Curious about UK scandal threshold vs. US

Cafe Society
1

Okay, so I’m a bit of a David Tennant fan. Not enough that I belong to fan groups where I can ask about this, but enough so that I get email updates on him. (If you don’t know who he is, you probably can’t answer my questions. But Google him anyways, why don’t’cha. ;)) Anyway, the last couple days, this story has come up more than once.

For those who can’t or don’t want to follow the link, basically, he went on a pub crawl with this radio host friend of his, then later left a slurred, rambling message on the guy’s voicemail, and the guy played it on his show repeatedly. And I can’t really process this without more context. I’m wondering how this will affect his reputation, but I’m not so much worried about this guy specifically; just curious, like the title says, about what makes a scandal in the UK. I mean, I’m told the British tabloids are ruthless, but…relative to what?

See, if this was an American actor, he’d first have to stay home for a few days, and then spend the next six months apologizing. (Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit, but the gist of it is true.) But by the same token, an American actor’s friend would probably not publicize the voicemail, if he valued the friendship, because he’d know he was unleashing that. So perhaps this isn’t meant to be a public shaming, just something funny. Because I have seen DT on some UK talk shows (some on BBC America and some on YouTube), and I came to realize, I didn’t know what a loose atmosphere is until I saw Graham Norton. You’d never see the host and guests on a US talk show drinking wine during the show, or the host holding up a porn magazine with nothing blurred out. Even Jimmy Kimmel wouldn’t try.

And I have to say, this certainly is less egregious than what some American celebrities have been getting up to recently. He’s not threatening anyone (Mel Gibson*), pretending to be crazy while his brother-in-law films it (Joaquin Phoenix) or flunking out of rehab for the nth time (Lindsay Lohan). He’s just drunk and silly. So if I’m supposed to be scandalized, I’m really not, but perhaps I’m not supposed to be.

My perception comes down to this. (And I’m not trying to spread ignorance; if I’m wrong I’m wrong, which is why I’m asking, because I don’t know.) The UK and US media are pretty much equally invasive, but while the high-strung American public tends to react to transgressions** with gasps of “How dare you not be perfect! It’ll take five years at least for you to earn back your reputation!”, the UK public reacts more like, “Heh, what a wanker…Let’s move on.” Just seems like you guys have a lot thicker skin than we do, and a better ability to take a joke. We’re uptight, no denying it. And it really wouldn’t hurt our celebs to be a bit more easily humbled.

So am I wrong? In any case, where does this fall on the scandal meter? And I’m sorry this is so long, but it’s a lot shorter than it could have been. I wanted to make myself clear, and I hope I have.

*He’s lived here long enough that I’d call him straight-up American by now.

**Which is another part of the problem: the covering up of minor transgressions, which enables behavior like Gibson’s and Lohan’s until it gets so bad it can’t be squashed.

2

As long as the content of the message wasn’t itself damning (homophbic/racist/sexist etc diatribe) then no one will much care imo. Having gotten drunk isn’t anything to worry about.

3

Yeah, this really isn’t a big deal at all in the UK. The tabloids will probably jump all over it, but no-one will really care very much. It will be read with mild amusement, and not much else.

To put it in context, there is a presenter called Angus Deayton, who had presented one of the biggest comedy shows on BBC1 for over ten years (Have I got news for you). He was caught in a tabloid sting taking cocaine with a bunch of prostitutes, and the BBC didn’t sack him. It was only after a couple more weeks, when it became apparent that this scandal had affected his ability to present the show that he finally got the boot (the show is all about the weeks news, so it became difficult for him to present it when he was the main headline).

Even still, a couple of years later, he revived his career, and presents shows on BBC1 again.

4

It’s not a scandal- so he was drunk, so what- nobody is going to suggest AA, or rehab or anything.

Mildly embarassing at worst if he didn’t say anything too shocking, big time dent in reputation if what he said was offensive (and I’m firewalled out of Youtube at work, so haven’t heard the message).

But again, the shock would be about the content, not about the being drunk.

5

I listened to the message, wondering when the scandalous part was going to come along. He didn’t even sound that drunk. Are you really saying that a couple of friends going out for a few drinks and then one of them leaving a rambling message on the other’s voicemail would be scandalous behaviour for a celeb in the US? I know Britain has more of a drinking culture, but I still find that hard to believe.

6

What celebs do in real life doesn’t really cause much in the way of outrage, 'cos people do stupid shit all the time.

What celebs do on air can cause outrage. There’ll normally be about 5 complaints to Ofcom by people who saw/listened to it at the time, followed by 5,000 complaints to Ofcom by people who didn’t see/listen to it but read about it in the Daily Mail.

7

He was a bit drunk on the message… so what?

Would this really cause a stir in the US. He’s not doing a Hoff or anything like that. I would imagine almost nobody would give a shite about it.

8

I am both shocked and disappointed by David’s behaviour here.

Christian O’Connell is a complete twunt. He should have gone on the piss with someone far more amusing.

9

Listening…
Oh my God.

David Tennant’s Scottish?

10

It’s even more easy-going in Australia. There was a former Prime Minister who, many years ago, managed to lose his trousers while visiting Memphis, Tennessee. People thought it odd, but it didn’t seem to hurt his reputation as an elder statesman.

11

Of course, he’s not an actor. Who ever heard of a British actor taking an occassional drink?

12

I suppose if David Tennant regularly left drunken messages on people’s phones, it might raise a few eyebrows. But AFAIK he is not a known pisshead. I mean, does he look like an alcoholic?

13

Well he does look rather scottish.

14

Two Yanks and a Mick in that pic :smiley:
Yeah, I know Peter’s nationallity is up in the air but we claim him :wink:

15

Who benefits from the airing of a rather boring voice mail message? This radio host basically violated his friendship for no apparent gain.

16

It’s not that we don’t ever have scandals, but I would agree that they’re far less charged than yours and don’t result in months of hang wringing and public self flagellation.

Not all that long ago we had “Sachs-gate” when the actor Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross (one of our biggest presenters) made a live call to actor Andrew Sachs and started singing down the telephone, with Brand eventually singing how he’d slept with Sachs’ granddaughter (which he had). This led to a backlack which started slow but ended up with Brand having to publicly apologise and Ross being suspended from the BBC for several months.

It was deemed to be in pretty poor taste and fundamentally not very funny, which was why people reacted badly to it. But there definitely was an element of people who hadn’t heard it complaining because they’d read about it in the paper the next day. The press milked this for ages, at one point it was on the front page of pretty much every paper (leading me to wonder if it really was the most important thing happening in the world that day).

So again we certainly have scandals, but things like the Tiger Woods affair and public abasement that he had to put himself through is seen by us as completely unnecessary. Surely it’s between him and his wife?

ETA: we’re far more eager to point out hypocrisy in our politicians, however. A member of the current government found himself under the spotlight recently because he shared a bedroom with a younger male aide leading there to huge speculation about what this meant for his sexuality, and if he was secretly gay was he not then a hypocrite for opposing gay rights earlier in his career? Stuff like that. We seem to have fewer extreme right religious types getting caught having sex in public toilets, however. That seems to be a feature unique to the States.

17

It’s that kind of show, that that DJ does. I think the joke is that David Tennant actually has a rather clean-cut image, so it’s faintly amusing to hear him when he’s drunk. Not “violating a friendship”, just taking the piss out of a pal.

18

:smiley:

I hate to say it, but I can’t tell how drunk he is or isn’t, because I’m so unfamiliar with his real accent! (Yum!)

Anyway, I don’t think this would make “scandal” in the US, either. He even says at the beginning that he expects this will be played on the receiver’s radio show, which I suspect is something of a running joke between the two of them. It would be between me and any friend who had a radio show, a television show or wrote novels for a living; sooner or later, I expect some of our silliness to support his livelihood.

And judging from the pictures the website has put up with the audio, it seems like he’s been on this guy’s show itself more than once, and isn’t afraid to be silly there.

Seems to me more like Click playing a recording of Clack being a doofus than a friend’s betrayal, really. Brother types fooling around and nobody really gets hurt.

19

“Taking the piss” by airing a private communication to the public? That sounds like a violation to me. I take the piss out of my friends among friends, not on a national radio network.

20

It doesn’t sound to me like something that would cause a scandal here in the US. The incidents you’re comparing it to were scandalous because they involved racist rantings or abuse of a child or some other really offensive thing.