Good to see some parents putting their foot down over the potential invasion of a particularly nasty "cultural" event at their local public school:
The Fox TV reality series "The Simple Life" will not be using a South Jersey school as the setting for one of its episodes. "The show will not come to Cleary School," Buena Regional School District Superintendent Diane DeGiacomo said Monday night...
The proposed filming had provoked heated opposition from parents who felt it was not appropriate and feared that it would hold their community up to ridicule.
Producers of the hit show starring racy heiress Paris Hilton had approached school officials in December, offering to pay $5,000 to film an episode at a school in the mostly rural community 30 miles west of Atlantic City...The idea for the Buena episode was to have Hilton and Richie work as substitute teachers and cafeteria monitors at the J.P. Cleary Middle School.
School district officials initially were amenable to the idea, and permission forms and a letter from the show's production company were sent home to parents last week. But some responded angrily, saying that Hilton, whose celebrity was fueled by an X-rated home video that made the rounds of the Internet, was not a fit role model for middle school students.
What does it say that school district officials were originally amenable to the idea of letting a porn star and an ex-heroin addict, both famous for nothing other than being rich and wearing very little, teach the local students, on camera, for a sleazy reality show? Thank God at least 34 parents had the nerve to protest this attempted farce (sadly, they were in vast minority). I suppose that letting Paris Hilton substitute-teach is what homeschooling opponents have in mind as the vaunted "socialization" that homeschooled kids miss out on.
And, uh, I suppose that means the district is amenable to letting other porn stars, and women with past convictions for heroin possession, into the classroom? You know, to be consistent.
Posted by kswygert at January 11, 2005 05:22 PM