2010

Katy Perry, How You Get Censored on Sesame Street?

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

WRITER’S NOTE: This article was written back in 2010 when this controversy occurred. I am publishing it here because I loved writing it, and I thought I had lost this article forever until recently.

This past week, the producers at “Sesame Street” decided to cut out Katy Perry’s scene with Elmo where she sang a version of her song “Hot N Cold” which was easily more family friendly than the original. However, it appears a number of parents spent more time looking at Katy’s cleavage than they did looking at her playing sweet with Elmo. As a result, they thought their kids would be staring at her breasts for far too long as well, and they demanded Katy be censored for the show.

Now I did take the time to watch the “Sesame Street” clip with Katy and Elmo on YouTube where it has found an even wider audience than it would have on PBS. By taking the segment out, it got more attention than it would have received had it stayed in. Parents may think they are protecting their kids, but I honestly think they are overreacting to this. Their demands to have Ms. Perry censored on “Sesame Street” has them pouring gasoline on an already raging fire without even realizing it. It was a sweet moment and a tolerable one for those who can stand Katy Perry’s music.

What she wore in her scene with Elmo was nowhere as risqué as some of the stuff she wore for her Rolling Stone photo shoot. Now those photos were very hot, and I enjoyed those in ways I’d rather not get too in depth about here.

When I was four or five years old watching “Sesame Street” and reveling in the antics of Kermit the Frog along with Ernie and Bert among others, I was never really focused on women’s’ breasts. I mean, if you ever saw a female celebrity making out with Kermit or perhaps Big Bird at that age, you would be saying, “EEEEEWWWWWWW!!!!!!!” Not only that, you would be saying it way too loudly.

It would take a lot to corrupt our fragile little minds back then. In our preschool days, kissing was just gross! We were not in a hurry to discover the opposite sex, and we stayed away from them and hung out with our own gender. No woman with breasts the size of basketballs was going to fill us with thoughts of sex back then. We all had to wait for puberty for that to take effect, and by then we weren’t even watching “Sesame Street!”

Seriously, this could have been much worse; Katy could have been wearing more than a bra and panties while chasing after Elmo. She could have taught this red creature who likes to be tickled endlessly the joys of masturbation, but no one involved with one of Jim Henson’s many creations would have dared to allow such a thing to happen. Last I checked, they went to Katy instead of her fiancé Russell Brand of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to The Greek” fame. How horrifying would it have been to watch Russell teaching Elmo, or perhaps Grover or Cookie Monster, how to shoot heroin into their veins? Granted, they are hand puppets, but even they could get some rubber tubing to wrap around their furry little arms!

What did parents really think Elmo would do with Katy Perry? Did they think she would teach Elmo the joys of breast feeding?! Can you imagine that high pitched voiced character singing a slightly altered version of the song we all heard from Kelis?

“Oh, Elmo loves Katy’s milkshake!

Damn right, it’s better than Ernie’s!

Damn right, it’s better than Bert’s!

Damn right, it’s better than Big Bird’s!

I could teach you, but…”

Even if Elmo loves his milkshake as much as he loves being tickled, I somehow doubt he will be sharing this with your children. Was anyone ever making complaints when Dolly Parton appeared on “Sesame Street?”

So far, Perry has taken this all-in stride as she has tweeted on Twitter how she can “totally tell you how to get to Sesame Street,” and she knows no one can deny that she and Elmo did hang out in front of television cameras. Of course, she made light of the moment on the season premiere of “Saturday Night Live” when she appeared on the “Bronx Beat” sketch with Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph while wearing a very tight shirt with Elmo’s face on it which made her breasts all the more noticeable. Somewhere, Mr. Roger’s is indulging in a good dose of black humor he could never practice on PBS by asking his audience:

“Can you say double-D? I knew you could!”

Look folks, Katy Perry has a pair of breasts just like all other women. Stop trying to hide it because your kids have gotten to experience what they offer not too long after they appeared out of the womb. Whether or not they remember if they were breast fed or not is a whole other story. There are so many other things you could worry about instead of this. What about Newt Gingrich coming on “The Muppet Show” to tell Sam the American Eagle of how important the Bush Tax Cuts are, especially for the wealthy? Do you think you would ever see Marilyn Manson singing his version of “Rubber Ducky” or “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” to Ernie or Oscar the Grouch? How about Nine Inch Nails singing “Closer” with Big Bird and Mr. Snuffleupagus? Kids are too busy learning the alphabet than in observing what Katy wore, so stop worrying, okay?! Elmo wants her back on the show, and are you going to deny him the chance to laugh happily with Ms. Perry the way he does when you tickle him mercilessly?

’99 Homes’ Director Ramin Bahrani Talks about Surviving Without a Home

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

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The late Roger Ebert proclaimed Ramin Bahrani director of the decade on the basis of his movies “Chop Shop” and “Goodbye Solo,” both of which came out in the 2000’s. His films have received tremendous critical acclaim and numerous awards from one film festival to the next, and this streak does not look to stop with his latest movie. “99 Homes” stars Andrew Garfield as an unemployed contractor who is unjustly evicted from his home and Michael Shannon as the real estate magnate who kicked him out of it and who eventually becomes his mentor in the art of home foreclosures. It’s a thriller which is unsettling as it is heartbreaking as it calls attention to the housing crisis which swept the nation and those cold-hearted and greedy men who profited greatly from it.

Bahrani gives us a story which hits close to home as it contains agonizing scenes of Garfield and his family being given only a few minutes to pack up all their belongings and leave their house. He makes you feel the searing discord between the haves and have-nots as it’s open season on homeowners who have no chance of defending what is rightfully theirs. But when Garfield comes on board with Shannon, he finds a way to dig himself out of his financial black hole so he can get back his house. But as Garfield gets deeper and deeper into Shannon’s world, he starts losing his ethical and moral bearings as he starts to others what was done to him.

Bahrani was at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, California to do a press conference on “99 Homes.” I was one of the reporters there and told him the movie seemed to be as much about survival in an economically shaky world as it is about greed and home foreclosures. When I asked him what he felt “99 Homes” had to say about surviving in this crazy world the characters inhabit, he said the following:

Ramin Bahrani: “One of the scenes I really like, for me it was like something from Dostoyevsky in my mind, was when the two men sit at the dock at night. And I remember Michael (Shannon) came up to me and said, ‘Ramin, is this the important line in the scene?” I told him, ‘Michael, this is the important line in the whole movie.’ And that’s after Michael tells Andrew (Garfield) that he carries a gun even at two o’clock in the morning because he was almost run off the road one time when he goes to dinner with his family and all this stuff, and Andrew says, ‘Is it worth it?’ And Michael looks at him and says, ‘As opposed to what?’”

It’s a haunting question which left the reporters at the press conference speechless, and it’s one of the many reasons why you must see “99 Homes” which is now available to rent and own on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital.

Andrew Garfield Talks about ’99 Homes’ and Survival

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

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Having escaped “The Amazing Spider-Man” universe intact, Andrew Garfield gives one of his best performances to date in the tense and timely thriller “99 Homes.” In it, he plays Daniel Nash, an unemployed contractor and construction worker who gets evicted from his home along with his mother Lynn (Laura Dern) and son Connor (newcomer Noah Lomax). In an effort to get his home back, Daniel ends up working for real estate magnate Rick Carver (Michael Shannon), the same man who evicted him and his family, and in the process, he becomes Rick’s protégé and learns how to work the housing market to make a lot of cash. This leads to Daniel making more money than he ever dreamed of, but considering what he’s doing to others what Rick did to him, this newfound wealth is coming at a high moral price.

“99 Homes” is an urgent thriller which demands your attention as it deals seriously with the housing crisis which erupted in America in 2010 and the insatiable greed that followed. Garfield makes Daniel into a very empathetic character, and it’s hard not to feel bad for him even as he makes a Faustian bargain to get his house back. You share in Daniel’s fury at being evicted so unjustly, and you root for him even as he becomes more and more ethically bankrupt. Some will call Daniel a traitor while others will see him as just another guy trying to survive in an increasingly insane world. In the end, we have to ask ourselves what we would have done if we were in his situation.

Garfield was one of several cast members who appeared at the press day for “99 Homes” which was held in Los Angeles, California at the Four Seasons Hotel. I pointed out that while this movie is about money, greed, and ethics, it is also about survival and what we are willing to do to keep a roof over our head and food on the table. I asked Garfield what he felt “99 Homes” said about survival, and he answered my question in a very personal way.

Andrew Garfield: I betray myself every day. I betray myself in small ways, in big ways in order to fit in, in order to be accepted and in order to stay on the path I think I’m supposed to be on. I feel afraid a lot as well in the modern world. I feel a lot of fear about instability to be honest. I don’t feel a great foundation in our culture as of now. I think there are great things happening, there are soulful things happening usually on the outskirts, but it takes a great deal of treasure hunting to find those things or find something that’s deep and meaningful. I’m so grateful and lucky. Thank God for storytelling and thank God for this medium of storytelling because without this I would be lost, I know I would be. This is a big part of survival for me that I get to give myself to something that feels meaningful. And that’s why, when a story like this comes along, it’s really impossible to say no because it’s very rare, the essence of what this story is. That’s my very shallow answer to a very difficult question.

To be honest, it didn’t sound like a shallow answer at all, and it’s not hard to see how Garfield put all his heart and soul into this project. It should go without saying there’s much more to this actor than him playing Spider-Man, and we should expect to see more great performances from him in the future.

“99 Homes” is now available to own and rent on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital.