This is a good one for anyone who’s totally suffered through the stuffy, Britannic eons of fussing and formality in Jane Austen novels, just to get to the juicy parts (ooh, Mr. Darcy): according to British screenwriter Andrew Davies, who is practically single-handedly responsible for the PBS “Masterpiece Theater” genre of television adaptation (i.e. video Cliff’s Notes), Ms. Austen was just as into sex as the rest of us girls.

“Sex,” says Davies, who has adapted, like, every single Jane Austen novel for the silver screen, “is in the air.”

It’s just that in Austen’s time, it was was more about what wasn’t shown, than what was. Read More »

Sesame Street is no longer safe for kids.In a hilarious New York Times article, Virginia Heffernan jokes about the very real warning on the DVD for volumes 1 and 2 of Sesame Street: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

After subjecting herself and friends to an “all-ages” screening of the 1970’s version of the kids show, Heffernan bemoaned the “damage” the show’s gritty early years caused her psyche.

“The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.”

Even though I was nothing but a faraway dream in the 70’s, I remember tuning into Sesame Street during my early years, somewhere around 1986. While I’m pretty sure Elmo had been ‘born’ by then, the images my pre-school eyes witnessed were not the saccharin filled pictures that flood PBS today. Read More »