Tim Minchin rants against ITV "cowardice"

[PR1Berske]

Summary - Tim Minchin performs a new song "Woody Allan Jesus" on the Jonathan Ross show. It goes well. Then the head of ITV cuts it just in case.

Jury of the Forum - I won't judge whether it is a good enough song, funny enough, or right for ITV to be worried on the content. IAs ever, you are the Court of Public Opinion.


Here's the video, with his own explanation in the text (reproduced below for any not able to get to YT)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SFdUJLebzU&feature=youtu.be

This song was meant to air on the Jonathan Ross Show tomorrow night (23rd December 2011), but at the last minute ITV cut it. Here's my whiney blog about it (originally published at www.timminchin.com):

I really like Jonathan Ross. I think he's a funny, interesting, kind person, and an excellent interviewer. I also really like his wife... But let's not get back into that.

Jonathan and his wonderful producer, Suzi, have been incredibly supportive of me and so when they asked me to write a song for their pre-Christmas show, I didn't hesitate. It was the worst possible time to be writing a new song -- I've been overworked and ill, was on tour, and was really feeling the stress. But I wasn't going to say no... it's Jonathan Ross! And my fellow guests were to be Tom Cruise, the divine actors from Downton Abbey, and the ace In-Betweeners boys.

So I got to writing. Being Christmas, I thought it would be fun to do a song about Jesus, but being TV, I knew it would have to be gentle. The idea was to compare him to Woody Allen (short, Jewish, philosophical, a bit hesitant), and expand into redefining his other alleged attributes using modern, popular-culture terminology.

It's not a particularly original idea, I admit, but it's quite cute. It's certainly not very contentious, but even so, compliance people and producers and lawyers all checked my lyrics long before the cameras rolled. As always with these bespoke writing jobs, I was really stressed for about 3 days, and almost chucked it in the bin 5 times, and freaked out that it wasn't funny and all that boring **** that people like me go through when we're lucky enough to have with a big audience with high expectations. And if I'm honest, it ain't a world-changing bit of comedy. Regardless...

On Tuesday night last week, we taped the show. I met Tom (he's nice and quite laid-back off camera, and not very short) and the divine Downton ladies (swoon) and the lovely In-Betweeners chaps (yay) and I did my song and everyone laughed and Tom said it was great and when it was done I ran off set onto the back of a waiting motorbike, got from South Bank to the Hammersmith Apollo in 13 minutes, walked into the building, straight on to stage to sing White Wine in the Sun with Professor Brian Cox. Rock n roll.

Subsequently, Suzi and her team edited the show and everybody was happy. Suzi felt it had a nice balance of big-ticket celeb action, local talent, and a nice bit of that cheeky, iconoclastic spirit for which Jonathan is known and widely loved.

And then someone got nervous and sent the tape to ITV's director of television, Peter Fincham.

And Peter Fincham demanded that I be cut from the show.

He did this because he's scared of the ranty, [...], right-wing press, and of the small minority of Brits who believe they have a right to go through life protected from anything that challenges them in any way.

Yesterday I wrote a big rant about comedy and risk and conservatism; about the fact that my joke has no victim; about sacredness (oh God, not again!) and about the importance of laughing at dumb but pervasive ideas. But I trashed it because it's boring and takes it all too seriously. It's hardly the end of the world.

But I have to admit I'm really [...] disappointed.

It's 2011. The appropriate reaction to people who think Jesus is a supernatural being is mild embarrassment, sighing tolerance and patient education.

And anger when they're being bigots.

Oh, and satire. There's always satire.

Anywaaaaaaaaaay... the fun news is that I already had the footage of the song when they cut it. Yay. And so you can decide for yourself how offensive it is! Yippee.

I hope you enjoy my silly, harmless, accurate song of praise, "Woody Allen Jesus".

And I hope you all have wonderful Christmases.

 

[Schnellzug]

oh, we wouldn't want to to Cause Offence, would we? There may be tyrants getting away with genocide while the leaders of the West look the other way because it's not in their strategic interests to intervene, and the global oil companies may be able to hold the world to ransom, and Big Business may be the ones who are really in control of governments behind the facade of the "elected" leaders, but at least we're cracking down on the evildoers who just might possibly Cause Offence to hypocritical tabloid newspapers, so Civilisation is being preserved.


:roll:

 

[Hydro]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9HRLvfbauA


I'm offended.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I'm offensive and I find this thread Christian.

 

[Minilad]

I haven't seen the clip. But I think I will say I'm offended anyway just in case.

 

[Tracked]

I'm offended by this, even though it's on a show I won't watch because it's hosted by Jonathon Ross who did something really offensive with an answerphone on another show that I didn't watch because I was offended by something or other he did before that, which I think makes me more offended than you ... nyer nyer

is Tim Minchin going for the Bill Hicks fan dollar there?

 

[Yew]

I'm really offended that it was cut.

 

[AlterEgo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9HRLvfbauA


I'm offended.

Brilliant link!

 

[PR1Berske]

ITV is quoted on the BBC as saying "the song didn't work editorially"


Of that, make what you will.

 

[Darandio]

"the song didn't work editorially"

Roughly translated:

"We bottled it"

 

[ChrisCooper]

Presumably the Tabloids won't be running stories on how PC has gone mad and we have to ban everything so not to offend minorities with this one, infact they are more likely to be running stories criticising ITV for even thinking of broadcasting it. If they had broadcast it though, there would be the story about how it caused "outrage" despite less than 100 people complaining about it (compared to thousands of viewers, and probably far more who found it funny).

 

[Schnellzug]

Presumably the Tabloids won't be running stories on how PC has gone mad and we have to ban everything so not to offend minorities with this one, infact they are more likely to be running stories criticising ITV for even thinking of broadcasting it. If they had broadcast it though, there would be the story about how it caused "outrage" despite less than 100 people complaining about it (compared to thousands of viewers, and probably far more who found it funny).

Does anyone understand that? Half a dozen people can complain about something, say, a "loudmouth disc Jockey" or a "Controversial TV Presenter" says, or about an advert, and they can have them fined and disciplined and suspended or the advert taken off; that's half a dozen people out of millions who may have seen it. It's hardly very democratic, is it.

 

[SS4]

The first rule of the tabloid press is "Damned if you do and damned if you don't"

 

[ChrisCooper]

It's the same thing when it comes to PC, Health and Safety, "Jobsworths" and all that. They won't accept that they are the ones that have created much of what is wrong with the country today. They talk about PC gone mad, but will run the sensational "outrage" headlines whenever a few people get offended by something. They go on about Health and Safety gone mad, but run the sensational "do something! this must never happen again!" stories about accidents. They talk about jobsworths, but then run sensational stories where relaxed staff have allowed someone or something to slip through the net.

That said, the media is a reflection of society as much as it moulds society. Too many people are overly sensitive to offense, yet have a total disregard for things that might offend other people (i'm sure we've all met the sort who can give out abuse but can't take it), and plenty want everything possible done to make sure they are safe, as long as it doesn't inconvienience them, and basically expect everyone else to be perfect except them.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I find it worrying when such an insignificant thing as this can command so much attention. There are far more newsworthy items at present, but of couse, trivia is given full prominance against such items, especially in the tabloid press who cater for the lowest common denominator.

 

[NSEFAN]

It's the same thing when it comes to PC, Health and Safety, "Jobsworths" and all that. They won't accept that they are the ones that have created much of what is wrong with the country today. They talk about PC gone mad, but will run the sensational "outrage" headlines whenever a few people get offended by something. They go on about Health and Safety gone mad, but run the sensational "do something! this must never happen again!" stories about accidents. They talk about jobsworths, but then run sensational stories where relaxed staff have allowed someone or something to slip through the net.

That said, the media is a reflection of society as much as it moulds society. Too many people are overly sensitive to offense, yet have a total disregard for things that might offend other people (i'm sure we've all met the sort who can give out abuse but can't take it), and plenty want everything possible done to make sure they are safe, as long as it doesn't inconvienience them, and basically expect everyone else to be perfect except them.

Too many rights without the incurring responsibility. That and a lack of will to think, because some people just can't be bothered to. When I was at school, I found the apathy of a significant chunk of the students to be offensive (whilst we're on the subject! ), especially given that a lot of people in the world will never learn to even read or write.

I find it worrying when such an insignificant thing as this can command so much attention. There are far more newsworthy items at present, but of couse, trivia is given full prominance against such items, especially in the tabloid press who cater for the lowest common denominator.

If you want to see decent news on TV these days, you have to turn to one of the international channels. The BBC does occasionally have interesting reports, but the bulk of it is a stream of repetitive soundbites that don't really change or tell you much. The result is that a lot of stuff that happens in the world goes unreported, unless it's dramatic or suits our purpose. It's as if news has become another forms of mass entertainment, rather than actual news.

This ties in with Chris Cooper's comment about health and safety, etc. Whenever we have a death involving trains, it gets disproportionate amounts of coverage, despite the fact that more people die on the roads every year than have died on the railways. Deaths on foot crossings are a good example of this, where it's always somehow the fault of the railways that a user was incapable of following instructions.

Clearly gloom, doom and scandal sells better than facts and real perspective. :roll:

 

[Bungle73]

oh, we wouldn't want to to Cause Offence, would we? There may be tyrants getting away with genocide while the leaders of the West look the other way because it's not in their strategic interests to intervene, and the global oil companies may be able to hold the world to ransom, and Big Business may be the ones who are really in control of governments behind the facade of the "elected" leaders, but at least we're cracking down on the evildoers who just might possibly Cause Offence to hypocritical tabloid newspapers, so Civilisation is being preserved.


:roll:

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with anything?

 

[43021HST]

Too many rights without the incurring responsibility. That and a lack of will to think, because some people just can't be bothered to. When I was at school, I found the apathy of a significant chunk of the students to be offensive (whilst we're on the subject! ), especially given that a lot of people in the world will never learn to even read or write.



If you want to see decent news on TV these days, you have to turn to one of the international channels. The BBC does occasionally have interesting reports, but the bulk of it is a stream of repetitive soundbites that don't really change or tell you much. The result is that a lot of stuff that happens in the world goes unreported, unless it's dramatic or suits our purpose. It's as if news has become another forms of mass entertainment, rather than actual news.

This ties in with Chris Cooper's comment about health and safety, etc. Whenever we have a death involving trains, it gets disproportionate amounts of coverage, despite the fact that more people die on the roads every year than have died on the railways. Deaths on foot crossings are a good example of this, where it's always somehow the fault of the railways that a user was incapable of following instructions.

Clearly gloom, doom and scandal sells better than facts and real perspective. :roll:

The only newspaper I read is the morning star, as it doesnt have celebrity gossip, pages full of adverts and soft porn and it concentrates on proper news. Some of the comments on this thread espicially the one under the OPs post are all very true yet so depressing.

I have this intermainable frustration at society which no one seems to understand and most of posts on here seem to show that I'm not the only one who has this frustration.

To Quote from The Jam - News of the world
"Don't believe it all
Find out for yourself
Check before you spread
News of the world"

 

[Schnellzug]

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with anything?

What any of it has to do with anything? It's about the story posted at the beginning of this thread, about an act being dropped by TV bosses for fear of "causing offence", i.e. stirring up a storm of controversy in the Tabloid media. The point that I was driving at was that, of all the potential things for the Media to get indignant about, an act by a standup comedian on TV comes fairly low down the list, but since none of those things listed would sell papers, since they're things the Public don't want to know about, they're not interested. I hope that's explained clearly enough.

 

[Bungle73]

What any of it has to do with anything? It's about the story posted at the beginning of this thread, about an act being dropped by TV bosses for fear of "causing offence". I'd have thought it was quite clear really.

I ask again: what does any of that have to do with anything. What does a TV company making an editorial decision about one of their TV programmes have to do with tyrant, oil companies or any of the other stuff you mentioned?

 

[Schnellzug]

I ask again: what does any of that have to do with anything. What does a TV company making an editorial decision about one of their TV programmes have to do with tyrant, oil companies or any of the other stuff you mentioned?

I've clarified in the post above.

 

[Greenback]

The comedian has claimed that the song was cut to avoid causing offence. ITV have claimed that this is not the case, and it was an editorial decision based on it being inappropraite for the tone of the programme.

Now that sounds like much the same thing to me, but even if it is the main reason for cutting the item, then that is a decision for the broadcaster, not the artiste.

Of course, Tim Minchin has the right to disagree with the decision, which he has done.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Clearly gloom, doom and scandal sells better than facts and real perspective. :roll:

Clearly this is the mantra of all media and has been always so.

 

[SS4]

Clearly gloom, doom and scandal sells better than facts and real perspective. :roll:

Which it will continue until the end of time . I remember studying (8?) guidelines for a newsworthy "article" which determines it's priority.

1. Negativity
2. Locality
3. Shock
4. Children

In other words 4 children dying in a fire is more newsworthy than 4 adults, civil disturbance at home more than the same (or even higher) level abroad

 

[Crimson_Quiff]

Something being cut in case it causes offence. A typical sign of the times...

 

[Bungle73]

Something being cut in case it causes offence. A typical sign of the times...

Um what? I think you'll find they were a bit more eager to cut things out in the past.

 

[Hydro]

Um what? I think you'll find they were a bit more eager to cut things out in the past.

Though that did lead to some brilliant, clever, understated comedy in order to get around the censors.

 

[SS4]

Something being cut in case it causes offence. A typical sign of the times...

Indeed, incredibly dull and unoriginal - like most of what passes for "comedy" these days.

Let's get things back into perspective. Who's word do we have that the content was pulled because it was offensive? Only a comedian who stands to gain a lot of free publicity by stating it was cut only to avoid offence - far more than he'd have got if the program aired.
This forum is normally very good about getting all the facts before passing judgement so I go back to the start of this paragraph: Who's word do we have that the content was pulled because it was offensive?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Tim Minchin would be opening himself up for legal proceedings if it wasn't true wouldn't he?

 

[SS4]

Tim Minchin would be opening himself up for legal proceedings if it wasn't true wouldn't he?

Technically but he must know that the chances are very slim. For ITV the negative publicity would be even worse than this for them, it wouldn't be in their interests to take action whether it's true or not (and for all I know it could be true - the point is we only have Minchin's word)