THE GREAT GADFLY:

Girls Gone Lost

It was a stirring reality-based movie based on the corruption of today's youth, entitled Girls Gone Lost - perhaps you saw it? It starred Jessica Simpson as a doe-eyed paralegal named Laura who, fresh from college, goes on a trip to Mardi Gras with several of her girlfriends and returns home to find that she and her pals were the stars of a direct-to-video drunken bead-mongering lesbian orgy flick, filmed by none other than a notorious party-animal rapper named Da Shizzler (portrayed in this film by Designing Women's Meshach Taylor).

Soon after, Laura's mother, played by JoBeth Williams, sees the offending tape advertised on a late-night infomercial and that's when the drama really starts to kick in.

My favorite scene is when the mother and daughter are shopping for Laura's little niece Missy at The American Girl Place, and as they are picking out foundation garments for Missy's new doll (named Aryadne), the mother has a mental break:

MOTHER: How COULD you, Laura? How COULD you?!? You treated your breasts like some kind of common chew-toys! Your sacred zones are ready for the trash dump after this! If you get Herpes, it's for your own good. I'm ashamed to be your mother!

LAURA: Shut up!

MOTHER: In certain cultures, you could be stoned for this kind of thing, you know. I could throw rocks right at your head, and nobody would say a word. Well, they would ululate a lot, but that would be part of the ritual. How would you like it if I did that? Would that be a hot party scene for you, if I started whooping like a banshee and pelting you with stones??? WOULD YOU LIKE THAT??? ANSWER ME!!!!

LAURA: Shut up!

And then, poor JoBeth rips all the products from the shelves and begins to pelt Jessica Simpson with boxes and boxes of doll panties, ululating wildly until she finally collapses in a loud, plaintive wail, screeching "WHY?!? WHYYYYY?!?!?" until the film mercifully fades to a commercial.

But that's not the most harrowing part of the film. No. The most gut-wrenching part of "Girls Gone Lost" would be the part when Laura's cute little niece Missy comes to JoBeth's house for a birthday celebration sleepover. After a particularly misty-eyed birthday tea party for cute little innocent Missy (played by that Demon Pepsi Child girl), everyone goes to bed and Missy sneaks downstairs to watch some television, as precocious little girls are want to do. She turns on the television and immediately sees her Aunt Laura on the scandalous informercial, baring her wares and waggling her tongue.

"Auntie Laura! Auntie Laura!" Missy squeaks, and jumps up to kiss the television screen. But in her youthful, innocent zeal, Missy pushes the TV a little too hard and the entire entertainment center topples over, tragically crushing little Missy to death on her birthday.

Awakened by the commotion, JoBeth and Jessica run downstairs and discover the fatal, horrible scene.

Balling her hands into fists, JoBeth erupts into one last volcano platter of agony, screeching at her daughter once again:

MOTHER: THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, YOU FILTHY, FILTHY LITTLE HAG!!!! Do you see what happens now, when you give The Shizzler the camera at Mardi Gras? WELL??? DO YOU?!!!

DAUGHTER (sobbing wildly): I guess...I guess I'm just a girl gone lost!!!

Then, in a rage, JoBeth starts throwing drink coasters at Jessica Simpson, who is red-faced with wild grief. And that was the end.

Then, Tyne Daly and Meridith Baxter-Birney did a PSA on shaking one's ass in inappropriate places while drunk.

It was quite a movie.

I tell you, it makes you think.