Sex, the devil, Xarabank, the internet and us

Just as we thought that wondering whether or not Norfolk exists would be a hard act to follow, Peppi Azzopardi and his dynamic team regaled us with a gem of a programme about the internet. Forget social informatics and the network society, political implications and the digital divide, for Xarabank the internet is basically a purveyor of smut with a few good things thrown in.

The drift of the programme was, shall we say, sex as teenagers do it. Especially in Malta, schools, youth centres, scouts, tal-Mużew, and goodness knows what else, contrive to keep boys and girls apart for as long as possible. Eventually, however, the time comes to talk to the unthinkable, and teenagers will often find themselves clueless as to how to relate.

Three tabloid devices come to their partial rescue. First, humour, in the form of dirty jokes and such. Second, the circuitous route, that is, talking sex by making up sensational stories about what others do. Third, morality - the 'saying how bad it is is better than nothing' argument (a variation on the 'sour grapes' theme).

Xarabank had generous helpings of all three ingredients. It was a teenage production with a broader audience. Azzopardi first proceeded to patronise a Jessie who, God bless us all, makes use of the internet. Apparently he found it amusing that a 70-year-old lady should be interested in anything other than collecting teapots. We were then treated to a slideshow of half-naked foreign adolescents in compromising postures (does it take 10 photographs to make a point?) and a saucy running commentary by the presenter himself.

The great questions of the day followed. Is it 'bad' to use a webcam to expose yourself to your wife, who happens to be abroad? Does online chatting with someone who is not your spouse constitute adultery? Is online chatting leading to separations? Is the internet implicitly evil, or is it just a question of misuse? I'm sure Harvard's Berkman Centre for Internet and Society would be immensely intrigued.

Then came the nauseating urban legends about the schoolgirl who googled 'pussy' (ha, ha, I'm in stitches) for her project on cats, and the online chatting couple who fixed a stealthy rendezvous only to find they were husband and wife. At this point it became clear what the programme's ploy was. The production team knows that nothing sells like sex. Since they can't exactly give us that on a weekly basis, on to plan B.

Guests for the night included half the police force (Friday night risks becoming a criminals' carnival, what with all the cops in the studio) plus the usual suspects from Appoġġ and Sedqa, whose portfolio of 'support services' seems to be expanding faster than Hawking's universe. I thought someone was missing but, no, later on in the programme a Brother Deo duly told us that a priest's mailbox had been hacked and dirty pictures sent to nuns, high-ranking prelates, and such godly types. How convenient. And funny too.

Which brings us to the devil. Azzopardi's crusade bore a striking resemblance to that of another visionary. The aptly named Angelik Caruana, who the Xarabank team invite when they run out of 'ideas', and is best known for doing a Bernardette at Birżebbuġa. (He also wears wrist bands, doesn't play tennis, and produces small objects 'out of nowhere' - but that's a separate argument.)

Browsing through his many 'divine' messages - the main point of which is basically 'Sex is wicked' - I came across one 'revealed' in August 2007: 'Mine and my Son's hearts are pained at all the separations, adultery, child abuse, internet home access, and sex before marriage'. Again in February 2008: 'The devil is infiltrating our homes. He is tricking us with the internet and television, both of which are pornographic.' To which the man with the wrist bands added the footnote (how cheeky too, to footnote a divine message) that it was actually the wrong use of, rather than the internet itself, which is diabolical.

All of this is rather entertaining, but there are more sinister implications. First, Xarabank provides a weekly model of unproductive discussion, in the sense that it reduces all topics to a weakly-scripted morality play.

Be it migration, drugs, or the internet, it seems nothing can be discussed without moralising. I think we already have too much of this in Malta (my old professor, Oliver Friggieri, used to call it the 'sermon mentality'), and to add three hours of peak time a week is a tad much. In a nutshell, it encourages viewers not to think. Hardly what one might wish of a programme on national television.

Second, I find it worrying that Xarabank, apart from this 'string 'em up, guv' tabloid stuff, doubles as the venue for 'serious' journalism. If there are lessons to be learned from the electoral campaign, one must surely be how badly our national station needs good journalism. I really can't figure out why an excellent offering like Reno Bugeja's Dissett is slotted into some god-forsaken late hour, when most viewers are watching the big soaps, while Xarabank occupies year-in-year-out the best time of the week.

In any case, it's not good television to have one programme drawling through a whole evening.

mafalzon@hotmail.com