What is being done to MTV Skins is precisely the hysteria that has infected rock and roll from Presley to Biggie: reactionary, right wing, puritanical, brain dead bigots attempting to stifle opinions they disapprove of.
I haven’t and don’t plan to watch MTV Skins unless I stumble across it. Helen turned me on to the UK version last year and I see no reason to suffer through a watered down version. BUT, unlike Helen, I think the essence of freedom of speech is to stick up for speech whether you dislike it for its value or its content.
Freedom of speech is the freedom to be unpopular and lousy. It is the freedom to be provocative BAD ART. Watching the talking heads on O’Reilly waffle on about child pornography and drugs and prostitution (there is none in Skins as far as I can remember), is to laugh. It is on at 10p. It is not MTV’s job to monitor your fucking children. It is yours. If you don’t know how to remove MTV from your cable box, call Time Warner and they will show it. They can even put in a special code so you can watch it and they can’t.
Otherwise, fuck off.