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Family Viewing? Not in 2008
By John W. Kennedy | August 14, 2008
There are few family-themed shows on the broadcast networks anymore and those that exist are hardly testaments to the traditional family. Dysfunction seems to be a prerequisite for a TV household these days.
But as I sampled some of the TV fare out there to be knowledgeable for an article in Sunday’s Today’s Pentecostal Evangel, I understood why people watch these shows. They are cleverly crafted and depict the human frailties we all experience.
Naturally I checked out the season’s top scripted series, Desperate Housewives, which became a cultural phenomena in 2004 and has been a top 10 show each of its first four seasons. Creator Marc Cherry and all key cast members for the show have signed on to remain through 2011 for the expertly edited series with offbeat humor.
For the most part, the four female lead characters are smarmy, catty, narcissistic, sex-obsessed gossips. Yet the characters in the quirky drama-comedy have enough likable qualities that we care about them. Lynette has cancer. Susan is about to have a baby.
Likewise, Brothers & Sisters is a well-written and well-acted drama (with frequent motion picture actors Sally Field and Rob Lowe among the regular cast members). The episode I watched followed various sexual escapades of the siblings. Tommy is having an affair with his secretary. Kevin is in a domestic partnership with his gay beau. A Republican family-values candidate for president has impregnated Kitty. Sarah is in a divorce child-custody battle.
And of course there’s Swingtown, which mocks conventional standards of the traditional family with the backdrop of the 1976 bicentennial. The series debuted with airline pilot Tom bringing home a flight attendant—for a ménage á trois with him and his wife, Trina. Along the way a 13-year-old boy is caught looking at a porn magazine by his dad (who advises “Don’t let your mother catch you with this”); a teenage girl flirts with her 20-something teacher; and another teen girl keeps a wedding ring on a chain to remind her “not to do anything stupid like get married.”
But the revisionist history of the sexual mores of the 1970s isn’t the most disconcerting part about Swingtown. It’s the dialogue in a scene between Tina and new neighbor Susan.
Susan: “You and Tom have an open marriage?”
Trina: “Well yeah, don’t you?”
Susan: “No, Bruce would go ape if I cheated on him.”
Trina: “It’s not cheating; it’s just the opposite.”
Susan: “How is having sex with other people not cheating?”
Trina: “Because everything’s already on the table. There’s no sneaking around. Ever since Tom and I got into it we’ve reached a whole other level of intimacy, not to mention incredible sex. Opening our relationship was the best thing that ever happened.”
Unsurprisingly, Susan and Bruce see the light and participate in an orgy with their neighbors. At the end of the episode they are in bed alone, obviously now better as husband and wife now that they’ve tasted forbidden fruit. By the third episode, even Tom and Janet, the uptight religious conservative friends of Susan and Bruce, have likewise been enlightened.
Fortunately, many viewers tire of such themes. While Swingtown debuted at 14 in the Nielsen ratings, by week four it had slipped to 36. Last week it finished 70th.
Yet Swingtown is perhaps the most blatant example of how television breaks down societal barriers on how we think about morality and how new norms are formed. If we spend enough time watching it, television can insidiously sway our opinions on marriage, sex and a host of other issues.
Instead of being filled with cultural pollution via subtle indoctrination, it would be wiser to spend that time reading what the Bible says about sex and morality.
For more on the topic, check out “The vanishing TV family” in Sunday’s TPE.
Topics: television |
August 27th, 2008 at 7:25 am
I read the article in the TPE from my mom’s church a couple of weeks ago. My boyfriend and I have almost stopped watching TV completely because the morals and values coming off the screen don’t reflect our own. Instead, we spend many nights watching carefully selected DVDs to rent and watch either with each other or with my siblings.
And when I do watch TV its usually The View or re-runs of Gilmore Girls with mom, and NCIS with Dad. But all-together viewing time? That doesn’t exist anymore. As the oldest child of a family of 7 (5 kids our parents), the only time all of us are in front of the TV together are when we’re looking for school closings on snow days….