Go To The Kitchen To Watch Trash
If you had come by our house on a certain day last summer, you’d have found one of my boys standing over the kitchen garbage can, gazing down intently. If you had asked why he was so fascinated by moldy leftovers and empty soup cans, he’d have grumbled that he was the victim of an object lesson. Having violated the household ban on watching sleazy talk shows, he’d been sentenced to five minutes of garbage gazing with the admonition, “If you’re that determined to look at trash … “
See, we have our own TV-rating system here. Granted, it only has two designations (FA for “father approved” and FF for “father forbidden”), but I’m persuaded that it’s superior to anything Congress will come up with after this week’s hearing into a possible mandatory ratings system for television.
Lawmakers are displeased with the way voluntary self-regulation has been going, and I don’t blame them. But the system’s failure should hardly come as a surprise. When you allow the fox to pull sentry duty at the hen house, should you be shocked to find dead chickens upon your return? Similarly, since it’s in the interest of the networks to portray their programs as suitable for general audiences, who can be shocked when they softpeddle their racier, edgier material? In a recent week, the raunchy “Martin” was rated TVPG (Parental Guidance Suggested). Same as “The Andy Griffith Show.” So, yes, self-rating is a joke.
But is a government-mandated system the answer? Hardly.
Everything you need to know about the foolishness of putting the feds in charge was demonstrated a few days ago by U.S. Rep. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. He went ballistic over NBC’s airing of a movie that, he said, brought television “to an all-time low,” with “violence … vile language and full-frontal nudity.”
The movie was “Schindler’s List.”
Yes, Coburn apologized for his silliness faster than you can say “what a moron,” but that’s not the point. He co-sponsored this week’s hearing, and the halls of government are full of people no better tethered to reality than he is. Do we really want them crafting a ratings system for us?
I don’t think so.
Besides, I think obsessing on a method for rating television misses the point. Maybe what we really need is a way of rating parents.
It’s an angry thought that comes to me sometimes in the darkness of the multiplex. I happen to think the MPAA ratings of theatrical films - scorned and criticized though they are - do a credible job of alerting parents to movies that are inappropriate for children. But children are always in those movies anyway.
The language is raw, the sex explicit, the carnage ferocious, and the kids are always there, sitting forward on their seats, eyes wide, hands clasped, mouths forming oval shapes. Sitting right next to mom and dad. Makes you want to slap the parents. Makes you wonder what - or if - they’re thinking. If this is the kind of thing they bring their kids out to see, who can believe they behave more responsibly in front of the television at home?
Even at its best, a rating system is only a guide - not a substitute - for parents who give a damn. And evidently, those are in scarce supply.
What we have in their stead are parents who rationalize their obligations away. Who console themselves by saying, “Ah, the kids will pick it up anyway.”
Which is, emphatically, beside the point. It’s not that kids won’t see bad stuff elsewhere, not that they’ll hear words they’ve never heard before. Children will always test borders - and cross them. But there must be borders nonetheless. In the very act of setting boundaries, you instruct a child. You help her to grow. Because recognizing limits is part of what makes one civilized. And social. And, fundamentally, decent.
Frankly, I think it’s unlikely we’ll ever see a workable TV rating system. Like pop music, the medium is simply too big and too there - omnipresent in a way movies are not. But I’m less concerned with that than with this fallacy of asking government to shoulder parental responsibilities. Tom Coburn is not qualified to advise me about my kids.
How about yours?
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