Thursday, May 27, 2004

Yasmin Alibhai Brown - A Correction

In an earlier post I suggested that "Yasmin Alibhai Brown's Indie article is the first step in the rehabilitation of Mary Whitehouse."

This may not be true, despite Jackie Ashley's "Have we allowed advertisers and TV to coarsen us about sex?" in the Guardian yesterday. There is the possibility that Mary Whitehouse's name will continue to be 'a swearword, a caricature, an effigy to be mocked and scorned', but that this may be, for Yasmin, a 'Melanie Phillips moment'.

She didn't like it when a wealthy TV boss called her 'the next Mary Whitehouse'.

Well, if you want to write 'Sometimes, late at night, when I switch from channel to channel, I feel we are as orgiastic as the Romans before their fall', or of 'smut', 'degeneration', 'exhausting TV porn', 'gyrating MTV', 'debasing', 'gimmicks and pierced midriffs' you'd better get used to it.

Is this the start of the long spiritual odyssey that can surely lead to no other place than the opinion pages of the Daily Mail ? Good luck, Yasmin. You'll need it. But you have the stomach for the fight. Aye, and the liver too.



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