By NB Staff | August 23, 2010 | 8:55 AM EDT

E! Online "The Awful Truth" columnist Ted Casablanca on Aug. 21 called the graphic depictions of sex and violence on HBO's vampire drama "True Blood" "highly ironic" and promoted the show as "great fun."

Casablanca defended the show on Fox News Channel's "Geraldo at Large" in a discussion with host Geraldo Rivera and Culture and Media Institute Assistant Editor Nathan Burchfiel. The debate was sparked by the controversy surrounding a recent Rolling Stone magazine cover that depicted "True Blood" stars naked and covered in (fake) blood.

Burchfiel pointed out that while the shows originate on premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime, many "worst-of" clips are available online within hours of broadcast, and many popular shows like "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City" have found their way onto basic cable via syndication, a likely future for "True Blood."

"It's highly ironic, Geraldo," Casablanca said of the show, adding, "It's a highly intelligent, very clever indictment of the very conversation that we're having right now and it's an allegory to our times."

By Brent Bozell | August 14, 2010 | 7:06 AM EDT

Hugh Hefner, America's most celebrated and legendary pornographer, has less and less reason to celebrate. His Playboy magazine empire is crumbling — he may even be bought out by competitors — and his prototypical leering pose with girls young enough to be his great-granddaughters is now just plain creepy. His 2009 Christmas card featured 83-year-old Hefner standing between two 20-year-old twins who are his newest live-in girlfriends. Each was wearing a pink tank top with "Hef" painted on it in white. Hefner's women are forever the plastic toys under his tree.

Into this sad picture comes documentary filmmaker Brigitte Berman with a gushy new two-hour infomercial titled "Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel." How gushy is it? Washington Post critic Michael O'Sullivan found "the Hugh Hefner in this movie is Thomas Paine, Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas Gandhi and William Kunstler all rolled into one."

In fact, Berman is so in love with her subject's cultural and political influence, she told one interviewer that when the news came out that Martin Luther King Jr. had cheated on his wife, Coretta, "that never affected 'I have a dream,' so I found it really curious" that Hefner couldn't be seen more as a civil rights hero and less as a seedy porn king.

By Matthew Balan | July 28, 2010 | 7:16 PM EDT

John Roberts, CNN Anchor; & Professor Gail Dines, Wheelock College | NewsBusters.orgCNN refreshingly devoted an entire segment on Wednesday's American Morning to highlighting pornography's destructive impact on society, especially Internet porn. Guest Gail Dines detailed the harmful impact of pornography on men's sexuality, and anchor John Roberts even cited a study that found that 56% of divorces "involve one party...who has an obsessive interest in pornographic websites."

Roberts brought on Dines, a professor at Wheelock College in Boston and author of "Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality," at the end of the 7 am Eastern hour. After citing the gargantuan number of pornographic websites on the Internet, the anchor first asked, "You say in your book and in studies that you've done that pornography today is not your father's Playboy, that it's mostly gonzo porn that's really changing our attitudes towards sexuality and women. What are you worried about?"

Dines answered that her concern was the "level of brutality and cruelness, in pornography's affecting the way that men think about women, and it's affecting the way they think about themselves and the way they construct ideas about sexuality. Because the more men view pornography, the more they begin to think like the pornographic world."

By Alana Goodman | July 12, 2010 | 8:53 AM EDT
Eccentric comedian and former talk show host Roseanne Barr claimed on her blog July 8 that Republicans are avid kiddie porn viewers who like to have sex with young children.

The liberal activist and comedy queen was blogging about sicko children's author K.P. Bath, who was just slapped with a six years prison term for child porn possession last week.

In an item titled "typical republican child porn consuming geek," Barr posted a mug shot of Bath and wrote that he was "a typical republican who loves reagan and palin and despises the 'nanny state' and socialism."

By Brent Bozell | July 11, 2010 | 9:24 AM EDT
The Bravo cable network has a new reality show called “Work of Art,” a competition dedicated to finding the next great American artist. The half-dozen contestants, 20-something aspiring artists all, enter the famous Phillips de Pury art auction house. Mr. de Pury himself ushers them into the special room where they are presented with a collection of paintings by Andres Serrano, the man who came to fame in 1989 with the ghastly photograph, sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts, depicting a crucifix dunked in a jar of urine. They are hugely impressed. The final painting they are shown is just that — the original "Piss Christ." They are in awe, quietly expressing their amazement at the talent. And then the door opens and in steps the master. The students freeze, eyes bright, mouths agape. The curator announces, "the great, great Serrano!" One girl instinctively bows reverently.

Serrano explains his art. "Life, art, politics. It's all the same s—-.... People in general always think their s—- is the best. So if you really want to see some real s—-, check out my s—-." Six times he utters the expletive; the students giggle with glee.

By Nathan Burchfiel | July 9, 2010 | 9:59 AM EDT

It must be difficult to offend a company that makes its money off pictures of naked women (to be fair, there are also articles ... apparently). The folks at Playboy Portugal managed to do just that.

On Wednesday, news broke that the Portuguese edition of Playboy magazine published several photographs depicting Jesus Christ observing pornographic scenes.

On Thursday, the parent company, which licenses the Playboy name to international publishers, distanced itself from the controversy.

"We did not see or approve the cover and pictorial in the July issue of Playboy Portugal," Playboy's vice president of public relations, Theresa Hennessy, reportedly told the gossip blog Gawker in an email. "It is a shocking breach of our standards, and we would not have allowed it to be published if we had seen it in advance.

By Nathan Burchfiel | July 7, 2010 | 5:16 PM EDT

Marking the death of an atheist by depicting Jesus Christ in sex scenes might seem like a non-sequitur. Somehow, it made sense to the Portuguese edition of Playboy magazine.

The magazine features an actor portraying Jesus in at least four pornographic photos, including the cover, where he cradles an apparently dead - and bare-breasted - woman. Another photo depicts Jesus watching a lesbian kiss, while another shows him observing a topless woman reading a book.

The images are reportedly meant to commemorate the death of Portuguese author Jose Saramago. He wrote, among many other books, "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ," which "explored the psychological motivations that led Jesus to become a prophet." Saramago later wrote that the controversy around the book led him to move fromPortugal to the Canary Islands.

It's not the first time an international edition of the "men's magazine" has caused a stir by depicting a Christian figure. In its December 2008 issue, the Mexican edition featured a model dressed - barely - like the Virgin Mary

By Alana Goodman | June 16, 2010 | 4:58 PM EDT
ABC has pulled its ads from gossip blogger Perez Hilton's Web site, PerezHilton.com, after he caught legal flack for posting upskirt photos of 17-year-old Disney star Miley Cyrus. However, several big-name companies still have ads running on the snarky blogger's site.

Amid speculation that Hilton may be slapped with kiddie-porn charges over the lurid photos, ABC has removed its ads for "The View" from the popular gossip site. But other advertisers appear to be sticking by Hilton. TV Land still had a full-page background promotion and two smaller ads on PerezHilton.com, and Apple iTunes and Microsoft's search engine Bing still had advertisements up as of Wednesday afternoon.

The drama started Monday, when Hilton posted a link to a photo of Cyrus getting out of a car in a tight white dress - and apparently, no underwear. Outrage erupted over the photo, with some calling the image "child pornography" since Cyrus is legally a minor. Hilton quickly removed the picture, but has brushed off the incident as a "fake" controversy.

It's odd that Microsoft, which owns Bing, would opt to keep advertising. It has recently been touting its own crusade against kiddie-porn.

By Rusty Weiss | June 15, 2010 | 11:27 PM EDT

Perez Hilton - he of Carrie Prejean bashing fame - may be staring in the face of child porn charges in the near future.  You may recall that Hilton served as judge in the 2009 Miss USA competition, and asked Prejean her view of same-sex marriage. When Prejean offered an honest answer voicing her belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman, Hilton expressed his displeasure by taking to the internet and bashing Prejean as a ‘dumb b****'. 

Seems Perez has graduated from name-calling tantrums, and an accomplished career as a verminous outer of gay celebrities, and turned his attention to a developing career in child porn.

Ben Shapiro over at Big Hollywood reports:

"He (Hilton) linked via his Twitter account to a picture of rising Madonna wannabe Miley Cyrus climbing out of a car in a short skirt and no underwear.  In the picture, which has been removed, Cyrus' genitals are allegedly clearly visible."

Of course, now that the heat is on, Perez has taken to back-pedaling, claiming the photo was a fake.  In a statement on his blog, Hilton said, ""Do you think I'm stupid enough to post a photo of Miley if she's not wearing any underwear down there?"

That's what we in the business call a rhetorical question. 

By Colleen Raezler | April 23, 2010 | 10:21 AM EDT
The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of Rev. Billy Graham, focused on remarks he made after 9/11 in which he called Islam "wicked" and "evil" and his lack of apology for those words.

Col. Tom Collins, an Army spokesman, told ABC News on April 22, "This Army honors all faiths and tries to inculcate our soldiers and work force with an appreciation of all faiths and his past comments just were not appropriate for this venue."

By Brent Bozell | April 3, 2010 | 9:11 AM EDT

Many -- too many -- red-blooded American boys grow up on Japanese video-game systems from Sony and Nintendo. Their cultural interests can extend into Japanese cartoons ("anime") and some even discover Japanese pornographic cartoons ("hentai"). How so? Boys play games and watch cartoons like the "Dragon Ball Z" series, but can quickly surf the Web and find related cartoon titles like "Dragonball X," only to learn they are hard-core porn.

But that isn't all video-gaming boys can discover. CNN reports that Japanese porn also extends to sick video games that center on raping girls and women. One such game is called "RapeLay." The game begins with a young teenage girl on a subway platform who asks the video player in a high and tiny voice, "Can I help you with something?" The player then chooses a method of sexual assault. Players can also follow the girl onto the train and assault her older sister and her mother. Rape is not an option on the menu; rape is the entire point of the game.

By NB Staff | March 15, 2010 | 9:39 AM EDT
With the help of the MRC's talented Bob Parks, the Culture and Media Institute produced a video based on its