IT IS not hard to see why “Paedogeddon” attracted more complaints than any British television programme to date. In this spoof documentary, broadcast by Channel 4 in 2001, a presenter reported that a paedophile had disguised himself as a school, activists belonging to “Milit-pede”, a militant pro-paedophile group, stormed the studio and gullible celebrities claimed that paedophiles shared more DNA with crabs than with other humans. It was over-the-top, in terrible taste and a vehicle for the attention-seeking programme-makers.
And yet it served a purpose. At the time, Britain was in a panic following the rape and murder of a schoolgirl. The News of the World, a now-defunct tabloid, had named dozens of alleged paedophiles. A mob in Portsmouth had pelted a block of flats with stones and set fire to a car outside. “Paedo” was daubed on a paediatrician’s house. “Paedogeddon” merely held up a fairground mirror to a society losing its grip. The popular response to the programme was disgusted (the “sickest TV show ever”, ran one headline), but it rather proved the programme-makers’ points. One newspaper ran an...Continue reading
via Brian Rushton, Where truth and myth collide
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