On the Offensive

Note: the first version of this post was shite, not least because I managed to delete the important bit when I posted it. This is a rewrite, which is better, and actually has a reason for taking up memory. Probably.

So here's the scene; in a tent at the Electric Picnic, a comedian has a Q&A session with a raucous crowd of his fans (the sort of people who shout "we love you" or "you're a legend" - y'know, basically all right if a bit stupid / pilled-up / pissed).

At one stage a balck guy puts up his hand and starts asking a question. He gets as far as "I wanted to ask you," then pauses. "What did you want to ask me?" says the comedian in his best comedy-African accent; he doesn't quite put "Massah" or "Young Bahss" on the end, but it's definitely that sort of African accent.

The room's inhabitants draw a collective breath; it's not quite like that scene in the South Park Movie where Cartman tells Mr Garrison to suck his balls, but there's definitely a moment of disquiet.

"Ah c'mon, if he was Cork you'd all be laughing," says the comedian; he's grinning, friendly, charismatic; he certainly wasn't being malicious. The black guy doesn't seem to mind, and the room relaxes. He asks his question and the moment's forgotten.

Obviously, that's Tommy Tiernan at the Electric Picnic, except that the Sunday Tribune didn't bother to pick up on that bit. Instead, weeks after the even, they printed Tommy Tiernan's now-infamous Holocaust rant. Not only that, they suggested he should be investigated for incitement for hatred. There have been more finely-judged bursts of moral outrage, but not by anyone who isn't a sanctimonious twat.

Presented with the baldness of Tiernan's anti-semitic rant, various public figures went on the offensive and expressed their disgust. It was hardly unpredictable, and it's easy (if correct) to blame them for pronouncing on the affair without being fully aware of the facts. They probably decided to take a relatively well-respected newspaper's story in good faith, which is understandable if lazy.

The reality, of course, is quite different. Tiernan was making a clear and quite separate point, specifically about remarks being taken out of context; the irony makes his bemusement fair enough. If you watched the 30-minute interview his remarks read very differently; they're intended as a cartoonish, self-evidently absurd parody of anti-semitism, and takes a fair dollop of obtuseness to see them any other way. There might be an argument over whether Tiernan was insensitive to frame his argument in this way, but it's not a very interesting one. It's as much a non-story as Jeremy Clarkson's "black Muslim lesbian" comment - various Brit papers tried to stir that one into a controversy, but found a massively disinterested audience.

The Tiernan nonsense would be best described as clinically uninteresting, although it did come in a flurry of similar stories: that annoying bloke off of Strictly Come Dancing told his dance partner she looked "like a Paki", and down in Oztrighlia there was a pretty jaw-dropping blackface routine.

What this does throw up, though, is a broader question; who decides when something becomes offensive? Our brand new Blasphemy Law (not quite applicable in this case, which would have been gloriously funny) states that something "causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion" can be prosecuted; in other words, whoever is under attack is the arbiter of what is or isn't acceptable.

In law, that's clearly bananas; like giving a robbery victim the right to decide what constitutes G.B.H.. However, in the more polite realm of manners, that's pretty much what we already do. When tedious old bigots like Jimmy Hill / Ron Atkinson / Bruce Forsyth / insert dickhead here start ranting about being "PC", that's more or less what bugs them so; the fact that, whoever was making a good-humoured jibe about nig-nogs, no longer has the right to say "oh, lighten uuuup, that's not what I really meant." The notion of "trying not to be gratuitously offensive" is neither new nor a lefty conspiracy, and Political Correctness has always been a bullying term to discredit people who don't think using the word "wog" on airport departure announcements is acceptable.

The idea that others set the threshold of offensiveness isn't a terrible guideline, even if it doesn't always work. No matter how fervent an atheist you might be, you'll tend to avoid your anti-religion rant when your churchgoing auntie comes round for dinner. Anton du Beke was crass and insensitive, he apologised immediately when he realised he'd caused offence; that's how we know he's not a complete wanker. Similarly, the Aussie blackface routine was apologised for, humbly, on the programme itself; it seemed that it genuinely hadn't occurred to them that this would be offensive, but when confronted, they rapidly backed down. This, really, is all "Political Correctness" means; it means modifying your behaviour according to the viewpoint of other people, and the fact that this even has to be given a name is the most damning thing about the whole tedious debate.

This doesn't always work, however, and Tiernan's Picnic interview gives two examples in either direction. Talking to an African in a comedy African accent is just stupid and moronic and crass; his "if he was Cork" justification is idiotic. Cork people don't have a long history of oppression, haven't had to endure monkey-noises to make them appear subhuman, haven't been dehumanised by a portrayal as moronic willing slaves with silly voices. And yet this hasn't been brought up, possibly because the person present didn't seem to mind all that much (albeit under a large amount of social pressure not to make a fuss), which seems to have somehow cleansed the remark into acceptable. There was someone there who didn't seem to be offended, ergo the comments aren't offensive. Thus goes the logic. I don't buy it.

Meanwhile, the rant that clearly wasn't offensive is the one that has caused a furore, and it shows up another clear fact; the opinion of the offendee might decide what's offensive, but it means nothing when the truth has been distorted. The Sunday Tribune must be delighted with themselves. Take a bow, lads. Why not print a comedian's statement to a very small number of people, entirely out of context, and then wave it under the nose of anyone who'll listen? Why not get on the blower to Alan Shatter, read him a few sentences down the phone, and then present it as a picture of Jewish outrage? Yeah, where's the harm there? Obviously, within a few days the whole thing will be on the internet, but by that stage relatively few people will view it with an unjaundiced eye. Ireland (and the UK) have almost no problems with anti-semitism when compared with the America and the rest of Europe, and we forget what how sensitive an issue it can be. If Canadian Jewish groups also weighed in with condemnation, in advance of Tiernan being booted off the Just For Laughs festival, it's difficult to see how they wouldn't.

It ends up with this sort of article, and the Irish Times accusing Tiernan of deliberately courting controversy. This is an extraordinary level of chutzpah. The article refers to "reports" or "according to the Sunday Tribune" - like Alan Shatter, Ruairí Quinn, and more or less any other commenter you could care to name - which is code for "well I haven't actually listened to the interview." By this time the audio was freely available on the internet, and for a journalist to go on a rant without bothering to do the most rudimentary research is just shameful. In pre-empting the publication of the full article, the Tribune effectively ensured outrage - a similar technique to, say, the english newspapers implying the cervical cancer vaccine might be a killer before anything of the sort was proven. Hysteria sells papers.

The Tiernan controversy isn't mob rule, or political correctness gone mad, or any other kind of middle-class conspiracy. It's a simple, carefully-orchestrated manipulation of public opinion by a newspaper, who wanted to bump their circulation figures; and, in jumping so willingly on the bandwagon, the rest of Ireland's news output becomes complicit in this misrepresentation. It's a hunger for controversy where there is none; it's a willingness to change the substance of a story, regardless of consequences. In short, it's pathetic, and a disgrace to journalism.