This is a difficult article to write. For it involves going against the grain, stylistically. Journalists who write about television programmes try to ape the detached wit of Clive James. If a programme contains content that is morally dubious, make a good joke about it. Employ a dazzling metaphor. Above all, show that nothing that appears on television really matters – it’s all just good material for your cleverness. Such writing is a performance of superiority. Behold the gulf between those people on screen, in the grip of pathetic passions, and us cool heads, who make and get references to Nabokov and Nietzsche. The critic who showed strong feelings about something on screen would be succumbing to the power of the idiot-box, the opiate of, let’s be frank, the lower orders.
Well, sod that style. It deserves to die off. Shame on all the James-wannabees who perpetuate it, who imply that morally disgraceful television shows need not be taken seriously. They call themselves ‘cultural critics’, but they lack the courage to criticise something that they know to be wrong, for doing so might make them look moralistic and uncool. It is not just the makers of these programmes who should be judged harshly, it is the cultural gatekeepers too.
The problem is this. Sex is treated flippantly
It is time for some unwitty straight talking. A reality show such as Married at First Sight – in which strangers are paired up, pretend to get married and then live together as man and wife, are almost constantly filmed and then urged to comment on their sex life or lack of it – is sick in the head. A reality show in which people who have not yet had sex are paired with sex-workers and filmed as they prepare to take the plunge, is sick in the head. A reality show in which couples pondering swinging are invited to a swanky hotel and filmed taking the plunge, is sick in the head. A reality show in which young people are urged to pair up and break up and gossip about each other round a swimming pool, is sick in the head.
Not funny, not the material for witty jokes. Sick in the head. Of course the common factor in these shows is sex. Something is wrong with our culture’s attitude to sex if these programmes are broadcast on a public service channel.
The problem is that almost everyone nods wisely when they hear the claim ‘something is wrong with our culture’s attitude to sex’, and then looks away from it. Let’s not turn away. Let’s look at the problem. Sorry if you find it awkward or embarrassing.
The problem is this. Sex is treated flippantly. It is treated as titillating entertainment. Ninety-something per cent of us know sex to be a deeply serious moral matter, but we allow the pretence that this is not so, for the purpose of entertainment. Of course this pretence is very lucrative for a few people, including the on-screen psychologists who justify the titillation as healthy and liberating. They say that it is good for these participants to be confronting their desires, overcoming their hang-ups and so on. These people must have very good mattresses in order to get any sleep at night.
We need to call time on all this. We do not need to improve the ‘safeguarding’ on these shows. We need to end them. Let a new Mary Whitehouse emerge who belatedly tells us to be ashamed of ourselves, and let us change our ways. Let the quiet majority rise up against those smirking TV executives and regain control of our common culture.
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