The Cancellation of “Little Britain” was Long Overdue
When I read that “Little Britain” had been cancelled by Netflix, and a number of other major streaming platforms, for its portrayal of blackface, I wasn’t surprised; however it did cause me to reflect on exactly how such a blatantly offensive show was made and broadcast in the first place. The BBC, who have also decided to remove “Little Britain” from their iPlayer service claimed, in their official statement, that “times have changed” and while this may be a legitimate “excuse” for shows which aired in an era predating the civil rights movement, I do not think it can be applied to a series that launched on the BBC in 2003. “It’s shock comedy, it’s supposed to offend you,” is another defence I’ve noticed cropping up in tweets lamenting the removal of the show as some sort of breach of freedom of speech, but the very first time I watched an episode, at a friend’s house, my reaction was not shocked laughter — it just made me feel uncomfortable, the more so as my friends fell over themselves, imitating and mocking the characters.
The blackface was and is inexcusable, but those sketches did not make their way into the playground at school. Instead, it was the obvious and cruel disablism that shaped many of my peers’ catcalls and, more generally, their attitudes towards disabled people. “Eh, eh, eh” and “want that one” became catchphrases that class clowns would squawk when the teacher’s back was turned, and openly use to bully students with learning difficulties. I remember that when I initially heard these phrases, repeated over and over, I was confused, and asked a friend to explain them to me. “It’s Ann and Andy, from ‘Little Britain’,” he told me. “You need to watch it.”
When I eventually did, it seemed indefensible. The show made no attempt to dress up the sketches as “laughing with” the characters, or even at the way society treated them. Instead it presented grotesque interpretations of people who already suffer from enough prejudice and discrimination and expected the viewer to laugh at them. The jokes that were a resounding hit with my classmates all followed the same formula — laugh at this sound or this behaviour because disabilities are funny. I’ve never understood how comedians can defend jokes in this vein, when they are so clearly exploitative and, far from breaking taboos, actually just reinforce one of the most damaging social conventions — bullying.
These jokes don’t engage people intellectually, make use of word play or double entendres; the punchline is simple — it’s us versus them; laugh because they’re different — and the damage this type of “humour” can cause, particularly amongst young people, who feel the urge to blend in at any cost, is significant. It’s about time that we recognise that these types of show are not only tone-deaf, but also that the label “comedy” cannot and should not be used as an excuse for racism, disablism or any other kind of prejudice. Furthermore it is incredibly important that we examine the institutions and processes that gave “Little Britain” the green light, when it heavily and explicitly relied upon “jokes” that encouraged bigoted behaviour.
My suspicion is that under-representation played a major role. If any of the people ridiculed by Little Britain had been involved in its production, or the oversight process, in significant numbers to feel confident enough to challenge the stars/writers of the show over their characters, it might never have had the opportunity to disgrace our screens. It seemed perfectly obvious at the time that the sketches were cruel and wrong and I hope that, while this moment in history is rightly used to highlight the continued and unacceptable use of blackface, we also remember that disabled people remain one of the few groups that “comedy” continues to exploit, with little to no backlash.
