BBC Trust rules ‘Gypsy’ Holocaust joke “offensive”

By MIKE DOHERTY

News reporter

THE BBC watchdog has responded to an appeal by the Traveller Movement and upheld a complaint over a joke about “giving Gypsies the run of a concentration camp” that was broadcast on the Bafta Award winning Radio 4 comedy series ‘The Party’.

The BBC Trust, who’s role it is to ensure that the BBC abides by its public service remit, said that the joke was “ill-considered given the reality of the Holocaust experience for Gypsies and the prejudice that Gypsies have encountered in the past and which is still to some extent present today.” The Trust ruled that ‘The Party’ broke editorial guidelines because the joke “was offensive (and) trivialised the experience of a minority group during the Holocaust.”

‘The Party’ is a sitcom about a group of young idealists trying to set up a new political party. It is based on the award-winning play from the 2009 Edinburgh Festival. It has now finished its third series and was broadcast in the comedy slot on Radio 4 on Thursdays at 6.30pm.

The episode in question ran on the 10th October, 2012 and the joke started with the characters riffing about giving minorities various areas of the country to live in, such as Wales being given to Dwarves, and ended with:

Mel: “You’re forcing them to live somewhere. That’s like saying you want to give Gypsies the run of a concentration camp.”

Jared: “That’s not a bad idea.”

The Traveller Movement was alerted to the joke by a Gypsy/Traveller campaigner. After listening to the joke, the TM decided to take action and lodged a formal complaint to the BBC.

The complaint was initially not upheld by the first two stages of the three stage BBC complaints system so the TM added a discrimination element to the complaint and appealed to the BBC Trust saying that the complaint would have been upheld if it had been targeted at a different group persecuted during the Holocaust. The BBC Trust accepted the appeal and passed the complaint over to the Editorial Standards Committee who launched an investigation.

The ESC considered historical evidence about the persecution of the Roma and Sinti (German and Western European ‘Gypsies’ and Travellers) by the Nazi regime and evidence about contemporary prejudice towards the UK’s Gypsies and Travellers. Part of the ESC’s deliberations also consisted of deconstructions of jokes and the difference between cutting-edge comedy that “pushes the boundaries” and jokes that were merely “offensive”.

The BBC Trust has apologized and ordered the editing of that particular joke before the show can be re-broadcast or sold to another broadcaster.

The full finding of the Editorial Standards Committee can be found here: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/appeals/esc_bulletins/2013/sep.pdf