- In Defence of Gay Saunas - 5 March, 2014
- Jim Davidson – The Nation’s Sweetheart? - 31 January, 2014
- The Politics of ‘Cunt’ - 21 January, 2014
As you may know, comedian Jim Davidson was crowned winner of Celebrity Big Brother 2014. Seeing as a lot of his work has existed outside of television’s evil eye, I thought I’d provide a little potted history of the Nation’s new sweetheart.
Jim’s comedy career began on shows like Opportunity Knocks and New Faces, and he went from strength to strength. He became known for a character called Chalky White, who hilariously, was black. Davidson would adopt a cod-Jamaican accent and make jokes that some people, including reviewer Martyn Wade, described as racist – because they were.
Despite this setback, Davidson moved into presenting; and this is where people of my generation will have first encountered him – as presenter of The Generation Game and The Big Break. However, controversy was only just around the corner for poor Saint Jim. In 2003, he refused to perform at his tour show in Plymouth because there were disabled people in the front row of the audience. Speaking to The Guardian, a spokesman for the venue said “Jim Davidson apparently took exception to a number of wheelchair users in the front stalls of the Pavilions Arena. Mr Davidson cited the fact that a proportion of his act was aimed at disabled customers and that he would be unable to perform under these circumstances.”
What should have been Davidson’s last TV appearance came in 2007, when he was a contestant on reality show Hell’s Kitchen. Davidson was removed from the show after calling Brian Dowling a shirt lifter, and making homophobic remarks. Jim diligently addressed this issue in his next DVD saying he said it “only because you can’t say cocksucker on the television.” Unbelievably, this apology wasn’t enough for some members of the PC liberal thought police, and Davidson remained off our screens for several years until those heroes at Channel 5 bravely put him in the Big Brother House.
Davidson is open in his autobiography about his violence towards his wives, detailing some incidents in disturbing detail, such as this excerpt. “On the first occasion, I poked her in the eye by accident. I actually went for the mouth. Thank heaven I missed, I’d have fallen in. I just took a playful punch. Unfortunately I caught her completely wrong. The second time I gave her a shiner. I threw a bunch of keys which whacked her in the eye.”
Keenly opposed to immigration, Davidson moved to Dubai in 2004, claiming “I may as well go to Dubai and be an ethnic minority there than wait five years till I become one here.” He moved back to the UK five years later. He is not an ethnic minority. Racist jokes were featured heavily in his last DVD, If I Ruled The World, as were assertions that he wasn’t in fact racist, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Surely the socialist Guardian-reading Illuminati will realise that if Jim Davidson was racist, surely he wouldn’t spend all his time telling people that he wasn’t.
Davidson was awarded an OBE in 2001 for his work entertaining the troops and founding the British Forces Foundation charity. Well done, Jim.
That’s my edited highlights of Jim Davidson’s life and work. Hope you enjoyed them as much as I did. What a swell guy, eh?
Now have a long, hard think about how and why he won what is essentially a massive televised popularity contest. We’re all doomed.
