Friday, 23 September 2016

"Alas, it didn’t make the final cut"



Talking about the Spectator, there's also a piece by Freddy Gray on "being a media Catholic", which ends with a revealing BBC-related anecdote:
On the whole, however, I didn’t face overt anti-Christian prejudice so much as bewilderment. The producers, runners and interviewers —  especially on the BBC and Channel 4 —  just couldn’t believe that, in their day and age, people still accepted what the Catholic church teaches, especially on sex. They tried to be sympathetic, but ended up being patronising. The best example came during a Have Your Say phone-in session on BBC World News. Again, the subject was gay adoption. After an hour or so of recording, the show finished and the producers wanted ‘out takes’ for the repeat edit. I was asked to adopt various poses as though I had been listening intently. The presenter reminded me that a gay man had called from Mexico to say that the Church had made his life hell. ‘Perhaps you could look surprised,’ she suggested, delicately. ‘I mean Mexico is a very Catholic country, so as a Catholic maybe you wouldn’t expect a gay man to be there.’ A gay man! In Mexico! I found the request so ridiculous that I pulled an over-the-top horrified face, as if I had just seen a poltergeist. Alas, it didn’t make the final cut.

2 comments:

  1. I can't stand Freddy Gray. His posts on US politics are crap.

    They tried to be sympathetic, but ended up being patronising.

    You could apply this to almost anything they do. As for a BBC producer suggesting a bit of acting, what a racist woman. Why would Gray, as a British Catholic, react differently to homosexuality than a Mexican Catholic? It's racism, straight up, to assume a dark-skinned Mexican would object more to homosexuality than a white British Catholic would.

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    1. He seems a nice guy but since politics affects us all, David, I have to agree - they are CRAP!!! And yes as soon as they get on to race they tie themselves in knots as we have seen recently with black police shooting black people...

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