Posted on 09/30/2006 12:05:11 AM PDT by beaversmom
Students of history know that over the millennia, great civilizations crumbled not from without, but from within. The Visigoths may have crushed the Romans in 476, but long before the Roman Empire had begun to disintegrate internally, its social fabric slowly shredded apart and ultimately it became a paper tiger unable to sustain itself. In our own lifetime, its quite apparent that we are witnessing an increasingly rapid and equally worrisome descent in the moral mean.
Heres one spectacular, depressing example. In the 1970s, one of the most celebrated family shows on TV was "Little House on the Prairie." One of NBCs most durable series, its audience would trounce todays television hits because back in those days, family TV shows were watched by the family, not just the youngest offspring. The lead role was played by Michael Landon, but the show also gave rise to another star, the gawky, pig-tailed child named Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls, or "Half-Pint," as she was lovingly called by Pa Ingalls. In recent years she has starred mostly on family-friendly shows like Touched by An Angel and 7th Heaven.
Perhaps this is a classic example of how pathetically low our societys morals have fallen in 25 years: Melissa Gilbert just guest-starred on the FX cable networks grotesque show "Nip/Tuck." Are you ready for this? As a woman needing to have a nipple replaced....because her dog bit it off....during sex.
Im not kidding. I wish I were.
It was somehow not enough to have a little light fun of sex with a cow (ABCs Boston Legal), or sex with a horse (on Foxs Keen Eddie), or even violating a parrot with a finger (on the aptly named UPN show Shasta McNasty). Now its bestiality with the family dog as the punch line. Lassie and Rin-Tin-Tin: be glad youre dead.
Gilberts husband returns home from Iraq to discover his wifes enraptured with a whole new definition of "puppy love." He screams at her in disgust that he failed to expect she would turn into a "faithless, demented whore," a special breed of floozy to be sure given she used peanut butter to seduce the family pooch into the sack. To complete the circle of sleaze, the husband vengefully dumps the dog, now a lifeless heap, out of a duffel bag in front of her. This being a graphic show about surgery, we see we have to see -- Gilberts bare breast (albeit covered by a plastic wound) as they prepare her for a new nipple.
Why did she do this? Is the wholesome tag such a scarlet letter in todays Tinseltown that it requires this level of penance? Perhaps theres even more to it. Until recently, Gilbert was president of the Screen Actors Guild, which has fought proposals to strengthen protections against televised indecency. Gilbert couldnt have taken a more public stand (in this case, in the prone position) than this disgusting stunt.
Nip/Tuck, televisions most overwrought sleazefest, is beginning its fourth season of plastic surgery and gaudy immorality with a load of new guest stars clamoring for seats on the bandwagon, but the same perverse drive to shatter every barrier of good taste. Its so graphic, violent, and sexually repulsive that one prison banned its inmates from watching it. And with its available to millions of impressionable children on the cable or satellite TV systems in their homes.
And TV critics continue to applaud every new outburst of wickedness. The Hartford Courant has raved that "no show has been as consistently audacious, finding the very edges of taste and acceptance each week and using every power of its extended cable status to leap beyond them." The Palm Beach Post lovingly described it a "shocking, sexy, graphic, funny, wildly over-the-top, I-can't-believe-what-I'm-watching drama."
They arent looking for artistic excellence. They are looking for the fastest path to subversion, a roller coaster ride to the depths of excess. Nip/Tuck can meet them there with great enthusiasm.
Up next on Nip/Tuck is Rosie ODonnell, and it wouldnt be worth the guest starring role without Rosies character having sex with Dr. Christian Troy, the shows stud muffin. TV Guide has already spurred ODonnell to recount the filming of the absolutely hilarious sex scene, how the actor playing Dr. Troy was naked except for a sock and she decided to go topless, and how her lesbian partner loved watching every minute.
And Hollywoods loving it. Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy is popular enough that hes preparing another project for FX called 4 oz. named for the average weight of a flaccid penis. Its a drama about a transsexual sportswriter with a wife and two teenage sons. Theres no cast yet, but he claims his phone "is ringing off the hook" from A-list stars who he says shall remain nameless. The wages of preposterous sin are rich indeed in todays Hollywood.
I think that would have been Lorne Greene, if he was still alive.
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