Parents' Group Warns Against 4 Fox Shows

[savafan]

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/19/D8DB8KI01.html

Four Fox network programs, led by the comedies "The War at Home," "The Family Guy" and "American Dad," topped a parents group's annual listing of the worst prime-time shows for family viewing.

The Parents Television Council rated two aspirational reality shows, ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and NBC's new "Three Wishes," as the best programs for family viewing.

The group's president, L. Brent Bozell, said he was alarmed that the three Fox Sunday night comedies are being marketed as family friendly.

"Families should not be deceived," he said. "The top three worst shows all contain crude and raunchy dialogue with sex-themed jokes and foul language. Even worse is the fact that Hollywood is peddling its filth to families with cartoons."

A Fox spokesman said the network never comments on reports by the Parents Television Council.

The Fox drama "The O.C." was fourth on the group's list of worst prime-time shows for families. Add in "That '70s Show" and "Arrested Development," and the network that tries to be hip for young viewers makes up 60 percent of the list.

Television's two most popular programs _ "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Desperate Housewives _ are also cited as bad family viewing. So were "Two and a Half Men" and "Cold Case" on CBS.

The group said it makes its determinations based on the amount of bad language and sexual and violent content, giving more weight to shows that appear earlier in the evening when children are likely to be awake, said Melissa Caldwell, its research director.

Fox's "American Idol," which returns in January, made the group's list of best family viewing experiences. Two new shows, CBS' "The Ghost Whisperer" and UPN's "Everybody Hates Chris," also made it.

Bozell said the group couldn't even come up with 10 prime-time shows it would recommend for family viewing. Its list stops at nine.

[macro]

I've watched Everybody Hates Chris and really like it. I'm a big Chris Rock fan, though.

[Roy Tucker]

I love "The Family Guy" but it's got no business being on at 8:00. It is not a kids show by any means. It's pretty raunchy.

And yeah, I know we've got a channel changer and all that. We don't watch the prime time version and my son and I watch the DVDs (he's almost 18) or repeats on other channels and times. I don't like my 12 yr. old watching it. My 15 yr. old would probably be OK but she's not interested.

There are an awful lot of unsupervised kids that watch all kinds of stuff and this just makes it easier.

[Unassisted]

The networks and their advertisers crave the 18-34 demographic and the shows on this list are doing quite well with that age group. I think this organization is perturbed that there are many parents in that demographic who can't/don't/won't exercise the restraint to record these shows and watch them after the kids have gone to bed.

[OldRightHander]

I do see reason for their concern with some of the shows they show at times that children are still out of bed, but you have to put some of the blame on parents who don't supervise what their children watch. We don't have any children, but if we did, I don't know if I would be comfortable with a tv in my kid's room, unless I had the ability to block certain channels on that tv.

OTOH, we have to be careful with how we use the term family friendly. There are many different reasons a certain program or movie would not be suitable for children. There are some in my church who refuse to attend any movies that are rated R. I tend to look a little more critically at an entertainment choice. Saving Private Ryan and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre might both be inappropriate for children, but the former at least has a redeeming message to it. I think that's where some of the folks I know who refuse to view anything rated R, even without their kids, are just a little bit off base because they paint them all with a broad brush and insist that anything with that rating cannot possibly be good.

Anyway, I guess that some of the programming on Fox doesn't really pass the test of being not fit for children but still having a redeeming message for adults, but to each his own. So much of it comes down to parents having the discernment to know what their children should and should not be watching, but what I'm also saying is that sometimes the not family friendly label gets used in a rather broad manner and could include programs or movies which are rather good and uplifting, but just not suitable for younger viewers. When they use that label though, it has the effect of turning people like my wife and some of the folks at my church totally against it. I have some DVDs at home that my wife absolutely refuses to watch and she keeps saying that I shouldn't watch them as well because some group came out and said they weren't family friendly. I think maybe they should say that some things aren't suitable for children, but that family friendly label can sure cause some problems with people who don't want to take the time to critically evaluate something for themselves.

[savafan]

There are some in my church who refuse to attend any movies that are rated R. I tend to look a little more critically at an entertainment choice. Saving Private Ryan and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre might both be inappropriate for children, but the former at least has a redeeming message to it. I think that's where some of the folks I know who refuse to view anything rated R, even without their kids, are just a little bit off base because they paint them all with a broad brush and insist that anything with that rating cannot possibly be good.



The Passion of the Christ?

[OldRightHander]

The Passion of the Christ?

Yeah, some of those folks saw that, and I brought it up at church once as an example of how some things with an R rating can be acceptable. I think they made an exception for that one, but all the other ones are somehow bad. I have been saying for years (and rather unsuccessfully around there) that there are different reasons for an R rating and we need to look at the reason. Also, not all "violence" is the same. The violence in something like Passion or We Were Soldiers is not the same as what you would see in Kill Bill and good discerning people can tell the difference and know that one is an accurate portrayal of something that happened while the other is simply gratuitous. Some folks just don't want to be bothered with thinking for themselves. That's too much trouble.

[REDREAD]

Actually, putting a show in a time slot after 8 pm only procrastinates it coming to a "kid time slot". If the show does well, like "That 70's Show", it
will end up being in the 6:00-8:00 time slot fairly quickly in syndication.

I don't have a problem with "That 70's show", but since it was on their list, I used that as an example. Locally, on UPN, we get that show at 6:00 pm and 6:30 pm.

[savafan]

I was a junior in high school when the movie Schindler's List came out. My history teacher wanted to organize a class trip to see the movie, but wasn't permitted because of the "R" rating. She was allowed to give us an extra credit assignment based on us going to see the movie ourselves during our own time.

[OldRightHander]

I was a junior in high school when the movie Schindler's List came out. My history teacher wanted to organize a class trip to see the movie, but wasn't permitted because of the "R" rating. She was allowed to give us an extra credit assignment based on us going to see the movie ourselves during our own time.

I only saw that one once, and once was enough. Very well made, but very disturbing. My grandfather and a couple great uncles came across a couple of the camps toward the end of the war when our troops were liberating them and they would never talk about it, only to say that they saw things they would never forget. I was in Israel a few years ago and they have a nice monument to Schindler in Jerusalem. I think the monument called him a righteous gentile, or something of that sort.

[Roy Tucker]

When I use the term family friendly, I'd think it describes a show that I could comfortably watch with my mother-in-law, my wife, and my 12 yr. old.

There certainly are other shows and movies that may be quality shows with redeeming qualities but are of a more mature and adult themes. Good stuff, entertaining, thought-provoking, but hardly family friendly.

When it comes down to it, I monitor what my kids watch. Some things may slip through, but by and large, they watch shows that I approve of (or at least, I don't detest). It probably doesn't matter what time they come on.

I find myself worrying about other peoples kids because I know what goes on (or what doesn't go on) in their households. Their parents don't monitor their TV watching so I fall back on the networks to help protect them.

I don't think its an unreasonable thing to ask networks and local stations to hold off shows with violence/sex/etc to later times. Say, 9 PM and after. Is it fool-proof? Heck no. Does it help? I think so.

[macro]

I've watched Everybody Hates Chris and really like it. I'm a big Chris Rock fan, though.

Just a follow-up to what I said earlier...

It's kinda funny that Rock would have a show on the "good" list, given the language he uses in concert. He is a brilliant mind, but his concerts are not for the easily offended.

[savafan]

Roy,

I'd say up until about the time that I was 14 years old, my parents would always preview any movies I or my sister wanted to watch, without us in the room, before letting us watch them. If there were any parts that they thought were objectionable, they were very good about using the tracking numbers and fast forward button to skip over those parts.