The Skinny on "Skins"

The Skinny on "Skins"

I recall visiting England in 1978. Even then, although located only about 3,500 miles to our east, England was light years ahead of the United States in terms of its oh-so- advanced, progressive culture.

As “All in the Family,” based on a Brit sitcom, was nearing the end of its run here after years of controversy over the show’s then-shocking sex references and such never-before-heard sounds on television as Archie flushing an upstairs toilet, Britain’s BBC featured what would have shocked the socks off American TV censors, full-frontal nudity.

Today we have another export from across the Pond which is anything but a sitcom, the award-winning–in Britain which loves conferring awards–teen drama, ”Skins.” That telly gem gave birth this month to the Viacom-MTV series of the same name which deals with similar themes of teenage angst in the twenty-first century.

Both the Brit and American “Skins” are a far cry from “Ozzie and Harriet” or even “Friends.” The website for the U.S. version, http://www.skins.tv/, gives a bare inkling as to the essence of the show although it does clearly demonstrate the meaning of the title. “Skins” features lots of skin, teenage skin.

The 5 episodes of Series One include dysfunctional characters aged 15-19 involved with and engaged in everything from a few common and normal situations to significantly dysfunctional interests and activities.

Eating disorders, violence, illicit drugs, alcohol, hallucinations, abandonment, divorce, suicide, over-dosing, masturbation, sexual assault and seduction earned “Skins” an TV-MA rating. Dollops of underage nudity were added to insure that enough young people would ignore that restriction and tune in to make “Skins” a hit.

It’s that nudity, child pornography, set to air January 31st in the third episode, which will insure the show will bomb in its American venue. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3482)

Sex in the News. Part One {R-Rated}

Sex In The News. Part One {R-rated}

“And that’s why birds do it, bees do it,
Even educated fleas do it.
Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.”

The lyrics of Cole Porter’s 1920’s song, “Let’s Do It,” was a tad risque’ for its time even if its time was the Roaring Twenties when flappers were re-inventing the social structure and staging an early version of women’s liberation.

What the birds and the bees and both educated and uneducated fleas were doing wasn’t just flocking or buzzing or biting together but rather propagating their respective species via sex.

Despite the flappers, that subject–not propagation but recreational sex–had long been taboo in Hollywood and TV where censors always required one participant to have one foot firmly planted on the floor in bedroom scenes and words such as “pregnant” were verbotten.

Lucy and Ricky had to have twin beds because, God forbid, married couples couldn’t be seen sharing a bed. And Lucy wasn’t pregnant, she was having a baby which was more explicit language than was permissible when George Bailey’s wife conceived a child in “It’s a Wonderful Life” ten years earlier.

Mary Bailey was “on the nest.”

We’ve come a long way, baby, . . .

(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1441)