Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Clean only abrasive parts of pop culture

Scott Dickensheets

Friday, Jan. 2, 1998 | 11:23 a.m.

I CAN remember exactly when the ground shifted beneath my fine theory about making pop culture safe for kids.

Like most of my theories it was a junk sculpture of loosely held convictions and specious notions accepted at face value, but, on the whole, I thought, fairly sound nonetheless: Let's not. Clean up pop culture too much on behalf of children, I mean. No, not too much.

I get to thinking this way every time some activist expends network face time to worry about the effects on children of rap music or an actress emerging from her sexual closet. With every update on the Southern Baptist boycott of Disney. Every time someone cloaks their cultural jihad in the lingo of family values -- that means you, Rev. Wildmon.

So my theory went something like this (and let's set aside the obvious fact that adults also have to live in this pop culture): Keep kids safe from physical threats? By all means. Keep them safe from TV shows? Is that necessary?

Perhaps one of the biggest favors we can do for the little squirts is bequeath them an interesting culture to grow up in. Since they're going to spend much of their time immersed in pop Americana, why not just let it go, let it be as varied, as contentious, as raucous as possible? Full of good and not-so-good ideas. A culture in which you never know what's going to come at you, Marilyn Manson or Dennis Franz' televised rump or even "Touched by an Angel." Would the world really be a better place if Disney stuck to cartoons and locked gays out of Tomorrowland? Hardly; in fact, it would be measurably blander. I think a culture that keeps kids -- and parents -- on their toes ultimately makes for a more interesting place. I say let Ellen be Ellen.

Hold your fire, moms and dads; I suggest this as the father of three smart, inquisitive sons who are already posing trick questions based on their TV viewing and radio listening. Still, even factoring in Howard Stern, I figured I was on solid ground.

Then came the moment I mentioned.

Tuesday night in the family truckster we had the radio set to KEDG 103.5-FM, an alternative rock channel, when a station promo came on (and here's more parental advisory than I received -- this is yucky): "Do we suck?" the voiceover asked. "Yeah, but at least we swallow."

Well, hand me the promo seltzer. On one level it was nothing more than stupid, irredeemably vulgar sexual innuendo pressed into service as a sales pitch, one more example of a marketing genius confusing scatology with edginess. At the same time it brought me face to face with the working reality of my permissive notions. All my fancy talk about an interesting world aside, the kids didn't need to hear that.

So what of my theory now? Dented, all right, although I still think my kids would be better for experiencing the screech and jostle of an unfettered pop culture. At least I think I think so; I'm not sure. Mixed feelings? You betcha.

But, I've decided, that's about right. As much as I sometimes wish for the made-up mind of the Disney-hating Baptist, ambivalence toward our culture is probably ideal. None of us should be wholly enthusiastic nor completely put off by what's out there. Were the world arranged to anyone's satisfaction, whole blocs of the rest of us would be left out, kids and all.

That's my current theory, anyway.