I just watched some Big Brother. Marcus, the funny-looking, geeky one from London had an argument with Sree, the slick, cool looking Indian. Something he said got him called into the diary room for a telling off by the production company, in the guise of Big Brother.
Big Brother [played by a woman]: During a discussion with Sree about the shopping list, you said the words “thirteen thirteens” in an imitation of Sree’s accent. This, along with the aggressive tone used when saying this, is what brought it to Big Brother’s attention.
Marcus: Yeah, you need to step right back from that right now. If he can say to me all the things that he copies from me [...] he goes to me “oh come on hurry up mate hurry up mate” in exactly the same was as I said it to him — don’t even start all of that because when you start all of that then it becomes something.If I had an argument with Naureen and I said it in an Irish accent, or if I said it in a Geordie accent or I said it in any other accent in the house apart from Sree’s, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and that’s a fact. That’s an absolute fact. So, no-one else in the house would get offended by it. [...]
BB: Marcus, using words regarding a housemate’s cultural background along with an aggressive tone, is what could be deemed offensive.
M: No, it’s not. Seriously. Everyone else in the house argues with Freddy and [...] do his [posh] voice and do it back to him. How many times have you called them in? No times at all, and there’s been plenty more aggressive arguments with Freddy, and you haven’t called any of them in. So all of that stuff with Sree didn’t bother me but now I’m bothered, now that you’ve started all of this absolute claptrap.You need to have a good think about things you say, you know, you’re too PC sometimes. And I realise that there’s millions of people watching but at the end of the day everyone knows right from wrong and they know what happened like that. So you need to stick up for people in the right as well with this, and your programme. And not just give in to a few stupid bloody people who’ll just moan about the colour of the sky or something like that. Because it’s just absolute popycock that just spoils everything in society.
It struck me as a fairly robust, almost heroic defence against the PC case. In other cases like this people have lamely accepted the accusation of un-PC behaviour and apologised. Marcus came close to making the point that people are offended by what they choose to be offended by, and the PC movement is all to happy to pander to them by, for example, defining offensive behaviour as anything that someone says offends them.
It also struck me how Big Brother the TV show often reflects the state.
well, what was the end result?! Im pissing myself here
As far as I remember, nothing further happened, proving that you can occasionally get away with it when you stick up for yourself against politically correct nonsense.