ABC television needs to be sent a different set of protest letters for their cowardly cancellation of Adam Lambert’s performance on Good Morning America. This time, the letters should be sent by a true cross section of America, people who, once in a while, actually take ideas like free speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of choice seriously.
ABC, you see, was sent some 1,500 letters by members of the Parents Television Council following Lambert’s homoerotic performance on the American Music Awards. By ABC’s own admission, that was something they considered a small number of complaints. Nevertheless, they suddenly got paranoid over a fringe group of censorious thugs like the PTC and suddenly cancelled Lambert’s scheduled appearance on GMA. What gives? Over a small number of protests??
The PTC’s own reaction to this, however, has been a display of their usual duplicity. According to this article, Dan Isett, the Director of Public Policy for the PTC, suddenly backpedaled from the group’s usual policy of advocating ever-more draconian and bizarre efforts at censoring broadcasting (the PTC are the yahoos who believe that shows like Ugly Betty and Lost and Law and Order are obscene and the government is justified in keeping them off TV). According to Isett, “the idea that he (Lambert) should be scrubbed from TV completely is not where we’re going.”
Yeah, right! The PTC are not in favor of censoring anyone…Sure, Danny, anyone with half a brain, or any passing familiarity with your scummy organization will even believe that for a second.
Blatant lies in the face of criticism and challenge are the PTC’s stock in trade. If one spends even a few moments looking over the PTC web page, they will be quickly overwhelmed by quote after quote, one article and essay after another, giving clear instruction and policy positions on how the group will fight to REMOVE various TV programs from the air because they deem such programming “obscene,” “filthy,” “sleazy,” “vulgar,” or “offensive.” They threaten to pressure advertisers to withhold support from TV shows until they are cancelled, yet a lying douche bag like Isett has the gall and the decency to say that censorship is “not where we’re going.”
But telling lies, even in the glaring media spotlight, has been a PTC specialty since its inception. The group’s founder, Brent Bozell, has threatened to publicly label advertisers as being complicit in murder for putting their commercials on professional wrestling programs that were proven to have contributed to children killing other children. NOT ONE SINGLE instance of a child killing another child has ever been proven to have been influenced by wrestling.
Bozell has also been less than perfectly honest about the political orientation of his group. The son of a former Joseph McCarthy speech writer, Bozell has repeatedly tried to claim – with the perfectly straight face of a sociopath – that the PTC is a nonpartisan organization and that he himself is not even a Republican. Yet on his bio on the PTC web page, he proudly claims to have been Pat Buchanan’s National Finance Chairman in 1992 and a one time president of the National Conservative Action Committee, which “helped elect dozens of conservative candidates over the past 10 years.” This is all on his web page! Check it out!!
As former pro wrestler Mick Foley writes so eloquently about Bozell in “Foley is Good: And the Real World is Faker than Professional Wrestling,” the PTC founder is “a charismatically challenged, lying sack of shit.”
But he’s not the only one of his kind at the PTC. The organization seems to draw pathological liars to its membership ranks like some kind of a magnet. The head of the New Jersey chapter of the group, one Crystal Madison, most often will say that she opposes censorship, but has told TV Newsday magazine that she is a PTC member to fight for a future where shows like Dexter and Family Guy will be “eradicated.” I don’t know, eradication kind of sounds like censorship to me. But those people who listen to my Culture Wars radio show will also know that Madison has been giving instructions to her supporters on how to pressure my college’s donors until the radio show of yours truly is removed from the air. Confronted about this, just like Isett, she backpedaled and claimed that financial pressure was not really an attempt at removing my show from the air. Yeah, Crystal, sure, we believe that!
Nevertheless, ABC television has chosen to cave in to the bully tactics of a group of transparent liars who represent values light years removed from the sentiments of mainstream America.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The PTC's endless whining...
...is now aimed at ABC TV for not censoring Adam Lambert's homoerotic performance adequately enough on Monday night's American Music Awards.
The Parents Television Council's bitching session is in its full glory on their web page. As usual, though, organization head cheese, Tim Winter, is long on colorful words and short on any actual substantive arguments as to why anyone seeing Lambert's performance might be harmed and why television should be censored and fined by the FCC.
Oh, wait a minute, I guess Winters' previous article about what research proves and does not prove about media effects (just scroll down on the PTC web page and you can find their "study" of violence toward women in the media) is supposed to answer any lingering doubts about effects. It's an interesting article, although one that might make anyone who passed a basic statistics class in high school howl with laughter. The article, explaining that correlations in statistical research amount to a causal effect, is sort of like someone publicly arguing that one can, in fact, travel faster than the speed of light.
I've come to believe that the average PTC "concerned activist" member might have a broad masochistic streak. These people somehow get off on completely humiliating themselves in public by saying and writing some of the most embarrassing foolishness one can possibly think of.
So, since these folks seem to enjoy abuse and like complaining, I still encourage people to complain to them. Various e-mail addresses may be found on their web page - and those of their adjunct organizations like the Culture and Media Institute or the Media Research Council. But here they are for your use and enjoyment:
grassroots@parentstv.org
editor@parentstv.org
contact.cmi@mediaresearch.org
The Parents Television Council's bitching session is in its full glory on their web page. As usual, though, organization head cheese, Tim Winter, is long on colorful words and short on any actual substantive arguments as to why anyone seeing Lambert's performance might be harmed and why television should be censored and fined by the FCC.
Oh, wait a minute, I guess Winters' previous article about what research proves and does not prove about media effects (just scroll down on the PTC web page and you can find their "study" of violence toward women in the media) is supposed to answer any lingering doubts about effects. It's an interesting article, although one that might make anyone who passed a basic statistics class in high school howl with laughter. The article, explaining that correlations in statistical research amount to a causal effect, is sort of like someone publicly arguing that one can, in fact, travel faster than the speed of light.
I've come to believe that the average PTC "concerned activist" member might have a broad masochistic streak. These people somehow get off on completely humiliating themselves in public by saying and writing some of the most embarrassing foolishness one can possibly think of.
So, since these folks seem to enjoy abuse and like complaining, I still encourage people to complain to them. Various e-mail addresses may be found on their web page - and those of their adjunct organizations like the Culture and Media Institute or the Media Research Council. But here they are for your use and enjoyment:
grassroots@parentstv.org
editor@parentstv.org
contact.cmi@mediaresearch.org
A rocky "Road" to Christian audiences?
There is a fascinating article in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine about the marketing of the apocalyptic film, The Road, to Christian audiences.
Since the film is dealing with end of the world issues the readers of Revelations often contemplate, the makers of the film are attempting to lure in the Christian faithful. It makes enough sense, right? But what is interesting to me is the article's quite true statement that The Road's marketing to conservative Christians might be "counter intuitive." The Road, you see, is rated R.
What this has made me wonder about is the general state of faith-based entertainment. There is huge money to be from fundamentalist Christian entertainment these days, although the nature of this entertainment has often left me scratching my head. I have seen a number of films made for the Christian audience and I've read a few faith-based books as well. The most notable for me was Left Behind (only seen the film and haven't read the book) and The Shack. Both of these stories, as well as a few others of their kind struck me as a bit...well, sorry to say, lame.
OK, maybe Left Behind was a little better than the rest. At least there was some violence and killing there. I always enjoy violence and killing. If there would have been a little sex, it would have been even better. The flick, after all, was about the impure and the sinners "left behind" at the Rapture. So wouldn't these sinner commit, you know...sins? Maybe say a few curse words? Have a little sex before marriage?
Which again brings me to contemplate the state of "Christian" entertainment.
And let me pause here for a second and explain the quotes around Christian. "Christian" these days seems to exclusively refer to fundamentalist, ultra-right-wing conservative Christians. These are the ha-ha-you're-going-to-hell-and-we're-not (to steal a phrase from Stephen King's Under the Dome) evangelical Christians. "Christian," it seems, no longer refers to Catholics or Methodists or Episcopalians. Only to the folks who think Harry Potter is teaching witchcraft and devil worship, the folks who want to ban Halloween, who think the Catholic church is a cult and the Pope is the Antichrist, who believe that dinosaurs never existed but God, the great cosmic prankster, just littered the planet with big bones to mess with people and test their faith.
But what I wonder about is why can't there be any "adult" Christian entertainment? Religion, at its most effective moments, helps people cope with the worst the world can sometimes throw at them. Sure, organized religion can often offer circular, contradictory, or just plain illogical and impenetrable answers to the big questions of human existence. I think the best summary of what the Bible is all about came in the Arnold Schwarzenegger film End of Days. The Bible's message, according to End of Days: "Shit happens." Read the Bible closely and you'll realize that that really is what the good book boils down to.
But why can't "Christian" entertainment deal with issues like this? Why can't "Christian" fiction contemplate the rougher, the harder, the more difficult, ugly, unjust, and cruel aspects of existence, even if the only answers it might come up with is "shit happens"?
If one were to make a truly faithful film adaptation of the Bible, after all, it would probably be X rated. I would really love to see those scenes of Lot's daughters seducing him after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
But in the meantime, "Christian" entertainment remains little more than simplistic, shallow, singing-birds-in-a-flowery-meadow type of pabulum. And if this is the sort of things "Christian" audiences want, it sounds like they will be sorely disappointed by The Road.
Since the film is dealing with end of the world issues the readers of Revelations often contemplate, the makers of the film are attempting to lure in the Christian faithful. It makes enough sense, right? But what is interesting to me is the article's quite true statement that The Road's marketing to conservative Christians might be "counter intuitive." The Road, you see, is rated R.
What this has made me wonder about is the general state of faith-based entertainment. There is huge money to be from fundamentalist Christian entertainment these days, although the nature of this entertainment has often left me scratching my head. I have seen a number of films made for the Christian audience and I've read a few faith-based books as well. The most notable for me was Left Behind (only seen the film and haven't read the book) and The Shack. Both of these stories, as well as a few others of their kind struck me as a bit...well, sorry to say, lame.
OK, maybe Left Behind was a little better than the rest. At least there was some violence and killing there. I always enjoy violence and killing. If there would have been a little sex, it would have been even better. The flick, after all, was about the impure and the sinners "left behind" at the Rapture. So wouldn't these sinner commit, you know...sins? Maybe say a few curse words? Have a little sex before marriage?
Which again brings me to contemplate the state of "Christian" entertainment.
And let me pause here for a second and explain the quotes around Christian. "Christian" these days seems to exclusively refer to fundamentalist, ultra-right-wing conservative Christians. These are the ha-ha-you're-going-to-hell-and-we're-not (to steal a phrase from Stephen King's Under the Dome) evangelical Christians. "Christian," it seems, no longer refers to Catholics or Methodists or Episcopalians. Only to the folks who think Harry Potter is teaching witchcraft and devil worship, the folks who want to ban Halloween, who think the Catholic church is a cult and the Pope is the Antichrist, who believe that dinosaurs never existed but God, the great cosmic prankster, just littered the planet with big bones to mess with people and test their faith.
But what I wonder about is why can't there be any "adult" Christian entertainment? Religion, at its most effective moments, helps people cope with the worst the world can sometimes throw at them. Sure, organized religion can often offer circular, contradictory, or just plain illogical and impenetrable answers to the big questions of human existence. I think the best summary of what the Bible is all about came in the Arnold Schwarzenegger film End of Days. The Bible's message, according to End of Days: "Shit happens." Read the Bible closely and you'll realize that that really is what the good book boils down to.
But why can't "Christian" entertainment deal with issues like this? Why can't "Christian" fiction contemplate the rougher, the harder, the more difficult, ugly, unjust, and cruel aspects of existence, even if the only answers it might come up with is "shit happens"?
If one were to make a truly faithful film adaptation of the Bible, after all, it would probably be X rated. I would really love to see those scenes of Lot's daughters seducing him after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
But in the meantime, "Christian" entertainment remains little more than simplistic, shallow, singing-birds-in-a-flowery-meadow type of pabulum. And if this is the sort of things "Christian" audiences want, it sounds like they will be sorely disappointed by The Road.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Hitler is sending Seth MacFarlane hate mail again
Well, there's something new and interesting to see again on the web page of the Parents Television Council.
And I really do enjoy visiting their web page a lot and I get excited every time they post something new there. I guess I enjoy their postings the same way most fans enjoyed watching The Jerry Springer Show. The PTC can make you feel good about yourself even on a bad day. They can make you glad that your mother and father weren't brother and sister and that you weren't born with an IQ lower than your belt size. That you're not slow-witted enough to be eligible to join the PTC.
The same goes for the pages of such PTC adjunct organizations as the Media Research Council and the Culture and Media Institute. I highly urge all to check them out and leave them some feedback.
But this time the PTC is calling for Microsoft to boycott all of TV writer/producer Seth MacFarlane's shows. According to PTC grass roots activist Gavin McKiernan, who certainly seems to have all the IQ qualifications to be a member of the PTC, all the MacFarlane cartoons like Family Guy and American Dad are guilty of purveying all the worst sort of civilization destroying content one can see in the media today. Why Seth MacFarlane shows, McKiernan whines, have jokes about feminine hygiene!!!! The horror!!
But it's unfortunate that McKiernan's harangues are sort of flabby and half-hearted this time. He doesn't even try to justify his censorhip-through-economic-thuggery with any sort of an effects argument. Seems he hasn't looked at the PTC's effects "research" lately (even those studies they post that proves the exact opposite of what the group is trying to argue)
However, I suppose MacFarlane's real sins are the way he spoke about the PTC, rather than the sophomoric, school yard "feminine hygiene" jokes on his cartoons. In MacFarlane's interview to The Advocate magazine, he said about being crticized by the PTC: "Oh, yeah. That's like getting hate mail from Hitler. They're literally terrible human beings. I've read their newsletter, I've visited their website, and they're just rotten to the core. For an organization that prides itself on Christian values—I mean, I'm an atheist, so what do I know?—they spend their entire day hating people. They can all suck my dick as far as I'm concerned."
Three cheers for Seth MacFarlane!
And I really do enjoy visiting their web page a lot and I get excited every time they post something new there. I guess I enjoy their postings the same way most fans enjoyed watching The Jerry Springer Show. The PTC can make you feel good about yourself even on a bad day. They can make you glad that your mother and father weren't brother and sister and that you weren't born with an IQ lower than your belt size. That you're not slow-witted enough to be eligible to join the PTC.
The same goes for the pages of such PTC adjunct organizations as the Media Research Council and the Culture and Media Institute. I highly urge all to check them out and leave them some feedback.
But this time the PTC is calling for Microsoft to boycott all of TV writer/producer Seth MacFarlane's shows. According to PTC grass roots activist Gavin McKiernan, who certainly seems to have all the IQ qualifications to be a member of the PTC, all the MacFarlane cartoons like Family Guy and American Dad are guilty of purveying all the worst sort of civilization destroying content one can see in the media today. Why Seth MacFarlane shows, McKiernan whines, have jokes about feminine hygiene!!!! The horror!!
But it's unfortunate that McKiernan's harangues are sort of flabby and half-hearted this time. He doesn't even try to justify his censorhip-through-economic-thuggery with any sort of an effects argument. Seems he hasn't looked at the PTC's effects "research" lately (even those studies they post that proves the exact opposite of what the group is trying to argue)
However, I suppose MacFarlane's real sins are the way he spoke about the PTC, rather than the sophomoric, school yard "feminine hygiene" jokes on his cartoons. In MacFarlane's interview to The Advocate magazine, he said about being crticized by the PTC: "Oh, yeah. That's like getting hate mail from Hitler. They're literally terrible human beings. I've read their newsletter, I've visited their website, and they're just rotten to the core. For an organization that prides itself on Christian values—I mean, I'm an atheist, so what do I know?—they spend their entire day hating people. They can all suck my dick as far as I'm concerned."
Three cheers for Seth MacFarlane!
Don't let the door hit you on the way out!
Well, it looks like something positive can be said for a bad economy after all. According to this article, the bad financial times drove one of those busy body do-gooder pro-censorship family groups out of business.
Yessssss!!!!!
The National Institute on Family and the Media has closed up shop because of the bad economy. Of course I'm completely enjoying this because this is a group that's even more ignorant of basic social science research than the Parents Television Council and more insane than the Family Research Council (they, the supporters of Carrie Prejean and all things wholesome, homophobic, and holy until, at least, their wholesome media darlings start masturbating on sex videos).
Yesssssss!!!!!!!
These folks have been almost exclusively obsessed with video games and, as the article discusses, at one point seriously argued that the video game industry tries to persuade America's children to become cannibals.
To the concerned parents and activists of the National Institute on Family and the Media: Good riddance! We won't miss you!
Or wait a minute, maybe we will. People this nuts are just too entertaining.
Yessssss!!!!!
The National Institute on Family and the Media has closed up shop because of the bad economy. Of course I'm completely enjoying this because this is a group that's even more ignorant of basic social science research than the Parents Television Council and more insane than the Family Research Council (they, the supporters of Carrie Prejean and all things wholesome, homophobic, and holy until, at least, their wholesome media darlings start masturbating on sex videos).
Yesssssss!!!!!!!
These folks have been almost exclusively obsessed with video games and, as the article discusses, at one point seriously argued that the video game industry tries to persuade America's children to become cannibals.
To the concerned parents and activists of the National Institute on Family and the Media: Good riddance! We won't miss you!
Or wait a minute, maybe we will. People this nuts are just too entertaining.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Whoa!! The world is still here...
Well, after a short hiatus for a trip to the National Communication Association conference, I am stunned to realize that I get a chance to sit here and add to this blog. The world did not end exactly a week ago with the CW Network's broadcast of Gossip Girl. The Parents Television Council's fears and panic were in vain. I'm stunned.
Of course, on their web page they warn that they will keep an eye on the unfolding threesome storyline. I'm certain that the CW is very nervous.
I do still encourage folks to check out the PTC's page and decide for themselves just how much of a self-parody this group is. Then if you don't think their analyses of the evil threats TV poses are funny enough - including group head-honcho Tim Winter's assault on science, logic, rational thinking, and sanity in his essay about the "link" between teen depression and Internet use - check out the parody of PTC outrage in the new edition of Entertainment Weekly magazine.
Maybe the PTC will now look for new targets to pressure and harass. They might try and threaten the donors of colleges again.
Of course, on their web page they warn that they will keep an eye on the unfolding threesome storyline. I'm certain that the CW is very nervous.
I do still encourage folks to check out the PTC's page and decide for themselves just how much of a self-parody this group is. Then if you don't think their analyses of the evil threats TV poses are funny enough - including group head-honcho Tim Winter's assault on science, logic, rational thinking, and sanity in his essay about the "link" between teen depression and Internet use - check out the parody of PTC outrage in the new edition of Entertainment Weekly magazine.
Maybe the PTC will now look for new targets to pressure and harass. They might try and threaten the donors of colleges again.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Watch TV for a good cause!
Monday 9/8 c is the time to get in front of the TV and watch the CW network…if only for a good cause!
Tonight is the airing of the Gossip Girl episode that will supposedly depict a threesome among college age characters. THE DOWNFALL OF HUMANITY IS AT HAND!
Or so the Parents Television Council will have us believe. This, by the way, is the organization that identifies shows like “Lost,” “Heroes,” “Fringe,” “Law & Order,” and “Ugly Betty” as “indecent,” “pornographic,” and “obscene.”
A mainstream group of parents they are…SURE!
Of you don't believe this nonsense, watch the Gossip Girl and support free speech!
Or better yet, go to their web page here and talk back yourself. Send them messages and tell them what you think of the PTC.
Tonight is the airing of the Gossip Girl episode that will supposedly depict a threesome among college age characters. THE DOWNFALL OF HUMANITY IS AT HAND!
Or so the Parents Television Council will have us believe. This, by the way, is the organization that identifies shows like “Lost,” “Heroes,” “Fringe,” “Law & Order,” and “Ugly Betty” as “indecent,” “pornographic,” and “obscene.”
A mainstream group of parents they are…SURE!
Of you don't believe this nonsense, watch the Gossip Girl and support free speech!
Or better yet, go to their web page here and talk back yourself. Send them messages and tell them what you think of the PTC.
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