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The Missing Link

by | 1st, March 2006

‘SHOULD BBC game shows be meritocracies, showcases for people who can recall the name Henry VIII’s third wife, which poem begins “I want a hero” and what animal venal George Galloway pretended to be on Big Brother?

‘A ‘gay’ car you say..?’

Or should they be representative of the general public? Should game shows, as the gay rights group Stonewall argues, ensure than six per cent of contestants are homosexual?

This is not to say that six per cent or more of agonists on BBC2’s Open University are not gay, just that it should, perhaps, be enshrined in some kind of television rule that they are.

Of course, this could lead to other problems. See the acerbic quiz mistress Anne Robinson addressing one asinine contestant on the Weakest Link with the phrase: “You’re gay. You live with a man. You ARE the Weakest Link. Toodle-oo.”

And Robinson is no random example. As The Telegraph reports, Stonewall berates Robinson for using homosexual innuendo to belittle a contestant on the quiz show The Weakest Link – Celebrity Chefs.

The presenter asked Reza Mahammad: ‘What do you do in your restaurant? Just mince around?’ She later wondered: ‘Is Reza more puff than pastry?’ By way of a digestive, she added: ‘Reza, before you go, and bear in mind that this is a family show, what’s the strangest thing you’ve ever put in your mouth?’

Funny? If you watch daytime TV such banter might well be hilarious, although it may go over your head, especially if the telly is positioned on that high bracket in your rest home’s communal lounge.

And there is more. Stonewall is unhappy with Jeremy Clarkson, BBC’s resident unreconstructed man. Apparently, Clarkson has taken to calling cars he doesn’t like “gay”.

In all, the study, entitled Tuned Out, claimed that 51 per cent of all individual references to homosexual people on the BBC were in the form of jokes, as the Telegraph says.

The report notes: ‘The BBC rarely challenges homophobia and consistently allows its presenters to perpetuate negative attitudes towards lesbians and gay men, and gay sexuality.’ There is evidence of ‘low level homophobia’.

The report, supported by research by the University of Leeds, and based on 168 hours of BBC broadcasts, notes that homosexuals were “realistically portrayed” for just six minutes.

Although it would have been longer if Reza had done better on his general knowledge…’



Posted: 1st, March 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink