Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) is trying to wake us up from our TV stupor, just as a new study shows that sex on TV is becoming ubiquitous. Ad Age:
In its fourth biennial study of TV, the [Kaiser Family Foundation] reported that both the number of shows with sexual content and the number of sexual scenes has risen sharply. Some 70% of shows now have some sexual content, compared to 56% in 1998, and there are 5 sexual scenes per hour compared to 3.2 in 1998. The study excludes news, sports and children’s shows.
Obama, although threatening broadcasters with legislative action, makes some great, long-overdue points not just about sex on TV but the vapid assumptions behind “entertainment.”
“We don’t teach our children that healthy relationships involve drunken, naked parties in a hot tub with strangers — but that’s what they see on ‘The Real World.’ We don’t teach them to express their anger by seeing how much blood they can draw with a round of ammo, but that’s what they learn in the most popular video games. And we don’t teach our kids that the height of success is inheriting a family fortune to buy Gucci bags without ever working a day in your life, but that’s how Paris Hilton gets by on ‘The Simple Life.’”
“You can say that kids know this isn’t real,” Mr. Obama, said, “but when they’re fed a steady diet of these depictions over and over again from the time they’re very young, this behavior becomes acceptable — even normal.”
I’ll go Obama one better, and say that not only do kids not question this bilge, but neither do adults. People get tired of hearing me say I don’t watch TV because they think my point is that I am superior because of it. The truth is I can’t afford cable, plus I’m only home in the evening one or two days a week (that second job). But what happens when you are not exposed to a steady diet of this stuff is that over time you notice differences in thought between yourself and people who are exposed to it, even cool people with their hearts in the right place. There are built-in assumptions that go along with TV-watching, and the more you watch, the more they become internalized.
I, for example, don’t believe that spending extra money on face creams and cosmetic surgery is the same as spending it – as my neighbor two streets over did this week – on work boots for migrant farm laborers. When I watch TV, though, the cosmetics are presented as something that, to be a good human being and not slack off on living up to my full potential, I should be buying.
The consumerist assumptions behind the ads is that your highest calling is to spend your money on things that please you, until they don’t, and then get new things.
One reason I think George Bush gets away with so much is that we are becoming a nation of George W. Bushes. We know the rest of the world hates us for being big fat slobs who use what we want and toss the packaging out the car window, but the truth is, we kind of like living that way. We like keeping our heads down and focusing on our homes, cars, clothes, and personal electronics, and that suits George & Co. just fine. We care a lot about Arctic drilling until it’s time for Desperate Housewives, and then we forget all about that stuff. But Obama reminds us, and the media companies, that we can do better.
“We need to make it clear that the free use of the public airwaves continues to come with certain obligations … to reflect not the basest elements of American culture but the profound and the proud,” he said.
