Poe's Law

(Courtesy of Alan at Biased BBC)....

I've had a good chuckle at the BBC World Service being caught out by a brilliant student parodist from Sheffield called Godfrey Elfwick, "writer, feminist, dreamweaver".

Preparing a feature about people who've never seen Star Wars (people like me), BBC WS producer Angela Sheeran spotted a tweet from Godfrey saying,

I've never actually seen #StarWars but the fact that the bad guy was all black and ate watermelons was unbelievably racist even for the 70's

Naturally - and doubtless only seeing the "unbelievably racist even for the 70's" bit and failing to spot the "and ate watermelons" bit (and also neglecting to check the rest of his hilarious Twitter feed) - the BBC's Angela tweeted him an invitation to appear on World Have Your Say (and, being a typical BBC producer, she then deleted the tweet after the story broke!). 

Godfrey duly did appear and, keeping a poker voice, gave the World 'his views' about Star Wars:

It was very low quality. It's not my cup of tea at all. From what I have seen of the old Star Wars films there's a lot of social problems with them. They're rooted in homophobia, casual racial stereotypes. Gold robot C25, or whatever he's called, he's a camp, neurotic coward. The only main female ends up in a space bikini enchained to a horny space slug.

The main bad guy...what's he called, Dark Raider?...is black, he has a deep voice, he listens to rap music. It’s just a really bad racial stereotype.

The Daily Telegraph's account, however, raises an interesting question:

It was unclear if presenter Chloe Tilley had caught on to the joke, first reported on Breitbart.com, but she gamely ploughed on. 

And here's where your favourite blog, ITBB, gives the whole thing a thrilling new edge....

Godfrey fooled the BBC WS producer with his deadpan British style of parody, which - especially online - can be very hard to tell from yer people's actual views.

In that light, what do you make of BBC Chloe's contribution here:

Godfrey: Was Disney involved? They've got a very strong feminist track record. They've made very strong feminist films like 'The Little Mermaid', 'Beauty and the Beast', things like that.  They should stick to making more films like that in my book.

BBC WS presenter, Chloe Tilley: Hang on, let's not get into this Disney thing. I mean Disney as well, don't get me started on 'Frozen'.  I mean, that is not about...in some ways it empowers women, in other ways it just makes them into sexualised objects which little girls watch, and it's terrifying, so...

Godfrey: I think Star Wars had one lead female character and, like I said, she ends up in a gold space bikini chained to a giant horny space slug. It reeked of misogyny. 

Here's the question: Had Chloe cottoned onto the joke and was entering into its spirit? Or hadn't she cottoned onto the joke and was merely being a typical po-faced BBC feminist and dreamweaver?

The Telegraph obviously can't tell. Can you?