Um, does anyone else think it's odd, and maybe even a little bit of a bummer, that Luke Campbell--the 2 Live Crew man whose horndog hip-hop was so controversial, it became the center of a landmark Supreme Court obscenity case--has now recast himself as a bumbling father on the VH1 reality show Luke's Parental Advisory?
That the pottymouthed lout behind the perennial stripclub anthem "Me So Horny" is now a doting TV dad, cautioning his impressionable young daughters not to earn bad reputations?
That the bootyrapper whose classic Dirty South album As Nasty As They Wanna Be featured a cover photo of gleamingly exposed female buttocks is now on thirtysomething-friendly VH1, expressing fatherly disapproval over the racy pics of his teen son's MySpace ladyfriends?
Of course, this cornball proud-papa schtick is nothing new. For years, the basic-cable airwaves have been clogged with plenty of "we're crazy but we love each other and take out the garbage like everyone else" dysfunctional-family fare, like Meet The Barkers, Run's House, Gene Simmons' Family Jewels, Hogan Knows Best, Snoop Dogg's Fatherhood, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Newlyweds, Living Lohan, and of course the show that started it all and really put the FUN in dysFUNctional, The Osbournes.
But somehow those shows never bothered me--even if I didn't believe for one second that any of those kookoo clans bore any similarity to the typical 2.3-kids-and-a-dog families that presumably made up the bulk of their viewing audiences. I didn't mind seeing the metalman who used to dentally decapitate bats toddle around his McMansion in a bathrobe. I didn't mind seeing Gene Simmons unmasked and emasculated in his own suburban household. I didn't mind watching Snoop coach kiddie football or Hulk Hogan GPS-track his pop-starlet daughter Brooke when she went on dates. That was some fine entertainment, right there.
And yet, somehow the concept of Luke--a man who in his raps and probably in his boudoir has employed the word "daddy" in the most lustful and non-parental manner imaginable--starring in such a role just irks me. Not just because it kinda/sorta creeps me out, although that's part of it...but more because I want to remember Luke as the filthmongering, First Amendment-flaunting, freakflag-flying lothario of yore. I don't want to see this bad, bad mutha trying to be Father Of The Year. I still want to think of Luther Campbell as the type of man that protective fathers hide from their daughters.
Well, regardless of what I want, Luke's Parental Advisory premieres on VH1 August 4th. You can watch a sneak preview of the full show HERE, and see Luke be as passé as he wanna be.