Drew Zahn: Can You Believe HBO Finds "This" Funny?

Cable network HBO has often portrayed programming too "mature"for the broadcast airwaves, but its latest offering has some critics complaining the company has gone too far. HBO's irreverent mocku-mentary "Angry Boys" is under fire for combining child actors and phallic humor, including one scene in the series' 12th episode, where a little girl drinks from a water bottle shaped like a giant, pink penis. "The incident is meant to be comedic," writes Joe Wilson of the Media Research Center's Culture and Media Institute, or MRC. "But showing a young girl sucking on a penis in a comedic fashion is akin to showing child pornography." He continues in an MRC article on the show, "Penis humor is a major premise of 'Angry Boys.' Out Magazine reported that the show features a Japanese mother exploiting her teenage son 'to create a merchandising empire of cock-shaped products.' "In one episode, according to Out Magazine, the mother, played by a male, the creator and director of the show, Chris Lilley, unscrewed a pink plastic penis and shook it for parmesan cheese." "It's difficult to imagine that HBO would go any lower," the MRC's Dan Gainor told RadarOnline.com. "Oral sex 'humor' involving a young child shows precisely where the left's mind is really at."Gainor links the network to the left, in part, because of the network's only talk show, "Real Time with Bill Maher." "After all, it's already the Bill Maher network," Gainor said, "with all his sleaze and hatred of conservatives." "Angry Boys" is a co-production between HBO, the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the brainchild of Australian writer, performer and star of the show Chris Lilley.