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Russell Brand: rape and sexual abuse allegations, grifting and general dodginess - discussion

tim said:
Bollocks! Do you/did you know people from that 'generation"? Like Manning you are looking for a group to vilify
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I'm the one who talked about them. Of which Manning is one. Yes I did know them. But they're all dead and their neighbourhoods gone.
 
Epona said:
Manning, his promoters, his agents, the people who booked him, were "telling people what to think" by booking him and letting him be part of mainstream entertainment.

Normalising that language. Normalising that viewpoint.
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Yes they were. But in my experience they thought those things anyway, so they were already normalised (chicken or egg?)

Nobody went on the rampage against ethnic minorities after seeing Manning live even once, as far as I can recall. And my experience tells me that you could have success in changing such views, at least among those you had access to, even in the limited time you had to do it. And it was a difficult process: you could perceive successes, only to find the views you thought you were challenging arise at a later date. And how heartfelt the racism, for instance, depended on the individual. You also have to take into account the fact that a lot of people will play up to it because they know it isn't what you want to hear, while having no intention at all of acting on it. Etc etc.
 
RD2003 said:
Yes they were. But in my experience they thought those things anyway, so they were already normalised (chicken or egg?)

Nobody went on the rampage against ethnic minorities after seeing Manning live even once, as far as I can recall. And my experience tells me that you could have success in changing such views, at least among those you had access to, even in the limited time you had to do it. And it was a difficult process: you could perceive successes, only to find the views you thought you were challenging arise at a later date. And how heartfelt the racism, for instance, depended on the individual. You also have to take into account the fact that a lot of people will play up to it because they know it isn't what you want to hear, while having no intention at all of acting on it. Etc etc.
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You really are just completely ignorant.
 
Wilf said:
Bernard Manning eh? We've had Sheik Mansoor and Vladimir Putin, I wondered who was going to complete your holy trinity of misunderstood scamps.
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Don't think I've ever said anybody is misunderstood, have I?

I don't think for one minute you're a fool, so why try to put across a simpleton's view of the world?
 
krtek a houby said:
About how women were repeatedly denigrated in the industry, whether being dismissed as unfunny or abused by predators?

2009 came up in the discussion, a discussion about the way in which women have been treated by the industry.
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I might be not totally understanding where you’re coming from and it’s getting late.

I was reacting against the idea that in 2009 the idea of women comedians was unusual or controversial.
I might have misinterpreted something.

Anyway, happy to pick that up later. Good night.
 
8ball said:
I might be not totally understanding where you’re coming from and it’s getting late.

I was reacting against the idea that in 2009 the idea of women comedians was unusual or controversial.
I might have misinterpreted something.

Anyway, happy to pick that up later. Good night.
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Was replying to the mention of competitive and nasty comedy in 09. Was saying that back then some people were still clinging to the archaic and untrue idea that women can't be funny.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
That is horrible. All initiated by Ross. He's the one who comes across as the most creepy. Allen's clearly uncomfortable with it. Brydon and Mitchell appear unable to challenge their assigned roles as the 'sexless ones' in this battle of the alpha males, but are clearly also uncomfortable.

Problem is, though, did any of them then refuse the next gig? I can see how it is very hard to challenge this shit from within without risking your own career, but if you don't, if you continue to accept the gigs and the pay cheques, then you become part of the problem.
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I'm just catching up on the last few pages of this thread, so I don't know if other people agreed or disagreed, or if the conversation simply moved on...

...but I just wanted to say it's a bit simplistic and easy - and also misguided - to pin the blame on the other panellists for working with Brand.

They're not in any position of power in that scenario, they're 'work for hire,' they have bills to pay.

It's clear, in hindsight, that he was 'hiding in plain sight'.

But you have to bear in mind the social mores of the times as well. Even if individuals who were fellow panellists, or guests on chat shows, or whatever, felt uncomfortable or thought Brand's conduct or what he was saying was wrong, anyone thinking or feeling that would've felt like they were firmly in the minority.

I mean, yes, British comedy culture had, in the main, moved on from finding racist 'jokes' funny, but by then we were in the tail-end of the lad and ladette and Loaded era, where things were much more overtly sexual.

We were - still are - a patriarchal society.

Anyone in that scenario who objected would've felt - and been perceived and seen to be - an outlier. They didn't get the joke. They were a prude or party pooper.

Look at the other video, Vanessa Feltz commenting on her appearance on his guest show when he asked to have sex with her and/or her two daughters - one of whom was only around 15-years-old at the time.

So to say if the other panellists appeared again then they were part of the problem, well, maybe to a certain, minuscule, extent, but no more so than everyone who tuned in to watch that programme every week and found it funny at the time. And there will have been lots and lots and lots of people who found that funny at the time who perhaps don't generally find that kind of 'humour' funny nowadays, and even more people who are looking back at that footage, knowing what they know now about there being allegations of sexual assault and rape, and not just finding it not funny, but being horrified.

So I don't think the other panellists are to blame for Brand's behaviour. If anyone, maybe blame the programme makers for booking him again and again, despite his controversial at best, deeply offensive sexist and misogynistic comments at worst. But moreover, blame Brand himself.
 
Epona said:
Also tbf Manning was a proud racist - he not only admitted his racism, he wanted to promote it. He was not a "product of his time", he actively promoted racism and helped to make it a product of later times.

I don't care how good his timing was, what is more shocking to me is that TV shows and events would book him as entertainment.

I grew up in the '70s in a rural village in Surrey (by which I mean absolutely no diversity) and I knew as a child that that sort of racist language and jokes were wrong. I was taught that by my parents who grew up in the '50s and '60s, so it's not enough to say it was just the times.
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He may or may not have been, as I've said with regard to his appearance on Mrs Merton. If he was, he was possibly in a majority at the time, among all social classes, and however regrettable, it is not at all shocking that he was regularly booked as mainstream entertainment. My view is that Manning was the type who would have sold his granny for personal advancement and a good income. At the same time, his son and others close to him do say that he was personally honourable... Fuck knows what he was really.

I also knew as a 1970s child that racism was wrong. I was taught this in particular by my mother, who was a union activist and shop steward. But she did used to laugh at Manning when he was on the telly...
 
Serge Forward said:
I know that generation and people who went to the embassy club. When called out on it, the usual excuse was "Manning isn't proper racist, he's like that with everyone" or "you might not like the subject matter, but look at his timing", etc.

He was a cunt.
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That wasn't the 'excuse' I used to hear. People would go either because they wanted to, or because they were dragged along. A variety of views emerged, but it seemed most people did laugh...

Having said that, in 1970/'80s Manchester, as you will know, probably 99% of people never went to the Embassy Club.
 
krtek a houby said:
You kind of are doing that with your "round my way, back then, people didn't like being told what to think by liberal metrosexual wokes" schtick.
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Those terms had never been invented at the time. As you will know.

But few people even now like being actually told what to think, it seems.
 
Serge Forward said:
When he was on The Comedians and Wheeltappers and Shunters, his racism was mostly toned down.
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Because he couldnt have done his club act on the telly even then.

But we can't escape the fact that, 'uncensored,' he was telling people what they mostly wanted to hear, even if it didn't chime with what they experienced in their lives. Those who laughed at Manning had to get along with the black or Asian colleague who'd just been put working alongside them, and mostly, in my experience, they did.
 
Larry O'Hara said:
?? Did I mention the Times and Channel 4? No
I am not talking about that tedious bore Brand, but dtamping onnGuardianista virtue signalling
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I meant that those are the bodies that are “attacking” him now. Are they independent in a way that they Guardian isn’t/wasn’t.

(dammit, was just going to bed..)
 
RD2003 said:
Because he couldnt have done his club act on the telly even then.

But we can't escape the fact that, 'uncensored,' he was telling people what they mostly wanted to hear, even if it didn't chime with what they experienced in their lives. Those who laughed at Manning had to get along with the black or Asian colleague who'd just been put working alongside them, and mostly, in my experience, they did.
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You don't even seem to have a basic understanding of your own prejudice.
 
Serge Forward said:
Er... I don't think anyone I knew ever thought that.
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How else would you explain the appeal?

He sounded like a north Manc. He said the stuff that most people were going about saying. Seriously, I knew may who thought he was a bit of a hero even if they never went to see him.

Didn't Morrisey say summat like 'Manchester in the 1970s was a pretty barbaric place'? He was obviously exaggerating but 'politically correct' it wasn't. Not least because PC hadn't yet properly escaped US academia.
 
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