B:
I have to wonder what was going through my mind, or through the minds of any of the ROX crew, when we made this episode.
I recall clearly the concept for this show: It was to be the announcement, from me to my parents, of my engagement to Xy.
And in fact, that's what we did. We made this show, then Xy and I drove out to my parents' house one day and showed it to them. It was the first episode of ROX they'd ever seen, and the first they'd heard of our impending marriage.
My parents are not the most liberal people in the world. Some might call them downright conservative. (In reality, they're not very political at all.)
So why would I think this was a good way to communicate with them? The mere fact that J says “fuck” a couple of times, and I didn't edit it out, speaks volumes about my weird relationship with my parents at that time.
And then there's the moment when Xy says, “I'm very religious, and I like to masturbate frequently.” That captures Xy's character perfectly, of course, the imp of the perverse urging her to say the most inappropriate thing possible — a trait she shared with J, incidentally. But the video for this segment is blocked out with a graphic that says “Self-censored for our own protection.” There's a story behind that.
In the original video, Xy rubbed her crotch quite graphically when she referenced masturbation. We were actually on our way to see my parents when we thought better of this particular segment and decided it might be too much for their tender sensibilities. I stopped into Bloomington's community access television station and took advantage of a vacant editing station to replace the video with the “Self-censored” graphic while Xy waited. Then we piled back into the car and headed to my parents' house.
I must... [More...]
