Robin Horbury made this comment a few days ago:
BBC drama once led the world. Today, it is little more than political correctness and pantomime agitprop.
Did anyone see the latest BBC1 example, Hunter? (Sunday and last night 9pm). The plot was that a group of Pro-Lifers (natural BBC villains because they don’t support sexual free-for-all)were so incensed that they decided to start killing children unless the BBC showed footage of a post-24 week abortion.
It was license for some horrendous images of the Pro-Lifers abducting and injecting innocent children with various lethal drugs – sequences that were so graphic that they would not have been shown on terrestrial television a few years back. And of course to portray the villains as heartless, callous, evil scum.
I have combed the internet to see if Pro-Life groups have ever done anything remotely like this. I found a few nastly examples of intimidation and violence in the US where staff of clinics have been targeted.
But – tell me if I’m wrong – there’s not one example anywhere in the world of a Pro-Lifer killing children, under any circumstances.
So Hunter looks to me to have been an example of a BBC coterie sitting down somewhere and deciding how they could find new ways tovillify a group that the corporation hates. Any passing resemblance to something called reality was abandoned in favour of the political need.
I personally do not support a lot of what Pro-Lifers want. But I do support their right to say and camapign for their goals – and not to be attacked in this wholly ridiculous way by the BBC.
The other ludicrous element of the plot was that the Pro-Lifers believed that exposure on BBC news bulletins would change attitudes. Of course, that was yet another reflection of the puffed up self-importance of BBC types.
A commenter called Tom replied,
I seem to remember the first of BBC’s Spooks (or the first I ever saw) had a similar plot – pro-lifers as terrorists.
They’re clearly into recycling their rubbish.
I thought it was decent enough TV. The pro-life aspect merely a dramatic vehicle. And as the Times’ reviewer said, the video they wanted broadcasting made – he thought – a rather compelling case.
“I thought it was decent enough TV.”
Everyone is entitle to their own rotten tastes.This however was the usual leftist inversion of reality,pro-life becomes pro death.Even a BBC halfwit should be able to see pro-life is against killing children.
The BBC has become depraved.
I like “Tom’s” comment about the BBC, just really sums them up.
” Recycling” and “Rubbish”.
There’s actually potential comedy in this. If you’ve ever been to a pro-life meeting (and I’m a signed up pro-lifer) you’d know that the pro-life movement is largely composed of geriatric women and housewives (men are a tiny minority), as well as the occasional disabled person.
The idea of this ragtag bunch of mums and grandmas organising violence is almost comical. It would be Father Ted meets Some Mothers do ‘Ave Em.
Oddly enough though, the BBC seem unwilling to show an actual abortion! Hmmm. Now I wonder why?
Fortunately there is some evidence that despite this government and the BBC’s bloodlust for the unborn, there is a cultural shift away from acceptance of abortion. So perhaps this absurd flailing by the BBC indicates progress towards a more civilised treatment of our most vulnerable people!
mikewineliberal, the actual acting was very good, I doubt anyone will disagree with you on that point.
Alas, you have ignored the main question: Is it correct for the BBC to allow a fake stereotype to spread of a group of people who hold views contrary to their own ‘ethical’ views?.
Perhaps you could respond to that question?.
mikewine 7:18
No, Mike, an Aston Martin Lagonda is a “dramatic vehicle” !
Any BBC output is purely to serve a political objective.
I didn’t see the program, and my own views on abortion are not terribly clear, but you can be sure the BBC will take the anti-prolife view, sure as night follows day.
MWL,
The funny thing about the BBCs ‘dramatic vehicles’ is they have an increasing knack of demonising their ideological enemies, funnily enough the BBC never uses ‘dramatic vehicles’ to attack its allied belief structures and organisations does it?
Its plain and obvious the BBC has a fixed view of whats acceptable and what isnt and uses its output as a political vehicle to peddle its belief structure and corporate social doctrine.
mikewineliberal: “The pro-life aspect merely a dramatic vehicle.”
I could accept that if, over a period of time, we got a range of views from the BBC. Trouble is, we don’t.
Cassandra – you beat me to it.
Having written what I have written, I would like to come to the BBC’s defence a little.
They did do a programme recently on Britain’s youngest mother, which seemed to take a positive view on her decision to have the child, as well as pointing out the Church gave her the most help and support.
It also allowed the view to be expressed that modern schools through the distribution of abortion and contraception actually undermined sexual morality and contributed to the problem of teenage pregnancies.
Also they did do a programme about abortion which showed it to be the grim, ghastly tragedy with huge human costs that it is, without being explicitly “pro life”. They did show a baby who was about to be killed on the monitor in the programme, which reinforced the horrific reality of what we do in the name of civilisation.
So, credit where credit’s due – though the Spooks/Hunter thing is so absurd I doubt anybody’s fooled.
This was the advice given by Communist Overlords in the USSR to Hollywood fellow travelers in the USA during the 1930s and 1940s: do not try and write great propaganda films of your own. The message will be too transparent. Instead attempt to add scenes to popular movies of the day – just a plot or two, a line or two, a word or two…Advice, it seems, well taken by the current “writers” and “producers” of BBC drama.
An illuminating exercise is to read the plot lines of dramas in Radio Times or the net. I promise you’ll be taken aback by how much soft propaganda is passed off in the drama department as ‘entertainment’.
The utter degradation of the sacred act of creating a child has been a BBC goal, the BBC has for years peddled the ‘sex as a cheap thrill and damn the consequences’ paradigm, the BBC has been at the forefront of applauding the casual sex/free sex attitude and this has led to record STD levels,teenage pregnancies and unwanted babies and an explosion in the feral gangs growing up in the broken social enviroment we suffer from, the BBC has lead the way in the destruction of the family unit and the undermining of traditional human values, this has been a concious choice for the BBC.
The BBC has a duty of care and time after time they have betrayed this duty of care to peddle its retarded modernist world view of instant selfish gratification regardless of the cost.
“fake stereotype”
maybe not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion-related_violence
I thought it was decent enough TV.
Yeah, pro-lifers murdering children.
What exactly are you on? You have become the latest demented beeboid.
Even the wildlife programmes are spoilt. Along with the beautiful scenery and weird and wonderful creatures, there’s always some jerk blethering on about global warming and how humans are destroying the planet.
I would contribute more to this blog, only I hardly watch the BBC at all now. My favourite viewing is the repeats of The Professionals on ITV4.
Anyone know the comparative viewing figures for the latter and The Hunter (which I didn’t watch)?
Keep up the good work!
MWL:
NOTHING is as violent as an actual abortion.
mikewineliberal | 27.01.09 – 8:23 pm |
“The neutrality of this article is disputed.”
Must have been written by the BBC.
On controversial subjects it is not very safe citing Wiki – especially as the BBC are known to be into “editing” this site themselves, during their long tea breaks.
It is somewhat ironic.
The Left is obsessed with Fundamentalist Christians.
I’ve known many evangelicals and have found them generally humble, kind, tollerant and interested in my opinions.
BBC Lefties are by and large arrogant, ignorant, biggoted and uninterested in my heretical thoughts.
Pot and kettle?
The BBC has Editorial Guidelines on Fair Portrayal in Drama. The Policy Unit Chief Adviser is Claire Powell.
claire.powell.01@bbc.co.uk
If you ignore the sub-text ‘Hunter’ was like a lot of BBC drama – watchable but leaves one not particularly wanting more. I’ve learned to filter out the bias in much the same way the Russians did under communism. 🙂
I can’t remember when the BBC last did a series where the good guys held ‘right wing’ views and the baddies were lefties.
And don’t point to ‘Life on Mars’ I’m convinvced that that was meant to be a ‘weren’t the Police awful and aren’t they so much better under the Glorious Leader’s beneficent hand’ type of show. The fact that the public saw their portrayal of ’70’s cops as a good thing was surely a mistake …
One aspect about the BBC and its bias is that if you nuetral about a subject but think you ought to come off the fence, the BBC is a good guide. Just see whoever they are stereotyping badly in their dramas or sneering at in their comedy shows and take the side that the Beeb is biased against.
You know it has to be the right side.
Mike: you really are on a hopeless case aren’t you! Each individual argument could, I suppose, IF it occurred in isolation, be met with your constant “what’s wrong? It was pretty decent television” rejoinder. Trouble is, EVERY SINGLE case – and we’ve seen plenty over the last few days (failure to give weight to conservative leads in the polls, reluctance – shall we say – to specify labour peers in the frame, pro-life campaigners as terrorists, relentless positive spins on the ‘muslim achievement’, swallowing hamas casualty figures, reports of ‘israeli soldier killed NEAR Gaza’ – ie in Israel etc) is ALWAYS a confirmation of the omnipresent BBC value system
mikewineliberal, now I am truly puzzled?, does not your link prove the point that Natalie has suggested in her article?.
Your selective usage of wikipedia to paint such an extremist view of Pro-Lifers will just not do. Please respond with your own views, as a Liberal you should be cringing at this constant exposure to the BBC’s ‘ethical’ thinking, which seems to be to creeping into more and more of it’s broadcasting.
Not all propaganda is fiction, otherwise few would believe any of it.
However
All fiction is propaganda, otherwise the public are rarely exposed to it, through best selling novels, and certainly not Hollywood movies.
The establishment when represented by so called well known art or book critics, positively pride themselves on only regarding as ‘worthwhile,’ works of fiction that posses important and deeply profound HIDDEN, therefore occult meaning. Therefore worthwhile fiction as far as the establishment are concerned, can never be simple entertainment, it must always be PROPAGANDA.
Successful fiction is so because of marketing. Marketing COSTS BIG time, therefore all successful fiction is either commissioned in the first place by the establishment or simply taken up and expensively promoted by them, or because they very much like the OCCULT message.
The establishment have NEVER done this simply for a quick profit, or even a slow one. Most arts projects, films, and books, never make a profit, while many lose absolute fortunes.
The REAL reason why we read the fiction we are mind controlled into reading is precisely because it is all subtle establishment propaganda SOLELY for the purposes of further enhancing the collective and individual mind control of the audience.
You will maybe have noticed that you have been fed VERY expensive, always loss making, or publicly funded, half subtle Marxist socialist fascist authoritarian propaganda, since before you came out of your mothers birth canal.
If not, please ask yourself why not?
Whats worse this did not all just come from The BBC. It came from absolutely everywhere it could have possibly have come from. INCLUDING the CofE, of all places.
Therefore please try your utmost to understand.
The BBC did not suddenly become full of bullshit mind control propaganda sometime around May 1997 or May 1979, it became this the same day the BBC first broadcast its first program, back in the 1930’s.
If you have small children, please please take this advice.
Pay very carefully attention to the contents of the kids TV you let the little loves watch.
Then conclude that all TV designed for even the youngest of kids is highly damaging, subliminally occult, mind control brainwashing of the most subtle and criminally nasty, imaginable.
Then throw the evil device clean out of the window, and never again get tempted to let one back into your home.
Do this before not only the TV tax is perfectly unavoidable, but also before NOT having a TV permanently on in the house, becomes a serious crime against the ‘community.’
BRAIN TEASER
I need a group of villains for my script. Last year’s favourites the Chinese, Germans, Italians, American Indians and the Jews are politically incorrect although the Jews are set for a comeback. Communists and Nazis are passé. Pick me one that is politically acceptable.
I have to be invited to BBC parties. Future employment depends in large part on the contacts I make there. Pick me a group of villains that won’t jeopardise my standing there.
Not easy is it? Guess I’ll have to stick with a multiethnic gang with at least one woman. It’s totally unrealistic but I can get away with it.
Q: does anyone read Atlas’ posts?
(if they were shorter and less manic, i probably would.)
Perhaps Atlas + Bilal ought to have a site of their own?
I read Atlas’s posts.
deegee:
Texans work nicely. I used them in my own manuscript. You might also consider ducks. They eat too much, slime the grass, and are addicted to gossiping among themselves at all hours of the day and night. They are racist as well: my pekins never let the mallards near the pond if they can help it.
ie in Israel etc) is ALWAYS a confirmation of the omnipresent BBC value system.
It is not simply a BBC value system as you call it. That would only be half of the BBC, story. Very much the half the BBC would like everyone to believe is the whole one.
The BBCs value system is simply a combination of an establishment RUN university education, and selective BBC employment rules.
Please try to at least contemplate the idea, that the BBC does what it does and says what it says for far more DIRECT reasons than simply a collective belief system.
The BBC is a corporate system of control, and a highly departmentalized one at that.
Very few people know what REALLY goes on at the BBC in all those various secretive departments of crime. However it is easy to find out where the BBC’s various almost religiously held agendas, do indeed come from. They do not come from any form of democratically elected, and therefore in anyway accountable government.
They come from agents of the ESTABLISHMENT. These include, Very much bodies such as The RIIA in collusion with many other national and now increasingly international secret government institutions, such as The Bilderburg group, MI5, MI6, CIA, The CFR, The EU, UN, and The IMF among several others.
T:
It is somewhat ironic.
The Left is obsessed with Fundamentalist Christians.
I’ve known many evangelicals and have found them generally humble, kind, tollerant and interested in my opinions.
T | 27.01.09 – 9:08 pm | #
——————————————–
Well, I was the fourth generation of an evangelical christian family and the majority I met I found to be intolerant, dismissive of other views, bigoted, anti-intellectual, closed-minded and wilfully ignorant.
And I would include some members of my family in that
the majority I met I found to be intolerant, dismissive of other views, bigoted, anti-intellectual, closed-minded and wilfully ignorant
So they all worked for Al Beeb, then?
Damn! Beaten to it by Nearly Oxfordian!
The BBC can’t even do leftist drama well, its so two-dimensional and comes over as statist propaganda. We should be thankful for that.
In the US the likes of Aaron Sorkin at least try to add a little depth by including a right-wing point of view (which is usually a strawman to be beaten down by the socialist who always has the last word).
Anyone who opposed Nazi concentration camps is treated as a hero, but those who dare to object to the death camps known as abortion clinics are, according to the Liberal Elite, some sort of monster who do not deserve human rights. Just why was it wrong for the Nazis to practice euthanasia on those who were physically or mentally severely disabled, but it is perfectly acceptable to murder an unborn child who MIGHT be disabled? Liberal morality is entirely beyond my understanding.
The BBC ruins every drama programme. My favourite ever TV show was Auf Wiedersehen, Pet – the two ITV series in the 80s. But when the BBC brought it back a few years ago, it was saturated with political correctness. What’s wrong with these people? Must they use every opportunity to promote their agenda?
Ron | 27.01.09 – 10:35 pm | #
Hear hear re: Auf Weidersehen Pet. I loved that show, watched it as a kid first time around and have recently watched the original series again on YouTube. I however refused to watch the modern reincarnation because I figured, the BBC will have blandified it beyond recognition in their usual style.
To be honest I think the only show on the BBC over the last 20 years which was genuinely worthy of accolade was Rab C. Nesbitt.
Ron asks: “Must they use every opportunity to promote their agenda?”
Not sure if that was intended as a rhetorical question, but the answer is yes – definitely.
To a Leftist, politics is everything and no opportunity can be missed to promote his or her view.
Watching re-runs of shows like The Professionals really does demonstrate how modern TV drama has changed, and not for the better.
It seems like every beeb drama has a first year sociology student as a co-writer, although to be fair the commercial channels aren’t entirely blameless either.
HSLD: it’s hard to know whether the cabal that runs BBC drama (or its opposite number at ITV) actually filters out any non-PC material, or whether the stranglehold the Left has over the ‘creative professions’ means no one on the Right even bothers.
It’s certainly true that the overwhelming majority of the book publishing trade has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Left (though, to be fair, it probably always was – just not quite so much as it is now).
GCooper | 27.01.09 – 11:29 pm |
They even ruin there own successful shows by cutting out scenes that are deemed to be politically incorrect – Just try and watch repeats of Porridge when the BBC show them – the amount of cut scenes make the comedy meaningless.
But gratuitous swearing which usually adds nothing to programmes, drama or comedy is OK.
I read Atlas’s posts. One day I’ll take the trouble to respond to some of the points he raises. I find some parts of some of his posts thought-provoking. Occasionally, one or other of the points he raises gets me to re-evaluate my own pet assumptions and prejudices.
Atlas: please keep on posting.
I notice that none of those who are keen on abortion were ever aborted themselves.
Funny that.
I read Atlas’s posts
Atlas is a pain in the fucking arse, if you’ll pardon my French.
I’m wearing out the scroll wheel on my mouse bypassing his posts. They are almost always off topic, only partially comprehensible and the product of David Icke meets Mulder and Scully at Area 51, with extra tinfoil hats, Nazi flying saucers and grey alien space lizards.
He, she or it should spend more time remembering to take their anti-psychotic medication and less time boring normal folks to death with a load of rambling paranoid bullshit.
mikewineliberal:
Please see
http://abortionviolence.com/
for statistics of violence by pro-abortionists.
HSLD,
“grey alien space lizards” actually they are brown and look more like an octopus!
PS tin foil doesnt work, its lead you need.
“I notice that none of those who are keen on abortion were ever aborted themselves.”
I doubt anyone is “keen” on abortion. It’s pretty unpleasant. Some just think its a necessary option in a secular, 21st centrury society.
Not convinced that the perfectly reasonably alternative point of view is best encapsulated by psychotic terrorists though…
To be honest I think the only show on the BBC over the last 20 years which was genuinely worthy of accolade was Rab C. Nesbitt.
Jason | 27.01.09 – 10:57 pm | #
You jest surely?
Facinating series of observations…thanks, Natalie for highlighting my original posting.
The point remains that no-one who has supported the BBC has provided examples that show that this plot was based on any real world reactions by pro-Lifers.
So this was a nasty, deliberate attempt by BBC drama people to score political points – and to suggest that such people have no boundaries in their behaviour and will mercilessly kill and torture children.
I agree, by the way, that Hunters was well acted. What a shame that all that talent and effort should be put to such an unpleasant end.
Roland 8:20
Rab C. Nesbitt would be too intellectual for the BBC of 2009. They would have to find a way of dumbing it down.