Monday, July 21, 2008
"[O]ur celebrity bastard-child culture is having an adverse impact on the culture-at-large ..."
Today's Tennessean features an article in which "experts" are shocked that our celebrity bastard-child culture is having an adverse impact on the culture-at-large:
"Many teen pregnancies still take place against a backdrop of economic distress or a search for love, experts say — that's been the case for years.
"But counselors say they now are also concerned about a combination of factors that may make it easier for teens to become sexually active without fully understanding the potential consequences: Glamour shots of pregnant celebs are featured in magazines and on TV alongside increasingly sexualized fashions and images of younger girls.
"Nationwide, the teen birth rate rose 3 percent from 2005 to 2006, the most recent year with data available, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was the first increase recorded since 1991."
Reading that, I couldn't help but think back to something I wrote on 7 June 2003. Please to enjoy this portion of a post I published back in the day on a now-defunct Web site:
Anti-tobacco zealots are all head-up over the fact that Nicole Kidman dared light-up at a Cannes Film Festival news conference. Action on Smoking and Health (?!) chief executive Anne Jones said Kidman was "perpetuating the image that smoking is associated with glamour, independence, and success." Thus, Kidman is a bad role model for our yout's.
If Ms. Kidman had dragged a bastard child to the news conference, what would have happened? The answer, of course, is ... nothing would have happened. You see, clouding one's lungs with cigarette smoke is an affront to society; but purposefully bringing out-of-wedlock children into the world is to be celebrated as a "lifestyle choice."
Dozens of academic studies have told us that a child who's born into a single-parent household will more often than not spend the rest of his or her life in abject or near-poverty. But we never hear anyone in Hollywood express concern about kids born into single-parent families. Instead, single-motherhood is celebrated (especially if the single-mother's child was created on purpose); and anyone who dares suggest that having bastard children is not such a good idea (see Quayle, J. Danforth) is maligned as being hopelessly "out of touch."
I, for one, think society has its priorites all wrong. If we're going to criticize someone for promoting a habit that will cause the influenced, if you will, health problems in 20 or 30 years, then shouldn't we criticize folks who promote a "lifestyle choice" that has immediate - negative - consequences for not one, but two people? You bet we we should ... political correctness be damned.
If smoking the occasional cigarette is the worst activity in which Ms. Nicole Kidman indulges, then I say leave her alone.
"Many teen pregnancies still take place against a backdrop of economic distress or a search for love, experts say — that's been the case for years.
"But counselors say they now are also concerned about a combination of factors that may make it easier for teens to become sexually active without fully understanding the potential consequences: Glamour shots of pregnant celebs are featured in magazines and on TV alongside increasingly sexualized fashions and images of younger girls.
"Nationwide, the teen birth rate rose 3 percent from 2005 to 2006, the most recent year with data available, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That was the first increase recorded since 1991."
Reading that, I couldn't help but think back to something I wrote on 7 June 2003. Please to enjoy this portion of a post I published back in the day on a now-defunct Web site:
Anti-tobacco zealots are all head-up over the fact that Nicole Kidman dared light-up at a Cannes Film Festival news conference. Action on Smoking and Health (?!) chief executive Anne Jones said Kidman was "perpetuating the image that smoking is associated with glamour, independence, and success." Thus, Kidman is a bad role model for our yout's.
If Ms. Kidman had dragged a bastard child to the news conference, what would have happened? The answer, of course, is ... nothing would have happened. You see, clouding one's lungs with cigarette smoke is an affront to society; but purposefully bringing out-of-wedlock children into the world is to be celebrated as a "lifestyle choice."
Dozens of academic studies have told us that a child who's born into a single-parent household will more often than not spend the rest of his or her life in abject or near-poverty. But we never hear anyone in Hollywood express concern about kids born into single-parent families. Instead, single-motherhood is celebrated (especially if the single-mother's child was created on purpose); and anyone who dares suggest that having bastard children is not such a good idea (see Quayle, J. Danforth) is maligned as being hopelessly "out of touch."
I, for one, think society has its priorites all wrong. If we're going to criticize someone for promoting a habit that will cause the influenced, if you will, health problems in 20 or 30 years, then shouldn't we criticize folks who promote a "lifestyle choice" that has immediate - negative - consequences for not one, but two people? You bet we we should ... political correctness be damned.
If smoking the occasional cigarette is the worst activity in which Ms. Nicole Kidman indulges, then I say leave her alone.
# posted by Joltin' Django @ Monday, July 21, 2008 
