'Tall Poppies' Cut Down to Size

LONDON, Feb. 16, 2007— -- This Valentine's Day saw the first live telecast of the British music industry's biggest awards ceremony, aptly named the Brit Awards.

It also saw the show's famously loudmouthed presenter, Russell Brand, offer several sex- and drug-related jokes, two of which involved teenage drug use by Conservative leader David Cameron, and a purported picture of -- ahem -- the queen's intimate body parts.

It is telling that out of an audience of 5.3 million viewers, ITV, the channel that broadcast the awards, received a mere 300 complaints.

Compare that with the record-breaking 200,000 Americans who called to complain about Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction during her Super Bowl halftime performance in 2004.

So, is it impossible to shock the British? If the Brit Awards are any indication, the answer would seem to be yes.

The most public drug bust-up in the United Kingdom in 2005 involved one of the world's highest-paid models, Kate Moss. Pictures of Moss snorting line after line of what looked like cocaine (though the substance was never conclusively identified) adorned the front pages of every supermarket tabloid.

But what astonished many was not the fact of her apparent drug habit but rather its total lack of impact on her modeling career.

Despite a drugs-and-nicotine-fueled lifestyle, Moss was never pictured looking anything less than photogenic. Indeed, even on the incriminating, grainy cell phone footage, she looked, as various fashion bloggers enviously noted, perfectly camera-friendly.

And the resulting notoriety did her career no harm -- her annual revenue skyrocketed from $9 million in 2004 to $28 million last year.

Some would argue that this is no way to treat a "disgraced" mother of one, but the British public -- if advertisers provide any clues -- does not seem to care.

Analyzing the reaction to Moss' drug scandal, Shane Watson, a columnist for the London Times' Style magazine, observed that "British culture is quite raucous. There's very little need for celebrities to lie about drinking or drugs or swearing here."