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Jerry Springer - The Musical

BBC2 Saturday 10pm (January 2005)

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MA
Marcus Founding member
Woody_streatham posted:
Why is Christianity so fragile that to offend it is a criminal offensive? Surely if God is all omnipotent he/she can take a bit of ribbing? I am sure he/she heard a lot worse when the Romans were in power.


Hey talking of Romans, does anyone remember The Romans in Britain, another National Theatre production beloved of Mary Whitehouse.

Heres hoping for a BBC adaption soon
PT
pthurst Founding member
The Nurse posted:
pthurst posted:
All that said. I do think that the real question to be raised should center on accountability. We all know that the BBC is funded via the licence fee. This means that as payers of the fee, we effectively 'own' the corporation. So did the BBC act appropriately by choosing to spend public money on transmitting this, despite over 45,000 complaints from 'investors'?


You can use terms like "effectively" and put words in quotes, but it doesn't change the fact that the licence fee payer does not own the BBC and we are not investors.

45,000 complaints, most of which were made before the programme went out and were based on an innacruate account of the show as published in the press. So we can safely disregard most of those. And even if we don't, 45000 is a shockingly tiny proportion of the licence fee paying public and therefore we can disregard it on those grounds

pthurst posted:
Its also worth remembering that the number of people unhappy with this programme far exceeds the 45,000 people who actually complained. There will be MILLIONS who deemed it unacceptable. Even if most people didn't act upon their impulsions, the fact that 45,000 did, cannot and should not be brushed under the carpet.


I'm sorry, but I think these "millions" of which you speak (where have you got this figure from by the way) can be brushed under the carpet. How hard is it to send an email, or if you don't have the Internet, make a phone call. Not very hard at all. So, I think we can safely assume that all the people who felt very strongly about it have registered their dislike. The only reason why anybody wouldn't comlpain is because they weren't all that bothered. So that still leaves us with a figure of 45,000 out of 15 million plus. Sorry, they can shut up and go and read the Mail.


The BBC is obliged to take complaints seriously especially when this programme has attracted more complaints than any other in the corporations history.

Someone has already dealt with the whole issue of complaining beforehand but let me just remind everyone of the fallacy of this position. Someone has perviously posted (quite correctly) that a person would be well within their rights to complain about adultery without having to wait for the act to be committed and need I remind anyone that there were millions of complaints about the war BEFORE it happened!

Should we have ridiculed the complainants then? how can you complain about a war that hasn't started? A complaint can be made before or after an event. The timing merely effects the contents of the complaint. People could not complain specifically about the programme before it had been aired, no more that people could complain specifically before the war in Iraq before it had started.

People are entitled to a view and such a view is as valid as yours or mine. It is completely intolerant and unfair for anyone to try to reason that these 45,000 complaints are somehow irrelevant. I also say again that faith and religion is a personal matter and we should not be surprised that many people feel unhappy about the BBC's decision to show it.
WO
Woody_streatham
You cannot equate a war where many innocent people died to a TV programme with a bit of swearing. We have had wars before to know they are wrong at the best of times, let alone when their was no evidence to go to war. However, the Christian groups hadn't seen it, so like the Brass Eye programme, complained on hearsay.
PE
Pete Founding member
Regarding the "bit gay" quote. This is the context it's in.

"Jesus" goes on some little rant about how everyone should love each other and be nice
"Audience", in chavvy way call him "Gay!"
Jesus: "actually I am a bit gay"

So it's more gay in the chavvy left wing nice idea than homosexual. If you get what I mean.
TV
tvguy
Pirate FM were on about it this morning.
PE
Pete Founding member
any details?
EI
Edward Ington-Lock
The Nurse posted:
The only reason why anybody wouldn't comlpain is because they weren't all that bothered


Sorry, but that's nonsense. It's generally accepted that for every one person who officially registers a complaint, there are 10 who feel equally strongly about the issue but, for whatever reason, do not actually go through the motions of complaining.

So that 45,000 could easily be 450,000... but even 45,000 is an awful lot of people. Hell, 4,500 is a lot of people! I saw the Opera during its original run at the National and loved it, but I can understand completely why so many people took offence, even if that offence is based on misunderstanding of the intentions of the piece.
MA
Marcus Founding member
Edward Ington-Lock posted:
The Nurse posted:
The only reason why anybody wouldn't comlpain is because they weren't all that bothered


Sorry, but that's nonsense. It's generally accepted that for every one person who officially registers a complaint, there are 10 who feel equally strongly about the issue but, for whatever reason, do not actually go through the motions of complaining.

So that 45,000 could easily be 450,000... but even 45,000 is an awful lot of people. Hell, 4,500 is a lot of people! I saw the Opera during its original run at the National and loved it, but I can understand completely why so many people took offence, even if that offence is based on misunderstanding of the intentions of the piece.


But not when there is a organised plan to bombard the BBC with calls. One operator spoke to the same person 10 times in a row, each time they claimed to be someone different although they rang from the same number.
EI
Edward Ington-Lock
Marcus posted:

But not when there is a organised plan to bombard the BBC with calls. One operator spoke to the same person 10 times in a row, each time they claimed to be someone different although they rang from the same number.


Ultimately, that's irrelevant. The transmission of the Opera greatly offended a great many people. I personally think that they're primarily taking offence due to misunderstanding the intentions of the piece, but that does not detract from the fact that these are human beings who have a grievance, and they have every right to express that grievance.

We don't have to agree with said grievance, but we have an absolute moral duty to acknowledge it. The idea that it can simply be dismissed is entirely unacceptable and enormously selfish.
JA
james2001 Founding member
Apparently there was a large amount of complaints coming from America as well. Hmmm.....

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