Advance publicity for “FILTH!” a dramatised version of the Mary Whitehouse story starring Julie Walters and coming (oops, pardon!) to a television near you has predictably aroused (oops, pardon!) the holier-than-thou brigade to start ranting about how we need a new Mary Whitehouse to protect the nation’s morals. Any mention of “FILTH!” in the media tends to make the legions of the narrow minded come over Mary Whitehouse (oops, pardon!)
For those too young to remember, Mary Whitehouse was the clean up TV campaigner who found fame in the nineteen sixties by convincing a few silly people that public morals were being corrupted by the tide of FILTH! streaming from our television sets.
The moral majority, as Mrs. Whitehouse liked to refer to herself, did not want FILTH! on television, they wanted decent family entertainment; acrobats, juggles, children’s programmes presented by poufs and virgins, Scottish Country Dancing, animal programmes. and hymn singing, lots of hymn singing. Ironically there was never more filth onscreen in one show than in the episode of Blue Peter where a baby elephant was brought onto the set and shat itself.
Most people in the country, the immoral majority you might say, wanted to see sex, violence, nudity, bad language, smut, innuendo and sexist, racist comedy. And a bit of Scottish country dancing but only at New Year when we were very very drunk. As it turned out, members of the organisation formed by Mary Whitehouse wanted to watch all that too. So avidly did they watch the FILTH! in fact that their letters of complaint would detail how many times each “bad word” had been used, the number of seconds bare breasts and bottoms were on view and give graphic descriptions of the simulated sex. Strangely none complained about the racism and sexism of shows like Til Death Do Us Part or Love Thy Neighbour.
For Mary Whitehouse and her supporters it was not a matter of simply being disgusted; they had to be seen to be disgusted. They were outraged at the sight of Helen Mirren’s knockers or Hywel Bennett’s bum but loved the twee, cosy racism of The Black and White Minstrel Show. White men blacked up, prancing about waving their hands and singing in comic accents (De Camptown races fahv mil’ lon’ doo dah, doo dah...” good wholesome family fun.
Modern Whitehouse revivalists have another source of FILTH! to attack. Now they can claim the Internet as well as television is pouring a steam of obscenity, pornography, violence and fart – lighting action into our homes. The remedy is the same as it always was however. If you don’t want to watch, nobody is forcing you to.
Meanwhile, as far as the rest of us are concerned, the message that needs to be sent to television executives is this:
What do we want? FILTH!
When do we want it? NOW!
