Yes it did contain racist comments but it was mild and being under "comedy" was seen as such. It's all got snowflakey now alas.
And what people fail to see is that the humour was all aimed at the white man, showing him up as a closed minded bigot.
My father has made complaints about too many Pakistanis in the Midlands (it's not England anymore) and once said "there's nothing wrong with coloured people but they shouldn't breed with white people because they would produce odd children with mismatched body parts"... Which is the most absurd thing I've ever heard, most mixed raced people are super attractive. My mother makes casually racist comments from time to time too... Nothing quite so bad as my dad's comment but just something naively racist from time to time. 99% of the time they seem accepting and not at all racist but every once in the while they'll come out with some racist comment that leaves me rolling my eyes.
Exactly! Also in the same show Eddies next door neighbour used the same behaviour. It was camped up which made it funny.
Shows of that ilk were not considered racist in those days. You're using the present-day values to 40/50-year-old shows.
I remember Love Thy Neighbour mate. It was ****. Alf Garnet was funny. Still is, but they won’t put it on now for obvious reasons. Which is a shame, because Alf and his attitudes were the butt of all the jokes, but the thick old racists couldn’t see it then, and probably wouldn’t see it now.
That show was a masterpiece. Would have been funny without the racism because the actors were superb. It always made me laugh when people called the Royle Family ground breaking. Johnny Speight did it thirty odd years earlier
He was based on reality mate. My old grandad, an Eastender who started work in the docks at the age of 13, was Alf Garnett incarnate. He was a lovely old boy - but hard as nails - you never took liberties with him unless you wanted a belt round the ear hole. But, like Garnett, he thought all the ‘darkies’ should be sent home on the first boat and all the ‘nancy boys’ should be strung up from the nearest lamppost. Voted Labour his whole life. God knows what he’d make of them today.
Probably the same for every second generation, Would our grandfathers call working on a computer for a living 'grafting'? Taking foreign holidays when we could easily go to Margate. Do you think they would tolerate living today in a Britain of selective freedoms and snowflakes at every turn?
Well clearly it hasn't evolved for some. But that bloke you got your mate the sack was just being a ****, and so were your bosses by the sounds of it. Nothing to do with him being gay and everything to do with him being a sack of ****.
I like that times are changing there’s always going to be resistance like there was with/are equal rights for women and going back further the abolition of slavery. My old man said he hates it that he feels uncomfortable if he sees two men kissing, he can’t really change how that makes him feel but it’s great to know it’s his problem not theirs.
Can't remember the character or real names, but I know the black guy went on to play a long time role in Eastenders, the old boy in it, don't know if he is still in it, as don't watch the soaps. No idea what happened to the white racist fella.
The black guys name was Rudolp Walker His actress wife was called Nina Baden Semper. Eddy, ( Jack Smethurst) ran a successful flower shop in Preston Road Wembley. Which was next door to the bookies I worked in at the time.
ah Rudolph was the guy that went on to Eastenders. Just googled his real name and the character he played was Patrick Trueman in the soap.
