To Catch A Predator

[sloth]

Proof if any was needed that Brass Eye is the best current affairs satire ever. From what i've seen of To Catch A Predator, it is EXACTLY the same mix of sordid infatuation and cathartic punishment that Brass Eye satirised in the Paedophilia episode ages ago. The format seems the same for every show: long and unnecessary verbatim accounts of IM conversations, then--just at the point it stops being an indignant demonstration of perversity, and starts being simply indulgent--Chris Kemmel will swoop in to save the viewers conscience with an excessively humiliating meting out of justice. Short of burning them alive in a wicker phallus, but not by much.

The whole thing reminded me of those shitty Police! Camera! Action! shows. The hyperbolic voice, the wild goose chase where the cops get their man and nobody gets hurt--I was kind of surprised they didn't put some Flintstones sound effect in when that guy fainted and twatted his head on the desk. It's like they're taking this really serious issue and dramatising it, sanitising taboos for mainstream audiences. It's the kind of irony that Brass Eye captured really well: the longer and more thoroughly vice X is shown to be revolting/offensive/reprehensible, the greater the satisfaction of condemning and punishing the offender will be at the end. The demonstration becomes more and more grisly and the punishment becomes less and less significant, like a vanishing point that guarantees the (flimsy) moral perspective.

So yeah, moral of the story is go watch Brass Eye.