Love It, or Leave It Alone

As I sat at home during spring break last week, getting my mom hooked on Maury Povich and basking in the greatness that is the moment just before a revealed paternity test result, I took a second to realize just exactly what was going on. As much as I tried to rationalize my enjoyment of such spectacles by reasoning that there’s no way that they could be real—people can’t be that dumb or embarrassing—when it came down to it, I was deriving enjoyment from the misery (or in the case of guys who were not the father, the immense joy) of others.

But then, I thought: Is that really so bad anymore? According to the political landscape that serves as the collective moral barometer for America: Not really.

Pundits often talk about the digression of our society via the television, the fact that our American minds are being warped by the horrors on broadcast TV—the very shows we turn to for a much-needed diversion from the difficulties of reality. As a columnist in a recent issue of Time magazine points out, the new target of political muscle is violence, but not that of the talk-show variety. No, instead, politicians now have their sights set squarely on the increasingly prevalent hour-long primetime dramas.

We’ve gone from shielding children’s eyes from the awfulness of Jerry Springer during its prime in the late 1990s to a campaign against violent video games to the famed censorship crusade of former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Michael Powell in the aftermath of Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl “incident” three years ago to decrying “Heroes,” “Lost,” and “Prison Break.”

One thing is clear: ratings seem to coincide with negative backlash. Put simply, those out to cleanse the country’s presumed filthy entertainment-hungry soul aren’t as noble, righteous or decent as they seem. In reality, they’re nothing but capitalistic parasites: they find what’s popular, make waves about how terrible it is—especially for our youth—and then, once that popularity has waned thanks in part to their attacks, they move on to society’s next trendy craze.

Contrary to popular belief, the entertainment industry isn’t actually getting any more violent, raunchy or sexy than it was a decade ago. We’ve always had violence on TV in different forms, from the sci-fi variety represented in “The X-Files” to the crime in hits like “NYPD Blue.” Crudeness, too, has always sold—“Married With Children” had far more so-called ills than anything we see today.

There’s not a great difference in what airs today—the new focus of censorship can be attributed to the fact that we as a people have evolving tastes. We begin to really like something, and only then does someone come along to ruin the party. Most of the time, the reasoning is simple: What’s most popular generates the most airtime for a cause. Sometimes, however, there is a self-interested component that doesn’t go unnoticed.

Is it any coincidence that the height of Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman’s outspoken remarks against video games coincided with his two bids for the White House? Should we question the timing of John McCain’s push for stronger regulations against our entertainment industry, especially considering that the Arizona senator actually made a cameo in an episode of torture-heavy “24” last season?

The answers, respectively, are no and yes. Just as we as viewers have the power to raise the popularity of these television shows—simply by watching them—to a level in which they’re considered worthy of a censor’s eyes, we have the ability to remove the power that these potential censors actually possess.

The pages of legislation that Lieberman has proposed in Congress have yielded few results, and the issue had little effect on elections in either 2000 or 2004. Additionally, violent TV shows are a comparative non-issue in the early goings of the 2008 campaign.

But while it’s clear that the campaigns aren’t defined by the shows, we have to make sure that the shows aren’t defined by the campaigns, either. So far, so good: I surely haven’t seen a change in my entertainment cocktail (four objectionable TV shows, mounds of explicit lyrics-laced music, and the very occasional hour of coarse videogaming). At least, not yet. But as the stakes get higher (and really, what’s higher than the highest office in all of the land?), the fight to restrict my entertainment bliss will become that much stronger.

I must, however, look on the bright side. No matter what gets cancelled, gets modified from its original version for broadcast television, gets toned down, cleaned up or cut out—I’ll still have my “Maury.” Thankfully, that kind of trashy television is nowhere near popular enough to raise anyone’s ire. It’s a good thing, too—because just like the guests on his show, I’d do just about anything to find out who’s the father of all those babies.

Malcom A. Glenn ’09 is a history concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Tuesdays.