A Channel 4 boss has defended the Bonnie Blue documentary after it was slammed as ‘literal porn’.
The broadcaster’s film faced backlash before it even aired last month due to its controversial nature.
Exploring her day-to-day life, the documentary about Blue (whose real name is Tia Billinger) focused on her sex stunt from earlier this year.
The 26-year-old hit headlines when she claimed to have slept with over 1,000 men in 12 hours.
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And while Channel 4 defended airing 1000 Men and Me: The Bonnie Blue Story, it ended up leading to a request from the independent porn taskforce asking for a specific type of content to be banned.
Channel 4’s Chief Content Officer, Ian Katz, addressed both the doc and Virgin Island during a discussion at the Edinburgh TV Festival yesterday (20 August).
The reality show also caused some controversy as it saw 12 adult virgins consensually partake in a ‘hands-on course’ in intimacy.
Katz noted how both projects were ‘extremely successful shows’ as he said they were intended to start ‘meaningful discussion’.
“Channel 4 is not in the business of being shocking for shocking’s sake. That’s just attention-seeking behaviour,” he said. “I think they are two sides of the same coin. Bonnie Blue is, if you like, ground zero of the porn culture, and Virgin Island is about what the porn culture does to young people.”
Katz went on to say that porn culture has been ‘creating a generation of young people’ who have faced struggles with intimacy.
“Both of those subjects are absolutely the kind of territory Channel 4 should be exploring,” the boss added.
He noted how the viewership of the Bonnie Blue documentary was 60 percent women and said it was ‘perfectly sensible’ to question its format.
As some viewers criticised it for showing ‘literal porn with no filter’, the film asked of her stunt: “Was she dangerously pandering to male fantasies or being an empowered sex-positive entrepreneur?”
Regarding the use of graphic content in the doc, Channel 4 told LADbible: “Careful consideration has been given to the content and the way in which it is included, and the final programme is compliant with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code.
“The explicit content in the documentary is editorially justified and provides essential context; making pornographic content is Bonnie’s job, and this film is about her work and the response to it.
“Crucially, the content is presented in a non-gratuitous and in part partially blurred manner, and viewers are alerted to the sexual content with appropriate warnings to ensure they understood from the outset the nature of the programme.”
Topics: Bonnie Blue, Channel 4, Virgin Island, TV and Film
Jess Battison