fuddy-duddy:adj. -old fashioned, unimaginative, conservative-
Once upon a time, I used to be so avant-garde, more hip than
hippies, a bohemian and a trend setter but no more. I am
officially a fuddy-duddy. I watched last month's popular MTV
movie awards show and realized that not only did I find the
program boring, I found it offensive.
This annual show draws high ratings from preadolescents and teens
and since I live with a few of them I tuned in. Nearly every
single award presenter found it necessary to interject sexual
innuendoes into the ceremony and were egged on by a star-studded
audience making whooping sounds and childish catcalls. MTV's
obsession with sex has reduced this once innovative network to a
state of arrested development but television is not the only area
where mindless sex has become trite.
Sex on the big screen is scheduled to heat up this week when the
last film of ``legendary director'' Stanley Kubrick, ``Eyes Wide
Shut'' opens nationwide. Early reviews proclaim that this steamy,
sexual drama leaves little to the imagination. Oh, how I wish
Hollywood would leave at least a little to my imagination!
Superstar Tom Cruise and his wife Nicole Kidman portray a married
couple caught up in sexual adventures and supposedly this film
will be a searing look into the human sexual psyche. Voyeuristic
ads hyping the film show a nude Nicole and Tom passionately
making out in front of a mirror.
This film took forever to make and the fastidious Kubrick
laboriously shot and reshot his married stars' love scenes. The
film also contains scenes of an orgy and a hint of necrophilia so
I can't help but wonder if Stanley's legacy will prove him to be
finally just a dirty old man.
Sex is saturating our lives via the media. It's everywhere. It's
on the Internet, in sitcoms, talk shows and in ads on the sides
of public buses. It's in every magazine and in every theater
because everyone knows that sex sells and is good for profits. So
what's wrong with this theory? Well for one thing, it's a myth.
For example, of the top 50 highest grossing films of all times,
only seven are R rated and of these only two were rated R for
sexual content. All the other films are rated G,P or PG13.
The sexual revolution of the 1960's was supposed to liberate us
from our inhibitions and our repressed ``ids''. We still,
however, had some values and a sense of shame. These were
instilled in us by our parents and elders. Unfortunately, we have
not been as successful in passing on these values to our own
children and thus we now have sexual abandon loose in a morally
blasé society. I know, I know, I'm preaching.
But what happens when our libido is allowed to overrun our
societal behavior? Censorship is not the answer but I do believe
it is important to have standards. It is important for a
community to declare boundaries and restrictions for an open
society. Why?-because of the children.
The sexual saturation of our media has had a deleterious impact
on the most innocent among us. The steady exposure of accepted
libidinous behavior has given rise to premature sensuality among
the youngest of our children.
Incidents of kindergarten children being accused of sexual
aggression are no exaggeration. My daughter Danielle is a
beautiful young woman who works as a kindergarten aide and was
told by an infatuated student that he'd like a piece of her
``***'' She's also shocked at how familiar pre-schoolers are with
the adult terminology for sexual situations.
Even more devastating is the impact on our adolescents and
teenagers. Violence by juveniles escalated dramatically in the
mid-'80's. These are the years when the children of the sixties
generation reached adolescence. ``Letting it all hang out''; ``If
it feels good, do it'' and other mantras of the '60's have been
poor substitutes for traditional values of right and wrong.
Take a good look at the television shows of the '50's, 60's and
'70's that were aimed at teenagers: The Mickey Mouse Club; Leave
it to Beaver; Partridge Family; Happy Days; Brady Bunch…..no
bed-hopping on any of these shows. They were insipid, wholesome
and non-threatening to our egos.
Compare these shows with today's teen fare: Beverly Hills 90210;
Party of Five; Dawson's Creek; Felicity; That '70's Show; Boy
Meets World, etc. On these teen shows, everyone is acne-free and
their ideal weight. Dates are plentiful with nearly every
character sexually active and of course, chastity is suspect.
In my youth I never identified with any TV character but I could
at least identify with their values. There are very few shows
today that have any role models for virtue. Au contraire,
virginal characters are anomalies and deemed not quite right.
What do the shy, inhibited teens of today think of themselves? Do
they feel like outsiders, losers? Do they feel like they're
missing something in life? Do they feel they have to be sexually
active by the time they're 16? Do they feel ashamed of their
faces, their bodies, unwanted, unloved? Is this alienation part
of what fueled the hatred of the killers towards the more popular
students at Columbine H.S. in Colorado?
Look at what our teens are doing to themselves. They are
mutilating their bodies with tattoos and piercing their private
parts. Whether or not they'd like to admit it, these are signs of
low self esteem. They can't picture themselves as normal. They
embrace a gothic lifestyle. The new season of an MTV program
called ``The Real World"" opens with nude bathing and
will have a bisexuality theme. How real is that?
Parents need to tell their children that the modern teen image is
a fraud. Those actors portraying teens on television and films
are usually men and women in their mid twenties well past teen
gawkiness. They do not represent reality. Parents need to
reassure them that they understand how difficult it is to be a
teenager. Most important, they need to reestablish high moral
standards.
I'm not trying to tell people what to do with their private lives
but the private has become public and our children are paying the
price. No mas, no mas. Basta, Basta! It's time for society to say
to Tom and Nicole, ``For God's sake, close the bedroom door.''