Second Racism Row Hits Channel 4
A second racism row has been stirred on a Channel 4 reality show after one contestant said she supported slavery.
by Anne Thomas
Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007, 9:02 (GMT)
A second racism row has been stirred on a Channel 4 reality show after one contestant said she supported slavery.
Gap year student Lucy Buchanan, 18, is taking part in Shipwrecked, where two teams on desert islands compete to win a £70,000 prize.
She also said she hated fat people and wanted a return of the British Empire.
The show led to 69 complaints to media watchdog Ofcom, but Channel 4 said she was from a sheltered background and was reprimanded by other contestants.
Celebrity Big Brother recently attracted more than 40,000 complaints over the treatment of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty by some of her fellow housemates.
Jade Goody, who allegedly made racist comments to Shetty, has since been evicted from the reality show.
The Archbishop of York commented on the row, saying that there is an "ugly underbelly in society only too ready to point the finger at the foreigner, or those who might not fit in".
Dr John Sentamu, who turned down an invitation to appear on Celebrity Big Brother, said it was everyone's duty to tackle racism head-on, both publicly and in private, from "whatever quarter it rears its vicious head".
On Sunday evening's Shipwrecked programme, Ms Buchanan, who is from Edinburgh but attended St Peter's School in York, told fellow islanders: "When I look out at what Britain is, it's just a complete mess.
"I don't appreciate how people come into our country and take over our country. Britain's really not Britain anymore.
"My mind is completely open to different cultures, but I don't think they should bring them to Britain."
She added: "I don't like fat people, I don't really like really ugly people, I don't like it when foreigners come into this country and they don't take on British culture and British values.
"I'm for the British Empire and things. I'm for slavery, but that's never going to come back."
When other contestants tackled her over her views, she said: "I'm terrible at generalising, I'm really bad. I just don't know any [black people]."
A Channel 4 spokesman said: "When Lucy airs her opinions they are immediately criticised, so viewers are instantly aware that her peers find them offensive and unacceptable.
"Those who continue to watch Shipwrecked will see, as the series progresses, Lucy's views change as she interacts and is challenged by other contestants."
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Added: Wednesday, January 24, 2007, 12:24 (GMT)
A recent, perhaps trivial, example of this kind of intellectual ethnic warfare is the popular movie Addams Family Values (released in November 1993), produced by Scott Rudin, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and written by Paul Rudnick. The bad guys in the movie are virtually anyone with blond hair (the exception being an overweight child), and the good guys include two Jewish children wearing yarmulkes. (Indeed, having blond hair is viewed as a pathology, so that when the dark-haired Addams baby temporarily becomes blond, there is a family crisis.) The featured Jewish child has dark hair, ears glasses, and is physically frail and non-athletic. He often makes precociously intelligent comments, and he is severely punished by the blond-haired counselors for reading a highly intellectual book. The evil gentile children are the opposite: blond, athletic, and unintellectual. Together with other assorted dark-haired children from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and white gentile children rejected by their peers (for being overweight, etc.), the Jewish boy and the Addams family children lead a very violent movement that succeeds in destroying the blond enemy. The movie is a parable illustrating the general thrust of Jewish intellectual and political activity relating to immigration and multiculturalism in Western societies. It is also consistent with the general thrust of Hollywood movies. SAID reviews data indicating Jewish domination of the entertainment industry in the United States. Powers, Rothman and Rothman (1996, 207) characterize television as promoting liberal, cosmopolitan values, and Lichter, Lichter and Rothman (1994, 251) find that television portrays cultural pluralism in positive terms and as easily achieved apart from the activities of a few ignorant or bigoted miscreants.
Claire, UK
