Qualms & Wires

Having watched the recent debut series of Come Fly With Me, the much-hyped BBC production of the cult-duo Walliams & that other guy, I was greatly disturbed to come across the following diatribe, leveling accusations of racism and gratuitous use of crude national stereotypes against the programme. Not least because the charges come from someone with a foreign sounding name and a non-white face, and thus cannot be dismissed out of hand, though the critic may well be as British and middle-class as they come, who knows.

I was disturbed primarily because I like to think of myself as acutely sensitive to, and intolerant of, racism, even in comedy (It was certainly no excuse for the time Michael Gambon told a black joke on the late late show). But also because I would equally like to regard myself as the last person who would laugh at crude national stereotypes. When it comes to caucasions getting offended on behalf of minorities, or sticking up for political correctness, I'm normally first in line. Except of course, it's not on their behalf, it's on mine as well. Because objecting to racial stereotypes shouldn't be the sole preserve of the "ethnically inclined". However, they do of course have special privileges when it comes to determining what is objectionable and what isn't, subjective as that is.

Did the fact that I found Come Fly With Me genuinely funny blind me to its abhorrent underlying racism? I didn't even register the fact that "blacking up" was used as a device. How can this be?

Upon reflection, I think I have found a way out of this conundrum, and made amends with my conscience. For me, by far the funniest character in the programme was Ian Foot, the bigoted immigrations officer, who stops people with foreign sounding names, and whose mantra is "If in doubt, keep'em out". One of the reasons this character was so brilliant was because, as you might be aware if you've had the misfortune of tuning in to one of the deeply distressing border police documentaries, this attitude appears to be the norm among immigration officials. And certainly is the norm among vast daily-mail reading swathes of the population.

The two black characters were less funny, but they weren't offensive. And there was something inherently British about both of them. Is there an argument that British comedians (who are patently not racist themselves - a key point!) do have a certain license to make fun of other brits, even if they themselves happen to be lighter-skinned? Especially when they do it alongside parodies of bigoted white men? I'm not sure I'm being fully consistent with my own policies by claiming so.

I don't know, maybe it is just because I happen to find these crude national stereotypes funny, that I'm being an apologist. But quite frankly, I think ridiculing the prejudiced immigration officer and his absurd racial profiling is progressive comedy with a social conscience which discredits any allegations of racism, if not crudeness. All of the characters are parodies and none of them are particularly dignified. I certainly don't think that just making them white-only would be a victory for opponents of racism.