Don't Mention: "Don't Mention the War". Fawlty Towers, Paul Gilroy & Cancel Culture.

As our society becomes more progressive and our television streaming services have the ability to host vast amounts of content from the past, there have been inevitable casualties of Cancel Culture. The 'Woke Brigade' have been out in force to uncover the casual racism, the overt sexism, the xenophobia & the transphobia, the fat shaming, gay bashing & the white washing; and kick these into the big digital trash can they deserve to reside in - away from those who might be offended, away from those who might use it to abuse someone else!

As media students, we might think of Stuart Hall discussing representations & stereotypes as an expression of power structures or even Paul Gilroy's assertions that ethnicity has been continually been represented as 'other' whilst Britain struggles to get to grips with its Postcolonial hangover...

But what happens when the text under fire is actually a satire of exactly the things that Gilroy is discussing? What happens if the text that offends is trying to expose an ugly truth? Does that text still deserve to be cancelled? What happens to satire if we can't represent those who the satirists have in their sights? Enter 70s sitcom: Fawlty Towers.

Fawlty Towers regularly tops any list of Britain's Most Loved Sitcoms - as adored by the public as Only Fools & Horses, as revered for its writing and acerbic wit as The Office. The legacy of the sitcom is massively helped by the fact that there were only twelve episodes made despite its huge popularity. So, what was it about and what was the controversy?

One recent outcast of cancel culture is the comedy writer Graham Linehan. When he isn't saying provocative things about the trans community he can actually be quite insightful about a craft of which he has some authority. For Linehan a sitcom is a story about characters who are in some way habitually, metaphorically or literally trapped together - that could be in a family or an old friendship, a dysfunctional relationship - a barber's shop or a football team, a local pub or even a mining ship six million light years from earth! More often than not the characters are trapped in their work place - and it is from this tension that the comedy is created.

Fawlty Towers is about a small hotel in Torquay run by an angry misanthrope called Basil, his self absorbed nagging wife Sybill, a hapless & clumsy waiter from Barcelona who understands little to no English and a struggling artist and free spirit chamber maid who couldn't care less about her job but is always on hand to get Basil out of whatever scrape he is in as the four of them have to combat a variety of demanding and annoying guests.

Written by and starring former Monty Python member John Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth, the show became well known for Basil's sarcasm in dealing with these unsympathetic guests but also his sudden outbursts and rants which made it increasingly clear that this was not a man who should run a hotel or have any position in hospitality. Throw in a bunch of over the top caricatures and well written slapstick humour and it is a comedy whose jokes and performances land just as well today as they did in its original mid 70s broadcasts.

All, that is, apart from some of the language used. Any media product that is nearly 50 years old will require an audience to 'retune' their ear to old phrases, some antiquated, some archaic & some (rightfully) residing in the bin. But some of the dialogue in Fawlty Towers, delivered by one character in particular is more than just jarring, it is the language that is bleeped & censored, which comes with trigger warnings and 18 certificates - it is argued and debated about whether it can ever be reclaimed by those it subjugates and for some reason is used whenever Quentin Tarantino wants to raise an eyebrow or two!

The 'N word' (as it has now become known) is uttered in an iconic episode of the show by an elderly permanent resident of the hotel known as The Major when reminiscing about taking a young woman to a cricket match. Cleese's Fawlty listens to the story unmoved, nodding sycophantically to the foolish Major's rambling who escapes his vile racism without censure - that would arrive thirty years later when the episode would be omitted as the series arrived for streaming on UKTV. However the BBC's decision to broadcast the episode in this year's rerun of the classic sitcom caused more than a few raised eyebrows. The Woke Brigade could smell blood - 2021 is no place for such language or sentiment. The show must not go on!

At this point it would be easy to make a rash and, to my mind, inaccurate application of Gilroy's ideas - it would be too simplistic to say that this show was racist, used derogatory language when describing people of colour and is therefore exactly part of the institutionalised racism that Gilroy says is prevalent in both British media and society as we fail to come to terms with our postcolonial blues. Whilst that may have been true of a number of 70s sitcoms - Love Thy Neighbour being the most obvious case in point (if you've never seen it and decide to do some research based on this post - it does not sit well with modern audience, in fact you might even think it is a parody - you have been warned!) but things aren't quite as cut and dried with Fawlty Towers.

My reading of Fawlty Towers is that the show is itself actually about the very things that Paul Gilroy discusses - it isn't a symptom of the Postcolonial Melancholia he says is so pervasive that we have never found a way to honestly represent ethnicity - I believe that Fawlty Towers is a study of Postcolonial Melancholia, albeit through the lens of a sitcom.

To prove this we need look no further than the main character - Basil Fawlty. A man obsessed with British traditions and behaviours, a man entirely stuck in the past, suspicious of those who see the world differently and scornful of those who just are different. A man obsessed with the Second World War but who would have been too young to play any part in it. He is represented as the last of a dying breed - his wife gives him no sympathy, the chamber maid who helps him does so more for fear of losing her job than through compassion and Basil's constant bullying of the diminutive Manuel from Barcelona ensures that the audience should not be identifying with Basil on any level.

Trapped in this hotel full of misfits and geriatrics Basil tries to impress people who he considers to be part of the 'Establishment' - often they are even more hateful than he is. But Basil is not only trapped in his hotel - the hotel is trapped in a country which is changing and evolving - society is leaving Basil behind and those like the Major, who is so unaware of his own racism, will soon be dead! Basil dreams of the days of the Empire - but they are gone and so Basil is driven mad by everything that represents change.

For me, this is a perfect illustration of what Gilroy is discussing when he talks about Postcolonial Melancholia, it also perfectly encapsulates the fixation and to an extent fetishisation of World War 2, particularly amongst those who weren't there!

So what are we to make of those who aren't interested in this as a theme and who want the show removed because of its use of this language from a bygone era - unfortunately the show itself and those that were responsible for it don't really help themselves in this regard. Whilst it is clear that we shouldn't align with Basil - the representation of Manuel the hopeless Spanish waiter is lazy writing at best and xenophobic at worst. There are other crass national stereotypes in the form of a bumbling Irishman & some Uber-serious Germans, as well as a complete absence of any people of colour whatsoever! Added to which John Cleese has in recent years continually doubled down on attacking 'Woke' culture for its 'Censor first, ask questions later' approach and has seemingly decided to go out of his way to offend people - rather than point out the arguments that satire must have a place in comedy.

The question remains, what's to be done with a show which actually discusses the undercurrents of racism that existed in the 70s that Gilroy talks about; but has calls to ban it from those who want to fight racism in all its forms? We do the only thing we can do - and consider other Media theories!

It's clear that Hall's reception theory must be applied to understand what has happened here. The preferred reading has been ignored or misunderstood by those who want to fight the good fight against bigotry or racism - context and nuance have been ignored - this feels like such a 21st century response! A negotiated reading born out of not seeing the bigger picture or not knowing what was being dealt with - but then for a modern audience that can be increasingly tricky in a landscape of satire, pastiche, parody and irony. Which brings in another part of the theoretical framework: Postmodernism.

When layers of meaning are so dense and so reliant on context for an understanding then it's no surprise that some of that meaning is lost - not only for a modern audience but also for audiences of the time. Living in a postmodern era makes most things difficult to understand - let alone 50 year old sitcoms that are trying to challenge the establishment, satirise the old guard whilst looking and feeling like every sitcom that is considered its peer.

For a more succinct and pithy take on some of the things I've discussed here read Mark Lawson's article in The Guardian.