Mark Thompson on the complainers
The BBC Director-General Mark Thompson gave a speech to the Churches’ Media Conference this week. He defended the BBC against the familiar charges of dumbing down, falling quality, and – a favourite of the CCTV – denigration of “traditional values”.
It’s a long speech, but worth a read.
In response to the dumbing-down charge, he cites Steven Johnson’sEverything Bad For You Is Good For You, and points out the multi-layered sophistication of modern TV shows like The Sopranos and The Simpsons, compared to their equivalents 20 years ago.
People forget that a generation ago the spine of BBC ONE was mainstream American entertainment: The Virginian, A Man Called Ironside, Kojak, The Thorn Birds. Yes, Kenneth Clark was on BBC TWO with Civilisation, but so too was an alarming amount of Demis Roussos.
He also dismisses the moral depravity claims:
I think the answer to the moral pessimist is that it depends what your moral yardstick is. If it’s swear words and sex and not much more, then yes – things probably have slipped both on screen and in society since the good old days, though even here the watershed, that in some ways anachronistic sign-post to family viewing, seems to be holding up rather well.
But if you define moral and social concern more broadly, then things look rather different. Whether it’s Africa or Iraq or Terry Schiavo, broadcasting has become very interested in moral questions again and broadcasting’s ubiquity means that those questions are projected into pretty much every household in the land.
In my view, most of what he says is true. It’s more a matter of what he doesnt say.
Thus he agrees that other channels can be amoral, but doesnt consider this serious enough to develop any action plan to tackle on it. He merely observes it, as though it were inevitable. What arguments are there in favour of saying it is inevitable?
He also compares TV culturally favourably with 25 years ago – again correct. But if there were bad (or even worse) things 25 years ago, that does not justify there being bad things now. Two wrongs dont make a right. He surely knows this already. Doesnt he?
And in any case he has not given any reason why bad/amoral things should be broadcast (as he agrees they are being) at any time. To use the word ‘amoral’ is to make a value judgment; if one stands by that value judgment, then why just stand by and watch it happen. That’s the inconsistency I identified in his otherwise good speech.
He also calks of treading on ‘hallowed ground’ when he mentions Doctor Who. Hallowed ground, indeed, I say, as a lifelong devotee. But I wonder why Massa Bayer and his cohort have not picked up on the bisexual Captain Jack Harkness, who is the Doctor’s current male companion, and the fact that there was some rather gay banter going on between them (jokily on the Doctor’s part, since his sexuality is deliberately never an issue), in a camp sort of way, during last week’s episode. Come on, Massa, why you not bring da big white god voodo to put big hex on Russell T Davies?