Both Sides of the Offence

Sacha Baron Cohen’s recent gross-out action-comedy flop ‘Grimsby’ isn’t offensive; I can say that with some degree of authority. That’s because I’m from a working class background and, to quote London’s new Mayor, ‘I grew up in a council flat’. Now, I know that some people will say the taking of offence is all in the eye of the beholder, and that, if someone gets upset by Grimsby in a convincing enough way, they can only be in the right. But when it comes to this particular film, those taking offence are reviewers and pundits from outside the working classes, meaning they’re taking offence on behalf of the unwashed masses. It’s nice of them to think of us, if a tad condescending, but Grimsby’s exaggerated stereotypes and outlandish behaviour wouldn’t be up there on the screen if people like this didn’t exist in the real world. These examples provided Baron Cohen with inspiration (and believe me, such folk are out there), even as he exaggerated them for comic effect.

I hope the same critics will also acknowledge the proletariat is more than drunken hooligans like Grimsby, popping out the kids with abandon while downing endless lager-beers. Among the working classes you’ll find self-made artists and serial claimants, spokesmen and working mothers, union bigwigs and criminals, rock stars and auto-didacts. But Grimsby isn’t claiming to represent every strand of working class culture; it’s simply trying to make us laugh. If there’s anything offensive about the movie, it’s that Baron Cohen doesn’t really succeed in his aim.

We shouldn’t be surprised I suppose. Whether it’s down to the rise of social media or changing attitudes, in the writing groups and courses I’ve attended of late there has been a growing trend. Those feeding back respond to (fictional) material by taking offence on behalf of a minority group, one they don’t actually belong to. And they don’t do this with any evidence said minority group would find the work they denigrate beyond the pale. This strikes me as patronising at best. At worst, it’s an example of the prejudice those critiquing the fiction would ostensibly decry. Because when you aren’t one, to say that black people / the differently able / gay men / Muslims / lesbians / fictional African tribes / the Transgender community or plebs like me will take offence, not only puts words into our mouths, it ascribes blanket views to an entire demographic. Which makes a person guilty of acting as if the group was one homogenous mass, with blanket opinions, tastes and desires, rather than individuals in possession of singular hopes and dreams. That’s arguably as bad as UKIP supporters going on about ‘mass immigration’.

Still, I understand the urge. If there were hard and fast rules as to what was objectively ‘offensive’ that would make our lives as writers so much easier. Catch-all guidelines might supplant the shrill (and often contradictory) voices trying to police whatever gets put out there on an ad hoc basis. Calling on authors to conform could make things simpler, but it isn’t something I can embrace. To me, censoring your work is anathema to the creative process. But I recognise it’s only human to look to Russian diktats or Chinese repression and think that knowing the rules outright would be easier than the UK’s unspoken boundaries. We’re not a dictatorship over here; but our culture will informally suppress certain material. If there are protests your play gets shut down, say the wrong thing and publically-funded tastemakers won’t touch your script, delve into transgressive fiction and the publishing industry claims there’s no market for it (unless you’re Irvine Welsh, of course).

As a white, heterosexual male who doesn’t possess his father’s Yorkshire accent or sound like someone off Eastenders, few would suspect I come from a section of society often classed as an oppressed minority. In my fiction I create characters from varied backgrounds, both sympathetic and reprehensible, even if I would rather focus on the oppressed and underdogs than establishment figures. Placing restrictions on the subject matter available while citing limitations of religion, gender or creed, is as ridiculous as saying I can only write about unemployed geezers or barrow boys. The act of creation involves an author making imaginative and empathic leaps, getting into the heads of fictional beings and telling your story through them. Having to ensure 50% of the cast are female, one of your main characters comes from Asia, and there’s a straight-acting homosexual to offset every flamboyantly gay character isn’t the best way to pull ideas together.

What offends me then? Objectively, nothing. But I’m certainly going to discard a book or ignore a programme trading in hackneyed tropes and two-dimensional characterisation. Similarly, if the execution is substandard, pointlessly crass, hopelessly derivative or, crucially, when something is meant to be funny and it really, really isn’t - Grimsby, for example. That’s the great thing about all the entertainment currently out there, you can take or leave them. There are always plenty of other options on offer.

In saying that, don’t think for a moment I’m lining up against ‘the PC brigade’ (has anyone ever really self-identified as one of ‘the PC brigade’)? Political correctness, for anyone who needs reminding, was a well-meant initiative poorly executed by all-too flawed human beings. And it isn’t to be confused with health and safety regulations or laws of the land that prevent illegal acts. Groping strangers or beating your wife were criminal offences back in the 1970s too, even if fewer men were arrested for the offenses back then, particularly public figures.

No, political correctness was meant to ensure individuals weren’t made to feel less than equal or suffer brickbats that left them insulted or belittled. It formalised the notion nasty remarks were no longer acceptable in modern society; epithets shading toward definitions of ‘hate speech’. But as David Foster Wallace pointed out, even with this limited remit the PC ideal didn’t really work. A bigot who takes care to say ‘Jewish people’ rather than use the Y-Word, but still claims everyone of that faith is a money-obsessed, big-nosed sufferer of the victim mentality, is no less of a bigot, simply because they’ve couched their horrible views in mild language.

Yes, you can ban certain words, but that only makes those in possession of unsavoury opinions harder to spot. I would rather give the prejudiced plenty of opportunity to damn themselves - call it the Donald Trump rule. This technique risks upsetting the thin-skinned of course, but I don’t believe the answer involves screaming ‘offence’ whenever anything in your pet sphere of selective outrage sticks in the craw; be it misogyny, gay empowerment or sex worker rights. Any piece of writing that truly endorses chauvinism or the smallminded will never endure; forthcoming generations tend to evolve past the petty prejudices of their forefathers. And even if a work does find an audience of idiots, like the musings of Jeremy Clarkson or Anders Breivik have in recent years, why waste your energy crying offence?

Actually, I think I know why. Being offended is a choice. Someone chooses to take offence at a piece of art, book, stage production, film or TV show. In doing so, they co-opt the work of someone else; making the blood sweat and tears that went into it all about them. A lot of the offence floating around arises out of this deluded, self-aggrandising mindset. Such solipsism says to creative people: you make something and I will judge it, from my role as cultural arbiter, up here on my pedestal of morality, setting the pompous tone for an entire nation.

When I was growing up the leader of these self-appointed moral guardians was a lady called Mary Whitehouse. I always found Mary’s campaigns useful; her condemnation invariably meant the piece in question was interesting, boundary-pushing; worth a look. Mary was offended by infidelity and homosexuality, by Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ, by promiscuity and profanity, by characters smoking or drinking, by lesbianism and what she termed ‘blasphemy’. Basically, she was a horrible prude, and in trying to get certain programmes or publications banned, Whitehouse only served to publicise them further, piquing the interest of those who found her philosophy repellent; people like me. Her lifetime’s work turned out to be a complete waste of time, but let’s give Mary her due. From the 1960s through the eighties Mary was more accomplished at taking offence than anyone in this country. Today’s outraged numpties complaining to Ofcom about an off-colour joke on Mock the Week have got nothing on her.