You could barely make Brass Eye in 2001, as their 2001 special proved, never mind today. And you absolutely wouldn't get away with Goodness Gracious Me.
> You could barely make Brass Eye in 2001, as their 2001 special proved,
I still hold that special up as one of the best pieces of satire to ever air on TV, but at the same time I'm shocked it was ever able to be produced and shown since it satirizes the one topic above all others you aren't "allowed" to joke about.
The episode was also made at a time when it was fashionable to hold the view that the country was gripped by a kind of irrational hysteria about child sexual abuse. Monkey Dust's 'pedofinder general', from around the same time period, reflects a similar attitude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCywGhHQMEw
Decades later this all looks rather naive. The BBC, especially, could hardly make a program satirizing exaggerated concerns about child sexual abuse, given that the
Savile scandal proved that many such concerns had in fact been taken nowhere near seriously enough.
Their "Paedogeddon" special would have been highly controversial in any time and was also far beyond what they did before. Do you really think it could have been made in the 70s or 80s?
I still hold that special up as one of the best pieces of satire to ever air on TV, but at the same time I'm shocked it was ever able to be produced and shown since it satirizes the one topic above all others you aren't "allowed" to joke about.
For those interested I highly recommend watching it: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6shgvw