Word: dexterity
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They have a name in the TV business for that kind of series: a CBS show. The network has had a successful formula for years with series like CSI and Criminal Minds, bloody odes to killers and the science nerds who catch them. But in Dexter, the science nerd is also the killer. The title character (Michael C. Hall) was raised by a foster father who trained him to channel his impulses into killing only other murderers. Dexter dispatches the killers of women and children with clinical elegance. Handsome, charismatic, dedicated to his code, he makes psychopathy look downright sexy...
...Parents Television Council (PTC), a TV-decency watchdog, is not so charmed. When CBS picked up Dexter as a strike replacement from sister network Showtime, it cut out the most graphic violence and language, but the group is pressing advertisers to boycott the show anyway. Edits or no edits, says PTC president Tim Winter, "it's the entire premise that's the problem. You are in a disturbingly queasy way rooting for a mass murderer to kill somebody...
...problem, in other words, is with Dexter's ideas, not its gore. This is disturbing if you'd rather control your own remote, thank you very much. But at least it's refreshing. TV-decency campaigns are only nominally about nipples, blood and curses. Ultimately, they're about the messages that "our children"--read: other people's children--are exposed...
...look at Dexter's ideas. Dexter, not unlike 24's Jack Bauer, is a vigilante. But vigilantism, whether you cheer or boo it, is by definition driven by morality. Dexter's first victim is a man who has been killing young boys. "Kids," Dexter sneers, disgusted. "I could never do that...
...Dexter Gate, one of the entrances into Tercentenary Theatre that many will pass through today on the way to President Faust’s installation, there is a famed inscription that reads, “depart to serve better thy country and thy kind.” We hope that throughout her presidency, Faust impresses this charge not only on students, but also on the institution itself...