This past weekend, for the third weekend in a row, Ridley Scott’s gruesome Hannibal topped the box office. This is an R-rated movie in which, thanks to the magic of special effects, we get to witness a man slicing off his own face and feeding it to his dog, a man getting his face eaten by wild boars, and brains getting scooped out of a severed head for the purpose of cooking them. Yet there was not one murmur, not one hint that the MPAA ever considered slapping an NC-17 on this film. In Australia, the film is rated R 18+, which means that even if you’re with an adult, you can’t get into this movie if you’re under 18. Not only that, but ads for the film proclaim that it is “unsuitable for anyone under 18 years by virtue of its depictions of high-impact violence and the need for an adult perspective.” Very well said.

America purports to care so much about its oh-so-fragile, impressionable youth, which is why films are repeatedly trimmed due to sexual content. To which I have to ask, what the hell is going on here? At what point did sex become so shameful that watching a man slice off his own face is more acceptable? Even if it’s not this grotesque, violence gets peddled shamelessly in any number of sophomoric marquee attractions, but when it comes to showing people engaging in sex—a far more natural human instinct—the film can only be shown late at night on Cinemax. Thank God for America’s strongly held moral values.

I enjoy old-fashioned fornication far more than gratuitous gory violence. Naked bodies do not bother me in the slightest—and yes, that does include tripods—and I think it would be healthier and more therapeutic for this country to see more explicit horizontal rumbas than impalings and decapitations. If conservatives are worried about the effects of violence on kids, if parents are worried about drug use, then let’s give people something that they shouldn’t be ashamed of and should enjoy unabashedly. Please Hollywood, heed my call: less blood, more humping.

Shammys

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: No matter what year it is, sardonic, lite jazz-rock rules. Steely Dan’s win for Album of the Year last week at the Grammys was one of those reminders of why the program can’t seem to get any respect. Much like Bob Dylan’s win four years ago, it only went to show that the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences is oblivious to an artist’s importance for the first, oh, 25 years of that artist’s career.

What’s more, Steely Dan’s win was such a bizarre shock to the system after all the hype about Eminem. Even if Paul Simon had won, it wouldn’t have been half as bizarre as those ’70s studio hermits taking the prize. You’ve got to either admire NARAS for having the guts to symbolically kick Mr. Mathers in the crotch, or you’ve got to shake your head at their obliviousness to how peculiar their winning choice was. Ironically, it was people like Steely Dan and Randy Newman who helped popularize the type of black-humored satire in pop music that has Eminem catching so much flak.

Here are some other highlights in case you missed the show:

♦ Destiny’s Child’s Beyonce Knowles establishing herself as the hottest thing, physically and talent-wise, in R&B at the moment. Performing the group’s irrepressible hits “Independent Women Pt. 1” and “Say Your Name,” she prowled the stage like a jaguar and with more confidence than any 20-year-old has a right to have. And she wisely used her great voice to delicate, hooky effect rather than rely on Mariah-ish scale-jumping show-off techniques. Lauryn, go read your damn Bible; Mary J., just sit back and light up another doobie; Lil’ Kim, put your rack back in its brassiere. There’s a new hitmaker in town.

♦ Bono delivering the very nicely self-deprecating acceptance line upon U2 receiving their third award for the evening: “I’m feeling a strange emotion: humility.” I need Bono to give up those transparent colored glasses, though. Too mod. Go back to the Fly glasses, buddy: Simple. Black. Classic.

♦ Shelby Lynne effortlessly blowing Sheryl Crow off the stage, then behaving like a slightly schnookered redneck. Is there any time when this woman doesn’t look like she’s bitter about something? She accepted her Grammy like she’d just been handed a plaque of crap.

♦ The always enjoyable Dolly Parton shamelessly flirting with young country newcomer Brad Paisley, whose face couldn’t have been redder.

♦ Faith Hill slowly unbuttoning her sheer black shirt, then releasing her taut supple nipples from their undergarment cages while she licked her lips and unhinged her jaw right before she...oh, wait, nevermind. That was the dream I had later that night. Forget it.

Programming notes

Half the TV season is gone, and it’s time for the networks to revert to plan B and start working on plan A for next year. The first observation one can make about the mid-season replacements and the pilots being shopped around for next year is that network television continues to prove it has no interest in learning from past mistakes. Just about to emerge with a new crop of gay-themed shows, it looks like the networks are going to beat the proverbial dead horse for the next year.

The networks seem to have taken note of Will & Grace’s Emmy wins and ignored the failure of John Goodman’s high-profile sitcom in which he plays a gay character. Whereas NBC’s hit program worked because it tackled its characters’ sexuality head on, Goodman’s show failed because it basically tried to cram an “offbeat” character in the typical sitcom format. Now we’re going to get a slew of these shows. First, there’s CBS’ abysmal straight-guy/gay-guy odd-couple comedy Some of My Best Friends, starring the previously missing-in-action Jason Bateman. Then next year we’ll get Ken Olin, who played Michael on thirtysomething, as a gay man thrust into caring for two teenage kids in Say Uncle, also on CBS. The network must be desperate to prove it’s not the octogenarian network.

In addition to all this, Ellen DeGeneres will be sticking her toes back in television waters next year. But the worst is RuPaul’s show on which he’ll play a transsexual nanny. It’s called The Tranny. I’m not kidding. Naturally, it’s on UPN. If you want to check out your midseason newbies before everything turns pastel, here’s what’s cranking up this week:

♦ David Milch was the true resident genius behind NYPD Blue, something that has become clear this year as the show seems to be floundering without him. Milch’s new show should be worth checking out. Starting March 1 on CBS and going up against ER, Big Apple is another cop drama, this time detailing the struggle between the police and the FBI starring...Ed O’Neill, best known as Married With Children’s Al Bundy.

♦ Chris Carter finally lets loose his long-threatened The Lone Gunmen March 4 on Fox. Here the geeky conspiracy theorists from The X Files act like the Three Stooges for the Dungeons & Dragons generation. This seems like a bad idea—kind of like having Norm and Cliff from Cheers head up their own AA drama. But who knows? Maybe Carter will have finally found his long-lost mojo.

♦ Brian Dennehy stars as a grouchy dad on the family sitcom The Fighting Fitzgeralds, beginning March 6 on NBC. Anyone who saw Gabriel Byrne’s Irish family sitcom this past fall should know to avoid this at all costs. Actually, this is worse: It’s supposedly based on Ed Burns’ The Brothers McMullen.

Quotidian Challenge

“I did it like this. I did it like that. I did it with a whiffle ball bat.”

E-mail the origin of this useless bit of trivia to poplife the shame of your name printed in the paper and some free useless crap from the Nashville Scene!

Previous week’s answer: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

Winner: Tom Van Arsdel.