The Right End of the Schtick (Brass Eye)

Member Name: toastfuf

Product:	Brass Eye
Date:	31/07/01 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, Astute, Willing to attack

Disadvantages: Sometimes premise is too thin to entertain for the whole half-hour

To take a stand Chris Morris would want to adopt, if there wasn’t so much hatred towards him, would be that the paedophilia show was ‘definitely about laughing at children getting molestered’ (made up quote). Of course this is irony (it needs to be stated before I receive hate mail) ‘cos no part of the program was advocating or making light of child abuse, it is instead acting on the media which sensationalises it’s subject matter in order to get viewers and evoke hysteria.

The most disappointing thing is that you do not even have to read between the lines to receive the programs message, it’s stated to you a number of times. The female reporter admits the footage is hard to watch but they will show it anyway. And the paedophile in the stocks scene is spelt out for you, not only is there the witch-hunt imagery but also the reporter does not listen to what is said but instead has already chosen what he wants (and the audience wants) to hear. No matter the response of the paedophile the reporter (a representation of the media) was going to hear the words ‘I’m a pervert.’ This scene caused a lot of offence for in the scene a boy is paraded in front of the paedophile. But this in many ways is what tabloids do, it uses a mixture of emotive language and innocent imagery in order to direct the audience into hatred and sell more copies, claiming it’s ‘the people’s paper.’

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to molly coddle paedophiles. As everyone, I feel very strongly against it, but brass eye was about attacking the media (which may explain the hate articles in the Mirror). I felt in many ways this show was a hit back for anyone who has some independent thought. Last year I found the images of violent crowds with their own self-righteousness, very disturbing. It seemed like a culture of mob rule and violent retribution was emerging which can only degrade a co
untry. This program attacks them in many ways, not only directly, the wicker man scene where they burn a paedophile or the way they attack the innocent ‘peter file,’ but also the group of people who are violent are the same sort who would not appreciate the finer message of the piece.

Sentationalism is best shown in the scene where a paedophile abducts a boy. They freeze-frame and the camera swirls round with heavy music. Almost like Guy Ritchie had shot the whole scene himself. Oh, and the duped celebrities are brilliant. Clearly they had the right intentions but they did not give useful information. Instead giving what people want to hear, like beating the brains of Pantuo the dog. It’s sad that they are ridiculed like this but they are trying to use their limited amount of notoriety to not only get a message across but also to put their face infront of the camera for a few moments.

There were though problems to the show. At times the jokes ran thin and sometimes it was not astute enough to really entertain in the way that the finest satires, like the ‘Cake’ Brass Eye episode, can. But it was not only interesting but it was very funny as well. JLB8 (JailBait), a rapper who sings of paedophilia brings many laughs and criticises the media backlash to Eminem and also how Eminem uses vice, sin and explicitness to sell records. Also the scene of sex with the 10-year-old girl was very funny. They made it erotic by explaining that for the purposes of the reconstruction she was to be played by a 25-year-old woman, they even included soft saxophone music in the background. By making it erotic it shows just how leech like the media can be. Attacking vices in shows yet the vice is what pulls people in, this is in many ways what channel 4 did by repeating the show, despite all the bad publicity with it.

Ultimately I feel the show did a lot of good. It brings up a very interesting debate which owes more de
pth to it then ‘It is wrong, find the nonce, bash him in.’ It certainly opened my eyes to the politics around paedophilia but at no point do I now believe that sex with children is a bit more acceptable. The difference is now I will not turn so adversely against any conversation on it. My title ‘The right end of the schtick,’ was chosen because of the tabloid (and government) backlash to the show, compared against the more informed papers approval of it. This reaction was all meant to have happened. To show us the state of hysteria and sensationalism that the tabloids have produced around the subject. But anyway, forget all the debate and simply remember the useful advice that Dr Fox gave us. About paedophiles having more genetically in common with crabs than you or I as “there’s no real evidence for it, but it’s a scientific fact.”

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