Drivel

Well, I wonder what the StarTrib pays Katharine Kersten for her columns. I hope it's a lot, because if she can make a drivel off columns like these, I wanna piece of that. Because I know damn well I can write better columns than that- and make more entertaining points than her retro-grade reactionary whiny crap does.

Case in point: a meandering attempt of a hit job on 'Sex and The City' citing a Rand study that claims that teenage girls who are exposed to sexual situations on television are more likely to succumb to teenage pregnancy. First of all: I don't have kids. (Not yet, anyway) but I do work in a high school, so I get to see teenage girls in their natural social habitat (kinda like the Crocodile Hunter, but it can be a lot more dangerous. For reelz.) And believe me, I seriously doubt that 'Sex and The City' is the greatest problem facing teenage girls- or teenagers in general.

Second of all: Kersten misses the point, as always. For all her meandering points, she fails to latch on too the main point: in a culture increasingly inclined towards pushing away consequences of any kind, where do the parents fit in? I was blessed with parents that had a truly no bullshit kind of approach to raising us kids, believing until I was about in high school that books were far better than television. For all her whining about the permissiveness portrayed on 'Sex and The City', Kersten doesn't answer that question. If parents don't like what they see on television, why not turn the TV off? And what are your teenagers doing watching 'Sex and the City' to begin with? Kersten warns that such attempts at actually being a parent may lead to 'tears and heartache' and being called 'the meanest mom in the world.' The response o f any parent worth a damn would be and should be: 'So what?' And again, the real question should be: 'what is your teenage daughter doing watching 'Sex and the City' anyway?'

Third of all: In defense of a show that nicely turns the tables on men and portrays them as weird accessories in the orbits of these women (refreshing, since that's what women are often-times consigned too in movies and pop culture) Kersten latches on to the character of Samantha Jones as her target- and maybe rightfully so. Jones is the hedonistic one of the bunch, preferring to be footloose and fancy free, but there are three other characters that portray very different examples and avenues for teenage girls to potentially latch on to. Charlotte searches for the storybook romance and happy ending. Carrie for love. Miranda for a balance between career and dating. There are different facets of the female experience on display in 'Sex and the City'- not all of which are necessarily horrible examples for teenage girls.

(Yes, its very sad that I know that much about 'Sex and the City', but the wife won't tolerate a Netflix cue full of random science-fiction shows, so yeah, I've sat through it like a good husband.)

In the end though, Kersten herself commits the crime she is deploring: by shifting her target to a television show and composing another tiresome screed about the evil influences of pop culture on America's youth, she misses the real target: what are parents doing about this? Only parents can set good examples. Only parents can turn off the television- and instead of the tired old chestnut of ranting against the television how about a plea for the parents of America to act a little more like parents and not join the lamentable national trend of pushing consequences away.