Richard Hammond says comedy deemed politically incorrect is actually pointing out the “importance” of controversial issues.
Richard Hammond says comedy deemed politically incorrect is actually pointing out the ‘importance’ of controversial issues
The 54-year-old former ’Top Gear’ presenter, who co-hosted the show alongside Jeremy Clarkson, 63, and 61-year-old James May – argued programmes that may seem shocking are really only playing with the idea of what is “acceptable”.
He said on his ‘Who We Are Now with Izzy and Richard Hammond’ podcast – which he presents with his 23-year-old daughter Izzy: “Comedy is so often sort of at the cutting edge of what‘s acceptable. It’s dancing around (that line) and sometimes it’s standing the wrong side of the line but what it’s actually doing is pointing back at the line and emphasising the importance of it. That’s critical.
“If people are wilfully taking a role in saying, ‘I don't think this is (funny) but isn’t it funny if somebody does.’
“Because it’s there at the front, should it have a sell-by date after which it's strictly not seen? Should it be scrapped, should it disappear?”
Richard also admitted he no longer found the sitcoms of his youth funny because society had “moved on”.
He said: “Everything I watched in my youth, pretty much all of it – when I say I wouldn’t find it funny now... I actually mean I wouldn’t find it funny because we’ve moved on.”
Izzy added taking “accountability” of the harmful content in offensive comedy was the key to understanding it.
She said: “It's accountability. I think it's not accusatory, it's saying what you did there you didn't think it was wrong but you need to understand now that's not great and that is wrong.”
On a previous episode of his podcast, Richard’s ‘The Grand Tour’ co-star James May weighed in on the cancel culture debate, and argued the men got “a bad wrap” just for “being a bloke”.
He said: “I do feel like men are getting a bit of a bad rap recently. There’s a lot of talk about toxic masculinity and I know there is a lot of it around and it's right that we confront it and address it... but it’s not all of us.
“We seem to be straying close to a point where simply being a bloke, especially if you’re a sort of older, lower middle-class, white bloke... you’re almost immediately written off.”
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