|
''Brass Eye'' is a British surreal television series parodying the current affairs style news programming of the mid 1990s. A series of six episodes aired on Channel 4 in 1997, and a further episode in 2001. The series was created by Chris Morris, and written by Morris, David Quantick, Peter Baynham, Jane Bussmann, Arthur Mathews, Graham Linehan and Charlie Brooker. The series was directed by Michael Cumming. It was a sequel to Morris's earlier spoof news programmes ''On the Hour'' and ''The Day Today''. It satirised media portrayal of social ills, in particular sensationalism, unsubstantiated establishmentarian theory masquerading as fact, and creation of moral panics. The series starred Morris's ''The Day Today'' colleague Doon Mackichan, along with Gina McKee, Mark Heap, Amelia Bullmore, Simon Pegg, Julia Davis, Claire Skinner, John Guerrasio, Hugh Dennis and Kevin Eldon. ==Original series (1997)== The second episode, "Drugs", has been described by Professor Michael Gossop as illustrative of the ease in which anti-drug hysteria can be evoked in the United Kingdom. In the opening scene of this episode, a voiceover tells viewers that there are so many drugs on the streets of Britain that "not even the dealers know them all". An undercover reporter (Morris) asks a purportedly real-life drug dealer in London for various fictitious drugs, including "Triple-sod", "Yellow Bentines" and "Clarky Cat", leaving the dealer puzzled and increasingly irritated until he tells the reporter to leave. He also explained that possession of drugs without physical contact and the exchange of drugs through a mandrill were perfectly legal in English law. One drug mentioned was a fictitious Eastern European drug called "Cake"; the drug purportedly affected an area of the brain called "Shatner's Bassoon" (altering your perception of time), can give you a bloated neck due to "massive water retention", and was frequently referred to as "a made-up drug" during the show.〔 However, David Amess, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Basildon, was fooled into filming an elaborate video warning against the dangers of this drug,〔 and went as far as to ask a question about "Cake" in the UK Parliament, alongside real substances khat and Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid. In response, the Home Office minister incorrectly identified the fictitious drug "Cake" as a pseudonym for the hallucinogenic drug methylenedioxybenzylamphetamine. Other celebrities such as Sir Bernard Ingham, Noel Edmonds, and Rolf Harris were shown holding the bright-yellow cake-sized pill as they talked, with Bernard Manning telling viewers a fictitious story about how one girl threw up her own pelvis〔 and describing how "One kiddy on Cake cried all the water out of his body. Just imagine how his mother felt. It's a fucking disgrace". Other episodes dealt with the topics of science, animals, and sex. In one scene of the "Sex" episode, Morris posed as a talk-show host who took a starkly discriminatory attitude in favour of those with "Good AIDS" (e.g. from a contaminated blood transfusion) over those with "Bad AIDS" (caught through sexual activity or drug abuse). The screening of the 1997 series was postponed for nearly six months as it made comic reference to murderer Myra Hindley, who was back in the news at the time after her portrait was vandalised in the Royal Academy exhibition ''Sensation''. In a particularly infamous portrayal, Hindley was the topic of a farcical song by a fictitious indie band called "Blouse" (whose appearance and style closely resembled that of Pulp). The lyrics to part of the song read: "Every time I see your picture, Myra/I have to phone my latest girlfriend up and fire her/And find a prostitute who looks like you and hire her/Oh, me oh Myra." The "leader singer" of Blouse, Purves Grundy (who resembles Jarvis Cocker), is then shown commenting on the song; "Myra is a very complex woman, you know, and this song is about her hair. I don't think there's a single reference in the song to her brain, which I think maybe, had a slight problem. I do think () someone's gone and bought this record just because of the fuss that's been made about it, I think they should throw it away. And then they should go and buy another copy, because they liked the song." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Brass Eye」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|