In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement in the past week a bunch of TV shows that could be described as problematic have been removed from television – ‘Little Britain’, ‘The League Of Gentleman’, ‘Bo Selecta’ etc – and the latest one of these is ‘Fawlty Towers’.
Featured Image VIA
The much loved English sitcom has had the famous ‘Don’t Mention The War’ episode – in which Basil Fawlty marches around a group of German tourists in his hotel saying ‘don’t mention the war’ over and over again – removed from UKTV. Here’s what a UKTV rep had to say about the removal:
We aren’t commenting on individual titles. However, we regularly review our programmes, and make edits, add warnings and make schedule changes where necessary to ensure that our channels meet the expectations of our audience.
He later admitted the episode was under review because it contained racial slurs, most notably when Major Gowen uses offensive language as he’s talking about the West Indies cricket team and Basil himself looked horrified when being seen by a black doctor at the hospital. Can kinda see why that probably isn’t so woke in the current climate.
However, most mainstream media outlets have reported that the ‘Don’t Mention The War’ episode has been removed in their headlines, leading many to believe that the racial slurs being questioned are those towards the Germans. This obviously led the gammon brigade to go absolutely mad on Twitter, expressing their disgust in the following ways.
Make sure you read the last tweet because that sums it all up:
Why had Fawlty Towers been pulled??
Flowery Twats!
— Pablicachu (@Pablito999) June 12, 2020
Fawlty Towers been taken off now, this country is fucked!!!!
— Lee (@Jaxson280375) June 12, 2020
I’m planning a fawlty towers watch party tonight in protest against uktv banning the German episode if anyone wants to join me let me know tell me what time we plan to watch the Germans let’s celebrate the genius of John clesse and basil fawlty #fawltytowers
— Gary tidball (@GTidball) June 12, 2020
#fawltytowers #BlackLivesMatter
If any of those BLM thugs touch my faulty towers there will be hell to pay!
— Twiggers (@TwigletN) June 12, 2020
The #Snowflake Generation has gone completely mad… the tv episodes from the 60-80’s were made, deal with it! They showed a bit of tv history, nothing was meant by it being extremely racist. I Still love #fawltytowers You can’t change the past, only learn from it. #worldsgonemad
— Susan Potter ⚓ (@suepots82) June 12, 2020
So BBC took of Fawlty Towers. Why did they not take this stance with Jimmy Saville? The mind ponders.
— pixie (@pixie30946951) June 12, 2020
So BBC took of Fawlty Towers. Why did they not take this stance with Jimmy Saville? The mind ponders.
— pixie (@pixie30946951) June 12, 2020
Fawlty towers is and always will be a CLASSIC.
fuck the new breed.— Facts over emotion (@roost_ravens) June 12, 2020
Some years ago I was in a German bar on Lanzarote where I used to live … they showed this episode of Fawlty Towers on the TV in the bar …. the Germans were falling about laughing … they thought it was hilarious ! So why have the #BBC withdrawn it ?? They are so out of touch
— LadyAnniSpiceInCognito#CountessBimboIsBack# (@Carti_Mandua) June 12, 2020
Little Britain
Fawlty towers
Only fools and horses
Inbetweeners
White chicksThanks for the laughs 💔
— Andy Grant (@AndyGbootneck) June 12, 2020
Follow up note:
My timeline has been going wild this morning, lots of people commenting and sharing. Thank you to everyone who replied to say that this was helping them to interpret the story differently. Willingness to accept new information is key.— Gareth Dimelow (@gdimelow) June 12, 2020
OK firstly, I don’t really care about these old TV shows getting removed from streaming platforms and find it amazing that people are getting so butthurt about it. I’m sure if you want to watch them so much they’re pretty easy to get on DVD or find a stream of somewhere on the internet, but the fact is that most of them are shit anyway and you probably haven’t watched them for about a decade anyway. I can’t even imagine getting upset if my favourite TV show got cancelled ahead of time now, let alone an episode of something that finished decades ago being pulled from regular scheduling. Get a life.
I can appreciate that – like many things – these TV shows are supposed to be satire and were made at a time when attitudes were a lot different to now and they’re simply products of the time and they should be viewed as such. I don’t think they need to be removed because of this, but I don’t really care that they have been. Can’t really believe that many people are even watching them anyway?
Secondly – and more importantly – it gets even better when you realise that people are actually getting offended about the show getting deleted because of the wrong part of it being problematic though. Or does it? It kinda seems like all this stuff about statues and especially TV shows is really detracting from the point here (and also the news released today that the UK economy completely tanked at the start of lockdown – worst drop in history). This guy sums it up pretty nicely in his Facebook status.
Don’t get caught up in false narratives. Think about what’s happening.
For more of the same, check out this thread that exposes the true nature of British racism. Get educated.
