This page is a spin-off from a similar page about cultural and political
bias in the movies. The
motion picture industry and the television industry are inescapably co-dependent. Each of them
produces political propaganda and "envelope pushing" entertainment that is destructive to our
traditional American culture.
Note: The material about the V-Chip is now
on this page. The V-Chip is a weak and
ineffective filter, simply because the people who produce TV shows decide for themselves what the
V-Chip rating will be for each show.
Girly Men: The Media's Attack on
Masculinity. At work they're Masters of the Universe, but in the social realm they're ineffectual
schlubs. Women can do whatever they want to them, and the men can't find a way to get control over their
personal lives. They spend much of the program discussing their feelings about the terrible things that
are happening to them. These otherwise powerful men show that no man is safe from the myriad humiliations
women and life in general are apt to heap upon them.
A&E's
faith problem: My wife and I sat riveted the other night, watching Larry King Live as he showed
clips from A&E's made-for-TV version of the events of September 11th on board Flight #93. The actors on
the show made a point of telling King how accurate and true to the transcripts this movie was, so I was
curious to hear how they handled Beamer's last moments. As I suspected would happen, Beamer's final
prayer to his God was excised.
The Politically Correct Horror
Picture Show. Occasionally, I view the History Channel, and Sunday evening I
tuned into a two-hour horror show. Viewers were treated to frightening scenarios for
three-plus disasters, some natural, some of our own making, that are bound to destroy the
world and everybody in it, or something just short of that. … This is yet more evidence
that those who paint the most horrific pictures of our future are determined that we get
one consistent with their jaundiced view of mankind's capacity for self government.
What Does "Family
Friendly" Mean? In the world of the networks, where sleaze, sex, blood and shock
are the rule, the definition of "family friendly" can easily be watered down — and has been.
Showtime Renews Lesbian
Series. The L Word, a lesbian version of Sex and the City, has been renewed for a
fifth season. The series airs on Showtime, the pay cable network owned by CBS.
More
sexed-up shows on U.S. television, report finds. U.S. television these days is loaded
with sexual content — double the number of sex scenes aired seven years ago, says a
study out Wednesday [11/9/2005]. And the number of shows that include "safer sex" messages
has leveled off, it said.
Fall
TV Preview for Red Staters. It can get discouraging out there for a red-blooded conservative
searching for good original programming without any sermons from our betters in Blue America. Walking
into the fall line-up without a guide, you're more vulnerable than a Democratic staffer at a NASCAR race.
FCC Proposes New Fines
for Indecent TV. The biggest proposed fine issued Wednesday [3/15/2006] by the Federal
Communications Commission was for $3.6 million — a record — against dozens
of CBS stations and affiliates. The FCC said an episode of the CBS crime drama "Without a Trace"
that aired in December 2004 was indecent, citing the graphic depiction of "teenage boys and girls
participating in a sexual orgy."
[Notice that CBS has come up with a lame and transparently bogus excuse for this incident, just
as they did for the Super Bowl halftime "wardrobe malfunction."
Warning: She gives plenty of examples.
Vulgar
USA. A couple of weeks ago I was felled by a particularly nasty flu. Too
sick even to read, I listened to radio and watched television for long hours every day. What
I heard and saw was not conducive to recovery. I admit to being a little "out of the loop" as
I almost never watch entertainment television on the major stations. But the level of vulgarity
that now seems utterly ordinary is just unbelievable.
Oprah promotes, and
Whoopi volunteers for irresponsible sex. We all know that sales of anything — books,
cars — skyrocket when a product is featured on Oprah. What are these "endorsements" of casual
sex going to reap? And The View, in its attempt to be hip and edgy, comes across like a bunch of
adolescents who don't know how to behave when company visits.
AFA Warns Sponsors to Separate
from 'Desperate Housewives'. A pro-family media watchdog group has announced it will
monitor advertisers on ABC's popular program "Desperate Housewives" and plans to call for a yearlong
boycott of the series' sponsors.
Al Gore, the United Nations, and the Cult of Gaia (1999):
[Scroll down] Another key player is Ted Turner, who has turned his broadcasting empire into a virtual arm of the United
Nations. A noted critic of Christianity and ambassador on behalf of the U.N. Population Fund, he promotes the
concept of Gaia in his television programs, such as the "Captain Planet" cartoon show, in which characters get
magic powers from an Earth spirit or goddess. … Turner claims personal credit for originating the concept of
the Captain Planet and the Planeteers cartoon program, which features a character "Gaia," described as "The spirit
of the planet Earth who appears to the Planeteers either in human form or as a holographic image."
The
World According to the TV Critics: What critics focus on, as an imperative, are those programs
that are defined as cutting edge, the ones that break new ground — especially if they're salacious. And
when it stars a known entity, it's a lock for a review. So it comes as no surprise that the Showtime
network's new "Californication" series has everyone's attention.
Donald Rumsfeld is like Adolf
Hitler? "A little faux pas," according to comedian Joy Behar, speaking Tuesday [12/19/2006] about
her stunning comparison a day earlier on ABC's gabfest, "The View." "I don't think that Rumsfeld is an
evil person, in his heart," Behar told the show's audience Tuesday, appearing to take a small step back from
her controversial off-the-cuff remarks.
Soap
Opera Introducing Transgender Character. In a story unusual even for a soap opera and believed
to be a television first, ABC's "All My Children" this week will introduce a transgender character who is
beginning to make the transition from a man into a woman.
The girls on The
View. These are women who pride themselves on being independent and empowered when they dress
like prostitutes (look at the view of cleavage on the View!). These are the women who watch the
View. These are the women who support Hillary Rodham Clinton. These are the women on the
show who ask Senator Clinton questions like "Do you think being a mom will help you in the White
House?" as they did on December 20.
Study Shows TV
Sexual Content Increasing, 'Safe-Sex' Themes Leveling Off. Researchers
at the Kaiser Family Foundation report that the amount of sexual
content on television today is nearly double the amount that was on in 1998. … TV
deals a lot with sex — but addresses the related risks and responsibilities
far less often.
While all America switches on the TV,
Hollywood turns to its basest instincts. There is a gay son in Desperate Housewives, a
gay mobster in The Sopranos and a gay theme night on American Idol (if songs by Queen count as
a gay theme). As for those other popular family-values shows, there are offerings about a corrupt,
murdering cop (The Shield); a corrupt murdering President (24); a polygamist businessman
and his three wives (Big Love); a misanthropic hospital doctor (House); and, of course, a prison
inmate and his sex offender sidekick (Prison Break).
Kids' TV Contains 'Dark, Sinister'
Violence, Pro-Family Advocate Warns. The Parents Television Council's director of
research and publications feels more adults need to pay attention to what their children are watching
on TV, even during after-school and Saturday morning broadcast time supposedly
dedicated to children's programming. She says many parents may be surprised to
learn that much of kids' TV is really not so much for kids anymore.
Caution: The writer goes into graphic detail to make his point about TV indecency.
"Little
House" of horrors. Why did she do this? Is the "wholesome" tag such a scarlet letter in
today's Tinseltown that it requires this level of penance? Perhaps there's even more to it. Until
recently, [Melissa] Gilbert was president of the Screen Actors Guild, which has fought proposals to strengthen
protections against televised indecency. Gilbert couldn't have taken a more public stand (in this
case, in the prone position) than this disgusting stunt.
Too much
profanity on 'American Idol'. The new year's TV sensation is unmissably Fox's "American
Idol." … Two years ago, I sat down to watch an episode, not because I wanted to (I certainly
didn't), but because I felt the professional obligation. I confess: I was hooked. It
was dramatic, it was hilarious, it was heartwarming, it was professional — all the
things that make for good television. Sadly, this year, you can add another
descriptor: It's also now raunchy.
Entertainment
as indoctrination: Entertainment is the subtlest and most effective means of ideological
indoctrinating. It creates a psychological opening through which cultural messages bypass the
intellectual filters that arrest most input for critical analysis. Because the context for these
messages is "entertainment," they get a free pass into the mind's cultural framework, where they
compete, at a subconscious level, with established ethical and moral standards.
Sex, culture,
and the college student. When parents think about the pitfalls of popular culture for
their kids, they usually focus on their younger children, the innocent ones for whom it gets harder
every day to shield from an onslaught of sexual themes in everything on television and the radio,
including the commercials. Throw in the Internet, and it's surround-sound sex.
Super Bowl:
good news and bad news. During the Super Bowl, [advertisers pushed] hyper-violent
movies. For example, "Poseidon" featured a ship being overturned by a tidal wave, people
falling to their deaths, and massive explosions. How did they get around their own
guidelines? These movie trailers are now sometimes aired before the movie is formally rated.
Coming
in 2006: Group marriage TV? As another year turns, we're reminded that the
more things change, the more they stay the same. As our popular culture pushes ever further
into anything goes, we're reminded that anything-goes has certainly gone before. … Led by the usual
hallowed envelope-pushers of pay cable, Hollywood has marched ever more passionately in this decade
into chronicling and celebrating a cavalcade of alternative lifestyles.
TV's
ickiest moments of 2005. It is a rite of passage for some TV critics to take
stock of the worst of the past year's television. Entertainment Weekly Online, no nest
of prudes and scolds, has compiled its own list of the "10 moments that made us squirm the most."
Warning: The author goes into graphic descriptions of the worst stuff on television.
Poisoning
children, too? There is no market demand for this. It is clearly out of bounds,
offensive and dangerous. It shatters the innocence of childhood deliberately. And yet
there are people out there writing these scripts. … And there are people distributing it with
the goal to reach, and influence, as many millions of little boys and girls as possible.
TV's tasteless
trampling of the taboo. The Kaiser Family Foundation recently issued a new biennial study
finding that the number of sexual scenes on television has nearly doubled since 1998.
E! TV is Using 'Girls Next
Door' to Normalize the Porn Industry. Entertainment Television's show Girls
Next Door is just another example of Hollywood's attempt to normalize the porn industry
in today's culture, claims an internationally respected expert and justice consultant on the
subject. In an exclusive interview, Dr. Judith Reisman … blasted the E! TV channel
by saying, "the fact [that the network] states on its website that they are owned 49.9% by
Disney says it…all."
Radio Disney: Remove God From 'Ten
Commandments' Movie Ad. It's a movie about the Bible, but family-friendly Disney Co. is moving
heaven and earth to make sure the word "God" is stricken from some advertisements promoting an upcoming
animated film on Moses and the Ten Commandments.
Who defines "family"
values? The Family Friendly Programming Forum … has just announced its "Family Television
Awards." … Their best drama series selection was ABC's "Lost," a gripping and popular show, but also
incredibly violent. … Maybe for older teens this is acceptable. But for grade-school
children? The Family Friendly Programming Forum says it is.
The
indecency argument is over. Every national survey shows the public is absolutely
fed up with indecent, obscene, vulgar, offensive, inappropriate — you pick the
word — programming flooding the airwaves, aimed at impressionable youngsters,
and all because corporate behemoths could care less who they offend so long as they
can make a buck.
NBC
to Air Series About Dysfunctional Christian Family. A conservative advocacy group is urging
its supporters to protest an upcoming NBC television series that portrays a "completely dysfunctional
family" as models of the Christian faith.
Why
Liberals Hate Christians: Liberals in America despise Christians of true faith. They do
this because in doing so their own guilt is appeased, their anger is justified, and they can finally lay blame
for their own misery at someone else's feet. Last night Alexandra Pelosi's newest documentary, "Friends
of God" aired on HBO. In that Alexandra is the daughter of the nation's first feminist, House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi it was all too easy to pre-judge where Alexandra's work would land.
"The Book of Daniel" mocks Christianity.
NBC will air The Book of Daniel on Friday evenings, starting in early January. According to published reports,
the weekly show centers around an Episcopal priest named Daniel Webster who talks with a manifestation of Jesus. In
addition, the Webster family reportedly includes a 23-year-old homosexual, Republican son; a 16-year-old daughter who is a
drug dealer; and an adopted son involved in an improper relationship with the bishop's daughter.
Some NBC Affiliates are Closing the
Book on Daniel. Last week NBC affiliate KSNW-TV in Wichita, Kansas, decided not to air the
premiere episode of The Book of Daniel after receiving hundreds of protests. But station
management opted to air the Friday night program after getting deluged with hundreds of counter-protests.
NBC's
Book of Daniel is Desperate Housewives in a Clerical Collar. Apparently the
church is the last politically correct punching bag.
NBC Could Mock More Than Episcopalians. NBC
couldn't possibly have an agenda to just mock Episcopalians. Or Christians. Could they?
The chickens come home to roost:
NBC pulls the plug on 'Book of
Daniel'. NBC's "The Book of Daniel" may have launched to great controversy and
hoopla. But, today, the show ended with a whimper — pulled unceremoniously
from NBC's Friday night schedule, effective immediately, with no more of an announcement than an entry
on an NBC blog by creator Jack Kenny.
NBC cancels "The Book of
Daniel". NBC has canceled controversial Friday night drama "The Book of
Daniel" after only a few weeks on the air. The cancellation is blamed on low ratings
nationwide.
The Editor blurts out...
Some people will watch TV regardless of what is being shown. Unfortunately for NBC,
there aren't very many people with standards low enough to tolerate a program such
as "The Book of Daniel". I wonder how many NBC executives are now looking for work as
a result of this miscalculation.
TV's
uncontrollable urge to be gruesome: In an article in the New York Post, lead
actor Julian McMahon proclaimed of the show's sex and violence, "I'd like to be even more brutal and
more weird … I feel very lucky that we've gotten away with what we have, but I'd like to go even
further." Which his industry will, at least until the next Columbine, at which point they'll
all be oh, so upset again.
The Pond. Most
folks don't realize that many sitcoms are created not simply to entertain. They are created to drive an
agenda, to further a world-view, to break down "barriers". I've written before about how MTV has made a
big business out of manipulating our teens' minds for money, all the while pushing them further into the abyss
of an already over-sexualized culture. But parents of even the youngest children must understand that
much of today's TV programming for their tots is designed to be the first of a gradual breaking down of
sensitivities and values.
Tila
Tequila, MTV's Latest Poison. This show seemed desperately in need of a writer's strike.
Quality, however, was never necessary. The lack thereof was — and it worked. It scored
first place on cable among MTV's desired demographic of 18- to 34-year-olds. What Viacom also knows, and
had absolutely no qualms about, is that this sex-obsessed show would also play well with junior-high and
high-school kids, and grade-school children, too.
The arrested
adolescent's channel. Nothing is sacred at Comedy Central. The cable channel has
perfected the formula of mocking positively everything, to find the final frontier of offensiveness
and smash it to bits. … There is a network formula here — shock equals publicity equals
ratings — and Comedy Central thrives on it.
DISHing Low. On
one recent night I made a command decision regarding my TV remote: It won't click over to
G4 Tech TV if my young son is anywhere within earshot of the TV. I made that decision
after watching about 30 seconds of Xplay, ostensibly a show that reviews video games. And
the hosts do review games. But while handing down their verdicts, they also manage to curse
like sailors for no apparent reason.
Gay-per-view?
TV Network for Gays,
Lesbians to Debut. Unlike other gay-oriented networks, Logo will not be
pay-per-view; it will be be fed into homes via cable networks whether consumers want it
or not.
TV infested
by "weeds". Showtime, the pay-cable giant owned by Viacom, must be seeking
a perfect schedule of "edgy" sleaze. … Isn't it somewhat perverse that our tax dollars
need to go to drug-prevention messages on television, in part to counter our drug-glamorizing
TV programs?
The sleaze
subsidizers: Even though blame for increasingly offensive TV programming is
properly assigned to producers, writers, networks, and even viewers, sponsors bankroll
shows with graphic sexual content, foul language and violence, and therefore also share
responsibility. Without the advertising dollars, the raunch would never air.
PTC Announces
Top Ten Best/Worst Advertisers. The PTC tracked products advertised
on all of primetime broadcast television and select original cable programs between
January 2004 and January 2005. Companies were ranked on the best or worst list
based on how frequently their ads appeared on family-friendly programs versus programs
containing high levels of sex, foul language, and violence.
FCC
Accused of Discounting TV Indecency Complaints. The federal agency charged with
enforcing the nation's broadcast indecency laws now stands accused of discounting complaints
from tens of thousands of citizens because those complaints were submitted with the aid and urging
of advocacy groups supporting tougher enforcement. Conflicting data regarding citizen complaints
has resulted in some groups questioning the credibility of the FCC, which is responsible for
enforcing broadcast decency standards.
FCC: Wilder
than the newspapers. The FCC seems to be saying that only actual nudity or
actual sexual situations on broadcast television are offensive enough to trigger remedial
action. You can talk about anything you want, and focus entire hours of TV programming
on raunchy sexual subject matter, as long as you don't show actual sex. That's a sad
abandonment of the FCC's responsibility to uphold community standards.
Family
Group Warns of "Deviant Homosexual Content" on New Cable Networks. A pro-family
group is warning parents about two new homosexual cable networks that will be offered by
cable providers.
Mary Kay's
crime pays. Webster's Dictionary defines famous as "widely known," but
also "honored for achievement," while infamous is defined as "having a reputation of
the worst kind," a synonym for "disgraceful." In the big business of celebrity
journalism today, there is no discernible difference between fame and infamy.
Media
Morality - Does It Even Exist? Since the 2004 presidential election, the
nation has been abuzz with the increased influence of "morality" in the voting preferences
of Americans. Eleven states voted to reject homosexual "marriage," Florida denied
abortion for minors without parental notification, and gambling initiatives were repeatedly
struck down. Why is this so surprising? Perhaps it is because, at first glance,
one may not guess that we are a moral nation. Look at the TV shows, the music, the
movies that we consume for entertainment. The recent trend in politics does not
reflect the spiraling culture in which we find ourselves.
Nickelodeon
Tells Kids The Battle At Alamo Was To Defend Slavery.
Televised fiction acts as a commercial for big government.
The brilliance of today's TV
characters: The most impressive and competent individuals on the small screen today, I think bar
none, are those who work for the government, particularly in the intelligence and national security
fields. It seems fair to say that not everyone would regard this as a true-to-life reflection of the
current situation.
Pro-Family
Groups Continue Push to Rein in Media Indecency. Pro-family and media
watchdog organizations are urging President Bush to appoint a new chairman to the
Federal Communications Commission who "is committed to enforcing indecency laws." In
a Jan. 31 letter to Bush, Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media, urged the
selection of a new chairman who believes that "the breakdown of standards on TV and
radio is a 'moral values' problem we cannot ignore." The letter was co-signed by
representatives of 53 pro-family and decency groups.
Study
links teen sex to TV sexual content. Young people who watched a lot of
television with sexual content were about twice as likely to start having intercourse
during the subsequent year as those with little exposure to televised sex, researchers
found. "Exposure to TV that included only talk about sex was associated with the
same risks as exposure to TV that depicted sexual behavior," said Rand Corp. behavioral
scientist Rebecca Collins and colleagues.
Violence and Promiscuity Set the Stage for
Television's Moral Collapse. Long hailed as the cheapest form of family entertainment,
television has cost us our imagination, our conversation, and our children's innocence. As Dr. George
Gerbner puts it, "The roles [young people] grow into are no longer home-made, hand-crafted, and community
inspired." Instead, they are developing a worldview based on television and not their own experience.
Sex and the TV-watching
teen: While smoking remains legal for adults, it's off limits to children, and cigarette
advertising would decidedly entice youngsters to dabble in that vice. It's a simple, cause-and-effect
argument. In that vein, it should not be surprising that Rebecca Collins and a team of researchers at the
RAND Corporation have discovered a similar pattern for prime-time television's nearly omnipresent patter about
sex, sex, sex.
Is sweeps month lesbian
month? In this sweeps month of February, all the other networks are pumping up the lesbian
themes for much more cynical ratings-grabbing reasons, with hormone-bursting teens as one target
audience. Sweeps month is always the time to ramp up the "edgy" factor, which is the perpetual
problem. How far will the networks have to go to locate the frontier of "edgy" for the next sweeps
period?
Yearning
for the middle. The culture war is about the raunchiness that seeps into everyday
life, entertainments that appeal to the lowest common denominator among us. In defining
deviancy down, in the memorable phrase of the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, sexual explicitness,
nearly always vulgar and trashy, is thrown in the faces of everyone.
CBS's other mess:
Luckily for America, the FCC didn't buy the notion that CBS had no idea it was about to stun the country from
one football-crazy coast to the other. It's easy to forget that MTV — CBS's sister corporation
that produced this debacle — almost immediately boasted about the stunt on its Website.
Summer's
pop music meltdown: Want a primer on societal meltdown? Then turn
on the Top 40 pop station in any town, and sample the cultural depths
to which too much of today's popular music has sunk.
Top
10 Best and Worst Network TV Shows for Family Viewing. Each year, the
Parents Television Council rates the best and the worst shows on primetime television on the
seven major broadcast networks. The PTC Best and Worst list does not examine artistic
quality. But it measures series' appropriateness for family audiences from a content
perspective.
"Buffy" and "Will & Grace" cleared of
indecency. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Will & Grace" came up clean as far as the FCC is
concerned, as it rejected indecency complaints filed by two conservative-leaning interest groups against the
popular syndicated TV shows. The complaints filed by the Parent Television Council and Americans for
Decency were dismissed in a 5-0 vote.
Oprah
Winfrey: Agent of Moral Insanity. Oprah Winfrey, widely
cited as one of the most influential and admired women in America, showed
herself to be an agent of moral insanity when she featured a program celebrating
young children who are seeking sex-change procedures and transgender identities. In
one episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," the true nature of our modern sexual
confusion was made clear, and the broadcast should long be
remembered as one of the most frightening hours in television history.
The media
joins the Big Lie game. Bush and Cheney have in fact been careful not to claim
that Iraq and Al Qaeda collaborated on 9-11. Yet Democrats and many in
the media claim they have.
Christian Broadcaster: Cable and Sat
Channels are Cluttered with Filth. The head of PAX-TV is urging Congress to do more than just
crack down on broadcast indecency on the public airwaves. He wants U.S. lawmakers to go after filth on
cable and satellite TV as well.
Montel Williams & Me: You
don't realize how much shows like this are choreographed until you're actually on
one. Despite the seemingly spontaneous nature of the dialog and the audience's
reaction, virtually every moment of applause is cued by a member of the show's staff.
NBC
Show Hides Truth About Abortion Industry. Law and Order: Criminal
Intent, NBC's popular extension of its Emmy Award-winning series Law and
Order, has proven itself a purveyor of pro-abortion propaganda. The episode
titled "The Third Horseman," which aired January 6, was filled with pro-abortion
rhetoric, anti-right-to-life sentiment, and distrustful attitudes toward
Bible-believing Christians.
Radio's
Summer smut: [N]early every morning radio show is pushing sex, sex and
more sex — and the more outrageous, the better.
How CNN
Creates The News: How many families do you know that live in
a "compound"? My dictionary defines a compound as "an enclosed area used for confining
prisoners of war." But in the liberal media handbook, "compound" means any dwelling where
God and guns are present. It's a loaded word used to conjure up images of white separatists
and religious sects.
Getting
"queasy" at the FCC: [H]ow many times has the FCC fined a TV station or
network for violating decency standards? None. Try and find one.
(Warning: He's right, but this article contains rather
extensive descriptions of broadcast filth.)
Is there
a broadcast standard? Where is our popular culture located in this age
of expanded sexual consciousness, and its byproduct, shrunken periods of innocent
childhood? Does mass culture have a gatekeeper anymore? Hollywood used to have a
voluntary code of conduct for movies and TV, but those are now forgotten relics. TV
networks used to have broadcast standards and practices departments, but nobody seems
to be practicing hard at upholding standards.
Real
Reality: "Reality" TV is out of control. Cameras have faithfully recorded
everything from contestants eating rats to foolish women marrying for money, and soon
French TV will show live action in — you guessed it — a brothel. I have an idea to put
all those cameras to good use, in a way that will benefit the citizenry.
Harsh
Reality TV: The entertainment television business isn't just based
on ratings, it's based on profits. Some of the biggest TV hits of our time, like
"Friends," see their profits diluted by star salaries commanding $1 million per major
character per episode. It helps you understand the appeal to network executives for
"reality" shows, where willing human camera fodder will do the most ridiculous things
for next to nothing more than the chance to be televised. It's the latest in cheap ego
massage: I am televised, therefore I am.
New web site: One Million Dads. The
networks and sponsors don't care what their programming is doing to our children. The only thing
they care about is making money. Here is what Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney (which owns ABC),
had to say about respecting children: "We have no obligation to make history. We have no
obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make a statement. To make money is our
only obligation."
(Would Walt Disney have agreed?)
Black
Isn't a Personality Type: Should producers cast "token" black
characters in order to avoid the charge that their show is "all-white?"
Political Correctness Imprisons Speedy
Gonzales: From Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, to Wile E. Coyote's Roadrunner-catching Acme
ingenuity, Warner Brothers' hilarious Looney Tunes have filled generations of Americans with innocent
childlike laughter. Unfortunately, political correctness run amok is depriving future generations
of one unforgettable toon. The Cartoon Network, a subsidiary of AOL-Time Warner, has shelved
all 40 six-minute Speedy Gonzales shorts.
What's
a parent, anyway? A new book called "The Other Parent: The Inside
Story of the Media's Effect on Our Children" is written by a liberal professor
and features an afterword by a member of the Clinton family. So should
conservatives consider it radioactive? At times it's wrongheaded -- even to
the point of shrillness -- but it does have some superb moments. In the final
analysis, it's a provocative read.
Parents Group Identifies the "Best" and
"Worst" of Network TV: The Parents Television Council, based in Los Angeles, has just released
its annual list of what it considers the ten best and ten worst programs on prime-time network television.
New Police TV Drama Masks
"Pornography," Ex-Officer Charges: A top official at a national police organization calls the
controversial new FX cable network police drama, The Shield, "pornographic" and believes it does a
disservice to the men and women in blue.
"West Wing" vs. Reality: Bush Dumb, Gore
Bright? President George W. Bush -- despite his post-September 11
performance -- remains dumb, says "West Wing" producer Aaron Sorkin.
Studies Show TV Affects
Children: Years of studies and worries about the effects of violent and immoral
programming on children have accomplished nothing. The entertainment media are worse than
ever. Violent and immoral behavior among teens is escalating. New studies are
increasingly able to link the programming and behavior.
Networks Plan on
Blaspheming God — Most Shocking TV Season Ever: ABC, CBS and NBC are considering
dropping many of the few remaining standards on network prime-time TV programs — and will likely
allow expletives and four-letter words never spoken before on broadcast TV.
Lower
TV Standards Draw Mixed Response: Reports that new television shows
this fall will include more expletives, sexuality and profanities involving God's name
are drawing mixed responses from conservatives and industry observers. Some see
the prime time programming as further evidence of the coarsening of American society,
while others point to the 2002 network lineup as an opportunity to promote
the responsibility of parents to monitor what their children watch on television. [It is both.]
Clearing the AirWaves: The FCC may
be the official arbiter of decency for the nation's airwaves, but frankly, Homer Simpson has
greater influence over what goes on the air. It's called the Simpsons' Rule: "If they
say it on 'The Simpsons,' we can say it on the air."
Tuned
In, Turned Off, and Ticked Off, Too: The Culture and Family Institute - an affiliate of
Concerned Women for America (CWA) - has released a report accusing the FCC of failing to crack down on
broadcasters who allow foul language, sexual innuendo, and partial nudity to air during prime time.
Parents'
Television Council Says Family Hour Has Gone From Bad to Worse: Violence, vulgarity and profanity
are more prominently displayed on television's family hour than ever before, according to the Parents'
Television Council.
Violence on Prime
Time Broadcast TV. Concerns about the impact of television violence on society are almost as old
as the medium itself. As early as 1952, the United States House of Representatives was holding hearings
to explore the impact of television violence and concluded that the "television broadcast industry was a
perpetrator and a deliverer of violence."
Foul Language on
Prime Time Network TV. The connection between media violence and real life violence has been well
documented. The consensus of the scientific and mental health communities is that children are profoundly
influenced by the violent images they see on television and in films. Constant exposure to media violence
can result in aggressive, anti-social behavior, and even violent outbursts.
Bad Advice: What TV Parents Teach Their Children About Sex - A
two-part series on television's portrayal of parents. Part 1
Part 2
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