It seems as if we have regressed as a society, and the blame can arguably be placed at the door of social media.
Many people are now entrapped in the maelstrom of indignation which was recently directed at the irritating, cheeky chappy, chef, Gino D'Acampo.
I am no fan, bar Ramsey and his conflict inducing shock jock offerings, I don’t see the attraction in the gamut of cookery shows infiltrating our every channel morning, noon, and night. I get it - they are cheap TV to make and vanilla in context.
No, the regression has come due to the mass ‘cancelling’ of certain individuals, including Gino and food expert, my ‘lookalikey’, Gregg Wallace.
Maybe, having spent their formative years undertaking stereotypically feminine pursuits such as baking a sponge cake, instead of kicking a football about, has led to the floodgates being opened for such gentlemen to behave in a smutty, adolescent and puerile way in later life when, with some notoriety, the fairer sex suddenly finds their fame attractive.
But for years, we played on it, and it was fine.
They are done. A busted flush. A full stop at the end of a sentence. Cold product, as many of us, myself included ask a simple question: Why?
What exactly has D'Acampo done to create such a mass cancellation? What did Schofield actually do? And Wallace?
The main allegation against Wallace relates to an event in 2015 when he allegedly brushed against a lady when filming a show and then made a crude comment.
In total, there have now been 13 allegations made, mainly sexualised comments which, although inadvisable, are to be expected with his persona which, again, TV executives have encouraged during his burgeoning career.
Again, with D’Acampo, many of the complaints seem to be from yesteryear and all pertain to oversexualised language and innuendo, which, although I wouldn’t use, as many of us wouldn’t, it doesn’t make him Fred West or Jimmy Saville, although the media frenzy would have you believe otherwise.
Is that where we are now? Trial by social media? Forgetting the rule and process of law? Or is it by casting asunder those who we used to tolerate and encourage but who now challenge our newly formed woke sensibilities?
I just think it’s a crying shame and I wonder whose next as I freak out as I once told a blue joke after a couple of sherbets at a friends wedding a decade ago, and who knows when that is going to come back and crucify my life, career and marriage, as we all hide from what is little more than a modern day witch hunt.
- Brett Ellis is a teacher.
