This is why we can't have nice things

[retro_eidas]

I don't know anything about "Gossip Girl", but apparently they have some sort of scandalous, sexually deviant story coming up? Or, so says the Parents Television Council anyway.

From a letter the PTC have sent to the CW regarding GG's apparent lasciviousness:

Gossip Girl routinely depicts teenage characters engaging in promiscuous and consequence-free sexual behavior, and that's bad enough. But will you now be complicit in establishing a precedent and expectation that teenagers should engage in behaviors heretofore associated primarily with adult films? Behaviors that not only increase health risks, but which are emotionally and psychologically damaging to participants, as well? I certainly hope not, and I'm sure members of your community and parents of children who watch your network expect more of you.

There's also the typical Big Brother Is Watching You type warning.

Please be advised that the PTC will monitor this episode very closely.

Our members will not hesitate to contact local and national advertisers; and if this program violates broadcast decency law, rest assured that our members will contact the Federal Communications Commission.

According to this article, this same group apparently also considers "Ugly Betty" only appropriate for people over 18. I don't really give two straws about "Ugly Betty" or "Gossip Girl", but "Ugly Betty"? Really? What little I have seen of the show, I'm having trouble pinpointing what exactly their issues are with it. I can't imagine it would have at all to do with the fact the incredibly tame, watershed sitcom is one of the few network shows on television that has openly gay and transgendered characters in it? Oh wait, I can imagine it! But I guess "we're narrow-minded, paranoid homophobes" doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well as "stem the flow of harmful and negative messages targeted to children". I suppose if the PTC had their way all kids would be locked in the basement until they're 21 get home-schooled? Like all those kids they fear the tv box is corrupting can't go to school or the mall or the internet and not only be exposed to this same sort of deviancy, but hear and see things far more "explicit" than anything you'd see on primetime CW or ABC.

I am kind of curious on what would happen if these folks watched an ep of "Skins" or maybe "Torchwood"? I kind of really want to see those letters to the FCC. That is, if they were even capable of typing and not induced into some catatonic state from their shock and horror. Heh.

Now for my own shameful biases, but it makes me wish certain showrunner's of little-horror-shows-that-could would do something - anything - to really get these people to clutch their pearls. I know it won't happen, but it would be nice.

Comments

[amaresu]

Do people still listen to the PTC? They were complaining about GG a few years ago if I remember correctly.

It amuses me though that the PTC will go after GG for being to sexual, but is perfectly okay with SPN and the graphic horror/blood/stuff. I mean I'll hide my head from the tv more for SPN then for Criminal Minds because I just don't need to see that.

[elliptic-eye.livejournal.com]

It amuses me though that the PTC will go after GG for being to sexual, but is perfectly okay with SPN and the graphic horror/blood/stuff

This, and it's not just them--it's most of the U.S., as far as I can tell. Pretty frakking disturbing that sex is automatically more "adult" than, you know, people harming other people.

[eido.livejournal.com]

Pretty frakking disturbing that sex is automatically more "adult" than, you know, people harming other people.

Doesn't seem to be just any sex either they seem to have the most problem with. Yet that is placed in the same red marked category as all these violent, bloody and gorey shows. Obviously, gay sex = corpses of rape victims found in dumpsters or characters getting their brains blown apart by sawed-off shotguns.

[eido.livejournal.com]

That's a very American way of thinking though, isn't it? The handwaving of violence, but the notion of possibly two guys kissing? People are screaming deviancy. Although, in fairness to PTC, they do consider SPN a red marked series, high caution for parents, as they do most of the, for example, violent, bloody procedural dramas in TV like the CSIs. However, "Will and Grace" is also placed alongside them in the red category, as is "Ugly Betty".