Did Noel put his foot in it?
- 30 May 07, 4:56 PM
The hugely popular video-sharing site is everyone's favourite waste of time - and frankly, Monkey is no different.
A clip which did the rounds last year but has now been dug up again for another cringe-inducing outing shows Noel Edmonds - whom we recently told you was involved in a disabled parking bay controversy - digging a big old hole for himself on an episode of Deal Or No Deal when he, um, appears to "take the mickey" out of a child's facial expression in a photo shown to him by one of the contestants. The only problem is that - yep, you guessed it - the boy in the picture is disabled.
But never mind the kid's expression! It's the one on Noel's face when he realises his gaffe that is truly and utterly priceless! It really is a moment of hideous embarrassment worthy of David Brent in The Office:
Note: If you can't see the above video, you can also on the YouTube website. But be warned! Comments left by other YouTube users can sometimes be very offensive and contain strong language.
Comments
Well it's as bad that she used the H-word.....
It's not that Noel is laughing about the boy's expression that gets me, it's the way that the woman showing Noel the picture uses the derogatory term of the "H" word. That gets me annoyed by the way that people can use that word! It's so discriminating! Why can't they just call it "disabled" instead!
I thought Noel covered the mistake brilliantly...what a true pro! Most of us would have disappeared into the floorboards...he just floated it!
I thought he covered up brilliantly.
I'm no Noel fan, but I know that he has personal friends with severe disabilities and that in all his many meeting with me, (and I have severe disabilities as well) he treated me as a normal human being, had no hang ups about disability and he knew a disabled person had the same feelings about life etc as anybody else.
I don't think Noel would have laughed if he knew the boy is disabled in the photo. When he realized, his own face expression looked really concerned and I think he was sorry to laugh. He didn't realize the boy is disabled, because the contestant only told him after he laughed. Noel does a lot of charity and sometimes when you look at photo's, you can't always tell if somebody is disabled or not. Noel was wrong to park in a disabled bay, but I don't think we should keep crucifying Noel. The photo looked of the boy looked cheeky and not disabled. It's like saying we should have a funny expression because we're disabled. I'm disabled and the photo did look cheeky and I would have laughed because of the cheeky expression, not cos he's disabled.
A gaffe by Noel...but some people are more annoyed by the "h" word..i.e. handicap...I thought the uneccessary and unexplained demonisation of handicap was diminishing...aparently not.