Quadrospazzed

I’m going to take a different path today and talk about something that is neither politics, technical or local related. There’s a first time for everything, after all, and who knows, it may not be the last.

Anyhow, I’ve had the pleasure of acquiring the DVD of an old favourite TV show of mine: master satirist Chris Morris’ controversial Brasseye. The show was aired in 1997 and is made up of a series of spoof documentaries about 6 topics; Drugs, Sex, Science, Animals, Decline and Crime.

There was a special on paedophiles (opened with the line, “Welcome… to Paedogeddon“) aired in 2001 which generated the third most complaints of any TV show ever shown in the UK.

It’s absolutely brilliant, though. Morris succeeds in mocking the hysteria surrounding the various topics and lampoons celebrity after celebrity into talking absolute crap about schemes, organisations and scientific terms he has invented to make them look stupid. At the start of the paedophile special, in the style of Nick Ross (Crimewatch), he declares, “My kids are safe – are yours?” as he closes two filing cabinet drawers with “his” kids in.

Confirming how people seem to lose all logical thought process when confronted with an emotive topic such as paedophilia, he asks a group of people, “I am a paedophile, can I have sex with your 3 year old daughter now that she’s 21?”, and the response from the group is, “No way” and, “You should be in a mental asylum”.

During the course of the show, various celebrities and public figures such as Phil Collins, “Dr” Neil Fox, Barbara Follett MP (yes, the one that claimed £25k in expenses for security) and Gary Lineker appear, speaking in sympathetic yet patronising tones about utterly fabricated schemes and “science” behind paedophilia.

David Amess MP loves Cake

Lineker discusses various text speak words, such as P2PBSH, then proceeds to tell us that it means “Pipe to Pipe Bushman – code for two paedophiles having sex with each other while watching children from a shrub”.

Kate Thornton appears, describing HOACS, pronounced “hoax”, and following a statement that it’s a fact that paedophiles have more genes in common with crabs than humans, Neil Fox states that, “there’s no real evidence for it, but it is scientific fact”.

You’d think these people would get it, but I guess being on telly doesn’t mean you have any braincells. Barbara Follett continues and discusses an online game whereby a small dog is controlled by a paedophile, and using special gloves plugged into a computer the paedophile can fondle kids that play the game if they put their face against the screen. It’s just so bonkers you have to laugh.

The other topics are all of a similar vein, Morris making completely crazy statements as fact and convincing weak willed minds to believe him. Indeed the drugs episode features a whole army of public figures condemning the recent import of a fictional drug called “Cake”. David Amess MP was suckered in completely as he quotes, “Cake is a bisturbile cranabolic amphetamoid, which is a made up psychoactive chemical”. He later asked questions about it in Parliament.

The amount of uproar surrounding the paedophile show was beyond belief. The Independent Television Commission demanded an apology from Channel 4 for showing it, stating that it offered “gratuitous offence” to viewers. I totally disagree. Everything on the show was made up and the show was created to take issue with the sensationalism of paedophilia within the media.

The childrens minister, Beverley Hughes MP, described the show as “unspeakably sick”, but that just goes to show that she either didn’t watch it, didn’t get it or that she’s as stupid as all the others that were suckered into Chris Morris’ trap. Oh no, it’s about paedophilia! We can’t talk about it!

I would love to see more shows like this on the TV. Comedy is dead with the amount of nannyish rules surrounding what you can and cannot make fun of. Sure, put gratuitous sex and violence on any time, but discuss emotive topics and make jokes about them? Oh noes, get me out of here!

The way in which Morris hoodwinked the subjects of his show is amazing, but it’s quite sad to think that as long as someone can keep a straight face whilst they tell us something – we’ll believe it. (And then complain to the ITC about it.)