CENTRE POINT
Many of us may be 'out of touch' and would prefer to stay that way
SIMON JENKINS
Iwatched just three editions of the noto- rious television show, The Word. It was dreadful, but then it was not aimed at me. The format appeared the outcome of a Channel 4 row over falling ratings. A des- perate producer cries, 'What do you want me to do then? Put a candid camera in a fifth-form girls' lavatory?' A programme controller replies, 'Great idea, go with it!' The result involved sexual dares in.the stu- dio, excreta, imitation vomit and much more nervous giggling over dirty words. The IQ level was about 60 and the content seemed as discomfiting to the less exhibi- tionist guests as to any viewer who might accidentally tune in to it. Channel 4 says it must be great television because people watch it and few complain to the Broad- casting Standards Council. I imagine they confine their complaints to the Almighty.
The Independent Television Commission has belatedly called a halt and told Channel 4 to clean up the act. Whoever may or may not complain, according to the commission, the show was in appalling taste and that is that. Channel 4 now has to decide whether to bring it back in the autumn or kowtow to authority. The Channel's boss, Michael Grade, has seized on the reprimand as an opportunity to stand up for artistic free- dom, oppose censorship and proclaim the right of even the most imbecilic youth to have a show of its own. He says that critics are 'out of touch' with what young people enjoy. Or, as one of its presenters said, they should have a bag of urine and vomit poured over them. It is all rather Seventies revival.
The Word was offensive not just to any- one with a brain, but to young people fed up with producers who assume them to be anally obsessed morons who do not deserve any creative imagination being expended on them. But then it is another manifesta- tion of the competitive forces now raging throughout the media. Newspapers cut their prices and lower their standards. Tele- vision channels, safe in their oligopolies, merely lower their standards.
It was a safe bet that when ratings wars hit television, producers would outstrip anything in Fleet Street for tastelessness. Channel 4 and BBC2 have recently plunged into a down-market competitive spiral. Gresham's Law has met Quality Television and wiped the floor with it. Channel 4 has been screening late-night pornographic 'documentaries' and lavatorial chat shows under their guise of 'pushing out the fron- tiers of television'. BBC2 has put on a sea- son of blatant 'uncut' erotica. This purport- ed to commemorate the valiant warriors against censorship of years gone by and included pompous studio discussions of the failings of the Lord Chamberlain. Late-night television, now in competition with video and the cinema, is becoming like the in-house movie channels of commercial hotels.
This is humbug. We can commiserate with the media bosses whose marketing departments have seized them by the vitals, but we need not accept their excuses. The defence of television pornography is like the Daily Mirror publishing Peeping Tom pictures of Princess Diana on the grounds that it is concerned for her safety from tele- scopic rifles. I prefer the reaction of the American networks when accused by Congress of screening rubbish. They cried, 'We know, we know. It's rubbish. We would love to be the Royal Shakespeare Compa- ny, but money is money.' The normal next step is to sponsor a chair in media ethics at a prominent university or give a lavish prize for 'good television'. Thus did mediaeval money-lenders ensure a place in Heaven by financing cathedral chantries. The gutter newspaper tycoon, Pulitzer, who even Hearst thought went a bit far, is today memorialised as the benefactor of quality writing — his last great joke.
There is nothing wrong in communica- tors pushing back any frontier they like, and giving politicians a hard time into the bargain. Nor should the public's guard against censorship be lowered. The Voltaire defence of artistic freedom may now be received wisdom, as the indulging of 'artists' such as Damien Hirst and his ilk demonstrates. The controversialist enjoys no such protection, as academics and local government workers who have fallen foul of political correctness know to their cost. This is censorship reborn. But it has little to do with Channel 4's crass goading of the reg- 'Ooh, I say, very chic.' ulators to return to the censorship game.
Broadcasting is not narrowcasting. Over against the right to the freedom of artistic or political expression is the right not to be gratuitously offended, especially in one's own home or community. Most Britons accept legal constraint on certain sorts of dissemination, and not just because racist or sexist propaganda may threaten public order or the sensibilities of children. The Race Relations Act was aimed at protect- ing minorities from abuse but also at alter- ing attitudes to race itself. As Michael Grade himself said in his report on fear of crime, the television glorification of crime can, by instilling fear, cause more 'victimi- sation' than crime itself.
The same surely goes for offensive televi- sion. The four terrestrial channels are, in a sense, already in our homes. They are like junk mail sitting on the doormat. They are different from a dirty book or play or video that we must seek out and pay for. We have to make an active decision to disregard them. Being told to 'use the off button' is not good enough. The intrusion has already occurred.
Michael Grade apparently thinks all this 'out of touch'. I suppose I am out of touch with the back room of a massage parlour or the doings of a school lavatory. But I am in touch with the meaning of words, and The Word pushed out no artistic boundary that I recognise. Like copulation on stage, it merely tried to see what it could get away with before somebody was goaded into stopping it. Similar controls exist against sexually explicit posters, tasteless advertis- ing and inflammatory speeches.
The voyeuristic producer, like the artist and the ranting racist, can ply his trade to his heart's content. This is a free country. Channel 4 is turned on by the idea that young people today want to empty urine over audiences, wade in excreta and wave penises round the studio. Good for Chan- nel 4. But such antics are for the privacy of a cable channel where those who feel like- wise can search for it, and pay for it. As for the ratings war, I guarantee that when it comes to vulgarity in pursuit of trade, the intellectual moguls of television will leave the nether regions of Fleet Street standing. But then television is a medium whose taste is regulated by government, not the mar- ket-place. I think I prefer the market.
Simon Jenkins writes for the Times.
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