TELEVISION, by its nature, attracts exhibitionists. Some present chat and game shows; some act; some keep it to quickie thrills, just doing weekend continuity announcing or chancing a gamey wink during weather forecasting. But the exhibitionists of 1997 are a darker breed. They use TV as therapy or as ritual humiliation. They bear witness - in fact, they bare just about everything. In the past, their voices deliberately distorted, they used to appear in silhouette or in Planet Of The Apes wigs and Woolworths shades. Now, they preen in the limelight.
In recent weeks, we've seen people talk about being jilted at the altar. We've seen others make prats of themselves at a dinner party. We've even seen one lunatic allow TV cameras to cover his circumcision. No doubt, he'd have liked 16 camera angles, slo-mo, shots from an airship, an Andy Gray tactics board, teletext, subtitles, a hushed David Attenborough commentary, an infra-red lens, a studio discussion later that night, a swingometer perhaps, and whatever you're having yourself.
The latest group to come out of the closet, in order to stare out of the box, appeared on Witness: Men Who Pay For Sex. The title was a little ambiguous since many, many people - women as well as men - pay for sex with currencies (self-respect, dignity, hope) far more precious than money. Anyway, the programme spoke to 250 men who visit prostitutes and six of them - Bill, Wayne, Monty, John, Charles and Lesley - agreed to talk to camera. Prostitution takes more than one form.
At first, it was possible to think that the six were hypocrisy-busters. After all, the difference between furtive and prudent is often no more than perspective. So, these guys were reckless, but is that not more commendable than the sneaking, skulking, surreptitious stuff usually associated with brothel creeping? In ways, it is. But there was the whiff of exploitation all round - of the prostitutes by the men; of the men by the prostitutes; of their families by the men; of television by the men and crucially, of the men by television.
Each of the men had a different story. Monty, a 36-year-old "hard-rock DJ" from Romford, couldn't understand why he "struggles" with women. "It's a mystery to me," he said. Fair enough, Monty looked like an average bloke. But then you realised that women must suss that there's something weird going on here. After all, going on TV to tell millions of people that you're into prostitutes is unlikely to have women - at least, women who aren't prostitutes - flocking after you.
"Sometimes," said Monty, he leaves a prostitute's room and wonders: "Am I a bit of a sad tosser for doing this?" Well, yes, Monty - "sad" is a kind word here. Sadder by far, though, was 43-year-old Charles. Through his addiction to Amsterdam's red light district, he has lost his wife. In brown leather waistcoat and blue shirt with brown collar (a unique variation on those ultra-naff, coloured body/white collar, executive shirts) Charles admitted to being "into pure lust".
Leaving aside the inherent contradiction of "pure lust", Charles's bed looked dodgy - it was covered in cuddly toys, many of them in pervy pinks and baby blues. Bill (45) sort of blames his first wife. His prostitute's name is Joy. He's still with his second wife but most of his guff amounted to an ode to Joy - how wonderful, sexual, sensual she is. It was so matter-of-fact, it was a little wicked.
John - white hair, plummy accent, bad memories of boarding school - first visited a prostitute during the second World War. "I was gauche and really an awkward animal," he said. "I needed to fill a gap in my education." He made it sound like a night class in Word 6 for windows. Anyway, he liked it and has been going since, wrecking his marriage along the way.
Wayne's excuse was that he was "run over by a kid in a go-kart". Well, you know, he went for a massage and before he could say 45 quid, he was watching a porn video and being covered in baby oil. Lesley, a retired air force pilot, told of how, when his wife discovered his relationship with a prostitute, she (his wife) stopped eating, caught pneumonia and died. The guilt seemed to be killing him.
And there it was. If anything characterised all six, it seemed to be a strong dislike of self. It was hard not to think that their using the TV as a confessional was just another way to punish themselves. Somebody or something fed these blokes overdoses of guilt and shame early on. There's something deeply distasteful about television exploiting them in the name of openness, honesty and public service. The confessional documentary is fast becoming the red light district of TV, urging us all to change from being viewers to being voyeurs.
THERE is, I suppose, a valid distinction between the confessional documentary and the disclosure sort. Modern Times: Jurors lacked the sheer, humiliating exhibitionism of the fitness men. But the five people - four women and one man - who spoke of their ordeals during jury service, appeared to feel at least as guilty as and, perhaps not so surprisingly, much more frustrated than, any of the brothel creepers.
At first, their apparent guilt seemed strange. Why should they feel like that? Then you realised that the secrecy of the jury room, being so absolute, burdened them with a legal version of the Catholic confessional seal. They could never adequately justify why they felt so traumatised and, as the programme wore on, you sensed that they were experiencing the sort of frustration which a charades actor feels in front of particularly thick team-mates.
That was the main weakness in this film by Nicky Read. Occasionally, you got glimpses of what it felt like to be compelled to concentrate on the gruesome details of a horrific crime. A juror on the Yorkshire Ripper case, recalled the shuddering chill which went through, the jury each time they had to handle a particular murder-knife. Another spoke of having to look at photographs of a three-year-old boy, his face covered by masking tape, because it had been completely smashed in by a 17-year-old wielding a golf club.
But they could not disclose anything of what took place in the jury room. Some of them were threatened by criminals and told that their families would "get it". They felt genuinely frightened and let down by the law. "Just disregard that nonsense, ladies and gentlemen," sniffed a judge. They realised that they were just cogs in a legal machine primarily concerned with observing due process to grind out results. If justice resulted from this process, all the better. If not, next case please.
Ironically, most of them had looked forward to their jury stint. One had "felt privileged". Another, who was, "glad to have two weeks off work", recalled her frame of mind at the start.
"The sheriff and the judge paraded in. There were three cornered hats and velvet pantaloons ... I just expected them to start singing and get the pantomime going ... because it was ridiculous."
Another juror returned to the scene of the crime (the killing of the three-year-old). She sat on a swing in a children's playground - a "lost innocence" cliche of British film-making. It Was appropriate, not just for the crime it recalled, bud for the sense of lost innocence which these jurors felt Unfortunately, unable to speak about their deliberations, the jurors seemed excessively whingey - as though they wished to suck some sympathy away from the victims. It did, though, make you realise that crime ripples into, people and places, in a random, as well as a deliberate way.
SOME of the crimes mentioned on Prime Time - the Marita Ann, Shergar, Don Tidey and Galen Weston cases - were not far below the Yorkshire Ripper case in terms of news coverage. Former IRA man turned informer, Sean O'Callaghan, was allegedly associated with these crimes in one way or another. This was just as well for reporter Gerry O'Callaghan - at least he could use some engaging old file footage.
He wasn't, you see, going to get much else. Not that this was Gerry's fault. He got the informer to speak and got Sinn Fein's Danny Morrison to contradict him. But we were no wiser after the programme than before. Sean O'Callaghan may, or may not, be telling the truth.
It's clear that he has had inside knowledge of the IRA. It's also clear though, that there is a suspicious neatness to the timing of his release and to his central claim that the republican leadership is irredeemably wed to violence. But, he is, one way or another - whether he's telling total truth or not - essentially a propaganda tool for the British government and its fellow travellers at present.
Gerry O'Callaghan rightly raised the murder of Sean Corcoran, shot dead in Kerry in 1985. Sean O'Callaghan is widely believed - he doesn't deny this - to have been responsible. There is a suspicion that he was acting as an agent of the State at the time and so a blind eye may have been turned. This is a central question in a maze of mysteries and until it is answered satisfactorily, Sean O'Callaghan remains, essentially, outside serious consideration.
Only one thing is certain - Prime Time will have changed nobody's mind, on the matter. His supporters, notably The Sunday Times, will continue to support his claims; his detractors will continue to rubbish them. Maintaining a media profile is about as much as Sean O'Callaghan can ask for at this stage. His friends will help him - but his star is already waning. As Monty the DJ might say he seems a "sad" case indeed.
FINALLY, in a TV week of sleaze, crime and propaganda, the best fun was on Rock Family Trees. Fleetwood Mac, Deep Purple and the Merseyside bands of the late 1970s/early 1980s featured on successive nights. Above all, it was clear that ego, not talent, is usually the main driving force in rock and pop music. There was a selection of great songs, including splendid old footage of Fleet wood Mac with Peter Green.
But there was something especially awful about the managerial types in these bands. In general, the talented ones played the music, took drugs and went wild. The cute hoors, while taking the kudos for all the sex and drugs and rock `n' roll stuff, were really like accountants with long hair and daft outfits. In a naff, coloured body/white collar, executive shirt they would have seemed more honest. As it was, no names mentioned, they seemed like parasites.