Californifying some perennial themes

Californication certainly went off with a bang last week. That "religious and family groups" are upset about the extent of the sexual content and the potentially blasphemous opening scene is, of course, just more grist for the show's publicity machine.

Our Californication anti-hero, Hank Moody, hangs out in the swanky beachside suburbs of Los Angeles and never has the city looked so deliciously lovely or balmy.

But poor old Moody is not going well. He is grieving, dysfunctionally, the break-up of his de facto marriage. That is, he is coping with booze, drugs and sleeping around. Struggling with writers block, he is more than a little uncomfortable with his status as newest celebrity writer in town. Women are throwing themselves at him but he is disgusted with himself.

For those who were still in hibernation last week, we first met old Hank at a Catholic Church basking in a summery glow amid swaying palm trees. How California! Hank has entered the church to complain to the Almighty about his life and his block. Lo and behold, a lovely young nun steps out of the shadows, and also apparently out of a time machine to offer some unvirtuous relief.

Of course the pre-Vatican 2 habit was a dead give-away that we were in sleazy Hank's head rather than actually in a church. In hip, post-"the-Spirit-of-Vatican-2", LA, not even Our Lady Queen of the Angels gets a veil, let alone a wimple, at the Cathedral.

Hank apparently has a peculiar compulsion to speak honestly in and out of season and even apparently in his dreams. Just before he's yanked back to reality, he throws his hand up to hide his sordid activities from the Lord, and exclaims "Sweet Baby Jesus, Hank's going to hell".

Yep, that pretty much sums up Hank's trajectory from a Christian perspective - unrepentant fornicators do run the risk of a hellish ending according to the Bible.

But isn’t it interesting that we are using the term "fornication" again?

The clever double entendre in the title might be a bit in your face but maybe it also delivers a little jolt of reality into our jaded post modern culture. "Fornication" is a rather confronting word to describe the "hook ups", "flings" and "relationships" that we casually accept as a fact of life these days.

Watching Hank's adventures, I couldn’t help feeling a little sad about his predicament. Pining for a restoration of family unity, he finally pops the question to his apparently long-suffering ex-wife (de facto that is). But alas it seems that he is too late for she is planning to marry a new boyfriend.

Even more frustrating, was watching as he fell like a domino every time he encountered the slightest come on from another woman. How pathetic and, ultimately, how tedious. If he keeps this up surely his chances with ex, Karen, will be six feet under in no time. Surely too, the audience will tire of all the bouncing naked bodies, and the sexually suggestive language and gestures.

Yes, on a scale of in-your-face sexual content, it was pretty up there. But haven't we seen and heard worse on Sex and the City or Queer as Folk. SBS's Oz has certainly broken new ground with disturbing sexual content in recent years.

Californication was written as a cable TV series - like these other MA-rated programs. Surely, the responsible translation of such content to free-to-air TV in Australia throws up some challenges. There is no doubt that Californication's content is unsuitable for under 15s. That it has offended sections of the community should surprise no one especially given the punch packed by the first scene. It is also possibly unsuitable for older teenagers but our regulatory arrangements don’t seem to acknowledge or address this problem adequately.

Why do so many teenagers end up watching programs like this or the disturbingly violent Oz on SBS? Perhaps parents need more leadership and also encouragement to develop a collective backbone about guiding our teenagers in wiser viewing choices. We need to get real about the fact that sometimes adult themes really are just that and the subtleties, complexities and ironies mixed up in them might occasionally go over their heads.

Channel Ten has done the right thing in programming Hank's adventures in a later time slot. In its street advertising, to their credit, they have employed some discretion. But it has flogged the MA-rated series with intensive TV advertising in earlier time slots and has been almost too upfront about the adult themes and sexual content. That younger viewers may have been enticed to watch is not unlikely and that doesn’t help parents trying to do the right thing.

With all its adult themes, adolescents might end up finding the show a bore. All the Hank-in-the-sack content, might also paradoxically start to get a little dreary for the adults.

But ultimately, dreariness could well be the right note to strike for the terminal trajectory Hank is on. Research has shown again and again, that faithful committed marriage is a bloke like Hank's best bet for long term contentment and satisfaction.

And if Hank was to really consider how best to ensure the wellbeing of his beloved daughter, Becca, then again he would be doing all in his power to restore and elevate his relationship with his ex to formal marriage status. As for Karen, she has acknowledged that their little family is tied together for life regardless of whether they share the same house or the same bed.

We've seen that in some ways Hank is an old fashioned kind of dad and will do what it takes to extract his 12-year-old Becca from a decidedly inappropriate party. Great, we say, but why undo it with the drugs and booze, and the sex with another guy's teenage daughter?

The humour is edgy and even a little black. The scenery is luscious. The themes are decidedly adult - and I mean voting-age and above. And ultimately, it appears that in among all the clever irony, double entendres, and yes, all the tedious naked flesh and strongly implied sex, there may actually be an interesting story about fatherhood, the value of marriage or the permanence of family. Maybe, too there will be a story about the ultimate failure of drugs, booze and fornication to solve anything let alone deliver happiness.