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I realize this has little to do with Fawlty Towers, but just wanted to chime in.
And what about Bomber Harris. Responsible for burning alive thousands of women and children civilians. He was considered dodgy even by his contemporaries, who refused to honour him with a statue.
And what do we do about Cromwell? He first abolished the slave trade, but was pretty unpleasant to the Irish. Although you could say he did promote and establish multi-culturism in Ireland.
We can worry about what statues to erect when innocent people aren’t being murdered in broad daylight by those sworn to protect them.
If it offends you, start a campaign, get people talking about it. If it doesn’t, ‘whataboutism’ isn’t helpful to anything.
If people suspect symbols of their national identity are being attacked, without a compelling logic, then there will be pushback, and will sow division. And that is not the way to change hearts and minds.
i agree it was a bad move because folks like you are still hung up on that one bit of graffiti in a statue (which gets graffitied all the time), and aren’t interested in the actual massive human rights issues being drawn attention to. Eliot Carver has done his work.
Wow, I wish I was like you, you’re so great
Unless it's sarcasm that I missed what you are saying is "we have more important stuff to deal with than statutes so instead of leaving statues alone and focusing on those more important issues lets spend our time tearing those statues down so we don't have to talk about them"
I don’t know if it was sarcasm as much, but yes, basically my point is leave statues alone as we have more important things to worry about. Everyone’s saying “keep this one, get rid of that one, this cool guy was also sometimes mean” and it’s totally, completely distracting from what’s important. Tear them all down just meant, the nuances of which ones we should keep up and why are an issue for another time.
No, I suppose I don’t mean “take the time to tear down every statue”, what I mean is, “any amount of time spent discussing statues is a complete waste of it.”
But if I had to choose between “no statues at all” and “statues of Churchill, but then also statues of Robert E Lee and Hitler and the like”, I’d vote for “no statues at all”. Statues are a celebration, period. They’re not there for the “historical education factor”, that’s why we have books and libraries. Every person that deserves a statue, anyway, probably doesn’t give a shit if there’s a statue of them, because good leaders know what’s important.
I can’t tell if this is sarcasm?
You are free to join or start campaigns to remove statues of all these individuals, if that is what you feel. You can also pull them down by force, if you feel very strongly, although you should be prepared to do the time if you do the crime.
Lol you’re definitely right about that.
https://deadline.com/2023/02/fawlty-towers-reboot-john-cleese-camilla-cleese-rob-reiner-castle-rock-entertainment-basil-manuel-1235252175/
I was under the impression that he was going to live abroad after Bregret. Has he moved yet?
Supposedly he has a show starting on the terrible GB News channel, but I’ll also believe that when it happens. He keeps announcing things which never appear.
I’m not sure where he’s based, I think he flits between US and U.K. This Fawlty project sounds like it would be US-based, which makes it feel an even worse prospect.
I would say Blackadder also shouldn’t happen: it would be equally tragic. The time has passed.
"Don't mention the European Union. I did it once, but I think I got away with it."
But I don't know about this overall. Fawlty Towers is consistently held up as one of the best British sitcoms, along with Only Fools And Horses (usually they're #1 and #2). So it makes any attempt at a revival/remake/reboot, very foolhardy. Plus in order for it not to flop, it would probably have to be so sanitised as not to upset anyone. Leave it alone, is my advice.
Not sure what you mean- I don't think it would require sanitising, and Fawlty Towers was hardly successful because it was a work of knowing bad taste or anything which flirted with crossing the line; it's incredibly family friendly to this day I'd say and kids love it.
I have seen people complain about Basils treatment of the elderly, and his treatment of Manuel.
Also, some of The Major's language might clap some bum cheeks in 2023. Even though, like Alf Garnet, we are supposed to laugh at these characters, not with them, I think the point flies over the heads of the people complaining.
The show wasn't built around one or two words from the Major though; I can't really understand the idea that it wouldn't be the same show without them, or feel overly 'sanitised'. Although he was a fun incidental character you could quite easily lose him completely and it would still be a fantastic show; he's barely in it.
I'm not convinced anyone would or has lobbied for Basil to treat other people well either: that's rather the point of him.
I'm not really sure what people you mean. And to be honest this is more the worry about a new Cleese show: all he talks about nowadays is how he's being silenced (ironically he says this on many different media outlets) and 'you can't say x these days', so I worry this show would be a boring diatribe about how everything is too 'woke' and these people have got it all wrong.
Funnily enough Basil is a sort of parody of what they call 'gammon' nowadays: a rather jingoistic right wing guy with a chip on his shoulder about not being in the right class. I wonder if Cleese is capable of writing that character any more.
At least he wouldn't be able to say boring things like 'you wouldn't be allowed to make Fawlty Towers these days' because he's trying to make Fawlty Towers these days :D
This did happen with Only Fools. They should have ended it when Del and Rodney became rich. The comeback episodes when they were visibly much older and lost all their money didn't really work.
Likewise, the same happened with Auf Pet resurrected by the BBC. They should have left that at series 1 and 2.
Fawlty Towers is an absolute classic, and seeing a very old Basil Fawlty may not be the best thing to see. I feel it could tarnish the legacy that has been cemented for decades now. The only thing that gives me hope is that it will be written by Cleese.
But not by Booth, so it will only be half of the team anyway. With a new co-writer, sure, but I'm not sure that gives me much hope.
Arguably Only Fools shouldn't have come back for the auction/millionaire episodes too! But I rather liked the Auf Wiedersehen continuation at the time.
Indeed. R was very much a 'take the money and run' performance, and revealed his attitude to his career in the last couple of decades. I'm sure he once said that puns were the worst form of comedy, so he really shouldn't have done Bond films because thats' where puns are a very rich source of gags!
Cleese's 2014 memoir was quite good and I've enjoyed several of his one-man stage shows. So I don't think his talent has deserted him. R in TWINE was a badly written role but I had no problem with the character in DAD.
It's obviously dangerous to revisit a near-perfect sitcom like FT, but if Cleese and his daughter make the new show different enough to stand on its own there's a chance it might be an honorable effort. There's potential in the idea of Fawlty as a clueless old man in the world of modern hotels.