[spindler]

Nowadays, there's a lot of talk about "culture wars" and "family values". Yet the most important moral issue of our time (besides abortion obviously, if that's important to you) , by far, is the rise of sleaze TV since 1985. In the last twenty years television has become a cesspool where every principle that thinking people have ever held is pissed on and laughed at for the sake of entertainment. Young people might not realize but before around 1985, there were some strict ethical guidelines that were followed. Television was not simply a voyeuristic freak show.

So I'd like to take a look at this. There's also a second, side purpose to this. One of the many indications to me that Americans are simply morally bankrupt is that there is so much talk about gay marriage, but so little talk about the vile crap on TV (For example I see dozens of threads here debating gay rights, but none on the environment of television). If you are religious and you think gays are perverts, I disagree with you. But I might still respect you if you are consistent and walk the walk. If you think gays are perverts, how about your next door neighbor you attend church with, who comes home to see who's been killed on the local "news"? Do you care when your fellow church goer turns on Jerry Springer to laugh at all the broken families and human beings? So while I'm talking about right and wrong, I'll also show the total hypocrisy of people who are against gay marriage, but don't care about sleaze TV, won't do anything about it, and won't hold their own community responsible for it.

I think if religious people or Americans in general had any real values, they would boycott TV until the megacorporations gave us a moral environment. If Christians as a whole are willing to let their children into to this subhuman environment, they are just not morally fit to be judging gays. 40% of Americans attend church weekly and these numbers are enough to easily boycott TV and force the media back to standards. A one month boycott could drive the TV stations to there knees. Why wasn't this done when this vile crap got started?


So, the first thing to do is remind people of what normality is supposed to be like. Teenagers today will have to use their imaginations, because they haven't experienced a time when life was valuable and tragedy was not entertainment.

So what's wrong with using Laci Peterson's death as an onging entertainment saga? First of all, once upon a time when a person died it was expected that you would consider the value of life that has been lost. The lurid details are trivial. So when JFK Jr. dies in a plane crash, you are supposed to think ONLY of the loss of life, the absolute tragedy to the family, and the fragility of human life. You are NOT supposed to get the video tapes of the plane crashing and watch it to thrill yourself or try to find out all the details. What matters is that a person has died. The details are meaningless and trivial compared to the loss of life.

Similarly, when Bill Clinton cheats on Hillary, you are supposed to think about how he has hurt his whole family, ESPECIALLY his young daughter. You are NOT supposed to make jokes, and bring it into your life as an ongoing source of merriment. (I'd say this about a Republican, too)

I am living a different existence from sleaze TV fans. I am a human and they are more like a dog or something below a human. When I wake up in the morning, I hope everyone is safe and happy. It therefore REALLY, REALLY bothers me if I find out that Whitney Houston is on drugs. My mind focuses on peace and happiness and tragedy is a disturbing break from that peace.

Obviously sleaze TV fans are not like they or they wouldn't turn on Entertainment Tonight to see all the tragedy. Obviously it doesn't bother them when they hear someone is mauled by a tiger, or they wouldn't tune in night after night to see more.

I know there is a battered women's shelter where people go when they are abused. However, I have absolutely no desire to sit in front of it and thrill myself by it, since the thought of abuse bothers me so much. Sleaze TV perverts are not like that.

SO LET'S GET TO THE HYPOCRISY. How come religious people are so concerned about gays, but yet have sat back and let a good percentage of their own church members become perverts themselves? Christians pretend the world has gone crazy around them. But why don't they start a real campaign to get the church members not to watch this crap instead of targeting gays? It's awfully suspicious. I'd think you'd want save the people in your own church from vile sin before you worry about how other people were born.

So I'd like to hear your opinions. How does this affect American society? Do we still have a society? Can people that are thrilled by death really be "patriotic"? Is this the same country as we were living in in 1980?

Also please pick one of the following to explain how you feel about a person who watches sleaze TV. Pick 1 through 4 or somewhere in between two numbers.

(1) Person is simply a pervert. They are getting their thrills from the lowest things. They have lost all concept of what it means to be human

(2) Person is not perverted, but they definitely lack character. Person should want to be above that sort of thing.

(3) Person should want to be above watching sleaze TV, but if they do it's forgivable and human. It's no worse than some other small thing, say littering.

(4) There's nothing wrong with it at all. People are just "curious" when someeone gets their throat cut. Child molestation is naturally a fun an intriguing thing to spend your day thinking about.

[spindler]

By the way, this is just the tip of the iceberg to get us started. This is only one small portion of what is disgusting about television today.

[cpt kangarooski]

I don't really see how it's worth getting worked up about. And I'd also caution you against assuming that there was some golden age in which things were better. Not knowing about some aspects of society hardly means that they don't exist.

At any rate, if it bothers you, probably the best thing to do would be to present alternatives, and let people make up their own minds, rather than try to get rid of some show outright.

[spindler]

It is most certainly worth getting worked up about. When I was growing up, I lived in a proud society, the real United States. We used to talk about how absolutely barbaric Iran and Iraq were because they chopped off people's hands. I felt camaraderie wth Americans when I walked out on the street because I thought that we really shared a bond based on being past all the stuff that has hapened throughout history.

Now it turns out that I am in a country where at least 30% don't care whether it is the U.S. or it is Iran. And most of the other 70% are too lazy to do anything about it. The U.S., as a society to be proud of, really meant something to me. It does not anymore. I certainly appreciate what the Founding Fathers did in 1776, but that's not an excuse for what is going on now.

I have no patriotic bond with people who feel this is acceptable. What needs to be done is there needs to be two different television packages. One can be for the animals who have no concept of humanity. And the other must be presented by honorable people who are proud to live in a decent country and care what American children see as they grow up.

[zerostar]

Originally Posted by cpt kangarooski

I don't really see how it's worth getting worked up about. And I'd also caution you against assuming that there was some golden age in which things were better. Not knowing about some aspects of society hardly means that they don't exist.

Society's have been much more, what you would call, morally apprehensible in the past 1,000 years, and that was out in the public!

I don't see what it so bad about TV today, there is pure garbage and a lot of the stuff is just too dumb for words, but with modern tech. such as the TiVo and parental limits I choose what is in my household, the rest of the crap, if society wants it, has its chance to be there too.

Vote with your viewing, what people don't watch wont be on the air, what they do will obviously thrive. This should say a lot about what the society you live in holds as their morals and what they hold as acceptable. If you are having a churning sensation even thinking about what is on TV that can be a natural thing and perhaps TV is not for you as your morals are far out of whack with the $pending population who make our society work.

[zerostar]

n/m got it from your post, i will have a reply...

[AKcrab]

So where exactly should our morals be? The 30's? 40's? 60's? 1982?

Originally Posted by spindler

Now it turns out that I am in a country where at least 30% don't care whether it is the U.S. or it is Iran. And most of the other 70% are too lazy to do anything about it.

What? Iran? What's that have to do with television?

[iLikebeer]

Different people have different morals. Like zerostar said, there is the V chip and most electronics have some kind of parental limits that can be programmed.
No offense, but it just sounds like you're getting old. My parents say the same thing their parents said about change. Probably the same thing every previous generation has said, it's perfectly natural. Different doesn't necessarily have to mean worse.

If you want to talk about ethical tv, I would start with the fact that so many people find it acceptable to raise their children on the tv. Most kids don't even get a sex or responsibility talk anymore, they just get their morals from their surroundings and what they see on the tube. If you're so angry, go to the park, the lake, or the beach. You'll probably find you have more in common with the people that actually like to get outside and interact with the world instead of watching a fictional version of it through other people's eyes.

[zerostar]

Originally Posted by spindler

Also please pick one of the following to explain how you feel about a person who watches sleaze TV. Pick 1 through 4 or somewhere in between two numbers.

You have no real choices it is all one choice, your opinion is obvious so why can't you see there are other opinions and give choices for those? You almost had me with #4, but then you got in to the fun with molestation bit and kind of flew off the deep end.

Id say your post is mostly geared towards NEWS shows, real life sucks and they are usually reporting the news in the most sensational way, watching the local news you would think it was pretty damn dangerous to just go walking outside. I think this part is pretty sick, but unfortunately it is what people either want to see or can't stop watching.

As far as the rest of TV, like I said before, I think there are some really good shows and some real crap. Cut out any news show that thrives on sensationalism from your viewing habits since it bothers you so much, and I think you will be a much happier person.

[spindler]

"Ok now you piqued my interest, what on TV has you so worked up? What is so offensive or wrong to you that is on broadcast TV?"

First of all, let me point out that even if you do only choose to watch a good show like The Simpsons, you still have sleazy commercials for The Laci Peterson Story while you are watching it. You are not separated from it.

The fact that there have been lousy societies in the past is no excuse. The U.S. is supposed to be better and more human than certainly all non-Democracies that came before us. That's like excusing Apple because Microsoft does lousy things too.

What gets me worked up about today's television? Everything. Let me make a list of just some of the things that you would not have seen or heard on television before 1985. Let me point out, that in the early 80s, if a newscast felt it had stepped over the line, they would apologize the next night for doing something distasteful in dealing with a story. The things they apologized for were tiny compared to what goes on all day long on Fox or CNN

So here's a very small list of things that are wrong.

- Dating shows like Blind Date that show screwy, disfunctional people that don't know how to behave. When I see someone who is obviously a mess, I feel bad. When I see that a person obviously has little chance at maintaining a good relationship because they are obviously off balance, I don't find it amusing. I feel bad for the person, because almost everyone wants a good long lasting relationship, but even worse, that they will have a child that will have them as a parent and view the inevitable nutty relationships.

- Letterman and Leno make jokes about anything. When the scientists lost the Hubble Space telescope, Letterman made some dumb joke. Now, once upon a time, there was a difference between things you joke about and things you don't. Not everything is a laughing matter. If you get into a car crash and it's financially a big setback to you, should I be making jokes about it 20 minutes later or should I show some appreciation for the gravity of the situation? If your car is totaled and you don't have insurance, should I make jokes about on stage at the club that night? No, only a fool would do that.

- They made jokes after people lost their life savings in the Enron Scandal. Letterman said something about a hot dog vendor ripping him off: "Hey don't Enron me out of a quarter"

THERE IS NO NEED TO TAKE PEOPLE'S SETBACKS AND TRAGEDIES AND USE THEM AS A BASE OF YOUR DAILY ENTERTAINMENT. There are lots of other things to joke about. How come Mike Meyers can do Wayne's World or Austin Powers and be hilarious without making jokes about who sufferred a tragedy last week?

- Michael Jackson's child molestation case trivializes the whole thing. Child molestation is supposed to be the unimaginable. If you hear someone is accused of that, you are supposed to hope they aren't guilty, and let the courts decide. You aren't supposed to want to know every friggin sick detail and make it a part of your daily life.

Child molestation used to be an infinitely more potent and powerful thing. Here's an analogy. When I was growing up, and I saw those films of soldiers fighting in WWII, crawling along the ground, it was just unimaginable. It was unbelieveable that people were out there simply to murder each other. And the fear of being in that kind of situation. It's almost uncontemplatable. I could not even make sense of it.

Well that's what child molestation used to be like before people wanted to know every detail. Now it's just something to talk about like the baseball game or something.

- Low class crude jokes. I watched an episode of the George Lopez show on ABC where his father is going to die if he doesn't get a kidney transplant. George didn't know his father much so the dilemma was that he didn't want to do it because he didn't like him. There were dozens of disgusting jokes that were basically like "Why shouldn't I just let the guy die? He neverr did nothing for me". And then he asks his little kids what to do and it was a situation that little kids should never be involved in.

- MTV - there is this show called Meet The Barkers. It's a reality show about this rock guy that is tattooed all over and his wife. They have a little boy. Now this broke my heart to see a little kid with a father with tattoos all over and a ring through his lip. I'm not saying it;s hypothetically possible he's a good father, but would you want that instead of a person who is career oriented and stable?

This is just for starters

[spindler]

"So where exactly should our morals be? The 30's? 40's? 60's? 1982?"

Yes, exactly. Our morals should be like they were in 1982, except for the homophobia. By the way, if you guys think I am making this stuff up, get a copy of People magazine from 1982. You will see that it's all positive stories about developments in people's lives, not the moral vacuum it is now.

Here's a list of rules that you were expected to follow in 1982:

- You take murder, rape, drug abuse, divorce, etc. seriously. No jokes, no lurid details etc.

- Children and young people are the future. When Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey marry you are supposed to be view this as success and the American Dream. You are supposed to hope they are married for the rest of their lives. You are NOT supposed to follow them week to week and hope they get into fights so you can thrill yourself by trivializing their life bond into flim flam gossip

- Children and young people are the future. You are not supposed to be excited that Prince harry smokes pot ot want to know the details of Britney or Christina's life. You are supposed to look at them as young people with the world wide open in front of them. You are not supposed to be hoping they wind up in rehab.

- You take the news seriously because you appreciate that you live in a democracy. Do you realize that before 1980 newspapers were JUST NEWS? You didn't have entertainment stories mixed in. If you want to know what's going on in the world, you read the news. If you don't, you don't. If you can't take the importance of world events seriously for ten minutes then don't read the news.

By the way, this is why politics today revolves around Bill Clinton getting blown, or Gary Condit's missing girlfriend. This is why this summer's shark attacks now gets more coverage than the FCC allowing megacorporations to merge together. Because in the early 80s people decided that the news wasn't really important, it was just another form of entertainment.

- People who are loud and arrogant are considered fools and people with intelligent opinions are the ones you listen to. Back in 1980 all opinions given on news program were by serious people trying to make a point. There were no Sean Hannity's and other loudmouths. The people on the news were like George Will or Pat Buchanan. Sometime in the mid 80s it seems that dignity, class, and intellect got replaced by flash and loudmouthism.

I could go on and on.

[zerostar]

There is nothing new here. There are no new lows in joke telling, there are no new lows in societies wanting to see the sickness. The only thing new is that some of it has made it to TV. How is this any different than P.T. Barnum peddling freaks in the 1800's? People wanted to see it then, people want to see it now. Perhaps you have this bubble-gumb fairyland of how people are supposed to be in your mind? You would be surprised to know just how freaky people are. Freaky in their entertainment, freaky in their turn on, freaky in thier sex lives, etc.

p.s. being 'all tattooed' does not make you a bad parent, especially if you are providing and loving your children, I am surprised you brought up the shallowness of an outward appearance, I would say 'the barkers' have bigger problems then how they look.

[spindler]

"The only thing new is that some of it has made it to TV. How is this any different than P.T. Barnum peddling freaks in the 1800's? People wanted to see it then, people want to see it now. Perhaps you have this bubble-gumb fairyland of how people are supposed to be in your mind? "

You are asking how is this new? Maybe once a year the Circus came to town and you saw freaks. It wasn't 24/7 and possibly mixed in with every from of culture and entertainment from news to comedy to greeting cards and everything else. There's a pretty huge difference between 1 day in a year and all year long all the time.

The other huge difference was that decent, respectable, stable, well-intentioned people were expected to be above wanting to have anything to do with trash like that. But again, there simply was no trash like that when I was growing up. Nothing I can remember. No celebrity gossip. People magazine just printed nice positive stories. No running criminal trials. No endless hype and sensatinonalism in the news. No families fighting it out on TV for amusement. No watching dysfunction for the sake of amusement. What was the O.J. Simpson trial of 1980? There wasn't any.

I do realize that perhaps, in their heads, people were as screwy then as they are now. But at least they were expected to hide it

And people are obviously watching the Barkers because they are freaks. People who would tattoo themselves all over really tend to be vastly less stable than people who don't. And it's not even just tattoos. When you become a parent, you are in general suppose to give up your youth culture or tame it down to provide a more worldly example. You can't do that when you've got tattoos everywhere.

I am not a conservative by the way. But there is a such thing as common sense.

[AKcrab]

Do you really live in Beverly HIlls? Maybe a move to the middle of the country would be a good thing for you to consider. And I don't mean that as a derogatory statement toward either Beverly Hills, nor the 'Bible belt'. It just seems to me you might find more like-minded individuals somewhere other than the heart of what you despise.

[spindler]

No, I don't live in Beverly Hills, I just put that. I just moved to Seattle, and people seem very family oriented here. I suppose I could move to the Midwest, but I dislike religion even more than trash TV.

[AKcrab]

Ah.. Well if you're not from Beverly Hills, it's a moot point.

I find you an enigma, however.

Any change in morals is a direct function of the family unit. Too many single parent households, lack of discipline in schools (not the schools fault, once again, parents) lack of discipline in families. All that is solely the responsibility of parents. TV is not the cause, parents unwilling to turn the damn thing off are the cause. Don't get mad at TV, get mad at irresponsible parents.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by spindler

- MTV - there is this show called Meet The Barkers. It's a reality show about this rock guy that is tattooed all over and his wife. They have a little boy. Now this broke my heart to see a little kid with a father with tattoos all over and a ring through his lip. I'm not saying it;s hypothetically possible he's a good father, but would you want that instead of a person who is career oriented and stable?

Woohoo. I was reading your posts and appreciating your sensitivity and aversion to the pile of crap that is TV until I came upon the Barkers thing.

I happen to think his tattoos and piercings and pants half-off look absurdly ridiculous, but I'm not willing to conclude automatically that he's not stable or career-oriented or a good father. He's way different from most, period. He does happen to be a drummer in a popular rock band and does happen to be starting a store/boutique something or other. That's a good dose of career there.

In other news, I am unable to watch Entertainment Tonight or its competitors. When I see and hear those obnoxious banshees screaming and bellowing into the camera about J-Lo's latest ass surgery, I am literally convinced that this is the end of western civilization. It isn't WHAT they report on, it's HOW they report it.

By the way, can you say "Current Affair"? IMO, that was the show (circa 1985) that single-handedly started the downward trend in TV.

[spindler]

Well, I only saw The Barkers for five minutes. I am not saying he must be a bad guy. Just based on probabilities of what is on TV, I guessed since there's a lot of dysfunction, and the guy looks like a candidate for it, that it must be a freak show. But yes, hypothetically people can be different, and even Michael Jackson may be a normal guy underneath. Usually though, it doesn't turn out that way.

[f1000]

Does "The New This Old House" count as sleaze television? I get really excited looking at kitchen fixtures.

On a more serious note, I think it's time that general broadcasting was terminated. We're entering an age of on-demand programming, so I'd like to see the FCC take back TV bandwidth and give it to cellular networks.

In only a decade, most of us will be hooked into broadband networks capable of streaming any TV or radio show we want. We won't have to limit our choices to watching a lowest-common-denominator form of television. No more commercials or shows aimed at teenagers who should be studying and preparing for college instead of bugging their parents for money and/or wasting their time working at McDonalds to make enough cash to buy bling-bling worn by their favorite TV characters.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Problem solved.

[budster101]

There is a double-standard.

Oprah can do.
Howard Stern cannot.

Oops, there is the libertarian in me, rearing it's freedom head.



If ya'll don't like it, do like Simey Says, and change da channel. (Pun intended)

[Kilbey]

G-rated movies are historically more profitable than r-rated movies. There is still good in the USA,

[budster101]

Good to know. Unless they are made by Disney, in which case you'll see a bunch of graphic sex and inuendo hidden inside the movie's clouds etc...

[Kilbey]

Unless it's partnered with Pixar.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by SimeyTheLimey

Problem solved.

Unless the Weather Channel gets a hot chick to strip for you like Naked News.