Attic Salt for Nov. 23, 2008
Curl up with some ‘Filth’ today
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“Filth,” the Masterpiece Contemporary movie about British broadcasting standards campaigner Mary Whitehouse, lay on my desk for a week before I picked it up. I wasn’t in the mood to watch a movie called “Filth.”
Called a satire and uproariously funny by people who apparently didn’t watch the same movie I did, I found “Filth” charming.
Housewife Whitehouse is played well by Julie Walters (“Mamma Mia!”, “Harry Potter”). Hugh Bonneville is fun to hate as Sir Hugh Greene, the taboo-breaking head of the BBC, who drew Mrs. Whitehouse out of her cozy living room and onto the national scene.
Sir Hugh, as played by Bonneville, was probably good for the BBC and, by turn, American broadcasting which uses so much BBC material on PBS.
I have no problem with his paving the way for television that approximates British and American life and language, but if Sir Hugh was the high-handed, imperious public official portrayed in “Filth” it’s easy to see why he proved such a perfect foil for a savvy, but innocent, crusading housewife.
In the review DVD sent out, Sir Hugh uses an obscenity (the “F word”) at the family dinner table. In the broadcast of “Filth” on PBS last Sunday, the word was bleeped, proving that Mrs. Whitehouse and her successors on both sides of the Atlantic continue to influence what appears on television.
“Filth,” by the way, may be viewed online today. To see the movie streamed, go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/filth/watch.html.
It’s not hard to see Mary Whitehouse’s point of view in the early stages of her taking on the BBC. She saw and heard things on British, taxpayer-supported television that she found offensive.
Similarly, I find much of what I hear on the radio offensive, not because the words offend me, but because station managers have quite forgotten that their words go out over airwaves owned by the American public.
If you truly think you own even one hertz of the broadcast band, try to get a program added or dropped. AM radio is largely right wing blather made worse by so many radio stations being held by the same corporations.
Mrs. Whitehouse got carried away with her success. She objected to things on television that a British subject could see in a park.
Mrs. Whitehouse found public displays of affection offensive.
She did get away with a funny — and scary — bit of censorship when she forced a British pop music program to air Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-a-Ling” with an illustration showing the ding-a-ling in question to be a toy with bells and not what everyone imagined the ding-a-ling to be.
So, lie back on the couch with your laptop on your stomach and tune-in “Filth” online. It’s better than anything else you might watch on Sunday morning television, besides, of course, reruns of the Rev. Chris Andrews’ sermons from First United Methodist Church downtown.
Called a satire and uproariously funny by people who apparently didn’t watch the same movie I did, I found “Filth” charming.
Housewife Whitehouse is played well by Julie Walters (“Mamma Mia!”, “Harry Potter”). Hugh Bonneville is fun to hate as Sir Hugh Greene, the taboo-breaking head of the BBC, who drew Mrs. Whitehouse out of her cozy living room and onto the national scene.
Sir Hugh, as played by Bonneville, was probably good for the BBC and, by turn, American broadcasting which uses so much BBC material on PBS.
I have no problem with his paving the way for television that approximates British and American life and language, but if Sir Hugh was the high-handed, imperious public official portrayed in “Filth” it’s easy to see why he proved such a perfect foil for a savvy, but innocent, crusading housewife.
In the review DVD sent out, Sir Hugh uses an obscenity (the “F word”) at the family dinner table. In the broadcast of “Filth” on PBS last Sunday, the word was bleeped, proving that Mrs. Whitehouse and her successors on both sides of the Atlantic continue to influence what appears on television.
“Filth,” by the way, may be viewed online today. To see the movie streamed, go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/filth/watch.html.
It’s not hard to see Mary Whitehouse’s point of view in the early stages of her taking on the BBC. She saw and heard things on British, taxpayer-supported television that she found offensive.
Similarly, I find much of what I hear on the radio offensive, not because the words offend me, but because station managers have quite forgotten that their words go out over airwaves owned by the American public.
If you truly think you own even one hertz of the broadcast band, try to get a program added or dropped. AM radio is largely right wing blather made worse by so many radio stations being held by the same corporations.
Mrs. Whitehouse got carried away with her success. She objected to things on television that a British subject could see in a park.
Mrs. Whitehouse found public displays of affection offensive.
She did get away with a funny — and scary — bit of censorship when she forced a British pop music program to air Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-a-Ling” with an illustration showing the ding-a-ling in question to be a toy with bells and not what everyone imagined the ding-a-ling to be.
So, lie back on the couch with your laptop on your stomach and tune-in “Filth” online. It’s better than anything else you might watch on Sunday morning television, besides, of course, reruns of the Rev. Chris Andrews’ sermons from First United Methodist Church downtown.
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