Phew! Big Brother plumbs new depths of depravity, generating lots of complaints. In case you haven't been following the events in the Big Brother house - the only space in Britain genuinely unaffected by the 7 July bombings - the story is broadly as follows:
Mostly loathsome people are torn apart in a struggle between self-obsession which makes them indifferent to others and lustful insecurity which makes them desperate for the affections of others. Then, one day, one of them discovers a brilliant third way - humiliating drunken public masturbation. Self-love, self-loathing, introversion and exhibitionism all in one act.
Kinga has solved Big Brother. Everyone might just as well go home. Oh, except I forgot, they're in it for the money.
Surely no-one is surprised that BB6 has mustered up a bit of scandal. It is the natural process of inflation at work - the more the production companies churn out contestants and the more public sex acts are used as the commodity to buy media attention the shorter the lifespan of the confected TV 'celebrity' and the more they will have to sexually humiliate themselves to earn their glossy 15 minutes.
What makes this episode a bit more interesting is the way in which the currrent Big Brother series is following a trajectory that was set before the London terror bombings. It is a time capsule of our media culture. Not a lot will have changed since 7 July, but I'll warrant the terms of debate about public morality will shift subtly.
Generally it has been easy for a mostly liberal, young metropolitan TV/media establishment to ignore complaints about sexual licence on TV as so much bluster from the Outraged-of-Tunbridge-Wells constituency.
But as the threat of a murderous ultra-conservative ideology surfaces in society there will be a more pointed debate than there has been for a long time about decadence. Because, let's face it, Big Brother really is very, very decadent. That doesn't make it wrong. Decandence might be ok. But liberals will need to get their arguments together over concepts such as sexual taboo, decency and modesty. The classic justification for pushing boundaries on grounds of epater le borugeois is a bit tired, being well over a hundred years old.
Just as there will be a reining in of civil liberties to defend our liberty post 7/7 I suspect there will also be a discreet conservative backlash in culture, art and popular entertainment as we struggle to define what exactly are the 'values' and the 'way of life' that the bombers are so often glibly said to be out to destroy.
