Monday, February 18, 2013

This Is The Downside I Speak Of


Kiddie PORN!  I'm saying that loud and clear, just so no one confuses this with a rant about something inconsequential.  I watched kiddie porn last night, did you?

Shameless on Showtime is not one of my favorite shows, it falls into the same "better than nothing" category as True Blood for me.  I did enjoy the parade of guest stars on Shameless - I say did because I became a non-viewer of the show directly after the kiddie porn scene - and it was wonderful seeing both Louise Fletcher and Chloe Webb last season.  And did I mention Joan Cusack?  I just love her, she's a national treasure.

But last night, and now this morning, there is nothing you can say to me to get me to support those pedophiles.  And, if you are still watching after last night's episode, I'm going to think you are a pedophile, no joke.

If you're not familiar with Shameless, it is a remake of a British import about a poor family doing whatever they can to survive.  The Gallagher kids pretty much have to raise themselves since their mom keeps taking off and dad is an alcoholic/pill popping/deadbeat/con artist.  Oldest sibling Fiona has taken over for her parents and dropped out of school to raise her brothers and one sister.

Deb Gallagher, played by 14 year old Emma Kenney was brutally victimized in last night's episode by the producers of that show and, of greater importance, by her own parents.  Her story line involved Deb's first trip to the community pool, and what started out as a cute story soon turned ugly when the mean girls at the pool criticized Deb's flat chest.

The show truly lived up to its title during Deb's second trip to the pool, after she had taken her older sister's matching bra and panties to wear.  The pedophile director lingered on Deb's covered body as she sat by the pool and worked up her nerve, then skeevily showed her dropping the first towel and rise up so she could dramatically drop her second towel.  Then there she was, a 14 year old girl put on film for all the world to see in a bikini, constantly fiddling with the ill fitting top as it exposed the undersides of her breasts.

KIDDIE PORN

I am not a prude, I can look at tits, dicks, trannies and shoe lickers all day - as long as they are mature, consenting tits, dicks, trannies and shoe lickers.  But I'm a parent, I have a daughter who was 14 once, I was a 14 year old girl once, so I can say with authority that no 14 year old girl wants to parade around in a bikini for the historical record.

So why do her parents think this is ok?  Why do you think this is ok?  Aren't you the same people who keep asking why sickos are shooting up schools?  Because this passes for entertainment, Lindsey Lohan's meltdown is entertaining to you.  These children are abused in front of your eyes and it's ok with you.

It is not ok with me.  It was not ok when Madmen decided that Don Draper's adolescent daughter could play with herself on television, nor when that same child actress was filmed on a bed in her underwear.  NOT OK.

It is not ok for Will and Jada Smith to pimp out their kids on the red carpet, it is not ok to put children on reality shows.  These children are actors/entertainers second, they are human beings first and we seem to think those children are somehow different than ours because they are actors.  But they are just kids, doing what their parents are telling them to do and being forced to compete with adults in an adult field.

In any other industry, that would be called abuse, but since these kids are on TV, no rules apply.  It's only going to get worse you know, if no one says anything, if no one does anything.  In fact, it is probably already much worse than we know, because we are only seeing the successful children.  But what about all those others, the ones you don't see?

How many kids with fame whore parents in Hollywood are doing art films, student films, web projects, etc.? I wonder how many of those projects were never actually intended for mainstream audiences, I wonder how many of those fame whore parents gave their children willingly to pornographers and called it art?

The industry of children entertainers makes a lot of money, so you know the Hollywood types are not going to police themselves.  The star-making machine is very well known to devour the weak, which River Phoenix would be happy to tell you had he not opted to kill himself instead.  Shirley Temple was our first child star, and our first cautionary tale about child stars, and virtually nothing has changed since then.

Child actors are not commodities, they are people who are not given a real voice in what happens to them. They are the white slaves of the new millennium and they are paraded like slabs of meat in your living rooms.  

YOUR living rooms, not mine.  I'm taking the sanctimonious high ground on this one.


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