Take a joke Social media users blast woke outrage after classic UK comedy gets tagged with advisory for outdated attitudes

Social media users have called out “retrospective woke outrage” after classic British sitcom ’Allo ’Allo’ was hit with a viewer warning about potentially offensive “language and attitudes” in the popular show.

The BBC period comedy, which ran from 1982 to 1992, was centred around the various misadventures of an embattled French cafe-owner during WWII, whose business was both a front for the underground resistance and a favoured watering hole for occupying Nazi forces.

It featured a host of colourful characters speaking English in exaggerated German, French and Italian accents, and played on both British and European stereotypes. In addition to spawning still-popular catchphrases such as the greeting “Good Moaning,” other running gags included bungled operations, double entendres and pantomime sexual humour.

Although the series has been rerun on the public broadcaster in the decades since it last aired, Britbox â€" an online digital video subscription service offered by the BBC and ITV networks â€" has slapped a trigger warning on the show for the apparently ‘outdated’ content.

Before each episode of the show, the streaming service has included a viewer discretion warning that reads: “This classic comedy contains language and attitudes of the time that may offend some viewers.”

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But the majority of social media users criticised the move as an example of “virtue signalling” and “woke outrage,” and reasoned that the show poked fun at all its characters, both European and English.

Conservative MP Paul Bristow said the show “takes the mick out of the Brits as much as it does the French, Germans and Italians.” Several people echoed that sentiment, with one person saying it “took the piss out of absolutely everyone with equal measure ... including the English.”

🇫🇷 ‘Good moaning!I refuse to believe anyone could possibly be offended by Officer Crabtree, Herr Flick, and Captain Bertorelli. Allo Allo takes the mick out of the Brits just as much as it does the Germans, French and Italians. https://t.co/LbqIzIbIgA

â€" Paul Bristow MP #stayalert (@paulbristow79) August 6, 2021

Considering the Germans were portrayed as buffoons and the British as utterly batshit, the French actually got off kind of lightly in Allo Allo.

â€" Methane Powered Fusilier (@MethanePowered) August 5, 2021

As an example, a number of commenters pointed to the Officer Crabtree character â€" a spoof parody of an undercover British agent posing as a French police officer whose supposed fluency in French was belied by the frequently bemused reactions of other characters to his mangling of the language.

It’s amazing how many people, including whoever wrote this article, don’t realise the Officer Crabtree character is an undercover English operative, and his comedic mispronunciations are mocking his inability to speak French.

â€" Citizen of Everywhere #FBPE 🇪🇺 (@CznOfEverywhere) August 6, 2021

The ‘Vote Leave’ campaign waded into the controversy as well, with the Brexit group’s official account putting out a tweet that called out people “itching to say au revoir” to the show as being “unbelievably pathetic” for not being able to “take a joke.”

Some British commenters wondered whether “all the fuss” over the ‘offensive’ European accents and stereotypes was “because we left the EU,” but others said the viewer advisory warnings were more likely prompted by the “rampant sexism and homophobia prevalent in the 1980s.”

I saw the original series. I dislike the programme because its very blatant and offensive sexism. The only funny bits were when the piss was taken out of the French and Germans. After all, we did win the war and secured freedom for the French. They still hate us.

â€" Trolphie (@ElizaHesterG) August 5, 2021

However, a number of people countered that such “pandering to snowflakes” was why viewers were “dropping the BBC license fee” â€" although it was unclear whether the public broadcaster had anything to do with Britbox’s decision.

“The BBC clearly has a lot of guilt for the classics it has broadcast over the years as they’re constantly slapping content warning on them. The corporation is now totally out of touch and at the mercy of woke millennials that are offended by everything,” the Defund the BBC campaign group tweeted.

The show was reportedly tipped to be remade some years ago, but there were apparently concerns within the BBC that portraying Nazi characters like incompetent Gestapo officer Herr Flick would cause offence.

Also on rt.com ‘Don’t mention the war!’ Episode of cult comedy Fawlty Towers scrubbed amid ‘racism’ purge

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