The Chronicle‘s Kyrie O’Connor makes an appearance in the Houston Press to defend her beloved “star” section:
The Houston Chronicle’s Yo! section is a valiant attempt to get kids aged 12 to 18 or so to put down the PSPs and pick up some dead-tree media. It usually features a story on a pop or movie star and columns by teen writers.
A recent edition featured the top ten films of the year, as picked by Yo!’s teen critic Jake Hamilton, a Clear Lake High student.
If you’re a young Yo! reader, you better like your movies with plenty of gore and sex — eight of the ten are rated R. Including such over-the-top films as Sin City (tabbed best film of the year), A History of Violence, Domino and Wedding Crashers (“this film was not afraid to take an R rating and provides the kind of risqué humor that audiences have been deprived of for so long,” Hamilton writes).
What, no Inside Deep Throat?
[snip]
“I understand why some people wouldn’t like his list, but he’s our teen reviewer and it’s his list,” says Chronicle deputy managing editor Kyrie O’Connor, who heads the features section. “You have to admit that ‘Ten Best PG-13-or-Under Movies’ would be pretty thin gruel. No teen would take it seriously, either.”
O’Connor says parents need to talk to their kids about “all forms of culture.”
“There’s R and there’s R,” she adds. “I’m sure I’m in a minority, but I’d rather have had one of my kids see a movie that depicted love in its many forms than some hideous slasher flick.”
That’s nice of Ms. O’Connor to tell parents what they should talk to their kids about, but I’ll stick with my own parenting style…which includes a, um, more conservative approach to movies.
You know the planets are out of alignment when even the Press‘ eyebrows are raised!
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: Wow, in the last week, O’Connor’s section has gotten attention (and not the good kind) from the Chronicle‘s own reader representative AND the Houston Press. I hope that doesn’t mean we’ll be treated to another erratic blog post lashing out at Anne.
KEVIN WHITED ADDS MORE (01-21-2006): Well, that was entirely predictable. One day after the post above, the Chronicle‘s erratic features editor took a little shot at Anne and her children in a blog post. Apparently, this is what passes for humor in a gloomy world where everyone is a hypocrite. Well, unlike the erratic features editor, I’ve met Anne’s children and they’re delightful. Anne obviously does a great job parenting, and any “humor” from a professional journalist that suggests otherwise is just… bizarre.
