Blogging from the Highlands of Scotland until I return to the Murcia region of Spain mid-September for about a month.
'From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step' - Diderot

Friday, 9 January 2009

Careful with money - "tight" - "Jewish?"

I've just been watching a light-hearted programme on Channel4 entitled The Hunt for Britain's Tightest Person, the object of which was for the presenter to try and find the person in Britain who is not only 'careful with money', but is possibly the most careful person with money in the country or, in colloquial parlance, 'tight' or 'mean'. All very frothy and amusing, perhaps even with things for people like me to learn in these more straitened economic times. However, one feature I found curious and disappointing from a 'right on' channel like Channel4 was that the soundtrack playing throughout the programme was what can only be described as Jewish[Yiddish]-style folk music, played on an accordion. it really seemed to be, presumably unconsciously and with no desire to offend, harking back to some pretty unpleasant stereotypes about one particular ethnic grouping, by its choices of music, to provide the 'atmosphere' for this programme. A good and interesting short programme, but I must record a black-mark against it because of this.

2 comments:

Blognor Regis said...

In America 'Whisky Galore' came out as 'Tight little island'. I'm sure there's rat pack banter about Dean Martin being "tight" in a drunk sense too.

Er, that was totally by the by.

Bill said...

LOL, Blognor - it's great the different connotations than one little word can have.