Is it retrospective censorship to object to Little Britain? Or is it more complicated than that? A new Ofcom audience research study (also looking at other problematic screen content, including Jimmy Carr “rape jokes”) found that some deemed a clip from David Walliams’s and Matt Lucas’s BBC comedy (which aired from 2003-06) to be “explicitly racist and outdated”. In the sketch Walliams plays the character Linda, a university employee, describing an Asian student: “Yellowish skin. Slight smell of soy sauce. That’s it, the ching-chong Chinaman.”
Some Ofcom respondents expressed surprise that it was available on BBC iPlayer. One said: “If I saw my daughter watching that, then mimicking it, I’d be horrified.” The BBC responded that warnings are given, the sketch is intended to ridicule outdated prejudices and racism, and this was more apparent when viewing entire episodes.
