The new offenders of the ‘offenders’ of stand-up comedy
As a writer myself, I understand the temptation in having a point you want to get across, interviewing a bunch of people and then cherry-picking the responses to support your agenda. However, good journalism shouldn’t have to resort to such tactics (and, to the best of my knowledge, it’s not something I’ve done myself in any articles that have seen print), and certainly not when the resulting article not only takes comments entirely out of context but also ends up borderline libelling those interviewed.
The new offenders of standup comedy by Brian Logan in the Guardian escaped me on publication, but came to my attention today via Twitter. Logan essentially paints Richard Herring and his latest show as utterly racist when it is in fact the opposite. Those people who’ve not seen this material but who’ve no inclination to research further—And why should they? After all, this is an article from a supposedly reputable publication!—will no doubt avoid a show that, ironically, would ideally suit them.
This isn’t nearly the first time the Guardian’s resolved to such hackery, but this is nonetheless a dangerous example, and with a suitably ironic strap: How did things get so nasty? One might ask the same question of Guardian ‘journalism’.
The paper should either apologise or give Herring the right to reply. If it doesn’t, it pretty much proves the point that it’d rather pander to the bullshit brigade than entertain the possibility of good journalism and proper representation, and while one might expect that from current and former red-tops, or the likes of the Mail, that really shouldn’t be the case regarding the Guardian—or perhaps my rose-tinted spectacles need painting a clearer and less nostalgic shade.
Herring himself responds on his blog as does Dave Gorman.
I read that article and didn’t quite agree with it all.
As an ex-standup, then I say a lot of it is just pure shock tactics. The easiest thing to do is throw something outrageous in there to get a gasp or a laugh of shock instead of a good line and claim it is there to provoke thought. Now someone like Richard Herring is clearly doing it for effect. So is Jim Jeffries, who goes so far over the top then you can’t mistake it for reality. Some standups make a career out of it – hellooooo Sarah Silverman – because they’ve got fuck all else to say.
However, I cannot shake the feeling that the likes of Gervais, to an extent Jimmy Carr and definitely the last series of Little Britain have an undercurrent of nasty superiority and bullying.
A couple of years ago it seemed like “chavs” had become the new “Pakis”. You couldn’t be racist or sexist, but those beneath your social class were fair game.
The brilliant thing, often repeated, about Alf Garnett was that the bigot always got his comeuppence in the end. Where the racist says something racist and ends up on the losing side, then it shows that racism is the wrong thing to do.
With Gervais especially, he pretty much never loses. No matter what he says, whether in The Office, Extras or in his live show, he never comes off at the wrong end. The lesson is that belittling others wins.
And I really don’t like that.