Chris Morris is a highly rated British satirist responsible for a series of spoof news programmes (working with Armando Ianucci, among others). His 1997 series BrassEye was a mock news discussion series, taking on the big topics like drugs, sex and moral decline.
The series returned for a one-off special in July 2001 which satirised the British media’s demonisation of pedophiles, characterising what is in truth a small group of perverts as a constant threat in all parts of the country who are completely unstoppable in their devilish intentions. During the show Chris Morris confronted a known pedophile with his own ‘son’ (not really there - CGI) and asked the pedophile if he fancied the boy. The pedophile says that he just doesn’t find the kid attractive and Morris looks caught for a moment between being told his kid is unattractive but also being reassured that his kid isn’t a target. It’s that sort of humour, close to the bone.
The reaction of the press to the show was ludicrous - the Daily Mail branded it the sickest TV show ever, half a dozen tabloids called for it to be banned…
As the Guardian reported, “Then it got sillier. Government Ministers condemned the programme, only to admit they hadn’t watched it. The papers which were frothing most exuberantly began quietly shooting themselves in the feet. One Mail splurge on the programme (headed ‘Unspeakably sick’, the words of one of the Ministers who hadn’t watched it) was preceded by close-ups of Princesses Beatrice (13) and Eugenie (11) in their bikinis; in the Star , beside a shock-horror-sicko Morris story, sat a picture of singer Charlotte Church in a tight top (‘She’s a big girl now … chest swell!’). Church is 15.” (read about it here)
This wonderful hypocrisy, simultaneously condemining a show while making the precise sort of mistakes that the show satirised, shows just how splintered and endlessly self-reflective the mass media phenomenon can be.
I do recommend the show to anyone who can access it, I bought a copy of it and never regretted it.