The following notes are for the “Well, I never!” file: in my wildest dreams I never expected the good citizens of that wonderful red state, Wyoming, to be having the gay “lifestyle” forced on them by the media.I didn’t know this was happening until I ran across the following statement in a Netflix review of the BBC television series “Lilies,” which Steve and I are now watching:
I was dissapointed [sic] in the homosexual theme between the brother and the handicapped friend in the 5th episode. Why is it the attempt by the media to force this lifestyle into our homes.
The reviewer indicates that he or she lives in Torrington, Wyoming.
Forced into their homes, the homes of Torrington, Goshen County, Wyoming, population 5776! And by the Brits, no less—those danged old enemies of liberty whom we fought over two centuries ago to obtain independence from coercive government. Who wanted to come into our homes back then and force us to pay taxes and relinquish guns and support organized religion.
Why did we move to Wyoming (or the hills of Kentucky, or Texas, or Arkansas, or you name it), for heaven’s sake, if it wasn’t to get away from such intrusive, coercive government? And now come those perennial foes of the American way of life, the citizens of the UK, to force “this lifestyle” into our homes. Our very homes! Well, I never.
The mind boggles at the intricacy of this Machiavellian plan of BBC to force good God-fearing Americans in places like Torrington, WY, to behold stagings of dirty “homosexual themes” in the privacy of their homes. There’s, first of all, the problem of forcing reviewers like KB 1358295 of Torrington, WY (pop. 5776), to rent the series from Netflix.
What malicious threats must the BBC have issued to force reviewers such as KB 1358295 to rent this filthy series that purports, all so guilefully, merely to follow the fortunes of a working-class family of Liverpool following World War I? I can just hear them now, the coercive mandates issued by the British bullies to the town of Torrington: “No more elk steaks for the lot of you, if you don’t rent that series right now! Bangers and mash for a year! And you’ll wash them down with good strong sugared tea and nary drop of whiskey.”
And then there’s the problem of assuring further compliance, once the sordid disks have been delivered in those flaming scarlet Netflix mailers. How to get those who’ve rented the series to watch it? And not to switch off their tellies when the insidious “homosexual themes” pop up all unannounced?
What further indignities did the Brits visit on Wyoming, to force total compliance with their nefarious plans to turn a red state blue with homosexual profanity via the glozening, oh so seductive “period drama” “Lilies”? Threats like this?—“And that picture of Mrs. Palin you’ve clipped out and sellotaped to that wall?—away with it! You’ll hang this photo of Her Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth II until you’ve watched that series, every last drib and drab of it.”
The brazenness of the Brits just never ceases to amaze me. It’s not just the clever way the plan was executed—the use of Netflix as a provider and the threats to force God-fearing Americans to watch this distasteful stuff. It’s the pretense of producing a "family" drama set in early 20th century England in order to force the homosexual lifestyle into innocent American homes.
Such hole-and-corner behavior! If you can’t rent a good BBC historical drama without running into the homosexual lifestyle, then where are you going to turn to escape the vile stuff? Next you’ll be telling me that the other Britannocentric features from that period in my Netflix queue are part of the conspiracy to force the homosexual lifestyle on me. I see “Brideshead Revisited,” “Maurice,” and “Mountains of the Moon” at the top of the list. Burton and Speke, those real-men explorers of Africa: how could that story possibly turn gay?
I’d be as shocked to see those two kiss as I would be if this-here World War I trilogy I just got from the library had homosexual themes. It’s Ms. Pat Barker’s Regeneration, about a British soldier poet named Siegfried Sassoon and so on . . . .
Steve and I often rent the first of a series at Netflix, watch it, and then decide on that basis whether we’d like to continue with the series. As we do so, we sometimes check reviews. That’s how we came across the review of “Lilies” by KB 1358295 of Torrington, WY (pop. 5776).
Helpful? You’d better believe it. After reading it, I toggled right on over to the Netflix site and rented the rest of the series. No forcing necessary.
The graphic is from Francis S. Drake's Tea Leaves: Being a Collection of Letters and Documents Relating to the Shipment of Tea to the American Colonies in the Year 1773, by the East India Tea Company (Boston: A.O. Crane, 1884). The graphic is entitled "Lord North Forcing the Tea Down the Throat of America."
