I sit here in disbelief at the thought process of the heads of Boston's WGBH and PBS in general. Many stations and groups, as well as government regulators are deeply concerned regarding an episode of the popular kid's show Postcards from Buster.
The offensive episode is entitled "Hot All-Girl Action" and it finds Buster taking his camera to visit a lesbian couple in Vermont as they take their daughter out to fetch some maple sap for syrup making. How damn insensitive and agenda pushing has children's television become?
Have they no concern for us trying to raise children in a maple free environment? PBS has always stood for a safe and wholesome goodness that equates with quality educational television.
Now a debacle depicting free-flowing "sugartime" being bandied about like it was nature's way to coat our flapjacks is just simply wrong.
At a young age, I was dragged by a teacher to a maple farm, where after watching the penetration of saplings, I was then forced to eat an overabundance of maple products. I vomited. And to this day I still nearly vomit at the thought of maple products and that horrible forced mastication... and swallowing.
Our house is now maple free. We only buy Aunt Jemima syrups in this house because they contain no real maple. The warm and safe happiness of that Slave Woman's sugary goodness brings back cozy memories of my life back on the plantation, when all was right and just in the world. It was just me and her tremendous bosom, one that I suckled all through my teenage years; our love child still writes to me from his prison work gang.
But now the world and its moral values are cast aside by the careless.
I never felt that I had to sit side-by-side with my daughter as she watched Public Television. I fear for what she will see. What if diversity creeps into her vocabulary? What if she sees children eating peanuts when she knows that her school is "nut product free?" I hope she does not cross to the dark side. SpongeBob SquarePants eats nuts, ya know.
*originally posted on brianlewandowski.com
Article comments
1 - NancyGail
Please say you're joking. This had nothing to do with the syrup.
2 - Eric Olsen
mighty and biting satire Big Bri - we live in volatile times, especially for the media. Thanks!
3 - Dave Nalle
My youngest daughter has two kids in her daycare who have lesbian couple parents. It doesn't seem to have scarred her for life, but we'll have to wait and see how she turns out down the road. That said, I've got no problem with the PBS show, except that it's so dull my 2 year old won't watch it. Maybe some girl-on-girl will spice it up. I assume that PBS complies with the TV Ratings standards? I think I would want this episode to carry a TV-13 rating to at least give sensitive parents some warning.
But then on the other hand, if we can't give government payola to talk show hosts, why is the government underwriting an entire damned TV network?
Dave
4 - Anna
Heh... thanks for the chuckle. You can read a more serious blog entry about this PBS decision over at Ms. Musings:
http://www.msmagazine.com/blog/archives/2005/01/the_unreal_worl.html
5 - Temple Stark
No doubt about it - a tacky and sticky situation here.
You know how it goes - those are probably Canadian immigrant trees. Blame Canada
6 - Eric Olsen
I remember my first exposure to maple sap sucking: Burton, OH, '72
but we wouldn't have thought of putting it on TV!
7 - NancyGail
Nice site. BTW, head is missing on left hand pic. Did you mean to?
So how do the Kennedys like their newest neighbor? (yes, you)
8 - Big Time Patriot
Everyone knows the real out cry is because some of the trees had cross polinated from close relatives. The shame of it all...
I am worried that my children will be confused when it becomes their time to polinate...