Reality TV and the Demise of Our Morals

How many of you remember what quality TV programming was like? I grew up watching shows in the such as Little House on the Prairie, The Andy Griffith Show and Family Affair. Okay, maybe I was watching some of those in reruns, but they still had the same affect. You would never hear foul language or see a naked body. Shows had some sort of moral decency message to get across and we'd get a little insight on how to be a decent human being. Unfortunately, times have changed and so have the shows. I remember what a big to-do it was when we first saw the character of Andy Sipowicz on NYPD Blue bare his derriere for all the world to see. I was appalled, first by the view (it would have been a little better had it been Michael DeLuise who played his son instead), then of the fact that this is what television was coming to. Here we are, roughly fifteen years later, and so many of the reality television shows have made it to gutter level entertainment thanks in part to allowing shows a little more room to be creative.

With the proliferation of sites on the Internet where we can access videos, from the squeaky clean to the downright dirty, is it really any wonder why people videotape half of what we do for the world to see? For instance, people were outraged by the video of the teenage girls beating up a friend, because of something she said on the Internet, yet it's was probably one of the highest viewed videos in recent times. What would make these girls think that was wrong? All you have to do is turn on the television and watch The Bad Girls Club. You can see fists flying, along with girls getting too drunk to walk, puking on unsuspecting dates and even relieving themselves anywhere they want. Is watching some twenty-something urinate in a sink on national television what we want to see? Just imagine how proud her parents must be. We can limit what our kids see with products such as the V-Chip, but every day someone is figuring out how to bypass the blocks we make. Our children have far surpassed the intelligence of most of us when it comes to getting around their computers. What you have blocked today may very well not be blocked tomorrow. How many of you out there have caught your kids watching Big Brother After Dark on the Internet? If that's not soft-core porn, I don't know what is.

Maybe a good portion of the appeal is that these shows and the foolish people who want to be on them, is like watching a train wreck. You don't want to see it, but you can't help but look. How much more disgusting behavior do we have to see before we draw the line? You have to figure that when the censors are getting more and more lax on what they "bleep" out, we can expect to have access, in prime-time, to more foul language, sex and violence. I really don't have a problem with all that in a movie, but I don't think it is necessary to allow access to broader age groups just to get the ratings. Remember when we were little kids ourselves and snuck a look at our father's Playboy magazine? Now all you have to do is turn on the tube and let's face it, our children learn to do that at a much younger age, and all the sex, language and violence is right there, totally accessible. We have, as a society, seemed to have lost our morals. They are drowning in the sea of filth we call reality TV. It's going to get worse as new products are unveiled that will allow even more access than we have now.

Right now there are a products out there that will enable you to edit out the offensive language on television. It's too bad we have to pay extra for it since we are already paying to watch TV in the first place. Tvguardian-online is one site that sells a box you hook up to your television which edits the shows by removing the offensive language. Another one that you can get is available at cursefreetv.com. Unlike the V-Chip, which blocks an entire show, these block the foul words and post an optional word on your screen, but I'm sure your kids will figure out a way around too. My best suggestion is to unplug the TV and read a book to your kids. Just try not to pick out something subversive and defeat your own purpose of getting them away from the smut on the tube. By next year we'll probably all be watching "Debbie Does Dallas" on TBS.