It's a useless idiom, an oxymoron I daresay, the idea of "censored television." It's a medium for entertainment and while this may seem unfortunate and hard to digest, humanity finds uncensored depictions of faux-life highly entertaining, what with dramatization and scandal being quite an attractive spectacle.
One of the primary arguments for censoring television happens to be a cop out if ever there was one; "think of the children." No offense, but the children shouldn't even factor into the argument if the parents are doing their job. I'm sorry folks, but television just isn't a good babysitter and if you aren't keeping tabs on their viewing habits then that's on your head, not television. You need to personally educate your children on the deceptive and pure entertainment nature of television because young kids will absorb everything they see and hear. You need to get to the kids before television does because it will influence them without proper education.
Television plays to the darker, supressed side of our nature. This is the part of us that finds humor in someone getting struck in the testicles with random objects. Any guy can tell you the agony of such an act, but in the same breath will say the strike was hilarious if witnessed on someone else.
Witnessing scandalous or dramatized actions, like much of what is televised, falls under this part of us. To deny any aspect of ourselves is folly; rather we should recognize and accept it, avoiding the stress supression brings. This is not advocating giving in and revelling in this darker part of us. You can accept something and still choose not to endorse it.
This doesn't mean, however, that we should allow extremes to become mainstream, such as depictions of violence usually reserved for slasher or zombie films or gratuitous sexual acts in skin films. There's a reason for the movie industry and straight-to-DVD releases (or even cable television!), though the ability to flip or outright block channels is a valid counterarguement to this because, when you strip the subject down to its barest self, it's all about choice.
Be the first to comment on this article!