[article] BCI uphold Late Late Show Complaints

mike65

from PA

Gerry Ryan’s only time presenting the Late Late Show was today panned by the broadcasting watchdog after a raft of complaints over comedian Tommy Tiernan’s appearance.

Angry viewers denounced the stand-up over his mimicry of a man left severely disabled by a motorcycle accident and for a joke about having sex with a Traveller.

The Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC) upheld eight complaints against the show last October, when Mr Ryan was drafted in to cover for Pat Kenny.

The €559,000-a-year radio host, RTÉ’s second highest earner after Mr Kenny, was also rapped for egging on his guest, who has sparked controversy before on the show.

“The presenter actively engaged in the jokes being told by the comedian and in effect, urged him on irrespective of manner or content,” the BCC said after an investigation.

“At no stage did he challenge or attempt to curb the presentation or what was being said by the comedian.”

Viewers, including the mother of a disabled child and a road crash victim, vented their fury over Mr Tiernan’s mimicry of a disabled man in St Michael’s Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire.

The comedian said he was trying to buy the motorbike off the man and the punchline was that he could not accept payment as he had no grip, the BCC found.

Complainants wrote they were sickened and disgusted with his acting “spasticated” in a “mocking fashion which can only be described as grossly insulting” to someone with an incurable disability.

One mother of a Down’s Syndrome boy said she found “his jeering at people with disabilities was in very bad taste”.

RTÉ argued: “The motives in telling the joke were to embrace people with disabilities not to stigmatise or stereotype them.”

But the BCC upheld the complaints, insisting that the manner and content of the joke went beyond acceptable standards.

Pavee Point, the Traveller support organisation, was among a number of complainants who took offence at Mr Tiernan’s remarks about having sex with a Traveller.

Pavee Point accused Mr Tiernan of acting in a disgusting, outrageous and racist way.

They said he was suggesting that Travellers were in some way unclean, possibly stupid and sexually promiscuous.

But RTÉ told the official inquiry that it did not know what the joke meant and suspected it meant nothing.

In defending the comedian’s jokes about minorities, the State broadcaster argued: “Tiernan in a humorous way is celebrating the diversity of contemporary Ireland.

“We are a changed society and we can come together through laughing at each other... Irish humour is the practice of insulting people in a humorous way.”

The BCC ruled the Traveller joke was totally inappropriate, went beyond acceptable standards and was also derogatory to the Traveller Community.

Mr Ryan was called in to present the Late Late Show on October 24th after regular host Pat Kenny’s mother died.

Obviously some will rail against the apparent heavy-hand of Political Correctness but I reckon they got this right. Apart from the crass nature of Tiernans stock-in-trade, the fact it got such an airing (and encouragment) on the granny friendly LLS was a serious misjudgment and bound to end in tears.

Serenity Now!

Why didn't people complain when the Late Late Show devotes entire backslapping rallying editions to politicians?
Or not quite as bad but equally nauseating: devoting an entire show to Boyzone and repeatedly insulting any musicians out there by calling that shower a "band".

AtomicHorror

Strange how the show gets away with uncritical airing of interviews such as the one in November where we were told by some wide-eyed woman (with a book to sell of course) that angels are all around us. This nonsense goes unchallenged.

Tiernan, despite rubbing some folks up the wrong way, actually seems to have a lot of support within the disabled and disabled carer community.