- Beckerman, Marty. Generation S.L.U.T.. New York:
MTV Books, 2004. ISBN 0-7434-7109-1.
- I bought this book based on a recommendation by
Hunter
S. Thompson. I don't know
what the good doctor was smoking—he rarely knows what
he's smoking—but this is one messed up, incoherent, choppy,
gratuitously obscene, utterly amoral mix of fiction, autobiography,
cartoons, newspaper clippings, and statistical factoids seemingly
aimed at an audience with an attention span measured in seconds.
All together now, “Well, what did you expect from something
published by MTV Books?” The “S.L.U.T.” in the title stands
for “Sexually Liberated Urban Teens”, and the book purports to be a
view from the inside (the author turned 20 while writing the book)
of contemporary teenage culture in the United States. One can only
consider the word “Liberated” here in a Newspeak sense—the picture
painted is of a generation enslaved to hormones and hedonism so
banal it brings no pleasure to those who so mindlessly pursue it.
The cartoons which break up the fictional thread into blocks
of text short enough for MTV zombies are cheaply produced—they
re-use a few line drawings of the characters, scaled, mirrored, and
with different backgrounds, changing only the text in the balloon.
The Addendum by the author is a straight rip-off of Hunter Thompson's
style, right down the signature capitalisation of nouns for emphasis.
The reader is bludgeoned with a relentless vulgarity which ultimately
leaves one numb (and I say this as a fan of both Thompson and
South Park). I found
myself saying, again and again, “Teenagers in the U.S. can't
possibly be this vapid, dissolute, and depraved, can they? Can
they?” Er, maybe so, if this Teenwire site, sponsored by
the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, is any indication.
(You may be shocked, dismayed, and disgusted by the content of this
site. I would not normally link to such material, but seeing as how
it's deliberately directed at teenagers, I do so in the interest of
showing parents how their kids are are being indoctrinated. Note how
the welcome page takes you into the main site even if you don't click
“Enter”, and that there is no disclaimer whatsoever regarding the
site's suitability for children of any age.)
August 2004 