COMEDY

102 POLITICSSecretary Tessa Jowell spoke directly to the head of Channel 4 to voiceher concern and try to elicit a guarantee that the programme would neverbe repeated. The Home Office minister Beverley Hughes branded theshow ‘unspeakably sick’, and the Home Secretary David Blunkett calledit ‘not remotely funny’, although both later admitted that they had notseen it. The Daily Mail columnist Simon Heffer described it as ‘the mostgrievous breach of taste I have ever witnessed on TV, and a programmethat only a small proportion of the psychologically sick could havefound enjoyable’ (Daily Mail, 28 July 2001). While upholding thechannel’s right to free speech, the Independent Television Commissionforced Channel 4 to broadcast an apology two months later, after itbecame clear that Brass Eye was the most complained about televisionprogramme in British broadcasting history. Clearly, it was the opinion ofmany that comedy had no business with such a topic.This particular episode of Brass Eye was conceived in response to thereductive and incendiary treatment of the issue of paedophilia in theBritish media. The summer of 2000 saw a series of riots involvingantipaedophile protestors distressed at the presence of men theybelieved to be abusers living freely in their neighbourhoods. Suchactions were in part inspired by the News of the World that had beenrunning a series of articles naming alleged offenders and includingsome details of their whereabouts. As its target was the media, theissues of paedophilia themselves were not considered, whichundoubtedly proved to be the most provocative characteristic of theprogramme, as it appeared to lack any sentimentality for children, orreiterate any familiar expressions of the sanctity of childhood as a stateof being. Neither did it temper its attack on publicity-hungry celebritiesand politicians with an unambiguous statement in support of the victimsof abuse. Many read these omissions as signs of fatal ambiguity, but onesuspects that demands for overt statements of authorial intent, or therefusal to permit one aspect of the issue to be separated from the others,would have been unnecessary had the programme treated a differentsubject. As co-writer David Quantick said, ‘I think a lot of peoplecomplained because it had the word paedophilia in the title and that alot of complaints seemed to be related to a show that didn’t go out’(Guardian, 30 July 2001). Much of the opposition to the show nowseems to have been sparked by its enunciation of a culturally volatileterm that provokes instantaneous suspicion every time it is utteredoutside of the condemnatory discourse designed by the media. Yet forthe representatives of the government to comment on the content of a