Brandgate: the public resigns
It follows a public apology from the public over their ‘juvenile and thoughtless remarks’ in the calls. Earlier, it was announced they would be suspended until the BBC has investigated the calls made on Radio Five.
The abstract concept of perspective, 2000, said he had ‘respect’ for the public’s decision. Perspective was upset after the public left a series of idiotic messages on public phone-shows and message boards.
The public said in a statement that they took ‘complete responsibility’ for the incidents. ‘As we only do the radio shows to make people laugh we’ve decided that, given the subsequent coverage, we will stop doing the shows,” they said.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown criticised the public for ‘inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour’, while Conservative shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said in a speech on Wednesday that it was ‘wrong for broadcasters to produce programmes that legitimise negative social behaviour’.
Posted on October 30th, 2008 at 1:33pm under Culture, media and sport
fantastic.
I read the comments thread under the transcript of the call on The Times’ site, and temporarily lost the will to live. I just keep telling myself that out of say 60 million people, there are hopefully just 2 million or so like that, and at times like this we only see those idiots, and the rest of us are just bemused and not writing to the beeb or posting on the internets.
Applauds.
Wonderful stuff.
The whole furore reminds me of the fuss after Chris Morris’s Brass Eye Paedogeddon special – where Nicky Campbell played chief cheerleader on 5 live.
The whole thing needs nipping in the bud and quick. I think we should kidnap, say, a dozen of these yahoos at random and parade them on TV in the National Lottery slot on Saturday night. Have them bound and hooded and get them to read a penitent statement direct to camera while surrounded by surly gunmen.
The strangest thing about the Russel Brand scenario is what made him imagine he was funny.
Using mindless profanity doesn’t make you funny, it just makes you a tedious wanker. No one sees Mark Watson lowering himself to this level, yet he’s overwhelmingly funnier than this fuckwit.
Do they really not posess enough talent to make jokes that someone is going to laugh at?
Obviously there’s nothing wrong with a bit of swearing here & there, however there is something wrong when it’s all you’ve got to say & you don’t have anything other than shock value.
But RB does, despite his annoying voice, very clearly have something other than shock value – this, for example, is funny: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GxP01GNXTik
Publicly humiliating an old man to make yourself look funny is no better than kicking the fat kid round the playground to make yourself look big.
Isn’t there more than enough macho-bullying-as-entertainment out there with willing participants, without picking on someone who isn’t (willing)?
But this can only be classed as ‘publicly humiliating an old man’ if you’re a gibbering idiot. If you actually listen to the calls, Brand is publicly humiliating *himself*. Ross’s role is a bit dodgier.
I like Brand – but only on the radio. He’s a bit much at the best of times, so to watch him is grating.
He is funny. He is smart (usually). But he is also controversial.
In fact, the Ross lark was pretty lame compared to his standup where hoax-calls are part of his act.
Also, remember Brand was the guy who went to work at MTV on September 12 2001 dressed as Osama bin Laden. Needless to say he was fired.
Occasionally he gets things very wrong, but the BBC is poorer for his absence. I just wish someone could have found a way to blame the whole thing on that fucktard Chris Moyles.
Can we do something about George Lamb while we’re at it?