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Should RTE stop airing Father Ted?

Markus Antonius

Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has had a comedy gig cancelled in Scotland due to his opinion.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-66520643

Given the government are desperate to pass this new hatespeech legislation, which will render Linehan's opinion illegal, should RTE stop airing Father Ted?

Proposed legislation:

2023-08-18 01_38_10-b105b22d.pdf - Opera.png

2023-08-18 01_40_46-b105b22d.pdf - Opera.png

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tesla_newbie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994218#Comment_120994218

Are you saying a belief in cancel culture is on a par with belief in alien shape shifters ?

if you’re going to gas light , keep it somewhat credible, there’s a good lad

DarkJager21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994638#Comment_120994638

Nobody is getting riled up? Simply making the point that there are no winners in this - one side cannot with a straight face try to cancel Linehan while also thinking they have a right to be downright vicious and not expect a response to it.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994611#Comment_120994611

Linehan and all the other whiners of free speech/woke are perma victims.

DarkJager21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994669#Comment_120994669

Sure and I suppose the woke types are paragons of integrity yeah? No skeletons in the closet - be kind and all that? Pull the other one.

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994638#Comment_120994638

So do you support the impending laws that protect one of the sides?

Str8outtaWuhan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994271#Comment_120994271

So you think gay marriage and access to abortion was the wrong vote. Nice....

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994134#Comment_120994134

You're conflating two different things - cancelling and boycotting.

Anheuser-Busch isn't a person. Its a mega-corporation with a net worth of $109.68 billion.

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994756#Comment_120994756

There is nothing warped about the interpretation. The law is left suitably vague. You support a suitably vague law that will clearly be used to ruin people who have an opinion you disagree with. Remember, just bringing someone to court is enough to ruin them, they don't have to be found guilty of anything. It's for this very purpose the law is being brought in and it's disgusting that people support it.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994307#Comment_120994307

I don't need to you are the one trying to make the argument and given there is so little interest among the general public it does not look like it is going so well.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994803#Comment_120994803

Grammarians like Merriam-Webster don't control discourse just because they can produce their own definitions of words.

The most boycotted companies in the world are Nike, Coca Cola, McDonald's and Nestle.

"Omg you cancelled the Coca Cola company😥"

A pile-on against an individual person and their ability to find employment is not the same as refusing to buy the product of a well-known brand.

Really these mega-corporations themselves act as instruments of social control in how they wield their financial power.

I think you know and understand that perfectly well even if you claim not to.

Apiarist

If Linehan produced a comedy about trans people, woke culture (if it exists in Ireland?) and being cancelled, of the same caliber as Fr. Ted, I would watch it. But it seems that Linehan got himself into some sort of of anti-trans crusade instead. You just wouldn't expect that from someone who wrote these lines years ago:

Colm : I hear you're a racist now, Father? Should we all be racist now? What's the Church's position? I'm so busy down on the farm I won't have much time for the ol' racism.
Father Ted : What?
Mrs. Carberry : [wildly gesticulating] Good for you, Father! Good for you! Somebody finally had the guts to stand up and say it! They come over here, after our jobs and our women, fecking Greeks!
Colm : It's not the Greeks, it's the Chinese he's after!
Father Ted : I'm not after the Chinese! I'm not a racist!
Mrs. Carberry : I don't care so long as I can have a go at the Greeks! They're the ones who invented gayness!

growleaves

@victor8600 "If Linehan produced a comedy about trans people"

There's an episode of The IT Crowd which is a comedy about trans people.

That's how his feuding got started, Linehan refused to apologise over it and then got drawn into online fighting ever after.

patmahe

If you can't consume media created by a person whose opinions don't fully align with your own then the world is in a bad place.

Father Ted is not about Graham Linehan, its a comedy series about 3 Priests and their housekeeper living on a small Island, it captures a snapshot of Irish culture in the mid to late 90's and is very very funny. You can have a master craftsman who is great at their job but be a terrible person behind the scenes, does that mean you shouldn't look at anything they make? I'd say that's a matter of personal choice and that that's the way is should stay, it shouldn't be up to you, me or anyone else to tell people what they can/can't do as long as they aren't harming anyone else. Watch Father Ted or don't watch it, but Graham Linehan being a knob shouldn't stop being broadcast.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994864#Comment_120994864

Need to start up a gofundme for Mrs. Carberry.

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994828#Comment_120994828

Nowhere in the law have they defined the term "hatred" or "insulting". Yet it is used constantly throughout.

From the law:

“Threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour in public place aggravated by hatred"

“Distribution or display in public place of material which is threatening, abusive, insulting or obscene aggravated by hatred"

“Entering building, etc., with intent to commit an offence aggravated by hatred"

All of the above being punishable with prison term. You can now take a person to court and financially ruin them if they made you feel insulted. And you support this?

https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/bill/2022/105/eng/ver_b/b105b22d.pdf

RoTelly

Yes but only because it hasn't been off RTÉ since they choose not to commission the show.

Yes I know they were never offered the show, but that's because the creators knew they wouldn't commission it.

And Graham is entitled to his opinion.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994952#Comment_120994952

They want to because #FreeSpeech.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994272#Comment_120994272

Exactly. He can't force a venue to host his event either. The right of free association also means the right to not associate with whoever you choose. Linehan crossed the line from expressing opinion into outright harassment of specific named people.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994375#Comment_120994375

Legislation can be put to referendum - it's never happened though, and is probably a bad idea.

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994952#Comment_120994952

You won't see the issue until you fall on your own sword and find yourself on the wrong side of the legislation.

But sher that could never happen because your opinion is infallible...

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994960#Comment_120994960

Yeah they knew it was pointless pitching it to RTE as there was no chance in hell they'd make it or even go co-producer on it. RTE let down not only the viewing public but also the crew who worked on Fr Ted who were nearly all Irish.

RTE was offered it to run at (or around) the same time as Channel 4 were showing the first series. They chose to run The Thin Blue Line instead (who remembers that crap??)

Of course the first series was so popular here that they were then forced to start showing it.

Linehan is of course entitled to his opinion, what he's not entitled to do is spew hatred against groups of people and harass specific people, which he's been warned by the police under UK law for doing.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120995007#Comment_120995007

If it went to referendum, the people demanding a referendum will probably be very shocked by the result.

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120995092#Comment_120995092

Let me spell it out for you very clearly then. "hatred" "insulting" - both these things comprise a large amount of subjectivity. What hatred is to one person is valid criticism to another. What is insulting to one person is "having the craic" to another.

Government are literally fast-tracking a law that is being shunned by both politically left and right due to being subjective and grey. Meaning anyone with an opinion can fall foul of this legislation.

Now that you are up to speed, do you still support the law passing?

DarkJager21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120995134#Comment_120995134

I don't think so. You need to remember there is a very silent majority that don't use the internet and don't interact with this topic. Don't take a few boards commenters or tweets as being representative of support for this, it has none in the wider population (as the government discovered and ignored through the public consultation on it).

whisky_galore

Where else would people get their stock of tired old jokes? If this show was a person they'd be finished full time education, maybe working a nice job and looking to get a place of their own.

Grayson

There's a couple of things. Linehan has gone off the deep end. He's so far down the rabbit hole that his wife and kids left him because of it. He's stated that was the reason when he was addressing some parliamentary committee.

He's repeatedly called people who support trans rights groomers and paedophiles. He's doxxed people. He's turned into a horrible person.

I can fully understand the reason that places are refusing to book him.

Should father Ted be banned? Probably not. People who will agree with Linehan will say no to banning. What about people who disagree with him? Well, he's not getting any money from it. He's not benefiting from it. It's not like rebroadcasting it will rehabilitate his career.

DarkJager21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120995401#Comment_120995401

Maybe because it's a classic comedy alongside the likes of Only Fools and Horses? It's endlessly quotable, was a fantastic series in its own time and has only gotten better with age. Name a single tv show that has come close to it since, I'll wait.

Apiarist

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994880#Comment_120994880

Interesting! Apparently, the episode (S3.E4 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320786/) wasn't transparently transphobic (=reasonably sensible for 2008), and showed Douglas breaking up with April after he learned that she was trans and then regretting it, ending the episode with Douglas crying about this. But then some overzealous transactivists criticized Linehan over this episode and he just lost his marbles and went on a counter-offensive that was completely over the top.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120995591#Comment_120995591

Did anyone even bother criticising this? I don't think most people even know it exists. Didn't see anything transphobic in that episode either which is remarkable given Linehan's downward cultural trajectory.

neris

No. Shouldnt be silenced for telling the truth and calling out the deranged loonies