history lesson, and some belated indignance

Growing up, there were shows that were off limits – Married with Children, 90210, and until such things became irrelevant (read: college), movies above PG were also off limits. This isn’t unexpected, it’s America the way Joe Lieberman sees it, where parents guard their children from breasts and such. So, when I went to go see “Dumb and Dumber,” I covered it up by saying I had watched “D2: The Mighty Ducks II.” This too should not be surprising, as kids do that, and I had to compete with other kids with less restrictive parents.

I remember a guy in 3rd grade bragging about seeing Roseanne Barr in the buff in some movie. And let’s face it – our only salient memories tend to be our anxieties, so clearly I was anxious to break the PG barrier.

So the relevance of all this comes back to an aspect of my Thanksgiving that I haven’t yet shared. Being a kid who would stifle laughs at sitcom jokes about self-flagellation is one thing. But this Thanksgiving, we were all set to watch “Alexander” as a family, when my parents noticed it was rated R. Now, I’m 22, and they’re profanely ancient. Wouldn’t it just be nice to implicitly assume I know a little something about female anatomy and uses thereof? Instead, what happens? We all fumble towards “The Incredibles” in eager avoidance of the awkwardness that is a generational gap.

In fact, the only time we, as a family, have tripped into salacious territory was for that brief moment of erudite nudity in “Titanic.” Mind you, these are also the parents that watched “Something About Mary,” that find “Beavis & Butthead” funny, and that watch “Boston Legal” despite its only consistent theme of sexual tension. Guess I didn’t have to look that far to find my own personal example of the Republican mind.