It's always nice to be reminded that even the most harmless of things can bring out the absolute worst of humanity.
If you don't know, The Great British Bake Off is pornography without the shame. Sugar-infused desserts fill the screen; their textures soft, their icing shiny smooth, their fruit plump, their juices thick and flowing. The camera moves itself over the baking process like a tongue caressing these sweet machinations, with two bouncy presenters and two hard-faced judges presiding over the scene.
Unlike pornography - which often involves abuse, drugs, STD's, and a multi-million buisness empire - The Great British Bake Off is completely harmless. This is in part because someone filming you pouring sauce over a meringe base isn't as much of a violation of your body as filming you getting saucy with hunky men. But it's also because baking is one of life's many useless talents.
Obviously there's profit to be found from being a good baker, just as there's profit from being a good shotputter, a good flower-arranger, and - yes - a good gamer. But how could someone be offended if another person turns round and says your chocolate souffle is mediocre? It's a bloody souffle. OK, you wasted three hours of your life cooking it, but as a writer I've wasted days removing pages upon pages of words. And as we all know, writing is a totally relevant and worthwhile craft to embark upon. That's why I'm living in a chateau with my beloved husband of 50 years.
Also, if all the bakers left the planet then very little would change. I'd miss muffins and brioche, but humanity won't grind to a halt. If all the writers were gone, then it'll have an enourmous impact. Meanwhile: I think we can survive without bread and butter pudding. As long as Italian food's still around then everything is right with the world.
So there is absolutely no reason why anyone should get offended about The Great British Bake Off, because unless you're against the objectification of scones then it's the most inoffensive programme in the world. You could have a show where Matt Baker plays with a dog for 25 mins and there'll be more to write to Ofcom about than anything The Great British Bake Off could offer.
And yet...
It appears we can't even have mundane twee evening programming in our lives without The Daily Mail choking on it's pipe-fumes. They and many others who despeately need to become involved in a pub-fight are offended by the fact that a woman called Nadiya, who wears a headscarf, won.
Despite being forced to only watch one episode of this show (the final), I immediately took a liking to Nadiya because she has such a wonderfully expressive face. I'm a huge fan of silent comedians like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, so I appreciate the power of the human face and how it can say so much in one look. She's also very good at this whole baking thing - which is why she won. As with any other show where the result is only determined by a panel of judges, she won because they believed she was the best. Her skin colour didn't somehow make her better at baking wedding cakes.
But there are some idiots, the same who assume the BBC has a left-wing bias when it only reluctantly reported on #piggate and is happily joining in the 'lets all kick Jeremy Corbyn' party that everyone except The Guardian seems involved in. Meanwhile, those firmly on the right side of the political spectrum are saying that Nadiya only won because the BBC were trying to fill its diversity quota.
I remember a few years ago when people were complaining about The Apprentice and how it's finalistes were two attractive young white women. Every year people ask when Strictly Come Dancing is going to introduce same-sex dance partners. BBC panel shows are trying desperately to make the ratio between male and female comics/guests 1:1 to little avail. If the BBC are trying to fill some sort of diversity quota then they're doing a pretty poor job. I can't remember the last time there was a BBC drama with a black lead. If you want documentaries about racial predjudice then it's off to the younger, edgier, lower profile BBC Three for you.
I'm not saying there needs to be some kind of revolution (though, would it really pain the drama department to have more black leads?) but the BBC definitely aren't trying to 'score points' in any way. This controversy is nothing but racist knee-jerking, and the fact I just had to explain why this controversy has no justification at all really proves that far from there being a 'Politically Correct' takeover, we're actually regressing.
Nadiya's victory has angered people simply because they feel cheated. They feel that a Muslim woman is sabotaging the competition, because the fact that she holds a British citizenship, has lived in England all her life, and has just won the most boringly British show on television through exceptionally hard work apparently doesn't make her British. Anyone who criticises her victory feels that she's stolen something from them. And that's racism in a nutshell - the assumption that a black person must be a criminal because of their skin colour. It's the whole Theresa May "they're taking our jobs!" shamble all over again. People hiding racism behind a twisted and completely false perception of reality that doesn't actually hide the racism but makes it even clearer to see.
If you walk the streets and see a woman in a headdress being harrased, please buy her a cupcake.
So there is absolutely no reason why anyone should get offended about The Great British Bake Off, because unless you're against the objectification of scones then it's the most inoffensive programme in the world. You could have a show where Matt Baker plays with a dog for 25 mins and there'll be more to write to Ofcom about than anything The Great British Bake Off could offer.
And yet...
It appears we can't even have mundane twee evening programming in our lives without The Daily Mail choking on it's pipe-fumes. They and many others who despeately need to become involved in a pub-fight are offended by the fact that a woman called Nadiya, who wears a headscarf, won.
Despite being forced to only watch one episode of this show (the final), I immediately took a liking to Nadiya because she has such a wonderfully expressive face. I'm a huge fan of silent comedians like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, so I appreciate the power of the human face and how it can say so much in one look. She's also very good at this whole baking thing - which is why she won. As with any other show where the result is only determined by a panel of judges, she won because they believed she was the best. Her skin colour didn't somehow make her better at baking wedding cakes.
But there are some idiots, the same who assume the BBC has a left-wing bias when it only reluctantly reported on #piggate and is happily joining in the 'lets all kick Jeremy Corbyn' party that everyone except The Guardian seems involved in. Meanwhile, those firmly on the right side of the political spectrum are saying that Nadiya only won because the BBC were trying to fill its diversity quota.
I remember a few years ago when people were complaining about The Apprentice and how it's finalistes were two attractive young white women. Every year people ask when Strictly Come Dancing is going to introduce same-sex dance partners. BBC panel shows are trying desperately to make the ratio between male and female comics/guests 1:1 to little avail. If the BBC are trying to fill some sort of diversity quota then they're doing a pretty poor job. I can't remember the last time there was a BBC drama with a black lead. If you want documentaries about racial predjudice then it's off to the younger, edgier, lower profile BBC Three for you.
I'm not saying there needs to be some kind of revolution (though, would it really pain the drama department to have more black leads?) but the BBC definitely aren't trying to 'score points' in any way. This controversy is nothing but racist knee-jerking, and the fact I just had to explain why this controversy has no justification at all really proves that far from there being a 'Politically Correct' takeover, we're actually regressing.
Nadiya's victory has angered people simply because they feel cheated. They feel that a Muslim woman is sabotaging the competition, because the fact that she holds a British citizenship, has lived in England all her life, and has just won the most boringly British show on television through exceptionally hard work apparently doesn't make her British. Anyone who criticises her victory feels that she's stolen something from them. And that's racism in a nutshell - the assumption that a black person must be a criminal because of their skin colour. It's the whole Theresa May "they're taking our jobs!" shamble all over again. People hiding racism behind a twisted and completely false perception of reality that doesn't actually hide the racism but makes it even clearer to see.
If you walk the streets and see a woman in a headdress being harrased, please buy her a cupcake.
All pictures shamlessly taken from: http://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/611775/Great-British-Bake-Off-2015-Nadiya-Mary-Berry-This-Morning
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