The Sexual Wit and Wisdom of
Benny Hill

Benny Hill was one of the greats of comedy. His archetypal style and sketches were often focused on the politics and culture of sexual interaction between men and women. Benny Hill’s comedy sketches frequently involved his chasing of women, and then a reversal, in which women were chasing him. He created puerile rhymes, and included women with ample bosoms as a foil to skits. While he was very popular in the 1970s and 1980s, his contract was axed suddenly in 1989.
Although the Benny Hill signature form of humour would have become tiresome or old-fashioned, it is sometimes suggested that his show was axed due to the new ideological bloom of feminism. Benny Hill was considered sexist and his skits did not accord with new values being promoted on the subject of the treatment and portrayal of women.
What made Benny Hill sexist and what can we learn from the suppression of his style of humour?

Benny Hill was a vaudeville-style comedian who made a transition to television after WWII. Over many decades he became a popular television comedian. He was voted television personality of the year in 1954. His main skit shows, still available today on video or DVD, were produced in Britain from around 1969 to 1989. He died in 1992.

In his shows, he sang songs of promiscuity and flirtation, sexual innuendo and (mostly sexual) tribulations. Benny Hill’s sketches appeared to be focused on male fantasies and male lechery and "smut". The women in the sketches were often flirtatious, showing cleavage, or were young eye candy (Regular female dancers and sidekicks were called "The Hills Angels").

Here is an example of a typical sketch scenario: Benny chases a woman; she is young and attractive; he offers her some cake; she resists, because she wants to maintain her figure; finally he captures her; they get married; she now starts eating enormous amounts of food and soon becomes fat; he realises she is becoming unattractive and now wants to run away from his wife; he spots another young woman and starts chasing her.

Another classic sketch has Benny cast as an arrogant poolroom shark. He plays against an opponent and wins easily. Meanwhile, he flirts with a female member of the audience, whose movements are sexually provocative. As Benny makes his final shot on the pool table he catches a glimpse of her crossing her legs. He becomes so agitated that he rips the table cloth and loses the game. It turns out that the woman is the wife of his opponent.

All of the above material was very popular among an untrained audience, who saw in the sketches the pleasure of shared deviance and innuendo, as well as lessons on the subject of sexual interaction.

"Girls are like pianos.
When they're not upright, they're grand."
Benny Hill

But Benny Hill hit all the wrong buttons when it came to the new Puritanism of feminism. The above poolroom sketch for example, could easily be re-interpreted as sexist. The portrayal of a woman as sexual, as manipulative and the man as a sexual predator all struck an incongruous note with feminism, which was gaining power in a new 80s wave. This is despite the fact that Benny Hills' sketches usually contained a self-deprecating humour, highlighting the fall from grace of a man who concentrates too much on seduction. It is obvious that any sketch depicting fat women as “unattractive” would also not pass modern censorship laws and "political correctness".

Men chasing women and women chasing men, was the stock in trade of Benny Hill. But the late 80s feminist wave took great issue with the very notion that heterosexuality was anything other than oppressive for women. Sexual relations are loaded with meanings that allude to the oppressive ideas of men. This includes issues of objectification, exploitation, harassment.

According to a Wikipedia review:

"British comedy stars such as Ben Elton were also dismissive of Hill's penchant for using pretty girls in his shows, supposedly in a sexist way."
Wikipedia/Benny_Hill

In Benny Hill’s world, men and women chase each other with slapstick abandon, mock outrage and mock fear. In the new sexual world order these activities are taken very seriously as negative stereotypes.

The below text from a BBC comedy guide on Benny Hill:

" "His British TV ratings slipped badly in the 1980s when not only did he suddenly crank up the bawdiness of the show but did so at a time when his particular strain of humour - lots of slap and tickle with sexy bimbettes, and treatment of women as brainless sexual objects - coincided with rising feminism and the advent of 'alternative' young comics determined to do away with sexism and the ancient 'mother-in-law' style of jokes."
bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide

The above review is quite incorrect. Benny Hill did not represent women as brainless. He depicted women as sometimes conniving or cunning, while making fun of his own foolishness. Or he portrayed women as equally bawdy as men. But the review highlights that our legacy understanding of Benny Hill remains distorted.

Benny Hill is now an archaic and mostly forgotten comedian. However, his sketches are occasionally replayed on commercial television. It is important to consider his legacy and the fact that modern generations are no longer subject to the humour, as well as sexual lessons that his comedy contained. Modern life is beholden to new rules of sexual propriety (although also new liberties). Our experience of sex is in many respects puritan and inhibited, repressive and restrained, loaded with fear of saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, and indeed thinking the wrong thing. It is in this vortex that comedy once plumbed the depths… in the shape of Benny Hill.

"Good evening everybloody"

Reference:
A comprehensive bio
Benny's Place A Benny Hill Fan Club what I stole my pictures from.

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