I’ve been thinking a lot lately about pedophilia.
Mostly because of this recurring Dateline NBC segment that there’s been a lot of talk about, called “To Catch a Predator.” In the segment, a Dateline correspondent leads a would-be internet sex predator into believing that he will meet up with a young girl or boy for sex. When the predator shows up, he’s met with cameras and police. Just thinking about the whole thing makes me feel dirty inside.
But besides that dirty feeling, I’m also reminded of “The Brass Eye,” the British television series created by Chris Morris. The series is a relentlessly dark satire of this sort of tabloid TV — from Dateline to Hard Copy and so on. The series ran for a relatively short period in the late 90s, but was hugely influential.
“Brass Eye” did a special on pedophilia in 2001, which was hugely controversial in the UK (though it was really no worse than the series had been), and led to Chris Morris’ career stalling out for a time. He’s now one of the leads in the UK series “The IT Crowd,” but that show’s nothing like “Brass Eye.”
Anyway, below (in two parts) is that special broadcast. The sound’s a bit out of sync, which sucks, but if you have bit torrent software, you can find a torrent of the show here (not to mention one of the full series here).
Part One:
Part Two: