Sunday, September 24, 2006

Was this really ever "popular" culture?


I wandered across this - the little known B side to the more famous Spitting Image Chicken Song. It has some startling lines about South Africans. Did Mr Cameron say something about this recently? Put into the context of the 1980s it must have been fine, but to watch it now makes you cringe. It is a wonder it ever made it into the mainstream of anything. I am putting it here for you to see and make up your own mind - for historical perspective. Only click if you don't mind being offended. You have been warned!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually it's very interesting. While we wouldn't, these days, have a similar story about Islamo-facists who condone all sorts of evil (homosexuals deserve to die according to Opinonated Voice -- he doesn't warrant a link), what most interested me was that a lot of the items they cite as normality are no longer problems thanks to Thatcher's privatisations!

There was a jibe at Directory Enquiries (they're quick as you like now there's competition), there was a child a who got a job after leaving school (that's reasonably normal now that Thatcher's reforms have stabilised the economy)...

Still, as you say, it's a bit low brow these days ;-)

Anonymous said...

Funny, the line about directory enquiries was written three years AFTER privatisation. The Baroness certainly sorted out that working Yorkshire miner, didn't she?

Makes me cringe? Not a bit of it. The song was a satirical take on the ongoing issue of apartheid. In the same way as the SA government regarded all non-whites as lower forms of life, Spitting Image classed all South Africans as smelly, ignorant and lacking in humour.

Back then, it was funny - unlike the Blessed Margaret.

Anonymous said...

Whoops - try two years after privatisation. Slip of the fingers there.

Anonymous said...

Its still brilliant