Television Can Undermine Even the Best Parents

During my recent Cookie Monster attack, which you can read about here and here, I noticed that there was one similarity between parents from both sides of the Culture Wars: everyone hates TV.

Liberals slam the commercialism of TV, which bombards our children with messages such as buy Lucky Charms or buy a Gameboy. Conservatives tend to focus on the negative sexual messages that TV – as well as other forms of media – bombard our children with.

An excerpt from Gil Reavill’s book “Smut: A Sex-Industry Insider (and Concerned Father) Says Enough is Enough” published in the National Review Online, reveals one dad’s frustration:

In today’s media climate, whether we want it or not, we are inundated, saturated, beaten over the head with sex. Television, our national public commons, has an ever-mounting percentage of explicit sexual content on cable, shading down to the mere leering double entrendre and snickering innuendo of broadcast sitcoms. It’s difficult to find a program that doesn’t reference sex. It’s egregious, it’s out of control, it’s too much. Media, advertising art, and entertainment constantly shove images at me that I am just not interested in seeing.

Let me point out that I haven’t read the rest of this book, so as far as I know, Reavill may later drift off into arguments I disagree with. But I agree that television shows, movies, songs and even commercials convey powerful moral messages that go far beyond sex. The Brady Bunch may have been vapid, but at least the storyline followed an ultimately nice family. Survivor, on the other hand, is a case study in our vindictive, win-at-all-costs society.

American children are assaulted by sophisticated, manipulative messages like this every day. If our kids fall to these messages, Libertarians warn that it’s the parents’ fault. But I know parents who fall victim to these messages as well. I have at times.

It’s disingenuous for the Left to assail one batch of bad messages coming out of the media while the Right focuses on other ones. The truth is, parents need help navigating the huge variety of pitfalls they face regardless the ideological differences. Although Reavill’s complaints are about sexual content, the problem is cultural manipulation on a multitude of levels:

In a political sense, the young are powerless, voiceless, totally reliant on adults. In myriad important ways, in providing them with health insurance and legal protection, our record as a society is spotty at best.

But we also have left unfulfilled our function as guardians of their cultural environment. The boundaries of their world have been repeatedly breached, many times by people interested in making money and dismissive of all other considerations. All too often, our children are exposed to the loud, frenzied, garish spectacle of adult sexuality. They get their faces rubbed in it.

And I’ll add this line: All too often, our children are exposed to the loud, frenzied, garish spectacle of egotistical athletes, self-serving musicians and profit-hungry corporations that fail to consider their impact on America’s youth.

I find it interesting that experts regularly urge parents to read books with their children, pausing to discuss the meaning and importance of each passage. Parents must limit what media their children are exposed to, but that’s not enough. Like books, parents must explain the subtext of commercials, television shows, magazine articles and the like to their children to provide inoculation against bad or misleading messages. Or to reinforce and expound on good messages.

But considering the scope of America’s media juggernaut, relying on parents to teach their kids may not be enough. American society would be well-served to find ways to compete with all the negative messages via tools such as public service announcements and good information. For the those who have strong religious views, church and temple may also help, though separation of church and state must be maintained. For immigrants new to this country, the education system may be the best way to help their kids untangle some of these messages. On these points, I expect there will be huge disagreement.

But no matter what Americans want, just keep in mind that media messages – both good and bad – are not going to go away.

Comments

[chip]

For me the problem with television is way beyond commercialism.

More troubling is the way that families are portrayed, the way men are portrayed, the way women are portrayed, the way kids are portrayed, the way that the media tends to undermine the most important values that I want my children to internalize.

TV is also coarsening the culture, and I'm not just talking about the sex stuff, though I find that also very degrading and dehumanizing. It's more generally the tone and culture of a lack of respect for others that is so dominant in tv these days.

And what passes for "news" these days is just ridiculous. No surprise that studies have found that the more cable news a person watches the less their view of the world reflects reality.

I've blogged before on this but I'll just repeat that I am so happy that television has not been a part of our lives for the past 14 years. Yeah, we missed some good stuff, but overall the bad outweighs the good.

[brettdl]

We've been without cable for about five to seven years. We get a few rabbit ear stations, but we rarely watch them anymore. We essentially rent what we want to see and that's about it.

The only time I miss TV is during huge breaking news events, but then, I would never have time to watch them anyway.

[Dave S.]

Frankly, I just do not understand the problem. I would agree that both the wanton sex and consumption are disgusting.If you don't want your kids to see the negative images on the TV -then turn it off or take it out. Is the real issue here about who's in charge of the household. Will they complain? Of course they will! Are you not strong enough to stand up to them and enforce your will? You are the parent; they are the children. Please take charge of your families.

[brettdl]

Please look at the two comments above. We already said that we keep the TV off. But not everyone is as wise as you are and aware that there is a problem with what is being shown on TV or how it impacts their kids.

[Mark Sicignano]

I see a lot of comments about TV-Turnoff Week along the lines of Dave S.'s comment above. I've also been getting a lot of comments myself about PC-Turnoff Week as well.

They assume that if we're concerned about the TV or Computer's impact on our children that it must be a case of parent's who are afraid to be parents, and people like Dave feel that they must condescend to us as if our kids are in charge of us.

Many of us are parenting just fine, and we want to be able to enjoy, let's say, the Superbowl, without having to concern ourselves with "Wardrobe Malfunctions" and the stupid "Go Daddy" commercials that have to push it even further. We'd like to be able to enjoy family programming without the sales pitches and commercials that cross the line.

As Brett points out though, the vast majority of parents out there just aren't aware, or aren't concerned about it. So even if you can "take charge of your family", you can't shelter them from the discussion about what's on TV at school, or when their at friends houses. They're going to be exposed regardless. My kids have friends with computers, video games, AND cable in their rooms. Not allowed in my house, but I can't take charge of their friends families, now can I.

Should we also keep our kids away from the grocery store lines where all of the TV gossip rags take it even further.

The problem can't be distilled down to just standing up to your kids as Dave proposes. The problem is that TV and other media is projecting a lot of negative stuff into our kid's lives and there isn't any easy way for us to be able to control it. It's like the stereotype of putting your finger into the dike to stop the leak, and holes start to pop up everywhere around you.

[brettdl]

Thanks Mark. I found it amusing when Dave S. suggests we're not strong enough to stand up to our kids. We keep strict control of the media in this household. In fact, most of the commenters on this site seem to keep solid control of their children.

But many parents are keenly aware that control inside the house has its limits. We can't keep them locked in their TV-free bedrooms forever.