It’s the end of an era: the Department of Homeland Security announced yesterday that it would stop relying upon its color-coded terrorism alert scale, which means that no longer will the nightly news give us an inexplicable craving for Life Savers. We here at Flavorwire thought the government really had something with their Rainbow Brite approach to the truly terrifying, though, and decided to re-purpose their spectrum of scary things for the new year.
After the jump, take a peek at Flavorpill’s very own Pop Culture Advisory System and the celebrities, shows, and films that have terrorized 2011 so far and are on our cultural disaster watch list from here on out.
The Key:
Low:
• Steven Tyler and J. Lo joined the judges table of American Idol in an attempt to keep the new season relevant and interesting without Simon Cowell. Thankfully, the show hasn’t been relevant or interesting in a while, so we don’t think we have to worry too much.
• Katy Perry snagged Robyn as an opening act for the American leg of her 2011 California Dreams tour. Robyn’s our girl, so this label is for her own safety. The second we see her clothed in anything reminiscent of cupcakes, we’re going in.
Guarded:
• Glee’s Golden Globe grabs tells us that this show may be culturally indestructible. Sure, they may look all saccharine and moral, but we remember the GQ spread. You aren’t fooling us.
• Little Fockers will not get out of the box office top 10. We’re starting to feel bad for the poor little guy. Don’t worry, box office. This can’t possibly last much longer. They can’t possibly make another sequel. The Fockers director may be saying otherwise, but we’ll believe it when we see it (which hopefully is never).
Elevated:
• Sarah Palin: now masturbation material for Tracy Morgan. We’ll pass on that, but if she thinks she’s ever getting below the “Elevated” level, she’s delusional.
• A Shore Thing, better known as “That Book Snooki Wrote,” prompted this Tweet from the Jersey Shore starlet: “OMG I’m a New York Times Best Selling Author!!!” It’s true. She is. We’re starting to get a little shaky.
High:
• Charlie Sheen won’t stop partying with porn stars and trashing hotel rooms. Two and A Half Men is also still on the air. Both are doing detrimental things to our cultural conscience.
• In 2011, it’s apparently okay to put the Teen Mom girls on the covers of tabloids. This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Severe:
• Khloe Kardashian started showing up on magazine covers in an S&M mask, throwing all of our notions of her as the sane sister out the window. Who do we go with now? Kourtney? God help us all.
• Also, birds fell inexplicably out of the sky, as if it was just a casual little nothing. 2011, you have to stop doing stuff like this to us. It’s not good for our blood pressure.