MTV show "Skins" may violate federal child pornography law

My best friend in college was the entertainment editor for the school paper (I was the sports editor). "Kids" was part of the university film series one semester and my buddy was doing a story on the film and all the controversy it had generated. He spoke to the PR guy who was promoting the film's tour of colleges.

The PR guy asked my buddy "so what did you think of the film?"

My buddy: "Well ... it was OK ... "

PR guy: "I thought it sucked. That Larry Clark is a fuckin' pedophile if you ask me."

Gold ... pure off-the-record gold.

 

That's a great story.

Off-topic, my wife was once getting a mani-pedi, and one of the nail techs (or whatever they're called) was yelling, frantically searching for a piece of equipment. "Where's the pedifile! I need a pedifile! Could someone get me a pedifile?" (It's probably funnier said than typed.)

 

"It's OK, Jenny, it's me, Casper." Ugh.

Say what you will about the movie, but "Natural One" is a great fucking song.

 

yeah ... Folk Implosion. Very Butthole Surfers-esque.

 

"Has anybody seen Mike Hunt? Is Mike Hunt in the parking lot?"

 

Slate TV critic Troy Patterson had a good line (that he admitted was partially paraphrasing Don Dellilo) about this show:

Skins isn't pornography about children. It's cultural pornography made for them, enabling the youth to rejoice in the fantasy of their corruption.

 

Not to take this in a different direction, but wasn't it just a few years ago that MTV was bleeping references to drugs in songs (Tom Petty comes to mind)?
So now it has a show that already has a marijuana buy and an OD in the first episode?
Way to stick to your guns, as hypocritical as it was in the first place, MTV.

 

Only if you consider 1994 a few years ago.

 

In my world, I guess so..

 

David Carr in the Times:

 

Oh, there's worse. I saw the documentary "La Vida Loca." It's not about Ricky Martin. It's about El Salvadorian gangs. We had no idea what the movie was going to be about, but saw it anyway. Most depressing move I've ever seen. Worse than Kids.

Trailer (NSFW!):

 

I tried to watch a few minutes of the show last night. I lasted about 10-15 minutes. There was some red faced, fat, shirtless cliche dad screaming at his kid to turn the music down. Then he came into the kitchen and was screaming some more. There was a cougar across the street in a window strip teasing for the main character. There was the sister of the main character looking stereotypically strung out. It all felt really, really contrived.

I watched "Kids" about 10 times in the '90s. It was my gang's go-to movie. A lot of famous people came out of that, including Chloe Sevigny (Jenny) and Rosario Dawson. Telly, the main character, played Johnny on "The Wire." His friend in "Kids," the Casper character, sadly hung himself a few years later.