Ebola doing the rounds

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **That** » Fri Oct 10, 2014 11:16 am

Isn't the point of Little Britain that, in large part, it's supposed to be a satire of outdated (primarily but not exclusively rural) British values, and an amusing exploration of what the world would be like if certain related stereotypes were true?

I don't think you're supposed to watch Little Britain and pick up the idea that 'Ting Tong' is an appropriate phrase to use in conversation any more than you're supposed to pick up the idea that all (or any) gay men are like Daffyd Thomas.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Banjo** » Fri Oct 10, 2014 11:25 am

Wasn't Ting Tong introduced in Series 3 of Little Britain too? Much of the critical regard of the series was lavished over the first series, and by the time Ting Tong was introduced the reviews were less favourable and (while I cannot comment on whether it was still a huge success with ratings) it's cultural impact in terms of quotability had taken a severe hit. Ting Tong was a creation at a time when people were starting to get a little uncomfortable and outright bored with Little Britain. In fact that was the final series.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Moggy** » Fri Oct 10, 2014 11:31 am

[iup=3586409]Karl[/iup] wrote:Isn't the point of Little Britain that, in large part, it's supposed to be a satire of outdated (primarily but not exclusively rural) British values, and an amusing exploration of what the world would be like if certain related stereotypes were true?

I don't think you're supposed to watch Little Britain and pick up the idea that 'Ting Tong' is an appropriate phrase to use in conversation any more than you're supposed to pick up the idea that all (or any) gay men are like Daffyd Thomas.

I was never sure with the Ting Tong character whether they were using the stereotype of the Thai ladyboy as a joke or whether they were being “casually” racist about Thai people.

The WI character they had (who puked everytime she found out a black person had baked her cakes) was obviously taking the piss out of racists, in the same way that Alf Garnett was taking the piss out of that type of person (although a lot of people just liked the racist man and didn’t get the subtlety of the jokes). Ting Tong didn’t seem to have that same awareness about it and seemed just to be going for cheap laughs at the idea of a transsexual. As I said though, I am not sure what their intent was.

Either way, whatever the motivation of Lucas and Walliams, the fact that a BBC sketch show uses stereotyped characters isn’t a reason for it to be acceptable in day to day life. Monkey Dust had the Pedofinder General executing suspected kiddy fiddlers, I don’t think that gives anyone the right to chop peoples heads off.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **That** » Fri Oct 10, 2014 11:38 am

Aye. I actually dislike Little Britain because its jokes made me feel a little too uncomfortable a little too often - even in its acclaimed first season, I'm afraid - but in any case, whether it was effective satire or not, for Cal to suggest that it can be used as some kind of style manual for political correctness just because it was broadcast on the BBC is fairly misguided.

It was broadcast because it was intended to be comedic - not to encourage people to add its slurs and stereotypes to their vernacular!

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Rubix** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 8:06 am

Think the comments in You tube are worse than the joke!

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Skarjo** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 10:11 am

I've never seen Little Britain but I would have assumed that a character like Ting Tong would serve a similar purpose to Token in South Park; meant to illustrate the silliness of the stereotyping of such characters rather than endorse it. Token is not meant to endorse having single black characters in casts, nor would it be OK to write a single black character then point at South Park and sat 'but they did it'.

But again, I don't know the exact context with which Ting Tong is used because to do so would involve watching Little Britain.

:dread:

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Tineash** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 1:23 pm

[iup=3587241]Skarjo[/iup] wrote:I've never seen Little Britain but I would have assumed that a character like Ting Tong would serve a similar purpose to Token in South Park; meant to illustrate the silliness of the stereotyping of such characters rather than endorse it. Token is not meant to endorse having single black characters in casts, nor would it be OK to write a single black character then point at South Park and sat 'but they did it'.

But again, I don't know the exact context with which Ting Tong is used because to do so would involve watching Little Britain.

Nope, Little Britain is strawberry floating foul.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Meep** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 1:53 pm

The sad thing is that we would already have a vaccine for mass deployment now if the large pharmaceutical companies had not just ignored this virus for decades because there was no business case. The governments in west Africa were simply not wealthy enough to pay big money for vaccination programmes. Of course, as profit making entities, that was probably their right; but the UN should seriously look into developing better funding for that kind of research if that is the case. We cannot just leave the health of the entire world at risk because there is no immediate business case for developing a solution to possible epidemics.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Skarjo** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 9:19 pm

I hardly think that's 'the sad thing'; Ebola was (still is), in the grand scheme of disease, a nasty but meaningless blip. Is gooey and squelchy and makes for good headlines but in terms of requiring any real investment in treatment or, even more ridiculously, a vaccine, is so far down the to-do list of actually threatening diseases it's not even funny. Cancer, malaria, TB, HIV; these are still the real diseases we need to focus on. Any funding they lose in favour of knee-jerk, sensationalist fear mongering over Ebola would be the real tragedy.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Skarjo** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 9:29 pm

Sorry, that sounds arsier than I intended. This kind of hysteria just irritates me, especially when it leads to me having to waste time attending 'Ebola awareness' courses to sate paranoid parents.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Lotus** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 4:52 pm

Sounds like the 'screening' for this at Heathrow is a complete joke, with voluntary testing and pointless questionnaires. What a strawberry float up. :fp:

Should have banned flights arriving from West Africa weeks ago, not half-heartedly test people when they're already in the country. Way too little, and too late.

[iup=3587374]Meep[/iup] wrote:The sad thing is that we would already have a vaccine for mass deployment now if the large pharmaceutical companies had not just ignored this virus for decades because there was no business case. The governments in west Africa were simply not wealthy enough to pay big money for vaccination programmes. Of course, as profit making entities, that was probably their right; but the UN should seriously look into developing better funding for that kind of research if that is the case. We cannot just leave the health of the entire world at risk because there is no immediate business case for developing a solution to possible epidemics.

This has always been my view. I think the UN should lead on vaccine development.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Wedgie** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:42 am

I came in to read about Ebola.

All I got was Little Britain.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Death's Head** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:58 am

Yeah, thought I'd come into the wrong thread. :lol:

Really getting concerned now that we aren't doing enough (and this sounds terrible) to keep it in the county it originated from.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Moggy** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:14 am

[iup=3590336]Death's Head[/iup] wrote:Yeah, thought I'd come into the wrong thread.
Really getting concerned now that we aren't doing enough (and this sounds terrible) to keep it in the county it originated from.

Ebola doesn't come from one country. And even if it did, how would you keep it in one country?

Ebola sounds scary (and is strawberry floating scary if you did catch it!) but it is not going to lead to the collapse of society like the media seem to want us to think. It is very hard to catch and would be reasonably easy to contain if there was an outbreak in a modern Western country.

You should be far more worried about catching the flu.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Rex Kramer** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:24 am

Someone seems to have dropped a massive bollock at this Dallas hospital, some of the rumours are the nurses were taking no precautions on infection.

It has announced new measures to improve hospital preparedness for Ebola treatment, including an immediate response team that will travel to the site of any future Ebola diagnoses to hit the ground "within hours".

Nurses at the Dallas hospital say they worked for days without adequate protective clothing and received little guidance on how to prevent the spread of the virus.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Death's Head** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:38 am

[iup=3590356]Moggy[/iup] wrote:You should be far more worried about catching the flu.

I've had the flu several times before and am here to say so. Not quite sure that I'd be able to say that about Ebola in the future.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Moggy** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:45 am

[iup=3590374]Death's Head[/iup] wrote:
[iup=3590356]Moggy[/iup] wrote:You should be far more worried about catching the flu.

I've had the flu several times before and am here to say so. Not quite sure that I'd be able to say that about Ebola in the future.

You can't say that about the flu you will catch in the future. And you are not going to catch Ebola unless you are touching infected people/corpses.

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Death's Head** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:57 am

[iup=3590379]Moggy[/iup] wrote:And you are not going to catch Ebola unless you are touching infected people/corpses.

Yes, that's right. :shifty:

PostRe: Ebola doing the rounds by **Moggy** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 12:34 pm

[iup=3590395]Death's Head[/iup] wrote:
[iup=3590379]Moggy[/iup] wrote:And you are not going to catch Ebola unless you are touching infected people/corpses.

Yes, that's right.

Ebola doing the rounds

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