1. “Do you think it's appropriate for a high school to allow its kids to put on a play that promotes sex, drug and alcohol abuse?"
“Bat Boy” does not PROMOTE these things. It may INCLUDE or ADDRESS them, but there is a vast difference.
BTW, have you ever seen or read “Grease?” Do you how many hundreds of thousands of times that play has been done on a high school stage or how – even when modified to remove inappropriate language – it includes topics such as drug use, adolescent drinking, promiscuous teen sex and abortion? Or perhaps viewers didn’t notice because they were too busy humming along to “Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee.”
2. Are you against pedophilia?
The reason this is an inadequate and inappropriate analogy is that we know exactly what pedophilia is without having to actually experience it. Having not read or seen “Bat Boy,” you do not know the story, the dialogue in the script or its context and therefore cannot effectively pass judgment.
On another note, I want to point out that Karen Johnson’s article, “Bat Boy Isn’t About a Superhero” which you posted on April 23, 2005 includes numerous inaccuracies in the form of misspelled names, grammatical errors, incorrect paraphrasing, and flat out untruths such as, “While exploring the world, Bat Boy and the rest of the cast use drugs, alcohol and sex as tools for acceptance.” Untrue. Review of recent articles published by credible news sources such as the Los Angeles Times will confirm this and other inaccuracies.(see http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-batboy28apr28,1,20713.story?ctrack=1&cset=true and http://www.lacanadaonline.com/articles/2005/04/25/news/news02.txt
Lastly, I would remind you that the reason God sent His son to save us is because evil existed in the world. We should not allow our minds to be clouded with evil, yet it is important to be conscious of the everyday conflict between good and evil. It is unavoidable. The Bible contains the broadest range of evil and sin and we use it as our sole resource for understanding how to combat it. I would never compare the Bible to “Bat Boy,” but would suggest that you view “Bat Boy” in the correct context: it does not encourage or glamorize sinful acts anymore than “Oliver!” advocates pick-pocketing as an appropriate occupation for youth.
I think you studiously missed the point of the comments. If you want your teenagers to go see Bat Boy, by all means, let them go. You can have the pleasure of trying to explain some of that stuff to them afterward.
There is no comparison between Grease and Bat Boy and your efforts to make one reeeeaaaaalllyyy stretches the limits of credibility.
But, the problem that you seem to be overlooking is that teenagers are subjected to enough pressure and exposed to enough garbage - this isn't anything they need to be exposed to. There are still enough excellent plays that would provide a better, more thoughtful, more enlightening and more entertaining experience for them.
And your analogy to God pushes the extremes of ludicrousness. Yes, there are good and evil in the world but, in Christian religions, we take it on faith that evil exists and that Jesus came to earth to wash away our sins. God doesn't require us to participate in monthly perversion to recognize the difference between good and evil. That you are so blase about the terrible messages that Bat Boy presents tells me that Satan has already gotten a pretty good grip on you.
IOW, we don't have to experience evil to know that it exists. There are some things so obvious that they defy the need to experience them. Bat Boy is one of those things.