Ozzy & Sharon vs. Ozzie & Harriet
The debate is on. Now that "The Osbournes" has become a runaway hit on MTV, the morality police are coming after Ozzy, Sharon, Jack, and Kelly, claiming that they are anything but the ideal family. A recent letter writer to the Syracuse Sub-Standard, errr, Post-Standard said that among other things, the Osbournes do nobody any good because they swear all the time and she even took a pot shot at daughter Kelly, reminding her that "Halloween is only one day a year."
You know how I feel about people attacking other people on the basis of their appearance and the things they choose to do to their hair, skin, and body; we went down this whole road a year ago during the Hellfest flap in Mattydale. Incidentally, this year's Hellfest will not be held far away from Syracuse like many figured after last year's stink. It will be at the State Fairgrounds, but it won't help the local businesses like it did last year; the Fair is a self-contained "little town" in itself, so the likelihood of the out-of-town visitors for this event venturing into Solvay for some good old-fashioned capitalism is not very likely (not that there's anything much in Solvay, anyway...) The point is I've established here that a dad with tattoos all over himself and a daughter with pink hair doesn't make a family deviant.
What about the swearing, you ask? What about it, I say. With the exception of a few cartoon-bleeped phrases (like #@$% or *&$+!), I have for the most part kept this column free of cussing. However, those who know me best know I curse like a sailor sometimes. That being said, I keep it reserved for the company of those who don't mind it and also do it themselves. I would venture up the argument that words are just words and why are some more offensive than others, but not in the Chambersburg YMCA or at Easter dinner with the relatives. It just so happens that this bunch of transplanted Brits happen to swear a blue streak around each other. They're comfortable with doing it around each other, I don't think they're doing any harm to anyone else by doing that. The fact that the MTV cameras are rolling shouldn't matter at all; after all, it's REALITY television, so why censor yourself from living your REAL life because there's the chance that 6 or 7 million people may watch this someday; it certainly didn't stop Ozzy from biting the head off that bat all those years ago.
The whole point of the show is that no matter what you may have heard or seen of Ozzy Osbourne, the truth is he's a typical dad of a typical family who does all the things typical dads do. Most of the appeal of the show is watching Ozzy trying to run a vacuum cleaner or replace the trash can lining. I laughed my head off when I watched him trying to microwave popcorn, and also when he went to get the rabid cat out from behind the mirror. Sharon was such a typical WASP housewife: "That's an expensive mirror! You're going to break it!" But, it's Ozzy Osbourne doing this! He's, as he put it in one episode, "the Prince of #@$%ing Darkness!"
And as much as this show is unscripted and designed to not follow any set plot line like a normal sitcom, the "reality" the show portrays has a way of falling into the typical sitcom conventions. It's Ozzy limping with a walking stick trying to chase his escaped cat around his backyard waterfall, yelling "SHARON!!!" (very Jetsons- "Jane, stop this crazy thing") It's Kelly bickering with Jack about an incident several years earlier where he accidentally shot her in the leg with a pellet gun. It's Ozzy going to get off his tour bus to go after the roadie who supposedly stole stuff from him and coming back on the bus not once, but TWICE to tell Sharon more of what he was going to do this guy if he found him and why he was going to do it. How many times have comedy writers decided, "Hey, let's have our 'Dad' do that"?
For all the people who have jumped on the "let's remind everyone Ozzy's evil" bandwagon, there have been some surprising people who have actually come to embrace the show and its patriarch. Ozzy was invited to the White House Press Club dinner, where President Bush spent a good part of his "monologue" for the evening talking about him, at one point listing off some of his more darker song titles, then adding, "Mom loves your music." Hell, even DAN FREAKIN' QUAYLE likes the Osbournes, because somehow they fit his vision of "family values", whereas "Murphy Brown", of course, did not (you try and figure it out, I can't).
If you're too blinded by the goth look and the tattoos and the different-colored hair to see the value of the Osbourne clan, then at least take this away from it; Ozzy is a dedicated father who cares about his kids and kicked drugs so he could be a better father. A lot of people who did what he did for less time than he did are no longer with us today, and kicking drugs is certainly not the easiest thing in the world to do. You can't ask Layne Staley if it is, because he didn't make it, and he's just the latest of many who didn't.
The only negative aspect of "The Osbournes", really, is the fact that like all unexpected runaway successes, it's now being milked to the point of overkill. Sharon Osbourne on People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People list. Kelly trying to launch a singing career. The fact that they asked for huge sums of money before agreeing to do a second season, which will take place in the British countryside instead of Beverly Hills because the house there has become such a tourist magnet.
It's like Ozzy himself said at the end of the season finale, "We're the bloody Osbournes, and I love it." Let him. Let us.
You know how I feel about people attacking other people on the basis of their appearance and the things they choose to do to their hair, skin, and body; we went down this whole road a year ago during the Hellfest flap in Mattydale. Incidentally, this year's Hellfest will not be held far away from Syracuse like many figured after last year's stink. It will be at the State Fairgrounds, but it won't help the local businesses like it did last year; the Fair is a self-contained "little town" in itself, so the likelihood of the out-of-town visitors for this event venturing into Solvay for some good old-fashioned capitalism is not very likely (not that there's anything much in Solvay, anyway...) The point is I've established here that a dad with tattoos all over himself and a daughter with pink hair doesn't make a family deviant.
What about the swearing, you ask? What about it, I say. With the exception of a few cartoon-bleeped phrases (like #@$% or *&$+!), I have for the most part kept this column free of cussing. However, those who know me best know I curse like a sailor sometimes. That being said, I keep it reserved for the company of those who don't mind it and also do it themselves. I would venture up the argument that words are just words and why are some more offensive than others, but not in the Chambersburg YMCA or at Easter dinner with the relatives. It just so happens that this bunch of transplanted Brits happen to swear a blue streak around each other. They're comfortable with doing it around each other, I don't think they're doing any harm to anyone else by doing that. The fact that the MTV cameras are rolling shouldn't matter at all; after all, it's REALITY television, so why censor yourself from living your REAL life because there's the chance that 6 or 7 million people may watch this someday; it certainly didn't stop Ozzy from biting the head off that bat all those years ago.
The whole point of the show is that no matter what you may have heard or seen of Ozzy Osbourne, the truth is he's a typical dad of a typical family who does all the things typical dads do. Most of the appeal of the show is watching Ozzy trying to run a vacuum cleaner or replace the trash can lining. I laughed my head off when I watched him trying to microwave popcorn, and also when he went to get the rabid cat out from behind the mirror. Sharon was such a typical WASP housewife: "That's an expensive mirror! You're going to break it!" But, it's Ozzy Osbourne doing this! He's, as he put it in one episode, "the Prince of #@$%ing Darkness!"
And as much as this show is unscripted and designed to not follow any set plot line like a normal sitcom, the "reality" the show portrays has a way of falling into the typical sitcom conventions. It's Ozzy limping with a walking stick trying to chase his escaped cat around his backyard waterfall, yelling "SHARON!!!" (very Jetsons- "Jane, stop this crazy thing") It's Kelly bickering with Jack about an incident several years earlier where he accidentally shot her in the leg with a pellet gun. It's Ozzy going to get off his tour bus to go after the roadie who supposedly stole stuff from him and coming back on the bus not once, but TWICE to tell Sharon more of what he was going to do this guy if he found him and why he was going to do it. How many times have comedy writers decided, "Hey, let's have our 'Dad' do that"?
For all the people who have jumped on the "let's remind everyone Ozzy's evil" bandwagon, there have been some surprising people who have actually come to embrace the show and its patriarch. Ozzy was invited to the White House Press Club dinner, where President Bush spent a good part of his "monologue" for the evening talking about him, at one point listing off some of his more darker song titles, then adding, "Mom loves your music." Hell, even DAN FREAKIN' QUAYLE likes the Osbournes, because somehow they fit his vision of "family values", whereas "Murphy Brown", of course, did not (you try and figure it out, I can't).
If you're too blinded by the goth look and the tattoos and the different-colored hair to see the value of the Osbourne clan, then at least take this away from it; Ozzy is a dedicated father who cares about his kids and kicked drugs so he could be a better father. A lot of people who did what he did for less time than he did are no longer with us today, and kicking drugs is certainly not the easiest thing in the world to do. You can't ask Layne Staley if it is, because he didn't make it, and he's just the latest of many who didn't.
The only negative aspect of "The Osbournes", really, is the fact that like all unexpected runaway successes, it's now being milked to the point of overkill. Sharon Osbourne on People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People list. Kelly trying to launch a singing career. The fact that they asked for huge sums of money before agreeing to do a second season, which will take place in the British countryside instead of Beverly Hills because the house there has become such a tourist magnet.
It's like Ozzy himself said at the end of the season finale, "We're the bloody Osbournes, and I love it." Let him. Let us.
Labels: Ozzy, television
posted by Dave | 11:46 PM
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