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The World of David Walliams: General Discussion

Steve74 said:
Exactly. And in this example, considering Gangsta Granny the book has been out about 7 years and the film 3 or 4, I'm sure if Asian shop keepers had taken offence, we'd have heard about it in the news by now or the book withdrawn from sale/film never shown again..
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And remember that the book's target audience is children, not easily offended adults.
 
skyscraper said:
And remember that the book's target audience is children, not easily offended adults.
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Mmm... doesn't that make this more of a concern?

Children are still having their view of the world shaped and having stereotypes thrown in their faces can create dangerous worldviews going into adulthood. Children might not perceive it as a joke but as their reality.

I have no strong opinions on this but just felt that that comment warranted a counterpoint.
 
It's like when Apu was cancelled from The Simpsons.

Surely just cancel the whole show if you find that offensive. The main character is a fat, lazy, white trash stereotype.
 
RicketyCricket said:
It's like when Apu was cancelled from The Simpsons.

Surely just cancel the whole show if you find that offensive. The main character is a fat, lazy, white trash stereotype.
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Like @D4n , I don't really have strong opinions on this stuff either way, but the context there is totally different. Apu is a minority character voiced by a white actor doing a comedy 'funny foreigner' accent, whereas the others are majority stereotypes voiced by the white majority. I wish people would remember that the timeless 'Proposition 24' episode of The Simpsons of course shows Apu to be hard-working and noble whereas the rest of Springfield is fundamentally ignorant and entitled, but that didn't stop a whole generation of Indian kids having "Thank you, come again!" shouted at them as they left the house.

As for the question are people actually offended, do they need to seem to be offended or has the furlough got to us all? It's probably a mix of all three...

As for Walliams, I wonder if this sudden wave of very 'in-crowd' bad press is actually to do with another issue?
 
Plastic Person said:
Like @D4n , I don't really have strong opinions on this stuff either way, but the context there is totally different. Apu is a minority character voiced by a white actor doing a comedy 'funny foreigner' accent, whereas the others are majority stereotypes voiced by the white majority. I wish people would remember that the timeless 'Proposition 24' episode of The Simpsons of course shows Apu to be hard-working and noble whereas the rest of Springfield is fundamentally ignorant and entitled, but that didn't stop a whole generation of Indian kids having "Thank you, come again!" shouted at them as they left the house.

As for the question are people actually offended, do they need to seem to be offended or has the furlough got to us all? It's probably a mix of all three...

As for Walliams, I wonder if this sudden wave of very 'in-crowd' bad press is actually to do with another issue?
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Re-watched that episode very recently and it's excellent

Yeah that's fair enough, a white bloke doing an accent could be considered the audio equivalent of black face. But then I'm assuming the person who does Groundskeeper Willie isn't actually Scottish either. Or Luigi not Italian etc.
 
RicketyCricket said:
It's like when Apu was cancelled from The Simpsons.

Surely just cancel the whole show if you find that offensive. The main character is a fat, lazy, white trash stereotype.
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Apu is a different issue, it was the fact he was voiced by a white actor, not directly the character traits.
 
At what point does a stereotype become bad? By that I mean @Tim in post #1439 mentioned that in his street there were 2 corner shops run by Asians and both matched the description of Raj. That's one street in one town. So statistically, that must mean that the stereotype is common across the country. If it is that common, and everyone including children see it, is it still a bad stereotype? Does this mean that Walliams is just reflecting modern day British society? I mean surely the reader of the book would think "Wow, Raj is identical to Mr Patel who runs the [insert name of cornershop here] down the road." Is that such a bad thing? Maybe Walliams is just basing Raj on someone he knows in his local corner shop. Who knows but I bet if he didn't have Raj but instead had Mr Smith, a white man with 2.4 children, a labrador and a family hatchback, people would complain it wasn't realistic and is book didn't represent the diversity of this country. Seems like just with Little Britain and Come Fly With Me, he's damned if is does and damned if he doesnt. He can't win.
 
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I think it's less of when does a stereotype become bad and more how do we avoide writing characters that are only there for the sake of stereotyping.

Stereotypes are great for creating characters that you can very quickly relate to. But a good writer will then dig deeper and show other layers that make them an actual character.

I can't speak for Raj as I haven't read Walliams books. But given Walliams has a comedy background and most comedy sketches rely on stereotypes to help jokes land quickly I suspect Raj could suffer from this. Apu suffered from the same thing and although the Simpsons did try to break the stereotype they unfortunately made the character too funny as a stereotype.
 
Raj isn't written as a stereotype, rather he is written as an archetype...
The issue here, is that this specific archetype, it based off of a (very real) stereotype.

The value In doing this, is that most readers will instantly understand what the character is about and will start out with a prebuilt connection to him. This means that the writer can instantly jump into setting up the conflict without dampening its impact!
 
"ethical" should presumably have been "ethnic" in that statement?

It then makes grammatical sense, although it's still wrong. You can be a victim of the issues and a perpetrator against others, the two are not mutually exclusive. Not that I am suggesting that applies in the example of Raj.

An interesting example of how attitudes are evolving is Lenny Henry's film True Identity (https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki True Identity - Wikipedia), with its race reversal plot?
I don"t think we'll be seeing that one back on broadcast TV any time soon.
 
Steve74 said:
Exactly. And in this example, considering Gangsta Granny the book has been out about 7 years and the film 3 or 4, I'm sure if Asian shop keepers had taken offence, we'd have heard about it in the news by now or the book withdrawn from sale/film never shown again..
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The portrayal of Raj has appeared in the news a few years ago when it was adapted for TV:

https://inews.co.uk/culture/books/d...er-raj-indian-shopkeeper-midnight-gang-240641

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...used-racism-childrens-book-character-Raj.html

https://metro.co.uk/2018/12/31/davi...-shopkeeper-stereotype-midnight-gang-8296979/

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1065451/david-walliams-new-show-racist-shopkeeper

This is not really a matter of 'taking offence' as much as a recognition of the effect such stereotypes have on racist bullying and discrimination.

Concerns about issues such as racism, homophobia and transphobia are often brushed off as "snowflake culture", "taking offence for the sake of it" and "PC gone mad". That's it's trendy to pick on things like this and "choose to take offence". It is a shame to get that sort of vibe from this thread because as someone that was bullied based on such stereotypes, it really should be taken more seriously.

It's very easy for someone unaffected to shrug it off and say "lighten up", but personally I might have a bit more of a sense of humour about sexuality and racial stereotypes when people stop getting discriminated and beaten up for it.
 
Matgo said:
The portrayal of Raj has appeared in the news a few years ago when it was adapted for TV:

https://inews.co.uk/culture/books/d...er-raj-indian-shopkeeper-midnight-gang-240641

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...used-racism-childrens-book-character-Raj.html

https://metro.co.uk/2018/12/31/davi...-shopkeeper-stereotype-midnight-gang-8296979/

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1065451/david-walliams-new-show-racist-shopkeeper

This is not really a matter of 'taking offence' as much as a recognition of the effect such stereotypes have on racist bullying and discrimination.

Concerns about issues such as racism, homophobia and transphobia are often brushed off as "snowflake culture", "taking offence for the sake of it" and "PC gone mad". That's it's trendy to pick on things like this and "choose to take offence". It is a shame to get that sort of vibe from this thread because as someone that was bullied based on such stereotypes, it really should be taken more seriously.

It's very easy for someone unaffected to shrug it off and say "lighten up", but personally I might have a bit more of a sense of humour about sexuality and racial stereotypes when people stop getting discriminated and beaten up for it.
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So what’s your solution then? I doubt Alton towers will change zilch now so nothing is going to change.
 
Regarding Raj , a character could have been written with all of those penny pinching ways , but associating them with an Indian shopkeeper sadly does reinforce the casual racism we see in the U.K.

As seen above, the tv adaptation did spark concern from representatives of the effected minority , it’s nobody’s fault that criticism was largely ignored

In terms of what Towers can do , it would likely be wise to adapt the branding of the store to be something that encompasses the whole area , rather than the lazily named “Raj’s shop”
 
tayspru said:
Regarding Raj , a character could have been written with all of those penny pinching ways , but associating them with an Indian shopkeeper sadly does reinforce the casual racism we see in the U.K.

As seen above, the tv adaptation did spark concern from representatives of the effected minority , it’s nobody’s fault that criticism was largely ignored

In terms of what Towers can do , it would likely be wise to adapt the branding of the store to be something that encompasses the whole area , rather than the lazily named “Raj’s shop”
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It’s a shop, it’s owned by Raj. Very lazy towers!

What would be the response if the shop wasn’t put in the Walliams world? Accusations of racism?


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