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Cynthia Gorney and Stephen Harrigan

the breakfast table
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from: Stephen Harrigan

Gross-Outs From Around the World

Posted Tuesday, July 20, 1999, at 4:13 PM ET

Dear Cynthia,

I know what you mean about the ever-elusive point of the space program, but along with a lot of other Americans I still wistfully support it. Maybe we're no longer bounding around on the moon, and maybe there was not all that much reason to be doing so in the first place, but it just makes me feel better to know that as a country we're at least still interested. The space program will always be less successful in its quantifiable results than it is as as an ongoing expression of national curiosity and yearning. If nothing else, it's theater. And, as our American Pie discussion has demonstrated, theater counts.

Yes, I did see the e-mail from Nanobah Becker, which takes us to task for our baby-boomer hypocrisy on the matter of sex; also the one from Sean Fitzpatrick, that declares that all our tsk-tsking is merely the "conscience-salving pose of yuppie pseudo-morality." (Ouch, Cynthia, that one hurt.) America, Ms. (Mr.?) Becker says, is a "culture terrified by sex. Movies such as the ones you refer to couldn't come out of another." I disagree. A few nights ago, I entered the parental code on my remote control to unlock HBO, hoping to catch an episode of The Sopranos, and found myself lasciviously lingering on a show called Shock Video. This is one of those shows that--along with Real Sex, Loveline, Howard Stern, et al.--proves beyond any doubt that American culture has entered a period of hyperactive unembarrassment. What was really striking, however, was that Shock Video was a catalogue of cheesy game shows from around the world that were even more disgusting, and even more cravenly lurid. I always thought Italy, for instance, was supposed to be a world leader in urbane and guilt-free sexuality, but you wouldn't know it from watching a giggly strip-tease game show.

So why didn't I immediately turn off the TV, cancel HBO, and sign up for Gary Bauer's campaign? Because I'm a hypocrite, and because I genuinely don't know how upset to be. I grew up in a highly repressive sexual culture (the Catholic Church) and came of age--as our critic points out--during the salad days of the sexual revolution, and I wouldn't wish either of those polarities on my kids. Is it possible for a culture to have an "authentic" sexual expression? What culture ever has? If I could wave a magic wand and make American Pie go away, you bet I would, but I don't know that I would want to wave away, say, South Park, which strikes me as a gross-out movie of beneficially subversive intent.

OK, you are hereby reminded to tell me about Genghis Blues.

Yours in yuppie pseudo-morality,
Steve

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Stephen Harrigan

Gross-Outs From Around the World

Posted Tuesday, July 20, 1999, at 4:13 PM ET
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Cynthia Gorney, a reporter for the Washington Post from 1975 to 1991, will join the faculty at U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism this fall. She is the author of Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of the Abortion Wars (click here to buy the book). Stephen Harrigan is an occasional columnist for Slate, as well as a screenwriter and novelist. His recent books include Water and Light: A Diver's Journey to a Coral Reef (click here to buy the book).
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