Give Amy Acker an Emmy!, and other thoughts

I received this article through the library program's listserv about CDs that have been banned in Kansas public libraries. Now, censorship issues (always a big topic with us library types) aside, I'm sort of puzzled. I'm a fan of OutKast, Lou Reed, and Devo. I can sort of see the logic in censoring OutKast, although honestly I don't hear all that much that I object to. Sure, there's occasional gangster-ism. Some of the sexual content, maybe, although I find it less offensive (and less creepy) than "Yummy yummy yummy I got love in my tummy". Any group that can make a catchy dance song that makes Rosa Parks sue them, and then bring back the time-honored tradition of shaking Polaroid pictures, shouldn't be banned. But moving on... Lou Reed is a bit dodgier; while he has always dealt lyrically with topics that may potentially be deemed unseemly -- botched sex changes, being joined to an illegal opiate in the bonds of Holy Matrimony, New York telephone conversations -- he's rarely depicted them as very glamorous. While I'm not familiar with all of his solo work, most of what I do know (even most of the Velvet Underground stuff, certainly most of it after White Light/White Heat) I would probably consider pretty tame by today's standards. But Devo? What the Hell is going on there? The worst (in terms of content) song they did was "Penetration in the Centrefold", a track that I don't believe is even available anymore! Is this about "Whip it"? Because, to be honest, a song considered suitable to shill Swiffers really can't be considered all that outre. Are kids lining up for the library's copy of Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo? I'm at a loss.

In a quasi-related note: I like Everwood. The TV show. Those not recoiling in horror probably don't know what it is -- it's a dramedy on The WB. Anywho, the Parents' Television Council named their best and worst family shows a couple weeks back. This being the same group that declared Buffy the Vampire Slayer the worst show for families during the show's sixth season, when the titular heroine's best friend went insane and skinned a guy after he shot her girlfriend, and when every woman in town seemed to be lining up to boff a British vampire with bleached hair. So anyways, leading the pack of offenders, ahead of all the CSI's and Law and Orders and The OC is... Everwood.

"Everwood" tops the worst list primarily for its "careless and irresponsible treatment of sexual issues," but it also loses points for being sneaky. The show "gives every appearance of being a family drama, but it's nothing of the kind," the group says. "... 'Everwood's' reckless messages about sex without consequences are expressly targeted to impressionable teens."

Because, you know, getting the first woman you ever sleep with pregnant -- that's not a consequence. Nor is having to break it off with the woman you love because your kids have already lost their mother, and because to continue an affair with a woman who is HIV+ is too much for them to handle. Last season, there was an epidemic of oral gonnorhea in the high school, and another young woman who got knocked up and considered (but didn't get) an abortion. This just infuriates me to no end. I think the PTC is just pissed that Everwood hasn't settled into the monotonous, chaste mediocrity of its lead-in show, Seventh Heaven -- number five on their list of the best family shows on TV, after some dreck from PAX, and Joan of Arcadia.

Everwood, in spite of its name which continues to inspire hearty guffaws from my father, and which sounds like one of those male enhancement products which clog my Junk Mail folder with astonishing regularity, is a good show. Not as good as Angel or Gilmore Girls, but better than Joan of Arcadia. I watch it with my mom, so as far as I'm concerned, it's totally family-friendly. (She claims to agree with my position, too.)

And yes, Amy Acker does deserve the Emmy for her role on Angel this past season. Actually, just for that one scene in "The Girl in Question" when she seamlessly shifts character with no makeup or special effects. She just changes. It still gives me chills. Her stunt double on the show was from my mother's hometown of Monticello, Indiana.

On that note of randomness: Guten Nacht.