Channel 4’s documentary Russell Brand: In Plain Sight showed how individuals can feel powerless against the rich and famous
When news breaks these days, it breaks fast. As recently as Friday afternoon, this special edition of Channel 4’s Dispatches – Russell Brand: In Plain Sight – was just a rumour without a title. By the time it aired at 9pm on Saturday night, almost every aspect of the allegations it contained had been reported, pored over, discussed, dissected, commented upon and written about in multiple news outlets and on social media.
Dispatches arrived not at a point where it could shape the nation’s conversation – it already was the conversation. This was in part because this was a joint investigation into Russell Brand’s behaviour with the Times and Sunday Times, and interviews detailing rape, sexual assault and abuse of power allegations from the documentary had already been published online hours before the programme aired. What could Dispatches possibly add? Well, a lot, actually. Russell Brand: In Plain Sight showed, very uncomfortably, the power of television.
“Alice” – who spoke in silhouette – told of how Brand, at 31 and a TV star, began a relationship with her in April 2006, when she was 16 and still at school. She recounted an occasion when Brand performed a sexual act on her in which she couldn’t breathe, and how “I knew at that point that he didn’t care about hurting me physically or emotionally or any of it.” It was disturbing and upsetting. She emphasised how the age gap meant that she “didn’t feel like I could advocate for myself in any way. And I also didn’t feel like I could argue with a grown up.” Other accounts described allegations of rape and sexual assault in graphic detail.
Meanwhile, we were shown clips of Brand on his rise to the top of almost every branch of the mainstream media – Channel 4, the Guardian, BBC TV and radio, book publishing, Hollywood. There he was, cheeky Russell, taking his trousers down and jumping into the lap of a female guest on TV; transgressive Russell, joking on stage about oral sex; sexy Russell, posing for photographers at the premiere of a film in LA.