I like TV.
As a medium, I think it has quite a bit to offer that movies don’t, in fact. Movies, after all, have to wrap everything up in a couple of hours. TV can take its time with plots and threads and character development, over months, even years of weekly installments. Movies, it’s said, are about people and things changing. TV is about them staying the same … which is a lot more like real life, if you ask me.
So when a TV show is well-conceived, creatively scripted and dramatically assembled, it can be quite a nice ride. Something to look forward to. Something to share with your family and your friends, to talk about at work the next day.
Which is why it makes me so sad (mad) that as TV is getting exponentially better at telling stories, it’s also getting exponentially crasser and gorier and sexier … to the point that it’s almost impossible to watch anymore. And I’m not even talking about HBO or FX shows this time around. I’m talking about programs on the so-called broadcast channels.
Here’s just one example, extracted from our weekly Culture Clips yesterday:
Blurred and pixelated nudity is increasing on broadcast television, even in programs that are rated TV-PG. Specifically, a new analysis of primetime network programming by the Parents Television Council found that 16 shows contained blurred or pixelated nudity in the first four months of 2013, compared to 22 in the entire 2011-12 television season. Moreover, 70% of these programs received a lenient TV-PG rating. Said PTC president Tim Winter, “If this kind of nudity continues to increase—as we believe it will—and the FCC’s proposal to essentially stop enforcing the broadcast indecency law goes into effect, then it’s certain that the networks will continue to push the limits of decency even further.”
I joke sometimes that way back when TV was young and mostly clean, Christians would avoid it on principle. It was just too worldly. Now that TV is old and dirty, Christians wouldn’t avoid it if you paid them to. But every time I hear those thoughts come out of my mouth, they sound less and less funny. What’s changed more? TV or us?
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