Glee & Promoting Pedophilia...

Hmmm...

Glee is a TV show that airs on Fox in the US. It is classed as a musical comedy-drama, and it follows the trials and tribulations of high school teenagers as they wend there collective ways through some good old teenage angst issues. Interesting a lot of the cast are not teenagers at all but adult actors playing the role of teenagers. Apart from being a pretty popular TV series, Glee has come in for some closer scrutiny after a recent photo-shoot of some of the 20-something actors (Lea Michele, Dianna Agron, and Corey Monteith) from the show appeared in GQ magazine.

The controversy arose because the Parents Television Council in the US has labelled the photos as "bordering on paedophilia". This in turn raises some interesting legal issues as to how one should proceed when adult age actors who are play the roles of teenagers then pose for sexy photos. Can the sexy photo of a 20+ something actor ever be an image that promotes pedophilia. It would seem that the assumption is that because these actors play the roles of not yet of age teenagers then any image of them that sexualises them is promoting pedophilia.

The reality is that if these young people use their fame to promote themselves through sexy photo-shoots, even ones that overtly sexualise them, don't they have a right to do it? After all, the people involved are all of legal age, and by any definition of the law have a right to make the decisions that they have. The photos themselves are not pornographic and do not violate any decency standards or norms for television or for print media.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting legal issue that extends beyond this particular instance. For example, can purveyors of porn be arrested and jailed for the upload / download of images of adults wearing, or part wearing of, school uniforms? In a lot of jurisdictions the law has been amended or worded in such a way as what the image attempts to convey or the content as being the key determiner in whether an image is classified as child porn.

So, simply if the point is to provide sexual gratification through the belief that one is looking at a naked or near naked child, even where the "child" in question is in fact an adult, then a crime has been committed. At least this is how I understand the law to work (time for more research and update myself on the laws in this area).

Therefore, if that interpretation of the law is accurate, then is it possible to mount a child porn case with images like the ones in GQ? I would argue not. Any reasonable person would know that the young people depicted in these images are adults and not children.

I am not sure how these particular photos promote pedophilia. I must be missing something.

So You Think You Can Dance? With No Panties...Oops!

You really have to wonder why you would go on a television show without any panties on. You have to wonder about this even more when it is a dancing reality TV show. Yet, this is what happened. And this is the video to prove it.

The show might be a reality TV show, but it is not live to air. So, you have also got to be wondering how this little piece of footage made it through the editing process. It would not have been all that surprising if the choice footage was edited out, and then mysteriously found its way on to YouTube or LiveLeak or something. I found it on The Huffington Post.

Looks like Fox could be in for some pretty nasty fines. I am guessing that the Federal Communications Commission, or the FCC, might be taking a closer look at the footage. And, when they do there is likely to be some sizable fine discussed. Now if Janet Jackson's nipple cost USD 550K, then I am guessing a full view crotch shot has gotta cost a little more than that.

I wonder how old she is? Are there child porn issues here? The mind boggles.

However, Fox has issued a statement saying that the young lady is, in fact, wearing panties and the video and accompanying photos show a crease in her panties...Ah, good try Fox.

Gordon Ramsay & Hell's Kitchen

Reality shows provide us with many WTF moments and Gordon Ramsay (a world class chef) and his show, Hell's Kitchen, probably move close to the top of the WTF list after this one. Ramsay is probably as well know for his outrageous expletive-filled outbursts at anyone who angers him, and perhaps because his brother was arrested in Bali on a drug charge, as he is for anything else.

So, the story goes like this. One of the contests, Matt, was preparing a pancetta to stuff a quail and in the urgency to get it ready he accidentally slices of the top of his thumb. Now, the thumb unfortunately falls into the pancetta while Matt flees the kitchen scene to get some attention to his now shorter thumb.

The show must go on, so the other chefs take over, fry up the pancetta, stuff the bird, and then feed it to Ramsay. Reports say that the other chefs were not aware of the thumb slicing incident and not wanting to get on the wrong side of the host carried on as they would. Ramsay though was aware of what had happened and let things go on with the following exclamation, "Oh God - finger pancetta."

What is interesting here is that Ramsay then went on to sample the dish and gave it the thumbs up. I guess this is pun intended. A touch of cannibalism may be?