Mandalore_15 said:
An organisation like the BBC knows that for every one person that complains, there are likely to be a thousand people who won't, despite feeling aggrieved. However, the chances of that 1000 people tuning in to the show next week just got a whole lot slimmer. TV broadcasters have whole logistics departments whose job it is to work this kind of shit out. It's all about the ratings. No-one cares about 200 people in 2.3 million.
I see the point you're making, and perhaps if we were talking about a commercially funded broadcasting cooperation in an entirely unregulated world, I would take the point. However, it doesn't change the principle, which is that the obscenity or otherwise of a scene should not be subject to the sexual orientation of those involved. It's one thing to pull a scene on the basis of clear and universally applicable guidelines regarding obscenity and age-appropriateness (which the BBC has) and another to pull a scene because you fear the public might not like that it has gay stuff in it.
The programme has been made already. The BBC funded and approved it. If what the BBC bosses have done is, as many others have suggested, to remove that scene along with others due to revised timeslot and a general removal of adult content from the show as a whole, that's fine. If, as you suggest, they've specifically removed content which depicts gay sex because, although it doesn't fit any guidelines for obscenity they worry the public will react badly to having gay sex on TV is prejudicial and contrary to the principles on which the BBC is meant to operate. The BBC is license funded precisely to ensure that it is able to represent the principles on which the UK as a society functions and not the commercial interests of its shareholders. Catering to the prejudice of a minority is despicable, and whether it results in higher ratings is only important in terms of demonstrating the cost/efficiency of the license fee system.
I say meant to operate, and I have no great faith that anything in this world operates as it should when it comes to sexuality issues, but we should expect better than that. To simply suggest that this is how it is and we should get used to it is not a helpful attitude.
I'm not really going to engage with the argument about how significant the numbers of UK gay license payers are because I don't think it's terribly important, but it's not the insignificant minority you seem to think.
Mandalore_15 said:
Congrats on wikipedia use, feel free to help yourself to "+1 internet" or whatever...
"Utilitarianism": the idea that the greatest good should be done for the greatest number. How can this not be applied to marketing? Political philosophy doesn't exist in a vacuum you know. Philosophy is continually adapted to other situations (I would know, I did it for practically my entire masters degree). In the case of maximising the enjoyment of the biggest number of your viewers, this is utilitarianism TV-style. I don't see an issue here.
I didn't use Wikipedia, dear. You aren't the only one with a masters degree.
I have some serious problems with utilitarianism as an idea, but leaving those aside for now. For all the adaptability of philosophy, you cannot transpose terms out of their discursive environment. What does moral good mean in terms of broadcasting? How do you define it in that context, and more importantly how would you measure it in the outcome? Simply equating 'more ratings' with 'good' is not utilitarianism. In order to take a utilitarian position you need to establish a moral good which can be observed in the outcome of the situation. You do not determine good by looking at how effectively something functions, you determine it by looking at the outcome produced.
The wider problem with utilitarianism is that it predicates itself on a liberal assumption that human needs and thus moral good can be quantitatively measured from an objective standpoint because all human beings and their happiness is substitutable for one another. It's not possible to establish that objective standpoint because ultimately, we have no way of measuring other people's pleasure or happiness or the fulfilment of their desire. I don't think it's possible to seriously uphold utilitarianism as a viable concept in the wake of psychoanalysis, we can't keep pretending that people are all the same and all have the same quantifiable and equal needs. It doesn't work.
Mandalore_15 said:
You're taking my point far too literally here. I never said the gay market only wants to see gay things. I said there is a gay market which, y'know, consists of gay people. A gay scene in a film or TV show is clearly aimed to appeal to this market, because frankly no-one else is going to get the kind of enjoyment out of it that such a scene is designed to illicit.
I disagree..
I have a lesbian friend whose favourite film is 'In the Realm of the Senses'. If you've seen that film, it's basically 2 hours of constant unsimulated sex scenes. Is my friend aroused by the sex scenes. No, because she's a lesbian. Is she moved by the emotional context in which it all takes place. Yes, very much so. The film has a massive effect on her despite being incredibly sexual and incredibly
heterosexual.
Something most gay people learn quickly is that very little visual media is aimed as them. That is starting to change, and certainly in fields like advertising you can see the ambiguity creeping in, but in cinema and in visual media generally. No, it's still absent. Most gay people never watch queer cinema, some do and find it a bit stylistically annoying.
If a normal film has a sex scene, the purpose is not generally to give you something to masturbate to. It's to illustrate something about the characters and/or their relationship. That meaning transcends sexual orientation. You don't need a specific sexual orientation to enjoy that, and if you genuinely find that you can't enjoy such a scene because it isn't specifically gay/straight/furry/whatever then you're either taking it on the wrong level and assuming you should be able to masturbate to everything on television or you just have a wider problem.
Mandalore_15 said:
I thought the whole idea of gaining equality was to become one with the rest of society, not to segregate yourselves, flaunt your differences and wave them in other people's faces.
Tried (it was called the homophile movement). Failed. Guess why?
'Becoming one with the rest of society' requires society to make some accommodation. You can't expect gay people to assimilate perfectly into a society which is still remarkably homophobic and at the very least heterocentric, because that's just effectively asking them to shut up because society should only be catering to the needs of heterosexuals and everyone else should just accept that they're not important to the grand scheme of things and live miserable closeted lives. It's a terrible thing you're asking.
Seriously, it's clear you know nothing about sexuality issues or ideological history in this area, so maybe don't be quite so strong in your opinion. It makes you sound.. more than a little judgemental.
Mandalore_15 said:
Gay rights issues? Last time I checked you had the same civil liberties as everyone else (the only exception I can think of being adoption, but there are strong reasons for prohibiting this). It might be time to let that one go...
I'll let this one go, but only because if I argue with you about it I'm going to get myself banned. Needless to say, you know nothing. You clearly have no specific knowledge, no relevant experience and very little understanding of what I'm talking about.
Mandalore_15 said:
Oh, and you made it personal when you (by your own admission) said I was a homophobe. I'm not. I'm just a person who feels that minorities shouldn't get a bigger voice than everyone else simply by virtue of being a minority, and gays are hardly alone in this category. Political correctness brought this country to its knees. Let's stop throwing fuel on the fire, eh?
No, that's the person you think you are.
What you are far more likely to be is a person who has become so used to have everything around you exist to cater
specifically to you that as soon as anything disrupts that contented little bubble by, you know, daring to shift the spotlight to someone else or provide something someone else wants you feel you're being prejudiced against.
Really, I could say that almost everyone who has ever used the term 'political correctness', because nothing displays such a complete ignorance of real minority issues than wheeling out that completely meaningless Daily-Mail-ism.