Conservatidiots of the Day: The Parents Television Council

You would think with major showdowns over health care and Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor looming, there would be a lot more conservatives flapping their ignorant gums. However, with the death of Michael Jackson and the Mark Sanford saga the top two stories being followed by the media right now, new conservative jackassery is actually pretty hard to find. And since Norm Coleman did the sensible thing today by conceding after eight months of grandstanding, I can't really rant about how much of an irrational kook he is.

As a result, I have decided to tackle an issue which has fascinated me for quite some time: The conservative quest for media censorship. Last night, after watching an episode of Family Guy on Hulu, I looked up the episode I was watching on Wikipedia. There, I discovered that the Parents Television Council (PTC)-- a conservative fringe organization that advocates for censoring television broadcasts to "appeal to a family audience"-- had requested its minions to write sternly-worded letters to FOX expressing their outrage over the episode's content, namely a scene where one of the characters talks about having an "eleven way."

I found the attack against the show quite amusing, and went to the PTC's website to research the organization some more. This truly is one of the most fascinating and disturbing conservative causes I have ever come across. The PTC claims it is a "non-partisan" organization which aims to "promote and restore responsibility and decency to the entertainment industry in answer to America's demand for positive, family-oriented television programming." Even better, it supplies a color-coded guide-- a "television traffic light" where red means bad for children/ families, yellow means caution should be exercised, and green means ay-okay for children and overly-sensitive adults-- which the PTC uses to rank every show and make recommendations for "family-friendly" entertainment.

For an organization which claims to be non-partisan, the PTC certainly doesn't have a problem promoting its rampant conservatism in its reviews of shows and in what it feels should be "standards" set by network television. For instance, the PTC cites House, MD's emphasis on science and religious skepticism as a reason why the series might be insulting to family audiences. In other instances, "references to homosexuality" qualify as "sexually perverse" subject matter, while medical shows which feature blood are considered "extremely violent" and "kissing" is conseridered "gratuitous sexual content." What is so striking about this "non-partisan" organization is that-- while it may claim to be "non-partisan"-- it certainly caters to social conservatism, namely Christian conservatism and not all family-based audiences.

When I was younger, my parents allowed me to watch R-rated movies as early as age ten and TV-MA series when I was in middle school. From an early age, I was smart enough to know that what I saw on film or television was fiction. Violence was the result of special effects, profanity was simply words people didn't like to hear, the sex wasn't real, and drug use was rarely seen as an amazing thing everyone had to go out and do once the show was over. The PTC assumes that all children are unable to handle "mature" subject matter and arbitrarily recommend that shows like House, Bones, Fringe, Arrested Development, CSI, NCIS, Lost and Chuck aren't viewed by children under the age of 18. This promotes "wholesome family values"-- not allowing your children to explore fictional worlds and ponder about characters who may be stuck in situations your children will never be involved in, simply because some idiot kid killed his sister after watching The Wrestler or a friend's child smoked pot after watching Up in Smoke.

The PTC is also so arrogant to believe that the hours of 8pm-10pm should be "family hour," where "adult-oriented" shows are not allowed to air on network television. I don't really understand why there needs to be a "family hour" on network television when there are dozens of cable stations which provide family programming. The reason why network TV has become more "adult oriented" is because they have been more successful with adult audiences over the years. In fact, some of the highest rated scripted television shows on network television are House, CSI, NCIS, Lost and Grey's Anatomy-- all of which receive a "red" rating from the PTC. This ultimately refutes the PTC's erronious claim in their mission statement that "[Americans] demand... positive, family-oriented television programming." Clearly, Americans don't demand such programming, as evident by the large number of viewers some of the PTC's most chastized shows draw every week.

Finally, one of the most laughable causes the PTC has been pursuing over the years is the idea of "cable choice," where cable customers should get to omit certain channels from their cable packages. Not surprisingly, the channels the PTC recommends parents should omit are MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, E!, and BET(because black people are savage voodoo practitioners who disgrace the name of Christ?), among others. Of course, the PTC doesn't seem to understand how cable companies work, since networks buy into the cable company, sign contracts, and offer their services for a very low price on the part of the consumer; as a result, if the PTC were to achieve their goal, conservatives would end up paying more for "cable choice" than they would basic cable. As it stands now, basic cable in my home area costs anywhere from $10-25, depending on the service; "cable choice" would easily add an extra $15-20 on top of that because certain networks which allow for such low prices would be cut out of the deal.But the best part about all of this is, the PTC's quest for "cable choice" is utterly useless. Every cable company I have heard of allows cable owners to block certain stations from their overall package. For those who don't own cable, most television sets come installed with v-chip technology which allow you to block certain programs or networks based on the television ration displayed during the broadcast.

The PTC really is one of the saddest, most unnecessary organizations I have ever come across in my research on the modern conservative movement. If parents want to monitor what their children watch, then they have every right to do so. However, they shouldn't try to punish everyone else by trying to get rid of well-written series like House simply because these series contain a few naughty cuss words and some violent moments.