TVSquad

Here's the story:

Carved in a hillside in the U.K., Cerne Abbas in Dorset to be exact, is a 180 ft image known as the "Cerne Abbas giant." The club (and boner) weilding pagan god has been in place since the 17th century and is seen as a symbol of fertility (and how).

Now, the god has a friend, or at least a temporary visitor. A drawing of Homer Simpson, placed there to promote the upcoming movie, now stands next to the ancient symbol. The biodegradable Homer pic will wash away after the first rain, but local pagans are still upset, calling the advertisement disrespectfut. I'm sure it doesn't help that Homer and the giant look like they're playing some perverted form of ring toss, too.

I'm not easily offended (hell, I often offend people by how unoffended I am by offensive things), but this concept does seem more than a little egregious.

Hot Ghetto Mess, a new series on BET based on the Web site HotGhettoMess.com, has already courted some controversy before its July 25 premiere.

The new series features user-submitted videos and street interviews meant to encourage viewers to change themselves and their communities for the better.

Or, it's a show that exploits stereotypes, and it's the reason both Home Depot and State Farm Insurance have asked to be dropped from the series.

A lot of stories are popping up about the scene in the most recent episode of South Park that shows the Queen of England putting a pistol in her mouth and blowing skull fragments and brain matter all over the wall behind her. These stories, mostly coming from the UK, tell of the "controversial" scene and how it "shocked viewers."

And yet, not a single one of these stories, from what I can tell, gives any real evidence that the scene in question stirred up any controversy whatsoever. The stories merely suggest that, given the series' knack for courting controversy, people were probably bothered by the Queen's suicide, as well.

I'm not from the UK, but I am a South Park fan, and as I said in my review of the episode, the Queen's suicide was so quintessentially South Park I hardly batted an eye. If anything, the whole sequence seemed a little too easy, especially by South Park standards. I'll admit I'm not easily offended, but South Park hasn't shocked or surprised me in several years. That's not a slag against the show, it just means I'm tuned into its sensibility.

If you had plans to see Tom Wolpat and John Schneider of the Dukes of Hazzard perform with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, you'll have to wait. The performance, which was supposed to be based on the Dukes of Hazzard, was canceled when several people complained about the series' racist content.

Popetown, an animated series banned by the BBC but later released on DVD in the UK, has gotten a lot of press, though none of it has to do with whether or not the show is any good. The controversy stems from the show's portrayal of the Vatican, including a Pope who jumps around on a pogo stick. Despite protest, the series has aired in Germany and other countries, and is now set to air in Lithuania, despite demands from the Bishop's Conference that it be banned.

Channel 4 in the UK is moving ahead with plans to air Virgin School, a documentary that will follow a virgin in his late twenties as he attends a sex school in Amsterdam and eventually loses his virginity with a sex therapist, despite protests from former chief executive of Channel 4, Jeremy Isaacs, who says the channel has been dumbing down its programming as of late.

There may be some merit to Issac's claim, since the network also plans to air a series of shows about masturbation next year. That's right, not one show, but a whole series of shows. I had no idea there was that much ground to cover when it came to playin' Whack-A-Mole with Captain Wang, but I also didn't know one could attend a three-month sex school, either. Frankly, I've never understood why people feel they need to be taught how to have sex. It's fairly easy: stupid people have it all the time. It's a pretty basic evolutionary mechanism.

Stoney Creek, a hotel chain based in my homestate of Iowa, has removed CNN from its rooms after the cable news network aired footage of insurgents killing American troops in Iraq. James Thompson, president of Stoney Creek Hospitality Corporation, made the decision to pull the channel from the cable lineup in his hotels, saying that CNN's decision to air the footage was supporting terrorism. CNN has been removed from Stoney Creek's rooms in cities in Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin. If we ever win the war on terrorism, I guess we'll have this hotel chain to thank.

Years ago I actually worked in the hotel business, and while living in Des Moines I even applied at the Stoney Creek Inn. At the time I was a member of the "Association of Left-handed Q-Bert Advocates and Equine Dalmatian Artistry," an organization dedicated to southpaws who loved to play Q-Bert and paint images of dalmatians riding horses. The organization had the unfortunate acronym of A.L. Q.A.E.D.A. I'm guessing it was my "Proud Member of A.L. Q.A.E.D.A." t-shirt that cost me the job. And that, my friends, is what we call working way too hard for a joke. I hope you learned something here today.

Scientology fascinates me, and not because I have any desire to be a part of whatever the hell it is. I'm just inexplicably drawn to beliefs and practices I would never personally adhere to because I'm interested in what drives other people, especially if aliens might be involved. The "religion" claims to have ten million followers, and there's obviously something about it that attracts celebrities. Do those Hollywood peeps know something about it we don't, or is it just another trivial and meaningless fad like Kabbalah?

48 Hours recently did a show on Scientology, specifically Jeremy Perkins, a paranoid schizophrenic who stabbed his mother to death. Perkins parents were Scientologists (his mother was a senior auditor at the Church of Scientology in Buffalo, NY) and did not believe in psychiatric treatment. You can watch the episode here. I have not watched it yet myself, but feel free to take a look and share your reflections in the comments.

[via Digg]

The animated MTV2 series Where My Dogs At? from comedians Jeffrey Ross and Tracy Morgan came under fire recently because of a segment that featured two women on leashes, a scene meant to parody an actual appearance involving Snoop Dogg with two women in tow on chains. Some insisted it was a simple spoof of a real event, while others found it misogynist and racist. This may end up being a moot argument, however, as MTV has not decided whether or not the show is going to return for a second season. As I said in my previous post, I never watched the show, and the little bit I've seen of it on MTV2's site didn't impress me very much. I didn't find it offensive, I just didn't think it was very good. A shame, really, because I like both Jeffrey Ross and Tracy Morgan quite a bit. Were any of you readers a fan of the show?