This is a paper I had to write for school. Just thought I would share it with the rest of you.
The television has been around for many years. The shows have changed, the types of shows have changed, and what we watch has changed. What started as a new means to obtain the news on July 1st, 1941 on two different channels, has turned into several hundred channels from all over the United States and even the world. Over the years we have watched Ricky love Lucy, we dreamed of Jeannie, watched families feud, and fell in love with the Huxtables. The warm hearted family shows like Little House on the Prairie filled our homes with together time with parents and children together. Yes, things have sure changed since that first program was produced. Today, we have several different types of shows such as the CSI and NCIS series, Law and Order, Food Network, etc… You can find almost anything and everything on at any time of the day.
Today, more than 98% of homes in the United States have at least one television, and takes up third place as a daily consumption of time. (Comstock 2003). So, what are we, or our kids, viewing with that quantity of time everyday and how is it affecting our children and us?
Our values and tolerances have changed over the years as well as when it comes to what we watch. Early shows did not show a married couple in bed, where as today, to see two unmarried people in a sex scene, even implied, is common, as well as homosexuality. Television has come right along side to reinforce what happens in our society and has highlighted things that would not have been done in the past. The nature of the problem is the current value system, or lack thereof, portrayed in the popular media. Society as a whole has become tolerant of, and desensitized to, the degradation of the values of society portrayed in what we watch.
First of all, lets define values. The dictionary defines values as: a person’s principles or standards of behavior. Our standards have changed over the years. Homosexuality was never talked about is the 50s and 60s even though it existed. Now, even though it is still a small portion of the population, has become one of our tolerable standards of behavior on shows such as Grey’s Anatomy.
To go one step further, sex was never talked about on television and today there are shows that actually promote sex such as Sex in the City and Desperate Housewives. HBO has a description of Sex in the City as follows: “A candid, comic view of sex and relationships…chronicling the mating habits of single New Yorkers.” The show was nominated for over 70 awards as well as receiving top honors for a comedy (HBO 2011, para.1).
In an article titled “Teens who watch Sex in the City are more likely to get Pregnant”, published by the Rosemary Bennet of The Times, she states “Watching this kind of sexual content on television is a powerful factor in increasing the likelihood of a teen pregnancy. We found a strong association.” (para.5)
Enid Gruber and Joel W. Grube had some interesting input on the subject of sex and the media. “Although sexual content in the media can affect any age group, adolescents may be particularly vulnerable. Adolescents may be exposed to sexual content in the media during a developmental period when gender roles, sexual attitudes, and sexual behaviors are being shaped.” “Analyses of broadcast media content indicate that, on average, teenaged viewers see 143 incidents of sexual behavior on network television at prime time each week,with portrayals of three to four times as many sexual activities occurring between unmarried partners as between spouses.” “Among adolescent girls in the United States aged between 15 and 17 years, 75 per 1,000 become pregnant each year.” (E. Gruber, J. Grube 2000)
We see the statistics, we see the pregnant teenagers and wonder what happen, how did we get here? Shows like 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom have pointed out the issue of teen pregnancy, but by making a production out of the issue has, in reality, glorified it and has influenced today’s young women into thinking if I get pregnant, maybe I can be on the show and get paid lots of money. A group of doctors worked together to prove that very thing and they found this: “Exposure to sexual content in music, movies, television, and magazines accelerates white adolescents’ sexual activity and increases their risk of engaging in early sexual intercourse.” (Brown, L’Engle, Pardun, Guo, Kenneavy, Jackson 2006, para.4)
As you can see, sex has been taken out of its natural environment of a relational glue of a husband and wife and has been promoted as a recreational sport to be enjoyed by all instead.
Homosexuality also had a rise in popularity over the years. With people like Ellen admitting their sexuality, it has become more and more popular to become gay. Julia Himberg of the USC Division of Critical studies states, “ Showtime’s soap opera The L Word follows a closely-knit web of lesbian friends and lovers living in West Hollywood.” (para.1) “ The L Word’s initial ad campaign promoted the show as a lesbian version of Sex in the City, using the tag line “Same sex. Different City.” (para.6) How long will it be before shows like this be available on channel like A&E that now host The Sopranos? We may not ever see the show due to the fact the homosexual community actually has its own channel now. Logo, which was started by MTV Networks, hosts a variety of shows glorifying the gay and lesbian lifestyle. The second channel here! Was launched in 2002 and has several original shows. So, if these channels are available, and we see that exposure to such material is an influence to children, what are we doing our to society?
So what do our television show executives say about introducing a homosexual into a program’s lineup? “I’m often delightfully surprised at how unshocked young people are,” said Oliver Goldstick, an executive producer on “Pretty Little Liars.” “They just move on. It’s like: OK.” (Friedlander 2011, para.8) Taken from the same article: “Although homosexual characters continue to proliferate, one of the biggest hurdles on shows geared toward adults is showing them kissing on screen as their heterosexual counterparts would. Teen shows don’t seem to have the same problem.”(para.13).
Teens have a hard enough time in life. Peer pressure, puberty, classes becoming more significant every year, more homework, and thinking about getting job for some money. They are probably going to be influenced in the school systems about homosexuality, and are going to be pressured to choose what they want to do.
Several other types of shows have had an influence on our values and standards system. Except for an occasional movie that was televised, you did not see a violent act or anything along the lines of macabre. Today, you can observe Crime Scene Investigators photographing bodies, crime scenes, and analyze everything involved in Las Vegas, New York, and Miami. Investigative shows have made a large mark on the market with CSI, Navel Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS and NCIS Los Angeles), The Mentalist, Hawaii five-0 just to name a few.
We, as a society, have made these shows popular on a weekly basis. Photographing blood spatter has become normal on any given night. Watching vehicles and buildings explode due to bombings or other explosives would never have been seen on prime time television in the 70s.
Parents who let children watch these shows are allowing these violent images into their minds. Once thought upon, thoughts turn into action and action into habit. What kids watch, they are going to act out according to a study done by The Society for research in Child Development. They found out what kids were viewing when they were younger, they actually became as teenagers.
So, it seems one third of our time consumptions is being filled with sex and violence, things twenty years ago we wouldn’t have seen unless we had a movie channel. So, is all our television bad? Is this really what we have resorted to? Have our standards of our behavior really fallen to the point of no return?
In a time of “reality” TV and new shows like Good Christian Bitches arriving, there are still some good things still available in order to enjoy our time. Shows like Undercover Boss that can still encourage us there is some good in the world. “Each week, UNDERCOVER BOSS follows a different executive as they leave the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their companies. While working alongside their employees, they see the effects that their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organizations and get an up-close look at both the good and the bad while discovering the unsung heroes who make their companies run.” (CBS 2011 para.2).
As you can see, our value system, our principles, tolerances, and behaviors have changed over years. We have become more open to ideas as well as tolerating more and more in both our society and our media. We have influenced our media and our media has influenced us, and because of that, we have become desensitized to the material that is airing on our favorite programs. We all see the problem, but because we have enjoyed it for so long, changing will be the hard part.
