IT began with an idyll: 12-year-old Kerry munching a Curly Wurly bar and singing in the car with her father. Ten minutes later, Dad gas using Kerry to pay a poker debt. He gave her to a middle-aged man, who, we knew, was going to rape her. She put her small hand in the big hand of the rapist - the 1990s image of betrayal, ever since a Big Brother camera caught Jon Venables leading James Bulger out of a Liverpool shopping centre.
Small hand in big hand used to be an image of guardianship. In No Child Of Mine, it was used to evoke horrors which a more graphic treatment would inevitably render sickeningly pornographic. A drama-documentary, in which a child is pimped by her father (and later, by another sleazeball), raped by her stepfather and by a child-care worker and forced, by her violent mother, to perform incestuous cunnilingus, needs to be able to tell its story with considerable narrative sophistication.
By and large, No Child Of Mine succeeded. But it was risky. Small wonder, then, that this was the most controversial TV programme of the year so far. Certainly, it was distressing to watch. After all, it might be an appeal to prurience, in which case it couldn't but leave a normal viewer feeling guilty. But the dominant emotion fired by the horror was anger - furious anger, in which it was impossible not to desire to see the paedophiles given the mother and father of a hiding.
Provoking, in viewers, an intense longing for revenge is both powerful and questionable. Yes, responsible adults have a duty to make themselves aware - at an emotional, as well as at a rational level - of the effects of sexual abuse on children. But, if a significant part of the satisfaction derived by paedophiles is in breaking a huge taboo, then promoting public outrage may be setting up a vicious circle: the greater the outrage, the greater the thrill.
Still, on balance, it was better that the film be shown than banned. Britain's charitable agencies associated with child abuse have endorsed it, even though that is not necessarily to say that it was a typical, rather than an extreme, example of child sex exploitation. Even charitable agencies know the value of publicity, of having their area of concern highlighted in the media. So, if people are shocked, they bloody well ought to be social workers often argue. Fair enough.
It was crucial that No Child Of Mine was based on a true story. A fictional treatment - even a suggestive, non-graphic treatment - would too easily have been dismissed by the prudish, the ostrich-like and by paedophiles themselves. In presenting a story, in which you quickly realised that any display of kindness was just a precursor to defilement, dread invariably preceded an intensification of anger and a desire for revenge.
Perhaps most worrying of all though - when anger and revenge had abated - was the film's message that there are huge numbers of adults prepared to rape children and untold numbers prepared to turn a blind eye. In pubs, lorry stop-over parks, child care homes, the abuse appeared systematic, even casual an accepted part of contemporary life. Splicing the horror sequences with humdrum scenes of children at play, suggested an everydayness about child sex abuse which was profoundly disturbing.
As Kerry, Brooke Kinsella's performance was superb. From singing, Curly Wurly-eating daughter through hardening sullenness to self-hating, wrist-slashing wreck she portrayed the destruction of the self caused by sex abuse. When the camera zoomed in on her crying face, as her disgustingly smarmy stepfather raped her, the scene was, arguably, too graphic. Even acting such an act raised legitimate questions.
Because people who saw James Bulger with his tormentors did not intervene, much has since been written of the death of community and the resolve of ordinary people to keep themselves to themselves. Certainly, excessive nosiness is undesirable and risks vigilantism. But if child sex abuse is facilitated by the individualism of the age - as No Child Of Mine suggested (even in its title) - we're in serious trouble. You have to hope that the film was a kind of ironic hyperbole, of apathy sensationalised. At the same time, you have to fear that it wasn't. Disturbing stuff.
EXPLOITATION and abuse were also at the heart of Modern Times. In a deliciously scathing episode, titled Mange Tout, it spliced scenes from a Basingstoke dinner party with scenes from Zimbabwe, where the mange tout peas are grown. As shafting jobs go, this one was splendid. While dinner party guests, Ben and Frances, "both in financial services", ate the peas between outbursts of smug crassness, the African pickers were being treated as slaves.
Mark Dady is a produce buyer for Tesco. He arrived at Chiparawe Farm, Zimbabwe, to buy mange tout peas. For Mark's arrival, farm owner Chris Kay urged the workers on in "a spit and polish operation". Everything had to be perfect for the great man from Tesco. "Tesco is on top of the ladder. A Tesco visit is a king's visit," said Blessing Chingwaru, the farm supervisor.
Mark arrived and not only was Tesco on top of the ladder, it was ion top of a flagpole too. In an astonishing ceremony, Tesco's red and white flag was raised to the top of the pole while local children sang the Tesco song and danced he Tesco dance. "Down the valley, up the mountain/ Tesco's our dear friend/ Thank you, Tesco, we shall always remember you/ As, our best buyer and best friend. Mark smiled benignly, but not, of course, openly enough to jeopardise his air of imperial hauteur.
Meanwhile, back in Basingstoke, the dinner party conversation had gone intellectual. "Exploitation is part of evolution progression. The journey from exploitee to exploiter is . . ." said one of the financial services guests, before being cut off by a contribution from a representative of the Basingstoke Women in Business group. The camera zoomed in on a bowl of steaming mange tout peas.
Cut back to Zimbabwe. Mark and his Tesco assistant were opening gifts from the local children.
Like a pair of supermarket feudal lords, the lads smiled again and nodded, not, it seemed, in gratitude, but merely to emphasise the new world order with patronising protocol. There they were - a pair of sharpies in suits and striped shirts - reps for the great white empire of capital without even the decency to be embarrassed.
"These people (African farm workers) can't cope with our mentality - the motor car, the lathe. .." a voice was bellowing at the dinner party. By the way, the pickers made roughly one penny for every 45p made by the farmer and every 68p made by the buyers. Tesco sells 150 grams of mange tout peas (1p worth for a picker) for 99p. But it wasn't just the financial exploitation which rankled. It was the shameless arrogance of the supermarket prats and the dinner party guests.
THERE was more hustling, called marketing, to be seen in Branded, which focused on Heinz's attempts in 1996 to re-invent its dated brand image. Naturally, Tony O'Reilly presided over the changes. But the real star turns were the advertising people. Searching for a new word order for Heinz tomato ketchup, they demonstrated cards, each the size of a coffee-table top, each with a single word in six-inch lettering.
"Enjoyment", "Delicious" and a few others were shown, but clearly, none of these uttered the Heinzness sought. With a slow build-up, the perfect word, as determined by market research, was unveiled: "Pizzazz". Yup, "Pizazz had it all. "This is your wife in a negligee, not your wife washing the dishes," said an ad exec (to use ad exec speak). Tomato ketchup? A woman in a negligee? Why couldn't we all see it sooner? Such genius.
So that was that, then. Well, not quite. "Pizzazz" proved to have little pizzazz and a new new word order was required. Eventually, the magic slogan was produced: "Let's Eat". Now, "Let's Eat" has more pizzazz than "Pizzazz".
and so it went. As a behind-the-scenes look at a hustling, sorry, marketing campaign, this was hilarious.
In more serious vein, though, the effect on Tony O'Reilly of the reported "inner ear infection" was more dramatic than any of his company's slogans. The pre-illness and post-illness O'Reillys were radically different.
MORE enduring than even the greatest brands is history itself. People's Century, the BBC's uneven, but often brilliant pictorial chronicle of the 20th century, reached its end this wee The series has been wise to blend themes with chronology to try to explain the last 97 years.
Its final episode, titled Fast Forward, dealt with globalisation, the eclipse of politics by economics and the overcoming of physical distance by science.
Citing California's referendum on "Proposition 13" as the moment when "the haves declared themselves no longer prepared to support the have-nots", it showed Ronald Reagan, the leader of the US government, insisting that government is the problem". Since then, market forces have been given a free rein - for better and for worse (better for "the haves"; worse for the "havenots").
Because there are, in the world, if not in western Europe, north America, Japan and Australia, far more have-nots than haves, the 21st century will dawn with tension in the air. People's Century ended with a camera panning along a row of babies. It was quite emphatic that with market forces in the ascendant, these babies, as adults, will be forced to compete against each other like never before.
Four days later, with the rising of the Tesco flag in Zimbabwe, it was clear to see that economics has indeed replaced politics. A century ago, local children would have had to sing and dance for some bloke wearing a plumed hat, cummerbund and sword. Now they do it for blokes in sharp suits and striped shirts. Child economic abuse, child sex abuse. .. the more things change, the more they stay the same - with or without pizzazz.