Late Late Show censors are still in the Dark Age
Katie H*****s' views are despicable to many, but — sorry to shock you — quite a few out there like watching her on TV
THE Late Late Show was right to bring on Katie H*****s.
It was right because, commercial realities aside, to give in to the objectors would have been to give in to attempted censorship.
H*****s is full of disdain for anyone from non-nationals, lefties and fat people to Dara O’Briain and his “sweaty Irish socks” (killing non-nationals, lefties and obesity with one jibe).
Her views are despicable to many, but — sorry to shock you — quite a few out there like watching her on TV or listening to her radio programme.
Last week’s appearance was her fourth on the RTE show — overkill, definitely — but an indication of her appeal as a source of entertainment.
Undoubtedly, some of the headcases who tuned in 11 days ago will have done so to gorge on a feast of hatred, xenophobia and maybe even racism.
Some watched it so they could tweet about how disgusting she is and get loads of retweets.
But for most of the 740,800 people who tuned in, it was a bit of light entertainment. A chance to listen to her world views while tucking in to some cheese and crackers. And then, when it was over, it was over. Just another talking head on TV done and dusted.
In the build-up to the show, a sizeable army mobilised on social media demanding the Late Late drop her that night.
Hundreds of people devastated at Donald Trump’s US Presidential election victory, and offended by the prospect of hearing a viewpoint contrary to their own, attempted to dictate editorial control of the programme.
They warned about “consequences” and “racist populism”, which is just stoking fear of a different kind.
But the point I fear they all missed was that the Irish people are a well-educated, intelligent bunch very capable of making up their own minds.
I like to think that we can watch the likes of H*****s and see her for what she is without turning into a bunch of right-wing fanatics, just like we watched Ryan Tubridy interview the Rubberbandits’ Blindboy last Friday and resisted the urge to put plastic bags on our faces.
This is a young country warped by decades of censorship — books, foreign newspapers, music, soft pornography, Sinn Fein voices on RTE, even our post.
Material deemed inappropriate, but the banning of which, in hindsight, contributed to our stunted emotional growth.
Now is not the time to go back down that road.
Hollywood siren Jayne Mansfield’s career was on the wane when, in 1967, she was booked to appear in Tralee’s Brandon Hotel. The Bishop of Kerry was incensed, fearing the busty babe would corrupt innocent minds, and denounced her from the pulpit.
Amid calls for a boycott, the show was cancelled and the men of Kerry spared the horrors of a smutty cabaret show.
That Bishop presumed that the Irish people were simple-minded folk unable to think for themselves.
The calls to keep H*****s off the telly made those same presumptions.
The world is a divided and hate-filled place. We fear a festering Brexit or a Trump mentality here, but suffocating those alternative voices is not the way to prevent it.
Let them be heard, and overcome them by offering an alternative.
If the Late Late Show producers bowed to that pressure and cancelled H*****s’ booking, it would not have been a victory for good.
It would have done nothing more than convince those who fear they have no voice that they are right, swelling the same breeding ground of discontent that drove Brexit and Trump.
A guy called Angry man tweeted H*****s last week, saying: “As much as I don’t like you lady because I am one of the multiple sections of society you offend I love listening to your show.”
That’s hard to comprehend. I assume this guy listens to her programme for the entertainment of it but manages to avoid becoming a hate-filled weirdo in the process.
Calling for a boycott is to assume the masses will be brainwashed, but most people have the ability to separate the fantasy they’re watching from reality.
We all love Breaking Bad’s Walter White and The Wire’s Stringer Bell, but most of us manage to resist becoming meth dealers and murderers.
Katie H*****s is for many about as real as Walter White. She’s a character, a caricature, a voice to heard but ultimately to be ignored.
For her hardcore disciples, their views won’t be changed by keeping her off the telly.
Their views will only be changed through education.
H*****s makes for good TV in these sanitised times because her views are so different to everyone else’s in the mainstream.
The Late Late enjoyed its third-highest audience of the season last Friday week, and viewer numbers peaked for her well-flagged segment.
That should speak volumes to the people on Twitter who assume they’re spokespeople for the masses.
They’re making the same assumptions their counterparts wrongly made in the UK and US.
RTE received 1,700 complaints, around 0.2 per cent of the total viewing figure — meaning a fairly sizeable majority was only too happy to watch events unfold.
Efforts to have H*****s canned were an attempt at censorship, even if the motives were pure.
That is not healthy in a functioning democratic society.
Rugby’s culture leaves me cold
GROWING up in northside Dublin, rugby was a sport only played by the well-connected, posh “elites”.
So that image of the sport has stayed with me, to the extent that I just can’t find any love in my heart for it.
The promo video for World Cup 2023 that has everyone in tears leaves me cold too.
I see it — wrongly, probably — as a slap on the back for the privileged when this country remains on its knees.
Ireland is a place where massive office developments go up at a rate of knots while the homeless population explodes.
It’s a place where brilliant front-line public servants barely earn enough to get through the week while TDs sit on a pension pot worth €135million.
As I sit here, chip firmly on shoulder, all I can see is that same elite having the time of their lives at an event I couldn’t care less about while ordinary people continue to suffer.
Not interested.
Road works give me sinking feeling
A SINKHOLE which swallowed up 8,700 square feet of road, light poles and signs posed a bit of a problem for the people of Fukuoka.
The 65ft crater was filling up rapidly with water, so bosses in the Japanese city got to work. They had the place better than new in a week.
Meanwhile, in Dublin, traffic through Broadstone and Phibsboro is backed up every day due to Luas works that have been ongoing for what seems like 100 years.
On one part of the road, two lanes become one because someone left a bunch of traffic cones in the left lane.
They’ve been there for months, randomly scattered, doing nothing but adding a few more minutes to people’s commutes.
If the road sank here they’d redeploy those cones, place them around the hole and leave it at that until the end of time.
A secret killer on the loose
FRED West, Peter Sutcliffe, Ian Brady, Kieran Patrick Kelly . . . Wait, who?
Irish vagrant Kelly is believed to have murdered dozens of men during a 30-year killing spree in London — putting him in a different league to the rest of the infamous killers in British history.
Yet this weirdo, who pushed people under trains for fun, remains largely unknown, partly because it is claimed police kept some historical crimes secret to prevent widespread panic.
If serial killers love to have their work recognised, the London Underground Serial Killer must have died a bitterly disappointed oddball.
Champ of the week
THE Phoenix Park rail tunnel. What a modern wonder — opening up there yesterday and actually connecting services in a masterstroke of transport integration that makes us look like a normal country.
Chump of the week
BLACK Friday (and to jump ahead, Cyber Monday).
People are sheep, so somehow we have let these non-events become a thing.
Maybe if we could all start to think for ourselves, stuff like this wouldn’t happen so often . . .