@Declan B: You guys realise this is temporary right? It’s the way the Major describes the West Indian Cricket team…….. the version being removed is the unedited one:

1) It’s not because of the war
2) It’s about repeated use of the N word
3) BBC edited the offending scene in 2013
4) Cleese fully approved of it
5) Netflix & UKTV were airing unedited version
6) Edited version will likely be used in future

https://twitter.com/gdimelow/status/1271341519010701312

@Declan B: Agreed, it’s getting stupid at this stage. When will it stop? Shall we just rewrite history completely?

@Tricia G: Yeah totally… People are getting very hot under the collar about this when it’s always been happening. British media broadcasters removed lots of things that were offensive to Irish people from syndicated circulation in the late 80s / early 90s too.

It’s not censorship in the oppressive sense of the word, it’s creating an environment whereby people of colour can more readily identify with what they see on TV of an evening after a long day’s work. It also makes racist language less acceptable to us white people.

If people feel really strongly about wanting to see the version with the N word they can easily find it online I’m sure.

You’re right, John Cleese, Matt Lucas and David Walliams aren’t kicking and screaming about this action at all, quite the opposite.

People suddenly getting so bothered by this in the current climate of Black Lives Matter protests are revealing a lot of internalised racism. It’s fairly cringeworthy but one hopes it will be ultimately enlightening for all.

@Daniel O’Connor: My comment was removed. It wasn’t even flagged as possibly toxic nor could it be. Nice to see The Journal getting involved in the censorship business. How’s the donations appeal going , Journal ?

@Cupid Stunt: Im telling you..nobody and i mean nobody is going to tell me what to watch and what to read.

@Nosmo King: me too

@David Garland: think of it this way.
Imagine somebody from England saying the term “Bloody Paddy” to an Irish person, we see it as derogatory and rightly so.

Very different thing if one Irish person says is to another, it simply does not have the same meaning or level of offense.

If black people say the N word then that is their decision, but they didn’t create the word to begin with. It’s always been used as a derogatory term towards them from whites. Them using it allows them to “own” it and control it.

@David Garland: it is absolutely okay for black people to use the N word if they so desire. Just as Irish people can use the word Paddy, women can choose to use the C word and gays can choose to use the F word. Not all language is for you, words have different values and carry different weight depending on who is using it and why.

@Lingwood: it’s not “Absolutely ok” for black people to use the N word and everybody else is considered a Racist for muttering it, even if it was 40 years ago. The actor Michael Richards who played Kramer in Seinfeld used the N word in one of his stand up shows years ago and he hasn’t worked since. Today black stand ups use the word all the time and that’s ok. If a Black stand up uses the word in one of his shows is it ok for white audience members to laugh at the joke or are only black audience members allowed laugh?

@David Garland: In the stand up scenario you are allowed to laugh along with other black people by a black person literally standing before you trying to to make you laugh. If you think that black stand up comedian is pandering to your specific racist sense of humour then you are mistaken, they are speaking to black people. The reason you laugh is because you know it is wrong for you to do so, a common trope in comedy. But that’s when a black person makes the joke. White people have used the N word for centuries to oppress, animalise and abuse black people and so have lost the right to use that word for the foreseeable future. Not you or I, of course, but white people in the name of white dominance and that legacy is still very much alive to the point where Irish people, once ourselves oppressed, now feel entitled to use a word with such a violent and oppressive weight behind it. What are so many Irish people doing on here, defending the use of a word that was never part of our culture to begin with? Cringeworthy.

@Lingwood: The C word is unisex in Ireland and England, it’s more offensive in the USA.

@Lingwood: Only one Cringeworthy person around here and it ain’t me, that’s for sure

@Tricia G: Your a bit on repeat there Tricia, this is just a prelude to people telling you what to watch, what to listen to and what to eat.

@Tricia G: Your a bit on repeat there Tricia, this is just a prelude to people telling you what to watch, what to listen to and what to eat.

@Tricia G: So you are in favor if censorship and getting things banned. People could you know, just NOT WATCH THE EPISODE! the character is an old, slightly senile, curmudgeonly war veteran. You are condoning the end of artistic freedom. Our future will consist of sanitized history, rewritten, book burnings, banning of all films and tv shows that offend, which will be a great, great many. It was a sitcom from 40 years ago and is still a classic for a reason. This is George Orwell and Ray Bradbury future here, and frankly, that is a fascist hellscape that i wouldnt want future generations to endure.

@Lingwood: Not defending it. You act like we are all DYING to use some word that frankly, i have never uttered in my life. The issue here is restriction of artistic freedom and censorship. The character in the show is old, senile and racist. These fictional characters are now meant to be deleted from history? And your little speech there about standup; how divisive can you get? and since when do you get to speak for black people, about what they will and will not tolerate? there is a Dave Chappelle sketch on racism, that is littered with the word, and im pretty sure he wants everyone to laugh at it, not just black people! you are basically SEGREGATING comedy, telling us white people what we can and cant laugh at. Oh the irony of it all, because, you know, youre the anti-racist, whereas the rest of us are all bigots.

@David Garland: yes.

@Barry: I identify as black, can I use it?

@Daniel O’Connor: the whole point of the episode is about being offensive and backwards

@Fr. Fintan Stack: I hear you are a racist now father …

@Craic_a_tower: Exactly, but you know how this world can work sometimes.

@Joe Moore: Fe€kin Greeks….they invented gayn€ss

@Daniel O’Connor: You can be damn sure they won’t pull any episodes of “Fr. “ Ted , especially in Ireland as it’s suitably anti Catholic ! No other section of society would have tolerated its insults and caricatures over the past years without a proactive response .

@Ian Breathnach: I wouldn’t be using a single black person’s reaction to single example of racial comedy as a catch all for how black people in general are affected by it. I’m gay and would of course laugh at homophobic jokes but more out of pity or incredulity than agreement. Putting a disclaimer at the start of a show is a better idea… but at the same time it’s a bit like, to use a somewhat obscure analogy, letting somebody scroll through your case of embarrassing old CDs and saying “oh all that 90s pop was just a phase!” or “don’t judge me on all the amateur heavy metal!”… there comes a time when it’s best to just throw it all out and make room for some fresh newness.

@Lingwood: what about the Simpsons, Apu was cancelled because a guy made a you tube video saying it was offensive. But I would say the most lampooned group are the Irish with literally dozens of instances of stereotyping scenes in it. Doesn’t offend me, still a top show. There are people now that watch things looking to be offended, that is the issue.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/01/apu-simpsons-hero

That is the Guardian, not the Daily Mail.

@Lingwood: So youre suggesting banning father ted and making way for newer ( in other words, crap) comedies. I dont think so.

@Pauline Gallagher: They could always put up 30 mins of memes to replace comedy programmes.

@Pauline Gallagher: To quote word for word from Braveheart:
Run, and you’ll live… at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin’ to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take… OUR Fr TED!

@Fr. Fintan Stack: Brilliant hahaha

@Brian McArdle: hahaha!

@Craic_a_tower: he was able to laugh at the anti German jokes though? What about ze Germans

@Thomas Harrington: oh sorry, I haven’t seen the show since quite some time.

However, Basil is always confused and all over the place. It wasn’t about calling all Germans Nazis it was just his incapability to get anything right.

At least that’s how I saw it.

@8-Bit-Relic: same, I’m half German and people always make jokes about “ze Germans” and Nazi jokes. Doesn’t bother me at all.

@Thomas Harrington: There were no anti German jokes. The whole thing is anti British. That’s the point.

The Germans who show up are polite friendly decent people.

This is about mocking the prejudices of conservative Britain. Why would a German be offended by it?

The Major story on the other hand wouldn’t be allowed in a modern comedy which is why it’s been pulled.

@8-Bit-Relic:
In Spain, when Fawlty Towers was broadcast and dubbed, Manuel became Mexican, as the Spanish stereotype was not recognisable to the Spanish. When he became Mexican, they could laugh at the stereotype. Don’t forget the ‘Oirish’ builder episode. Everyone gets satirized. Basil is a particular type of eccentric Englishman; he couldn’t be anything but English

@8-Bit-Relic: Manuel was Spanish!

@Martin Moloney: In Spain he wasn’t

@8-Bit-Relic: He’s from Barcelona

@Colin Mac: 22

@Thomas Harrington: so what that was not why it was pulled. It is about the language used by the major. So a German person wouldn’t be offended

@Craic_a_tower: I had actually to read somewhere else what it was about since I couldn’t remember the scene.

I apologise the article here is oddly written.

@8-Bit-Relic: Barcelona catalonian to be politically correct I think

@Sam Harms: Same with me being called a foreign ba$tard. 1 ear in and other ear out.

@Dave Byrne: ‘The sheriff is a..(((bong)))..’

@Dave Byrne:
Candy gram for Mongo

@Dave Byrne: Its my favourite movie of all time

@Jimmy Carroll: You don’t really get sarcasm do you ?

@Nosmo King: even the whoosh would be whoosh to him I’d say

@Gary Culleton: I have not one scintilla of doubt that there are Irish people who would, if they saw it, call for it’s removal… scary stuff. A 6 minute appearance that attained absolute legendary status on both sides of the pond

@Gary Culleton: get a f*****g life man. I’m white Irish and find it hilarious

@Marty H: Read what I posted again properly…………. I accept your apology

@Marty H: Thats why he ended the sentence that he was offended with NOT….

@Gary Culleton: at least David Kelly portrayed an Irish character and they didn’t use an English actor actor a la Dick Van Dyke.

@Gary Culleton: what about a few episodes of the Simpson’s. There’s some serious stereotypes on there. Not in the least offended but I would say a few of them will be in the firing line. I think Apu is gone anyhow.

@Gary Culleton: urs the NOT! was a dead give away.

@Jim Buckley Barrett: and the colour purple

@Seán Dillon: The BBC have a lot to answer for.

@Heisen berg1: We’ll be left with winning streak and nothing else, hard to get offended at that unless there are some colours on the wheel you find offensive because of their monetary value.

@Craic_a_tower: ah ffs. I don’t use it myself out of fear of offending. But the people who are supposed to be most offended by that word use it all the time.
That sir, is nuance.
In the case of faulty towers, one of the funniest shows ever made for tv, the joke is that the colonel who said it is a complete idiot.

@Craic_a_tower: The nuisance of using the N word is that it will get you in trouble (and rightly so). The nuance of using the N word in FT is that it sends up the character of the major. There are people like him in the world and it is poking fun at them. FT was of it’s time and you couldn’t make it now without major changes but the jokes were always on the characters.

@Will: Here in Ireland we used to ban books until the 1960s – Joyce, Beckett, Orwell etc all banned. Only Old Moore’s Almanac, the Church catechism, Bible and Peig were allowed! :)

@john doe: Black people are allowed to use the N word… they have the right to take ownership of a word that has been used to oppress them for centuries. White people have lost the right to use that word by their actions. (maybe not you or me but white people in the name of white power have abused black people to the point where certain language is now off limits to all of us for the foreseeable future)

@James Walsh: don’t forget about sings being banned into the 80’s

@James Walsh: don’t take everything so seriously!