I know…
I have written many times before about my views on the hypocrisy that permeates American entertainment, especially its television shows. Day after day the main 4 television networks spew out one violent act after another. Human beings are tortured, raped, murdered, brutalized, abused, violated and exploited in new and creative ways on Criminal Minds, The Law & Orders, and CSI’s. Finding new and interesting ways to destroy a body lead to spin off after spin off.
Below: Dev Patel
Yet…
NYPD Blue faced a lawsuit for showing an adult woman’s bare ass. Janet Jackson’s partial breast flash had the puritan masses in an uproar and now a wee bit of skin on ‘Skins’ has the parents television council all in a tizzy!
I have not seen the MTV version of Skins. I have no interest. I have seen the British version and it was spectacular television. Well written, well acted and addictive. It helped launch the careers of Dev Patel, Nicholas Hoult and Mitch Brewer. Yes, there was a bit of skin, a few second per episode, mostly butts but that one was small part of creating the world the producers were trying to explore.
Is the issue teen sex and the lack of morals in America?
No...although Kathy Lee Gifford and many others are yapping about that it is...if it really was the case they would have been yapping long ago about the entire line up over the past decade on the WB. From Dawson’s Creek, One Tree Hill and especially Gossip Girl teens have been portrayed as highly sexually charged beings (which they are). Gossip Girl in particular has shown scenes of drugs, threesomes, orgy’s and more. What Gossip Girl cannot do, being on a network, that Skins does do is actually dare to show a bit of skin.
Below: Mitch Hewer
Why is skin so scary? In the case of the MTV version, the scene most people are so outraged about is a few seconds of a male teenager’s ass.
Comparing Skins to child pornography is both scary and seriously misguided. Scary: because the issue of child pornography is a serious one, a real one. The exploitation of children is a huge problem in America and putting the a teenage, a paid actor mooning a tv camera in any way shape or form under the same umbrella as the rape of a 5 year old simply dilutes the seriousness of the issue.
Below: Nicholas Hoult
What the issue of Skins spotlights more than anything is how deep the fear of sexuality remains. The fact that there is still a debate about educating children on safe sex is shocking in 2011. Although no country is perfect and all have their struggles why is it that issue of sex, violence, education and health care seem to be so much more profound in America. It is ironic to me that Skins follows Jersey Shore on the MTV Schedule. Although not a fan of any type of censorship, if the parents television council really wants to do America a service that is the show they really should be going after.
2 comments:
Americans are so absurd with their paranoid fear on anything of sexual content. As you said they could show multiple acts on violence and nobody says anything but show a crack of ass and there is mass hysteria on the streets. For the life of me I cant comprehend how in 2011 Americans are still soo obsessed with the issue of nudity which should be perfectly normal.
Well said Tye! I absolutely concur.
People who had presumably not even seen the show were up in arms over the promise of "frank depictions" of teen sexuality and drug use. A little too real perhaps? The child porn angle is a ruse to shut down what certain adults find distasteful or uncomfortable. Yet TV is now full of so-called reality shows that depict people engaged in a range of poor behavior, and there is no major outcry.
I have seen the original Skins and enjoyed it, although it was short-lived. A remake on US TV sounds lame, but I don't appreciate a group of citizens pushing corporate censorship on an unseen show.
I guess Americans will forever have weird perspectives on sexuality in the entertainment arena; it's often about appearances and faux-morality rather than any honest discussion.
The only point you make that I'm not in synch with is the violence/sexuality duality. I don't understand how these two themes are perceived as two sides of a coin; for me, unless the issue is rape, these two ideas are not comparable or related. One is about aggression and the other is (typically) about pleasure. So I'm not sure why these two themes are often cited as being in or out of balance, or that one is privileged over the other.
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