Manuel victim of racism


I have just got the complete series on DVD and watching the show there is one thing that strikes me. There are many times when Manuel status as coming from Spain is somehow linked to his level in intelligence. One example being in The Builders and the scene where the delivery man with the garden gnome makes a comment along those lines. Yes those people who make the remarks are shown to be narrow minded fools including Basil.

Andrew Sachs R.I.P.

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I think the point is that Basil is an obnoxious, racist person who's also so cheap he couldn't be bothered to offer Manuel language lessons and proper training.
In a lot of situations, I thought that it's not Manuel's intelligence that's in question, it's just the miscommunication resulting from the language barrier that makes the whole situation funny (e.g. the "un, dos, tres" scene when Basil is trying to tell Manuel that there's too much butter on the trays. It's not Manuel's intelligence that causes the funny situation but the fact that Basil doesn't know Spanish).

Brianwashed!

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No, John Cleese was making fun of Basil himself. He's so tight that he hires someone as cheap labour but refuses to send him for language lessons. Cleese has said it himself on the DVD's. Manuel isn't dumb or incompetent, he's just lacking in English skills and it's Basils' own fault. He won't help him.

Same with The Germans. Cleese wasn't making fun of Germans. He was making fun of the few Brits who are just like Basil in real life and the major who can't let go of the past when it comes to the war. And many Germans understood that.

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