By Bruce Sessions
I remember when Jimmy Boyds record I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus was released. It was immediately banned in Boston. Too suggestive, they said. The movie The Moon Is Blue was also banned. One sentence had the word virgin in it. Too sexy, they said. When television came on the scene in the late forties, you never saw a man and woman in the same bed, even if they were married. Watch some of the old sitcoms and you see a nightstand between the twin beds. Growing up, I remember Christmas mornings. Our neighborhood street was filled with kids playing with their new toys. Kids would be showing other kids what Santa brought emcomparing bikes, tricycles, dolls and balls. Fast forward to the current twenty first century and see the comparison. The word damn in movies is mere childs play. Movies today contain some of the worst vulgarities one can imagine. It seems no cussword is taboo anymore. Songs are more suggestive than ever. Rap songs speak of whores and killing. Men and women, in bed together have become a staple of daytime TV soap operas and Hollywood movies (and they arent just in bed for sleeping.) Im a senior citizen now, and standing outside my home on Christmas morning, holding a cup o coffee, I looked up and down the street. Not a child in sight. No sounds of glee from children playing with their new toys, no basketballs, baseballs, footballs. No little group of giggling girls comparing their new dolls. Nothing! Silence. I finished my coffee, scattered the dregs on my frost-bitten lawn and walked back inside. Where were the children? Inside their homes with their new Playstations, computers and computer games.sitting in front of TV sets and computer monitors. And we wonder why there seems to be an obesity epidemic. We wonder why kids use such foul language, and we wonder why teenage pregnancy is rampant, and kids are killing kids. Today, the city which banned The Moon Is Blue and I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus allows men to marry other men, and women to marry other women, and homosexuality is taught in public schools. X-rated movies have become big business. Yes, weve come a long way since I was a kid growing up. Perhaps I should say, weve come a WRONG way since I was a kid growing up. The question is where did we GO wrong?
I recall, when growing up, sitting in the theater for the premier of the movie Gone With The Wind. I was probably ten or eleven at the time. I remember the shock, the oohs and ahs when Clark Gable uttered that famous line frankly my dear, I dont give a damn. You see folks, cussing in movies wasnt allowedbut there it was. A cussword in a movie. The audience was shocked.