Frankly there have been quite ludicrous flights of indignation over Jeremy Clarkson's comments on the One Show that public sector strikers should be shot.
Most people had made their minds up already, probably before they'd heard what he had to say. It struck me as an opportunity for anyone who doesn't like him to say - "ha, there you go". Equally, some responses in his defence brought up comedians who wished death on Margaret Thatcher. Yebbut, he said, she said, yebbut, yebbutt.
If you took every utterance of a celebrity pundit, journalist or comedian as seriously as those of a serious figure in public life then you'd never stop.
I found myself agreeing with a comedian called Dave Gorman. He posted a blog entitled "Jeremy Clarkson should be lined up and shot". Many commenters didn't get past the headline, but you should, especially for the Bill Hicks references and clips.
Here's the essence: "Because if you really think that you and I are entitled to live in a world without offence, then you have to concede that everyone else is equally entitled to the same. And that means that all the jokes you like but they don't will have to go too."
4 comments:
Good post, Michael. There seems to have been a recent shift towards criticising peoples' right to speak, rather than allowing them to speak, hearing what they say (and checking whether they did actually say what the headlines said they said) and then refuting it with reasoned argument. The twats.
The only person whose view on Clarkson has any weight is Judge Jacqueline Davies who convicted Paul Chambers for his Twitter joke about bombing Doncaster Airport.
Frankly those who demanded his sacking should be shot. I look forward to the tribunal of a unison member being sacked for telling a joke at work, it will be interesting to see their hypocrisy.
What I can't understand in the universal condemnation of the joke not being funny. Of coure it was funny, the gag was against the BBC shown on the BBC and the reference to the strikers had more than a hint of truth to it. All the ingrdients for a good joke & the delivery was good too. I don't particually like JC's show but the gag was good.
It's the po-faced selective approach to morality and the predictable mock outrage that I can't abide.
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