Do you really know why your kid is watching that?

I must live in a more religious area than I realized. I trust most of you have heard about that one theater in Utah that cancelled it’s showing of Brokeback Mountain or how a couple NBC stations are refusing to show The Book of Daniel. Well I’m there and I’ve been there. Brokeback Mountain will not be coming to the Michiana region. I had hoped that South Bend would have been big enough for it to make it there, but it hasn’t. The nearest theater that I could find is in Chicago. Try telling your parents that you are going to Chicago just to see a movie that you can’t see here. I’m sure that won’t raise suspicion. In regards to The Book of Daniel, something similar happened a few years ago when NBC tried to come out with the show called Coupling which was an American copy of the British show with the same name. The NBC station servicing this area, WNDU, refused to air it on the grounds that it was too sexually provocative. I’ve seen the British version on BBC America. It’s not that bad. It’s just way too short. While WNDU will be showing The Book of Daniel, it kind of peeves me that the social conservatives here work so hard to ban shows that they haven’t even seen.

Since I mentioned the BBC, quite oddly, I picked up two more shows that I’m seriously considering watching on a regular basis. Apologies to Kate, but usually I can only stand to watch their DIY shows like Changing Rooms or Cash in the Attic and the BBC News. But yesterday I had nothing to do but lounge around the house. Out of the 100 or so channels, there was nothing on except Alien 3. So I flipped to the BBC and found The Robinsons. It had Martin Freeman on it. I remembered him from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and so I gave it a chance. It turned out to be a marathon that I filled up my afternoon. Then later on in the night came Mile High which is total crap but I laugh at it because it’s soooo crappy not to mention that one guy (Will) is kind of attractive. Too bad he’s straight in real life.

I am really uncomfortable watching show with gay people in it because I hate it when my parents occasionally point it out. I fear what they say because I put their words on me. The only exception to this is Ross the Intern on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. They find him funny. Almost as if that’s the only redeeming quality. A couple days ago, my Dad actually raised his voice at me when we almost got into an argument over the The Book of Daniel and its premier. He brought up the fact that the son was a homosexual and the daughter was involved in drugs and that it was “wrong” to show on television. Then last night while watching Desperate Housewives, the Bree caught her son with his boyfriend in bed. My Mom says, “That’s so sick.” It made me feel so small.

If this post sounds like I watch TV too much, I really don’t. Aside from 3 hours on Friday, and one hour for Desperate Housewives on Sunday, I don’t watch anything else regularly—just whatever happens to be on when I’m free.