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A little note on 'cancel culture', and why its origins aren't always what you'd think. A couple of weeks ago a radio producer got in touch to ask me about a particular podcast character by @DaftLimmy, from a series he did about 14/15 years ago.
The reason why the producer got in touch with me was because one of the characters voiced by Limmy was Vijay, the son of a cornershop owner who narrates his deliveries and the people he comes across.
While Limmy subtly augments his normal speech, it's not an 'Apu' kind of accent, but the kind of gentle emphasis on plosives which often characterises second generation South Asians in the UK (one of those 'you know it when you hear it' kind of things).
And basically the producer wanted to know if I considered it a form of brownface, whether it was racist or problematic, should Limmy be held accountable etc etc.
I said that most comedy trades in types, some is funny and some isn't, I *didn't* think Limmy's character was racist but he wasn't a great comedic construction either (though I liked the idea of using individual voices to construct an affectionate tableau of the city).
(had to correct that tweet because I accidentally omitted a negative which changed the whole meaning lol)
I also asked the producer what capacity I was being asked to speak in - was it as someone who nurtures a love of audio comedy (cos I do!), or someone who can claim to speak for Asians who are outraged and upset (cos I'm not)?
Anyway, there ends up being a radio debate between myself, Sanjeev Kohli and Andrew Doyle. And it's clear that, while he was def thoughtful and receptive, what the host expects is for at least one person to advance a 'cancel Limmy' line so that there can be a bit of a bunfight.
But there wasn't one. I mean, I disagreed with Andrew Doyle's line that all that matters in comedy is the intention of the comedian. But other than that, the 'debate' was against a strawman who wasn't even in the room.
What this illustrated to me - and I brought it up on the air - is that these cancel outrages are so often deliberately manufactured by the very media that wants to decry them.
It wasn't like South Asians had long had a problem with Limmy - at least, not that I'm aware of - but more the case that in order to fuel a media appetite for cancel stories, broadcasters were under pressure to produce such stories into existence.
Also just want to say the producer wasn’t at all a villain here, and I think their decision to put me forward for the discussion in spite of me not being pro-cancellation in the pre-interview reflects being genuinely interested in ideas.
But the fact it was a topic at all reflects that our national broadcasters are bad at talking about racism outside of culture wars framing, which has always been a creature of the media’s own creation in the first place.
