A sex offender is thrown in the stocks, presented with a small child, and asked if he wants to molest him. A mob of protestors is thrown a “dummy full of guts” that is stomped to pieces within seconds. A radio host insists that pedophiles have “more genes in common with crabs” than the rest of humanity, insisting, “There’s no real evidence for [that], but it is scientific fact.”
It’s hard to pinpoint the most cringe-inducing moment on “Paedogeddon,” a special episode of the British TV satire Brass Eye. But 15 years after the episode aired, it remains a totemic, terrifying satirical vision. Few comedies since have dared to cross the boundaries of taste with such impunity.
“Paedogeddon” aired in the U.K. in the summer of 2001, a year after the murder of a young girl had sparked national hysteria over the country’s sex-offender registry. Britain’s most-read newspaper led a campaign to publish the names and locations of all 110,000 convicted sex offenders, prompting a riot in which an angry mob ransacked the home of an ex-con. Brass Eye, a parody of a 60 Minutes-like newsmagazine show, had been dormant after airing one season in the UK in 1997. But it returned four years later for this surprise broadcast, one that saw its furious (fictional) anchors barking from a dark studio about the plague of seemingly super-powered child molesters stalking the nation, holding a funhouse mirror up to the climate of paranoia and fear that had built up around the country. It was a bold, wildly insensitive piece of comedy, but one that captured the growing madness of the 24-hour news media and foreshadowed some uglier aspects of its future.