I agree, it’s often held up as a “risk taking” show but I don’t think it wasn’t really anything of the sort.
At the moment post 1997 when Britain was starting to change and become more diverse and sure of it itself it reinforced an identify of Britain as it used to think of itself: silly voices, binary identities and oddballs.
It has more in common with Love Thy Neighbour than anything that came after.
Yeah, that whole era of things like the Jimmy Carr gameshows were honestly a sort of mass nastiness as entertainment.
This business where we're all supposed to be surprised by what Russell Brand was up to despite him being incredibly open about it at the time is the same thing: society wants to blame the highly visible individuals of that era but in truth it was the audience that wanted this stuff that were the problem.
At the moment post 1997 when Britain was starting to change and become more diverse and sure of it itself it reinforced an identify of Britain as it used to think of itself: silly voices, binary identities and oddballs.
It has more in common with Love Thy Neighbour than anything that came after.