BBC’s Apology

The British Broadcasting Corpopration has released a Public Apology Statement with regards to The Episode of Harry and Paul shown on the BBC One,”Lambasting” the image of the OFWs,Here’s the Complete Statement of the BBC:

Many thanks for your e-mail regarding ‘Harry & Paul’ on 26 September. We understand that you were concerned by the depiction of a Filipino woman featured in the programme.

Firstly, we’re sorry if you were in any way offended by the programme as this wasn’t our intention.

The sketch in question is from a series known as ‘Northern Monkey’, which has featured strongly in both series of the programme over the last two years.

The sketches are about a very posh, upper-class family who keep a ‘pet northerner’ in their home. Harry Enfield plays Roger, the man of the house, and Paul Whitehouse plays Clive, the so-called ‘pet’ northerner.

In this particular sketch, Roger has decided he would like to ‘breed’ Clive, so a maid is brought in to see if he will respond and ‘mate’ with her.

Clive’s entirely uninterested so Roger gives the maid instructions to see if she can elicit a response from him – to no avail. The fact that the maid is from the Philippines isn’t relevant to the comedy.

This is clearly a preposterous and absurd situation and the comedy is aimed at the appalling insensitivity of Roger and his awful upper-class family, rather than poor Clive and his situation – in this case being asked to ‘mate’ with their maid.

‘Harry & Paul’ is a post-watershed comedy sketch show well-known for its exaggerated humour and absurd characters. It in no way represents real people and was never intended to offend or demean any viewer.

That said, we recognise that you were personally offended by the sketch and would like to assure you that your complaint has been registered on our audience log.

This is a daily report of audience feedback that’s circulated to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers. It’s also published on our intranet site, so it’s available for all staff to view.

All feedback we receive, whether positive or negative, is always appreciated and we’d like to thank you again for taking the time to contact us with your concerns.

Regards

BBC Complaints
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints