad Thing, and would lead to Bad Press – another Very Bad Thing. Considering that most people at the time used the word “Shit” as pretty much synonymous with that council in general anyway, I always figured they were on a hiding to nothing on that one.
Personally I could never figure out why people thought – and obviously still do think – that councils can’t use words like shit, when they’re the ones that most (if not all) of their constituents/inhabitants use.
*sigh* People are strange.
Craven
Posted: Fri 30 April, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, News, Offensive Repetition, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Much as I was disappointed by Frankie Boyle when he played the Cambridge Corn Exchange (and wouldn’t bother going to see him again anywhere) I do still like a lot of the things he says, does, and jokes about. (We’ll also get past that thing about the Down’s Syndrome jokes, which were stupid and based on attitudes from about twenty years ago)
I’ve also been impressed with his statement here about the apology issued “on his behalf” (and apparently without his knowledge) by the BBC in regard to jokes he made on a radio programme two years ago…
In case you missed it, the jokes in question are: ‘I’ve been studying Israeli Army Martial Arts. I now know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back. People think that the Middle East is very complex but I have an analogy that sums it up quite well. If you imagine that Palestine is a big cake, well…that cake is being punched to pieces by a very angry Jew.’
I think the problem here is that the show’s producers will have thought that Israel, an aggressive, terrorist state with a nuclear arsenal was an appropriate target for satire. The Trust’s ruling is essentially a note from their line managers. It says that if you imagine that a state busily going about the destruction of an entire people is fair game, you are mistaken. Israel is out of bounds.
The BBC refused to broadcast a humanitarian appeal in 2009 to help residents of Gaza rebuild their homes. It’s tragic for such a great institution but it is now cravenly afraid of giving offence and vulnerable to any kind of well drilled lobbying.
The full statement (as per the above link) is available here
FC 2009
Posted: Fri 24 April, 2009 Filed under: Offensive Repetition, Sweary Leave a comment »Sweary, utterly unsafe for work, but still very funny…
Repeating the “Offensive”
Posted: Thu 26 March, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Offensive Repetition, Thoughts Leave a comment »Yet again, the BBC manages to have a story about people complaining something is racist and/or offensive, yet somehow feel they can still get away with republishing it.
In this case, David Jason told a joke that caused offence (and not just because it’s piss-poor) and then apologised for it. And there, at the bottom of the story, is the “offensive” joke in all it’s glory.
I know I’ve said it before, but just how does this work? If it’s actually offensive, the BBC should receive complaints about publicising it to a wider audience. If they don’t receive complaints, does that mean the joke isn’t actually offensive? And if that’s the case, what’s the story in the first place?
But it seems to me that the BBC (and, in fairness, most of the other media organisations) seem to revel in this “Oh, someone said something offensive, so now we’ve got to report it and repeat it” attitude. I don’t know if they get away with it because it suddenly comes under “it’s in the public interest”, or if they’re all just a bunch of deceptive double-standards bullshit bandits.
Ah, I’ve answered my own question, haven’t I?
Bye Thatcher (Unfortunately Carol, Not Maggie)
Posted: Wed 4 February, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Offensive Repetition, Thoughts 4 Comments »While I have no problem with Carol Thatcher being chucked off the BBC’s “One Show” (although I’d dispute it’s a “top show”) it really bugs me – yet again – that the BBC gets to be so hypocritical by reporting the story, including the offensive word, ad nauseam.
In fact, having gone years without hearing the word that the bigoted old trollbag used, I’ve now heard it no less than ten times in the last twenty-four hours.
And yes, I know I harp on about this (enough that I’ve now made it a category on here) but the hypocrisy of it really fucks me off on a regular basis.