MTV’s Skins Canceled

So, uh, it took a little longer than I expected, but I think I called this months ago? Again, is anyone really surprised? I never watched a single episode, but I can draw two possible conclusions on the reasons behind the cancellation: first, in usual MTV fashion, they pushed the line of decency a little too far and the television watching masses just weren’t buying it; and/or secondly, American audiences simply are too prudish to handle a television series based around teen sex and drug use. I’m going to skip the first candidate because it’s fairly obvious: if it’s not extreme, MTV doesn’t give a shit about it these days. However, with the second one, I’m sad to say that the United States has reverted to being prudish about sex and drugs even though we claim to be a free country, with free media, and free speech. We allow drugs in our television shows as long as it shows the negative connotations, and we frown on teen sex though we glorify sex in every way shape and form in every medium where there’s the possibility of making money from it. Still, do you know how prudish we seem about sex?

Let me put it this way, when Janet Jackson went and exposed one of her breasts on television at the Superbowl (yeah, admit it, you know the “incident”), millions of Americans freaked out and had the FCC clamp down on nudity and sex in a harsh way on television. Hell, incidental profanity on television and radio now days can cost the broadcaster hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines! Yet you know what’s on British television just about every night? For lack of a better description, topless phone sex infomercials. That’s right, women baring their breasts — and displaying them uncensored! — on public television while wearing either nothing at all or skimpy panties, soliciting customers for phone sex lines. Just about every night. Public television. Oh, did I mention that British television doesn’t censor half of the profanity that we do?

When did the stiff, prudish Brits become more liberal and free than Americans? Why is it that we hide from sex and profanity in some ways while the rest of the world acknowledge them? You know why teen pregnancy is so damned high in this country? Because we want our kids to think that sex doesn’t exist until they’re eighteen… For thousands of years, right up until we really got to be “civilized” in the early 20th century, children were either in the same room — separated by a flimsy curtain perhaps — or even the same damned bed as their parents when their parents were having sex. They knew about sex. They were probably disgusted by it. They certainly didn’t want to have it until after they hit puberty and hormones started to demand it. But over the last hundred years or so, we want to deny them the education and exposure, to prevent them from knowing about it, and guess what! They’re trying it younger and younger as a result…


That’s not to say I support what MTV probably did with Skins, but this country has some fucking issues to work out…
