DizzyBala
Jack Armstrong
I'm sure most of you will be aware that the Jason Lee - Baddiel/Skinner stuff has resurfaced recently and I wanted to see what people's views on it now are, particularly those of us that are in our 30s/40s/50s who will have been watching Forest when he was playing and probably Baddiel/Skinner.
I was about 6-7 when Jason Lee was playing for us and I remember the Pineapple song as a kid. But I also remember us singing the Steve Stone song (he's got no hair but we don't care).
Now, the world was very different 25 years ago with the attitudes to racial stereotypes and such. I re-watched the sketches before this and part of me thinks it's a bit like Little Britain was, they used stereotypes for comedic effect and I don't think it's hateful in any way. It does look very dated and ignorant in 2022 and having heard about how it effected Jason personally, it's a really unfortunate that Jason was singled out like that.
The black face part was definitely too far though. A couple of white blokes taking the piss out of a black guy and painting Baddiel's face black to do it.
That said, how many of us today will take the piss out of someone for having a shit hair cut? Whether they are an opposition player or it's one of your mates in the pub or whatever. I don't believe that making fun of someone for something they can't do anything about but for stuff like hair cuts or weight or things like that, how much is actually fair game?
I look at that now and to be honest with you, it looked funny to 7 year old me in 95/96 but if he was running around with that today, he'd probably be a football fashion icon. The hair jokes, I think were fair game but the black face, absolutely not.
I was about 6-7 when Jason Lee was playing for us and I remember the Pineapple song as a kid. But I also remember us singing the Steve Stone song (he's got no hair but we don't care).
Now, the world was very different 25 years ago with the attitudes to racial stereotypes and such. I re-watched the sketches before this and part of me thinks it's a bit like Little Britain was, they used stereotypes for comedic effect and I don't think it's hateful in any way. It does look very dated and ignorant in 2022 and having heard about how it effected Jason personally, it's a really unfortunate that Jason was singled out like that.
The black face part was definitely too far though. A couple of white blokes taking the piss out of a black guy and painting Baddiel's face black to do it.
That said, how many of us today will take the piss out of someone for having a shit hair cut? Whether they are an opposition player or it's one of your mates in the pub or whatever. I don't believe that making fun of someone for something they can't do anything about but for stuff like hair cuts or weight or things like that, how much is actually fair game?
I look at that now and to be honest with you, it looked funny to 7 year old me in 95/96 but if he was running around with that today, he'd probably be a football fashion icon. The hair jokes, I think were fair game but the black face, absolutely not.