[Robodog]

FFS

It was NOT an 'Anti-Semitic' joke !

The 'target' of the joke if you like was Big Brother by comparing their 'regime' to that of death camps

It doesn't take a semi-intelligent person 5 seconds to break down the meaning of this very basic joke

The subject matter and comparison to death camps was tasteless, yes. Also telling it to a Jewish person was potentially upsetting for them as it evokes a dark period of history when Jews were killed (alongside homosexuals, artists, gypsies, the disabled and many other groups who died) in horrific death camps.

But the target of the joke was not Jews, nor was it any of the other death camp victims, - the target of the joke was BB and death camps themselves! It was NOT an ANTI-SEMITIC joke

It was an ANTI-REGIME joke - It was an ANTI-NAZI joke - It was an ANTI-BB joke

But it was NOT an anti-jewish joke, nor a joke targeting any other victims of death camps. The 'angle' of the joke was on the 'side' of the victims in that it was mocking 'the suppressors', not mocking the suppressed!

Jokes about Nazis have been in the mainstream media since Hitler came to power, including some of the most well loved comedies of all time: Mel Brooks 'the producers'. Fawlty Towers, Allo Allo, Father Ted - the list goes on. None of them are 'anti-semitic' just because they mock Nazis!

Biggins joke was tasteless and ill-judged but calling it an anti-semitic joke is to miss the point of the joke entirely. Not only that, but using the opportunity to create a headline-grabbing hysteria around it, is in itself a cynical and tasteless exploitation of the matter and actually causes more harm than good.

The subject has been treated without intelligence or consideration, and at Biggins expense. It has been a knee-jerk reaction which has then been exploited to make headlines and sell stories. That for me (being a part Jew) is far more offensive than some off-hand, badly-judged joke about death camps and regimes in general.

Media hysteria. Very worrying at times.


ps - Would he have been ejected if he had made a joke about Pol Pot's Cambodian mass murders in the 1960s? Or about the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s? Or any other atrocities of the last century? Or is it just World War 2 that housemates cannot joke about?