Last night I caught the premiere of Californication. It was an hour of almost non-stop sex and more nudity on television than I had seen in a long time. I was shocked but I wasn't appalled. It was also what I had come to expect of television programs these days.
The show starts off with the protagonist, a burnt-out author, visiting a church only to receive oral-sex from a nun....one of the most unusual introductions to a character I had seen in a long time but it also managed to set the tone for the rest of the episode. The producer was telling me that this was a gloves-off program that pushed the boundaries and gained viewers through word of mouth shock value.
Granted this show had more naked women (I lost count after the second) than i had seen on most other TV shows (imagine the day when the girls from Hi-5 strip off) and this obviously led to many angry letters from various coalitions in American and Australia complaining about moral decency but these letter writers are quite hypocritical in their views.
In Season 2 of Desperate Housewives a pharmacist who had poisoned the husband of a married woman in order to begin a relationship with her and in order to prove that she loved him he swallowed a bottle of pills and waited for her to rescue her. She did not because she had just found out that he (the pharmacist) had killed her husband….confused yet?
The show allowed the audience to watch a man die whilst a woman next to her did absolutely nothing.
Take the Passion of the Christ. Mel Gibson's film about the last several hours of the life of Jesus Christ. From his betrayal by Judas to his eventual crucifixion and resurrection three days later. Oh and in the middle there's 2 hours of a man being tortured relentlessly....had to remember to add that in cause it's kind of a big thing in the film.
Rather than be criticized for his excessive use of violence Gibson was praised for bringing to true detail the horror that Jesus suffered for all our sins.
What would happen to Gibson's reputation if a couple of kids, after seeing the Passion of the Christ, decided to re-enact the torture scenes to gain a greater understanding of God. Children would be hurt, possibly killed, and Gibson would walk free.
Watching other shows like CSI, NCIS or Heroes shows a death in many episodes and usually in a very bloody and graphic way. The antagonist in Heroes regularly decapitates people in order to steal their powers and the autopsy scenes in NCIS have become so realistic I feel like I’m watching a medical documentary. Have we, as a society, become so desensitized with violence that dying in a bed due to an overdose of pills just doesn’t excite us anymore? Where has this lust for gratuitous violence and sex come from? Is it from the news reports that show us the daily conflicts in areas such as Iraq, Afghanistan and the countless war zones from around the globe? Days after the 1999 Columbine massacre the community sought to find the blame for the horrendous murders of innocent school children and the people that bore the brunt of their investigation were the gaming industry, the rock music industry and the television industry. Congress screamed for blood to be spilled (pardon the pun) but was it really the producers fault? Where does the show draw a line? Compare the scenes in television shows today with those of ten years ago. At 8:30pm ten years ago you’d be watching a new episode of The Simpsons, today you’re watching a young many being decapitated. The producers are answering only to the audiences demands and we demand to be shocked and shaken to our core and then we have the audacity to point the finger at these shows when a young mind snaps and lets lose a torrent of rage on the community.
In turn to the producer's shift in programming the coalition of the moral have let loose their cries of war. The "Parents Television Council" have begun to release their list of what is safe for children to watch and what isn't (don't worry....High School Musical 2 is on the list). I'm fine with parents banding together to decide what's decent and indecent on our television sets. However on their website (www.parentstv.org)they urge people to protest to the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to "put an end to broadcast indecency". What right do a group of parents have to infringe on my television watching. The producer's of television shows mold their programs to what the public wants to see.If you don't want your children to watch the programs....put them to bed.
As our favorite ultra-Christian Ned Flander's said (when asked why his kids why he was complaining to the FCC) "Imploring people I never met to pressure a government with better things to do to punish a man who meant no harm for something nobody even saw, that's what I'm doing!"
The show starts off with the protagonist, a burnt-out author, visiting a church only to receive oral-sex from a nun....one of the most unusual introductions to a character I had seen in a long time but it also managed to set the tone for the rest of the episode. The producer was telling me that this was a gloves-off program that pushed the boundaries and gained viewers through word of mouth shock value.
Granted this show had more naked women (I lost count after the second) than i had seen on most other TV shows (imagine the day when the girls from Hi-5 strip off) and this obviously led to many angry letters from various coalitions in American and Australia complaining about moral decency but these letter writers are quite hypocritical in their views.
In Season 2 of Desperate Housewives a pharmacist who had poisoned the husband of a married woman in order to begin a relationship with her and in order to prove that she loved him he swallowed a bottle of pills and waited for her to rescue her. She did not because she had just found out that he (the pharmacist) had killed her husband….confused yet?
The show allowed the audience to watch a man die whilst a woman next to her did absolutely nothing.
Take the Passion of the Christ. Mel Gibson's film about the last several hours of the life of Jesus Christ. From his betrayal by Judas to his eventual crucifixion and resurrection three days later. Oh and in the middle there's 2 hours of a man being tortured relentlessly....had to remember to add that in cause it's kind of a big thing in the film.
Rather than be criticized for his excessive use of violence Gibson was praised for bringing to true detail the horror that Jesus suffered for all our sins.
What would happen to Gibson's reputation if a couple of kids, after seeing the Passion of the Christ, decided to re-enact the torture scenes to gain a greater understanding of God. Children would be hurt, possibly killed, and Gibson would walk free.
Watching other shows like CSI, NCIS or Heroes shows a death in many episodes and usually in a very bloody and graphic way. The antagonist in Heroes regularly decapitates people in order to steal their powers and the autopsy scenes in NCIS have become so realistic I feel like I’m watching a medical documentary. Have we, as a society, become so desensitized with violence that dying in a bed due to an overdose of pills just doesn’t excite us anymore? Where has this lust for gratuitous violence and sex come from? Is it from the news reports that show us the daily conflicts in areas such as Iraq, Afghanistan and the countless war zones from around the globe? Days after the 1999 Columbine massacre the community sought to find the blame for the horrendous murders of innocent school children and the people that bore the brunt of their investigation were the gaming industry, the rock music industry and the television industry. Congress screamed for blood to be spilled (pardon the pun) but was it really the producers fault? Where does the show draw a line? Compare the scenes in television shows today with those of ten years ago. At 8:30pm ten years ago you’d be watching a new episode of The Simpsons, today you’re watching a young many being decapitated. The producers are answering only to the audiences demands and we demand to be shocked and shaken to our core and then we have the audacity to point the finger at these shows when a young mind snaps and lets lose a torrent of rage on the community.
In turn to the producer's shift in programming the coalition of the moral have let loose their cries of war. The "Parents Television Council" have begun to release their list of what is safe for children to watch and what isn't (don't worry....High School Musical 2 is on the list). I'm fine with parents banding together to decide what's decent and indecent on our television sets. However on their website (www.parentstv.org)they urge people to protest to the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to "put an end to broadcast indecency". What right do a group of parents have to infringe on my television watching. The producer's of television shows mold their programs to what the public wants to see.If you don't want your children to watch the programs....put them to bed.
As our favorite ultra-Christian Ned Flander's said (when asked why his kids why he was complaining to the FCC) "Imploring people I never met to pressure a government with better things to do to punish a man who meant no harm for something nobody even saw, that's what I'm doing!"
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