01.08.2001
Brass eye hysteria
No state censorship
The incredible brouhaha following last week?s edition of the Chris Morris mockumentary Brass eye was in itself testimony to the absurd irrationality that has accumulated or has been constructed around the issue of paedophilia. Furthermore it also shows that freedom of speech has to be won and constantly rewon. The censorious manner in which the Labour government and much of the popular media responded shows that ?bourgeois? democracy does not come as a package with capitalism but on the contrary is something which is constantly subverted by the ruling establishment and exists in spite, not because of the bourgeoisie. There are hints of police investigations and new legislation to ?curb? satire.
The Channel Four programme, shown initially on the evening of July 25 after extensive trailings and again early on July 28, sparked a mini-deluge of complaints and criticism from around 2,000 television viewers. Then, following hard on the heels of the Daily Mail, came Tessa Jowell, secretary of state for culture, and Beverly Hughes, child protection minister. Hughes, it turned out, had not actually watched the episode before releasing her statement. The consensus on this subject is as forthright as it is intellectually brittle.
Chris Morris, creator of Brass eye, the latest of a long line of successful guerrilla TV and radio productions, is certainly no stranger to government hostility and politically correct outrage. However, never before have his efforts been so successful as to inaugurate a truly remarkable, real-life satire of their own, far surpassing any spoof. The readiness of ministers to jump onto the anti-Brass eye bandwagon was far more paradoxical than anything Morris could have imagined. Real life is not only imitating art, but taking it beyond the absurd.
?Unspeakably sick? and ?entirely counterproductive? were the choice adjectives hurled at Michael Jackson, chief executive of Channel Four, by Hughes. She had been in cahoots with numerous so-called ?child-support? agencies, charities and groups. Over the following days, many other profound observations were heard, perhaps the most enlightening of which came from the chair of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Mary Marsh, who announced on BBC Radio 4?s World at one: ?I think the main victims of paedophiles are children.?
Apart from challenging the political consensus, the main complaint against Morris seems to be his uncanny ability to dupe ?celebrities?. One of the more amusing scenes of Wednesday?s episode depicted a well and truly hoaxed Dr Fox, holding a crab, and flatly informing viewers that, ?Genetically, paedophiles have more in common with crabs than you or me. That?s scientific fact. There?s no real evidence for it, but it?s scientific fact.? In essence, that ?nonce sense? just about sums up the government and media hysteria about Brass eye itself. Also fooled/exposed were Tomorrow?s World presenter Philippa Forester, who held up a T-shirt which, she solemnly informed readers, enabled a paedophile to ?disguise himself as a child?; Labour MP Barbara Follett, who condemned the use of computer software which apparently allows paedophiles to feel parts of a child?s body pressed against a monitor via the internet; and comedian Richard Blackwood, who declared in all seriousness that the same software could make children?s computer keyboards release ?toxic vapours that make you more suggestible?. And there were others: Gary Lineker, ITN journalist Nick Owen, Lord Coe and, of course, Phil Collins.
There is no question that some of Brass eye?s content was crude. But so what. It was clearly not an attempt to mock the grief of parents whose children had fallen victim to malicious sex abuse.
The programme successfully satirised, first and foremost, the appalling way in which the media has mystified the issue over the past three to four years. It parodied the witch-hunts and the hysteria. The ease with which the celebrities were fooled into reading out patently ridiculous lines demonstrates the extent to which ignorance and prejudice surrounds the whole question of paedophilia.
Unremarkably, the whole purpose of the programme managed to evade Tessa Jowell. For her the programme-makers were simply ?tearing down the barriers of TV decency? - as if the tosh that is mostly broadcast is informed by genuine human values: Who wants to be a millionaire?, Survivor, Big Brother; BBC News at Ten, for that matter. Surely this indecent world deserves indecency. No wonder Jowell, defender of perverted market and state values, wants ?tighter controls? by the Independent Television Commission.
Such a threat should be vigorously opposed by socialists and communists, especially in light of the impending amalgamation of all the major media regulatory bodies into a single establishment watchdog, Ofcom, which, until now, had not been considered as an instrument for tightening ?guidelines?, but simply a more efficient way to oversee legislation already in place. Jowell warned the ITC that it had not been effective in its handling of the complaints, and it should seek to develop a ?rapid response? to ?indecent? programming. Brass eye, according to Jowell and her gang of censors, should not have been repeated, and, moreover, should not have been permitted airtime in the first place.
Yet the outcry over this programme only underlines the validity of the point it was making. Far from trivialising or stifling debate on the issue of paedophilia, as Jowell, Hughes and co claim, the programme successfully managed to force some kind of rethink amongst the more rational sections of the middle classes.
As for the working class movement, it must in its own self-interests defend the right to watch, hear and read whatever there is. Self-liberation requires full knowledge.
James Bull