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Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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from WSJ Feb 4
Quote:
Feb 4, 2004
Wall Street Journal
Viacom's Porn Channel
So the entire world has now got a taste of what passes for entertainment on MTV every day. That was our reaction to the furor over the MTV-produced Super Bowl halftime show, which network President Judy McGrath described as "exciting" and "great" and marred only by "five seconds none of us knew anything about."
Uh-huh. Nelly's simulated masturbation -- while performing his trademark "Hot in Herre" ("So take off all your clothes...") -- was no doubt wholesome family fare. As was the simulated sex between Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake that preceded the now infamous breast-baring incident. As, for that matter, was the Britney Spears-Madonna lip-clinch that defined the most recent MTV Video Music Awards.
"Five seconds none of us knew anything about"? Give us a break.
The truth is that Ms. McGrath makes her living as an impresario of soft-core (albeit legal) kiddy porn. MTV has very consciously decided to make stars out of such scantily clad nymphettes as Ms. Spears and Christina Aguilera. The network that is a favorite of pre-teens is also home to an ever-growing array of shows with more ("Undressed") or less ("The Real World") sexually explicit themes.
The Viacom TV channel will also soon be hitting the beaches for its Spring Break specials, the message of which is that excessive underage drinking and casual sexual hookups are no-cost fun. Meanwhile, MTV sister channel VH1 (also overseen by Ms. McGrath) has a "Porn to Rock" series that is turning triple-X stars like Jenna Jameson into household names.
Next to all of this, the Super Bowl halftime show was relatively tame and mercifully short. We're pretty sure the kids will survive it, but we're less sanguine about the long-term effects of the daily sex diet that Ms. McGrath is feeding poorly supervised youngsters. If MTV, its parent company Viacom and Chairman Sumner Redstone are truly contrite about what happened Sunday, they can show it by providing some adult guidance to their music networks. And how about showing Ms. McGrath the door?
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Tom Freston responded to the Editor of the WSJ and I will post that later.
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I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.
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