We have BBC in our Dream satellite subscription but I have never seen the “Harry and Paul” show. In fact, I’ve never heard of Henry Enfield until today and only because the show has the become the subject of an official protest by the Philippine government.
The scene, first broadcast on 26 September, was part of a running joke in which a family from the south of England treats a northern man like a pet dog.
“Our chums up the road wanted to see if they could mate their Filipino maid with our northerner,” said Enfield’s character as the maid danced provocatively in his garden.
After the performance failed to have the desired effect, Enfield shouted: “Come on, Clyde, mount her.”
In the Philippines, foreign secretary Alberto Romulo, summoned British ambassador Peter Beckingham to discuss the broadcast. [BBC]
The Philippine embassy in London has lodged a written complaint with BBC.
Meanwhile, a group called the Philippine Foundation (never heard of it before, either) has launched a petition claiming that the show was “inciting stereotyped racial discrimination, vulgarity and violation of the maid’s human rights”.
Okay, from what I’ve read, the joke is tasteless. No wonder I’ve never heard of the show before — I don’t watch trashy shows. But violation of the maid’s human rights? Isn’t the maid in question a CHARACTER played by an actress? How can there be human rights violation when the subject is a fictional character? In fact, if the actress who portrayed the maid is, in fact, a Filipina, shouldn’t she be a target of the rage too? She willingly played the part, after all, including that specific scene so there’s a reasonable assumption there that she didn’t feel there was anything objectionable about it.
I can understand the rage but I don’t necessarily agree that this needs to be a “Desperate Housewives” scenario all over again. A few nights ago, I saw a Hallmark TV movie called “Human Traffickers” (starring Mira Sorvino and Donald Sutherland) where the Philippines was portrayed as a willing host to an international sex slavery ring. Filipino policemen were called corrupt and the physical appearance of the country was represented as one huge slum area. And the segments that supposedly happened here were actually shot in Thailand, for goodness’ sakes. I didn’t hear anyone raising hell about that despite obvious attempts at stereotyping.
It just seems to be that all hell only breaks loose when the butt of jokes are OFWs. Malu Fernandez. Desperate Housewives. Now, this “Harry and Paul.” So, what’s this? OFWs are off limits to any kind of reference other than praises?
Angry response by some sectors on a comedy show truly makes this one a comedy of errors in a valiant effort to wage a war on of all things……… a make believe world on the idiot box makes it truly more funny than the Harry & Paul show.
Never did I hear of Henry who? But a protest by Philippine government is laughable. In fact, just another ordinary joke. BBC should run a comical skit of Philippine government. We are in every part of the global world marketed by our country for foreign earnings, rape is not uncommon, stripped of human dignity and endure human right abuses under the muted eyes of our well spoken officials who will come to aid when it is time to repatriate the body back to the country for the families to mourn. Seriously, our official need real humping and mounting so they can better understand and secure the rights of foreign workers in contracts and agreements instead on dwelling on vulgarity of a show.
Come to think of it, OFWs are mealtickets of government officials — including sectoral representatives in the House of Representatives. So, they pander.
Had there been an uprage for My Maid Imelda (not sure if it was also from the UK)? Not that I’m saying there is something or nothing to cause an uproar about having an character closely depicting Imelda Marcos.
Strange that we get too emotional with skits involving a Filipino characters like this while all the time, we laugh at impersonators impersonating (usually) Pinoy characters in comedy bars.
Or maybe now we start to realize that the uproar may be similar to that of a black being called a ‘black’ by a white. Wherein he may not find it insulting if it was another black who called him a ‘black’.
And btw, I am one of those anti-Malu Fernandez but never of the Desperate Housewives nor this new one. In my case, those line could have just been drowned with the coffee, crackers and cigarettes if others hadn’t made them such a big deal.
Contestants get degraded in local shows like Eat Bulaga and Wowowee everyday and people are actually rejoicing. I don’t get it either.
I don’t get it. Kapag “international” ang nagiging release ng mga ganitong klaseng shows/articles, nagagalit ang mga Pilipino. Bakit walang pumupuna sa mga shows natin the way they portrays gays/lesbians, maids, etc.? The way I see it people are concerned the way we look outside the country but they just don’t care kung ang pagdedegrade eh nangyayari lang sa loob ng bansa.
if you’re a) a pinoy who b) watch the show, and c) living in london, then maybe you may feel the need to over-react over a tasteless joke and demand an apology from whoever. from the queen perhaps?
but if you don’t satisfy the above conditions, i say, nakikisawsaw lang ang mga tao sa issue. people should stop asking *everyone else* to ride the ‘apologize to us’ train.
people over-glorify and put ofws up on a pedestal, but i swear, there are just as many pinoys out there who a) allow themselves to be degraded because they need the job-money badly, and/or b) victimize and take advantage of fellow pinoys. but you don’t hear about them on the news. big networks shield you from this reality because every pinoy who leaves the country is a potential tfc/gma subscriber.
saang bansa mo man ilagay ang pilipino, pilipino pa rin yan — which can be good and bad. don’t glorify our ofws one minute, only to be overlooked the rest of the hour. it makes them feel just as used.
Henry who? Never heard of him. When I happen to watch British tv sitcoms, I find it hard to distinguish who’s a straight guy and who’s gay because they all talk like gays.
And just in case many of you out there forget, we do it here on our local tv sitcoms, too. Here we do it to the ‘Bombay’ and the ‘intsik.’
Why is it that when the ‘Bombay’ and the ‘intsik’ get to be the laughing stock we laugh but when a foreign tv sitcom does it to our own we howl and lodge all sorts of protests?
Hindi kaya tayo ngayon ang ‘balat sibuyas bombay?’ Nagtatanong lang ako ha…
Angela, re “Bakit walang pumupuna sa mga shows natin the way they portrays gays/lesbians, maids, etc.?”
I saw “Monster Mom” recently and the treatment that the maid character got from Annabelle Rama’s character is, well… “verbally abusive” would be a mild description. Yet, people found the movie hilarious considering how much money it made.
Unsentpostcards, “nakikisawsaw lang ang mga tao sa issue”
Ahhh, the proverbial bandwagon mentality. And I like your analysis about why big networks (ABS-CBN and GMA 7) play up these things. Figures.
Ormocanon, Michael V’s song “DJ Bombay” comes to mind.
I’m a Brit living in the Philippines. Harry Enfield is one of the most established and best loved comedians in the UK. His style is to take stereotypes and exaggerate them for comedy.
Having watched the clip I can confirm that the butt of the joke is not the Filipina maid. Rather it is the pompous English employer, a common target for Enfield who is somewhat anti-establishment,
However, I totally agree with the sentiments that the sketch does degrade Filipinos, especially female ofws. It propagates a stereotype that Filipinas are available for sexual exploitation. Added to that, the sketch wan’t especially funny. So I’ve added my name to the petition complaining about it.
I also agree that the hysterical reaction by some members of the Philippiens government who are looking for some popularity points on the back of the incident is actually funnier than the original sketch.
malaki pakinabang nila sa ofws. they generate money directly from viewer subscriptions versus the local viewers — direcho sa bulsa, so-to-speak. and remittances ofws send are generally spent on the way-beyond-necessity products they advertise. (they make money off of product placements.) kaya, kabig na sila ibang bansa, kabig pa sila sa pilipinas. hello, perpetual cash flow generators.
part of me thinks that they’re really in the business of encouraging people to go abroad (hello future welders of canada) via a) their crappy shows (which are essentially designed to destroy our national EQ with those tearjerker, over-recycled storylines) and b) sensationalized news casting (which are essentially designed to viewers *more* dissatisfied with the government).
perhaps their underlying mission is: to have at least one ofw per family?
but with this global economic crisis, maybe we should be worrying of the potential exodus of ofws back to the philippines if its true that the worst is yet to come.
/rant.
“part of me thinks that they’re really in the business of encouraging people to go abroad”
Well, that puts them in direct partnership with the government. The Arroyo administration does not deny that labor export is its most important economic strategy.
The way I see it, if you belong to the same group of people you are making fun of, then the greater the chance of you of getting away with it. Does it work all the time? Of course not, just ask Malu Fernandez. However, Rex Navarette or Eat Bulaga seem to be doing just fine. If you have two separate scenarios: a Filipino making fun of a Filipino and a Brit making fun of a Filipino, without question, the latter will get more scrutiny. And where do you get that kind of a scenario? Overseas.
As for Filipino shows making fun of Indians and Chinese, I think it would benefit them to organize themselves and protest accordingly just like we do. That way these shows would know what is tolerable or not for these nationalities. If they don’t bother to complain, does that mean we Filipinos are too sensitive? I don’t think so. As they say, to each his own. Besides, as stereotypes go, a motorcycle riding Indian merchant is pretty tame compared to a Filipina sex slave.