Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup
My sisters used to squee over this A-ha! video back in the day. I couldn’t figure out what the video was about then, and I still can’t now.
Fortunately, other folks had the same problem - and they reworked the video, with new lyrics. The guy hits the high notes and everything. Obviously, the new lyrics score for clarity, if not exactly for squee-worthiness.
Back in the early 80s when television was in its infancy where I grew up, the entire family used to huddle around the box watching sitcoms like The Jeffersons and The Cosby Show. Yes, the stories in each episode had variations; but you somehow knew that the familial unit would win out. There would be drama, the occasional piece of angst but on the whole it was as predictable as soggy, milk soaked cereal in the morning (or back where I was: rice and curry for lunch). Wholesome drama that can be watched by the entire family.
Ostensibly, this is everything that Californication isn’t - after all, I’ve seen it referred to both as skanky and X-rated (they may both be accurate). The show has thus far featured nuns and other religious figures in inappropriate positions at least twice, there is plenty of simulated bumping and grinding, occasional nudity with the genitals artfully masked by furniture props and the odd cuss word (gasps of horror at the last, I know). You can just about smell the outrage, the burning of effigies/placards and the cries of depravity if this show ever dared screen in a slightly more conservative country. Even now, you wonder how the religious right in the US hasn’t taken aim at the show for its nun-too subtle intermingling of the church and blow job. Yes, I spent a whole 30 seconds coming up with that pun, so you’ll read it and you’ll groan. Just like I intended.
Yet, fundamentally, this show is not a great deal different from the aforementioned Jeffersons and Cosbys. It is about the constant strivings of Emo Duchovny and his writerly life. There is a superficial veneer of sex and salaciousness, of the wild life, of snorting lines of coke, of vomiting on paintings, of smoking pot. Whatever. Essentially, David Duchovny (Hank Moody, the stunningly imaginatively named main character) is portrayed as a nice guy. He loves his daughter. He’ll do anything, he’s desperate to get back with his ex-girlfriend who has left him for a (surprised?) richer guy with a palatial mansion. There are more plot twists, but the shining beacon that is Hank Moody’s goodness shines through. Somehow, you get the impression that you’re supposed to be rooting for Hank to get back together with his family again because you know, that rich guy doesn’t care about the admittedly tasty looking Natascha McElhone.
Ok. I get the fact that we need to protect kids from some influences. That’s the whole point of having authority figures. I get that. I really do. But sometimes you have to wonder …
Borders asked to ban “racist” Tintin book. Tintin? Seriously? Apparently so. Yet another facet of my childhood (who didn’t read Tintin when they were growing up?) has now been swamped by the PC brigade. Sickening.
Actually, I have read Tintin in the Congo, the comic in question. Does it have dodgy cultural references? Yep, I’m pretty darn sure it does. It fits perfectly with the other national and racially stereotypical names that Herge adopted for the other characters in the series. Try Chang, the obscurely named Chinese companion of Tintin. Or Rastapopulous, the big nosed arch villian of the piece. Or Abdullah, the mischievous Mid-eastern kid with the megarich father. Or my personal favourites; Generals Alcazar and Tapioca from San Theodoros. Stereotyped? Yup. Funny? Yes, I think so.
That’s actually not all.
The PC brigade have also had a go at Noddy and Tinky Winky of the Teletubbies. Right. So, there’s really no excuse to be watching the Teletubbies at any age. I send the nieces Disney DVDs just to get them to watch something else. I’m doing my bit to rid the world of the menace. I still think I made my point about political correctness gone mad.
Eejits. My lawn. Get off it.
