Word: ptc
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...relax yet, River City: the guardians of decency are warning about new trouble, with a capital T, which rhymes with V, which stands for violence. The Parents Television Council (PTC), the group at the vanguard of the TV-sex wars, has lately focused on prime-time blood: power-tool torture on 24, serial killing on Criminal Minds, vivisection on Heroes. And the FCC has prepared a draft report suggesting that Congress authorize it to regulate broadcast violence, as it now does obscenity, and possibly force cable companies to let subscribers opt out of paying for channels that run brutal content...
Here's a policy that the folks at the Parents Television Council (PTC) should follow: if you don't like what you see on TV, just change the channel. The group seems to be a censorship committee, dreaming about the good old days when TV was bland and unreflective of the culture. The PTC may think it is protecting children, but that is just an illusion...
Maybe the PTC should create its own TV network to compete with the ones it is trying to change. That way it could accomplish what it wants to do without trying to force puritanical standards down the throats of people who prefer to control their own lives. If the PTC's suspicions about indecency are justified, the group will find a lucrative niche market that will pressure other networks to emulate it to stay competitive...
...indecency then, context is king. The PTC and the FCC say it was not indecent to air Saving Private Ryan on network TV--even though children might be watching during prime time--because of the context: soldiers swear in war. But of course, mobsters swear too. So could The Sopranos, just as critically praised, air on NBC? Can only good guys drop the F bomb? Indecency activists often cite the dictum of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart on obscenity: "I know it when I see it." But who knows indecency, and what do they...
Consider the Feb. 17 episode of CSI. A form complaint letter available at the PTC website describes the episode, and it's icky stuff. The plot is about infantilism, a sexual fetish that involves adults wearing diapers and suckling at women's breasts. But the letter includes a curious argument: "COMPLAINANT urges the Commission to take notice of the high ratings for this episode of CSI ratings [sic]--reportedly viewed in 30.72 million households. Given its relatively early broadcast time [9 p.m. E.T.], it was without question viewed by millions of children...