Viewing Thread:
"Has Brass Eye gone too far?"

Anyone who saw the Brass Eye 'Paedophile special' last night may have questioned Chris Morris's intentions for the programme. Was it a bit too close to the knuckle. Personally, I found it very funny, but very difficult to enjoy due to the sensitive nature of it all. I'm sure many people were sickened by it (even The Sun has called it 'The Sickest TV Ever', so how did you feel? To be honest, I preferred the crime one that was on after it, much funnier and easier to laugh at without feeling guilty.

I just relised I had been watching it for a few weeks without knowing what it was and it is very funny :D.

I enjoyed the crime one as well although I found the part in the first one about someone hooking themselves up to a computer and getting sexual pleasures from someone playing a game :D.

I knew I had heard the name somewhere!

sandman wrote:

Hmmm...
> killing someone on TV would be also pushing the envolope so I'm not
> sure it's a good thing in itself. If you have a valid reason for
> pushing the envelope I am in favour, but maybe we shouldn't
> necessarily abandon all moral and social principles just in order to
> see more exciting televiosn.


No, but Morris doing shows that challenge convention and force a reaction is hardly killing someone live on tv.
I see your point though, and shock tv for the sake of it not valid.
However, as a medium, tv is so unexplored and so much potential wasted.
Morris used it as a tool, editing, sound...he treats like like an artform.

Jam.
Disturbing, surreal, dangerous, not funny.
I think that was the major realisation for me watching Jam.
It wasn't funny, but I dont think it was supposed to be.
The ones I remember are the woman calling a plumber to fix her dead baby, the guy with a gun in his stomach holding up the newsagent and that guy killing himself slowly from the ground floor window.
It was the whole presentation, slow-mo, ambient music, backwards voices/sounds...it put you in an entirely different mindstate for 30 minutes, and I'm glad he demanded no commercial breaks to shatter the feelings created.

Goatboy wrote:

I loved The Day Today, have
> all the Blue Jam on mp3, thought Jam was frightening, disturbing and
> not funny. To me, Jam was a freeform expression of someone's
> psyche.
Don't get me wrong, I think Jam was one of the most
> fiercely original programmes and I thought it was superb, but not
> funny.

I agree. There were moment's in Jam that tapped into something extremely powerful. Some of it was simply thrilingly bizarre, sketches like the man in the waiting room and the doctor's surgery were often abstract in the extreme but also had a powerful emotional resonance (the man slowly commiting suicide from a low window, and the by-passers reaction, left a lasting impression). There were aso a few images which were shocking but provoked me to examine my own feelings (for example the abortion clinic filled with smiling couples). What did you make of the late night remix, Jaaaaaam (or something like that)?

Goatboy also wrote:

Morris can sit there
> and read the phone book for all I care, anyone that is trying to
> push the envelope gets my vote.

Hmmm... killing someone on TV would be also pushing the envolope so I'm not sure it's a good thing in itself. If you have a valid reason for pushing the envelope I am in favour, but maybe we shouldn't necessarily abandon all moral and social principles just in order to see more exciting televiosn.

I havnt seen last nights Bras Eye yet (although, I've got it stuffed onto video tape...

As such, I havnt really read anyone replys (I dont want any spoilers :) )

However... I really hope Brass Eye has gone too far...

Its about time somebody in this country made a programme that went beyond the realms of tepid mediocrity and banile PC acceptability that all the others seem to be stuck in...

None of the great newer comedies deal with issues... programs like Father Ted, Black Books, Space!, etc... are all top stuff, seeming to prefer with more abstract, largly non-offensive areas...

We havnt had a program that offended people, and actually had something to say for a long time...

Maybe it will anger people enough to make them think?

I reckon, fair play to Brass Eye :)

Goatboy wrote:

Morris has the ability to get
> under your skin, and people get upset by it. There are
> "comics" out there that people love and think are
> "edgy and dangerous".
People like Mark Thomas and that
> awful, goon level "satirical" show The 11'o Clock
> Show.
The reason Morris is so adept at upsetting people is that he
> doesn't care what the topic is.
Peodiphilia, drugs, sex, animal
> cruelty - He'll go for it and make you laugh at the topic.

When he challenges typical safe preconceptions, public hysteria and media reaction I agree entirely. Please make us think while we laugh. Make TV-land a less anodyne place.

But, if you lose sight of this and simply use Paeodiphilia as a topic suitable for laughs and to deliberately try to shock people, I fail to see the point.

Our society's attitudes to Drugs, Sex, Crime, Race etc. are riddled with contradictions and predjudices - we need someone like Chris Morris to challenge these, open some peoples eyes and make us laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

Do we need soemone to challenge our society's hatred of paeodohiles? Personally, I don't think so.

I haven't seen this one yet, watching it tomorrow (so no spoilers!), but even if it wasn't Morris' greatest work, it still towers above most the sheet pumped into our homes.

I loved The Day Today, have all the Blue Jam on mp3, thought Jam was frightening, disturbing and not funny. To me, Jam was a freeform expression of someone's psyche.
Don't get me wrong, I think Jam was one of the most fiercely original programmes and I thought it was superb, but not funny.

Brasseye will be remembered as one of the best comedy shows on tv ever.
Morris does whatever he wants to, upsets people and challenges them. He was nominated for some award, went to collect it and had an enormous birthmark covering almost half his face (painted on of course)
He stood there and made his acceptance speech, everyone laughed nervously at him.

Morris can sit there and read the phone book for all I care, anyone that is trying to push the envelope gets my vote.

I have been a Chris Morris fan since his GLR days but I was very disapointed by last night's Brass Eye special. Channel 4 defended it as a powerful satire with a serious point in today's Sun but in all honesty, it wasn't.

What was it's point. It wasn't satirising paedophiles - too easy a target, already widely despised. It's satirisation of the media and public gullabiity saw nothing he hadn't done time and time again in The Day Today and Brass Eye.

I'm not saying that there were not some great new Morrisism's, there was some superb use of language and the birth of another great protest spoof ("I'm talking Nonce-Sense"). However the majority of it was simply not funny, whether from familiarity or just the fact that the subject matter wasn't something you could laugh at. I was not shocked by it (I have been a Morris fan too long for that) but I was not challenged either, just left feeling slightly uncomfortable. Not because he talked a taboo subject, just because I was left nonplussed by the point of the whole excercise.

I wonder whether Morris believed his own hype, felt compelled to continue to push the envelope (and C4) as far as they could go and somewhere along the line forgot his original point. It seemed to fall into the 11 O'Clock show trap - Iaian Lee swearing for laughs (ooh, aren't I naughty!). More school boy humour than challenging TV.

Still, I'm sure Morris will be back on form soon. His last series was the equally disturbing Jam which managed to deeply unsettling yet utterly compelling and thought provoking. The man is a genius but this was not his finest half hour.

"Hi, my name's Phil Collins, and I'm talking Nonce-Sense."

Absolute Genius.

The whole thing about Brasseye is tackling subjects that are usually dealt with only by hysteria and shock journalism.

Brasseye manages to be funny as hell, and deal with subjects in the same way as other current affairs programmes but in such a ridiculous way that you're wathching it going "Surely they must realise?"

But they don't, Morris gets celebs that are so eager to appear "right on" with whatever topic is hot in the news, and thereby appear PC and sensitive, that they ignore all the signs that they are being wound up.
And if they're too dumb to stop and actually think about what is being presented to them, then they deserve everything they get.

Morris has the ability to get under your skin, and people get upset by it. There are "comics" out there that people love and think are "edgy and dangerous".
People like Mark Thomas and that awful, goon level "satirical" show The 11'o Clock Show.
The reason Morris is so adept at upsetting people is that he doesn't care what the topic is.
Peodiphilia, drugs, sex, animal cruelty - He'll go for it and make you laugh at the topic.

And people don't want to laugh, to admit that they might find this subject amusing if someone has the balls to do it.
Not only does Morris do it, he does it damn well.
He makes you chuckle at subject that are usually way off limits.
Be it disability, racism...doesn't matter, he'll twist something and find a dark vein of humour.

And THAT upsets people, that some of us are able to look at something and say "Well, hang on..." when most get ruffled and look away.
He did a column in The Independant, pretending he had been diagnosed with a rare cancer of the toe and had 7 months to live.
Each week was a diary of his emotions, until readers realised he had long gone past his "death date".

Brilliant.

Brasseye/Morris, as I said before, is one of the only programmes that takes tv to realms that nobody else dare touch.
To challenge you, to make you think,to make you laugh.
I would rather watch something that provoked a reaction to another bloody cookery programme, "unorthadox policeman" drama or more home makeover shows.

And if you watched Brasseye and were upset? That's your own fault, should have turned over.
And if you didn't see it?
You can't comment on this because you didn't watch it.

I bloody missed it.
Funning fun...but someone here taped it and I'm watching it next week.

For me, I think Brasseye is one of the few things tv is doing right.
Challenging and questioning your morals/ethics and testing the tolerance of the public.

This is EXACTLY what art is and what it should be. Mapplethorpe went on trial in the States for the content of his photographs (and was found innocent).

TV has become moronic and dullard, gardening shows, DIY shows, cookery shows...stupid programming for everyone to stare at, stay indoors and not think.

Morris forces you to react, be it anger, humour, disgust, the point is that you have a reaction to it as opposed to falling asleep in front of it.
I wonder how many people watched it specifically to become outraged and upset?
Christopher Morris is one of the few remaining groundbreakers left in the idiotic realm of television.

Why report it? People are going to seek this show out now, it'll attain mythic status and, through hype, will become something so abhorrent and vilified that people will make a point of watching it.
Come on, C4, late night...you'd think that the normal viewers of that channel, that time of night are adult and evolved.
But because of the publicity involved, the chattle that love to write in and complain made a point of making sure they are "outraged and disgusted".

Normal people don't complain, they understand it's just a joke.

As far as I'm concerned, Brasseye/Chris Morris is a work of goddamn genius.
Art is meant to be shocking and challenge your sensibilities, otherwise it's just a soap opera.

Long live Morris!