Is TV becoming too pornographic?

[jreelawg]

I was just watching comedy central, and on the commercial break was a girls gone wild ad. Then I switch to the american music awards, and the pussycat dolls were performing "when I grow up" each with their own stripper pole. I tend to not watch mtv and stuff now days, but when I do I notice a lot of overtly hardcore sexual themes directed at children.

How do you feel about these types of things? I read that the pussycat dolls tried but got shut down trying to market a doll set at a target audience of 6-9 year olds. Should we be concerned about this new generation of role models?

 

[WarPhalange]

Go to Europe. It will blow your mind.

But I know where you are coming from. Exposing our children to the human body is very dangerous. We should keep all that a secret, then, they'll never find out.

 

[Cyrus]

Go to Europe. It will blow your mind.

But I know where you are coming from. Exposing our children to the human body is very dangerous. We should keep all that a secret, then, they'll never find out.

Showing a naked body, and having sexual content aimed at children are two entirely different things.

 

[jreelawg]

Go to Europe. It will blow your mind.

But I know where you are coming from. Exposing our children to the human body is very dangerous. We should keep all that a secret, then, they'll never find out.

I don't think nudity is harmful, it is more the attitude and behavior that seams a little over the top whorish and trashy. Kind of the opposite of what you would want to teach your own children in their best interest.

 

[TheMetalChick]

I am by no means an uptight or prude person, but I just dont think objectifying women or targeting young kids with pretty advanced sexual themes is the same as simply exposing children to the human body.

 

[hypatia]

Plus parents have the option of not allowing young children to be watching MTV or Comedy Central.
When my Grandkids are here, I really monitor what they can watch, and what they have access to with the computer.

 

[WarPhalange]

Showing a naked body, and having sexual content aimed at children are two entirely different things.

If you let your children watch MTV then you have nobody to blame but yourself.

This isn't happening on the local news, this is happening on cable television, where you have parental codes and stuff. Or better yet, expose your kids to good music so they never even think about watching MTV.

 

[jreelawg]

Plus parents have the option of not allowing young children to be watching MTV or Comedy Central.
When my Grandkids are here, I really monitor what they can watch, and what they have access to with the computer.

Yeah, but doesn't it suck to have to censor the american musical awards, or so you thing you can dance etc, from your children?

here is the verse from one of the pussycat dolls song
entitle watchamacallit

"[Verse 1:]
See the bag it match the boots, and the boots they match the hat
So I pop the tag don't ask me where I bought that at girl
(uh uh uh uh hoo)
We can be up in the club in the spotlight catch us rocking the same 'fit
(uh uh uh uh hoo)
I got mine on Sunset strip from that hot spot from um whatchamacallit

And don't be asking about my man, what he's holding in his pants
Don't you give them tricks no info that's a no no baby
(uh uh uh uh hoo)
Next thing you know she wanna know what what he's holding in his wallet
(uh uh uh uh hoo)
How long he last, slow or fast, how big is his um whatchamacallit"

Here is the lyrics to "when I grow up"

When I Grow Up :
[Intro: x2]
Boys call you sexy (What's up, sexy)
And you don't care what they say
See, everytime you turn around
They scream your name

[Verse 1:]
Now I've got a confession
When I was young I wanted attention
And I promised myself that I'd do anything
Anything at all for them to notice me

[Bridge:]
But I ain't complaining
We all wanna be famous
So go ahead and say what you wanna say
You know what it's like to be nameless
Want them to know what your name is
'Cause see when I was younger I would say

[Chorus:]
When I grow up
I wanna be famous
I wanna be a star
I wanna be in movies

When I grow up
I wanna see the world
Drive nice cars
I wanna have groupies

When I grow up
Be on TV
People know me
Be on magazines

When I grow up
Fresh and clean
Number one chick when I step out on the scene

[Hook: x2]
Be careful what you wish for 'cause you just might get it
You just might get it
You just might get it

[Verse 2:]
They used to tell me I was silly
Until I popped up on the TV
I always wanted to be a superstar
And knew that singing songs would get me this far

[Bridge:]
But I ain't complaining
We all wanna be famous
So go ahead and say what you wanna say
You know what it's like to be nameless
Want them to know what your name is
'Cause see, when I was younger I would say

[Chorus:]
When I grow up
I wanna be famous
I wanna be a star
I wanna be in movies

When I grow up
I wanna see the world
Drive nice cars
I wanna have groupies

When I grow up
Be on TV
People know me
Be on magazines

When I grow up
Fresh and clean
Number one chick when I step out on the scene

[Hook: x2]
Be careful what you wish for 'cause you just might get it
You just might get it
You just might get it

[Verse 3:]
I see them staring at me
Oh I'm a trendsetter
Yes this is true 'cause what I do, no one can do it better
You can talk about me
'Cause I'm a hot topic
I see you watching me, watching me, and I know you want it

 

[Cyrus]

If you let your children watch MTV then you have nobody to blame but yourself.

This isn't happening on the local news, this is happening on cable television, where you have parental codes and stuff. Or better yet, expose your kids to good music so they never even think about watching MTV.

I agree that MTV is not a program aimed at a target audience of young children. I don't see what cable television has to do with anything. I think the local stations and PBS should be able to have programs that include nudity (female only) and cursing.

I havn't watched MTV in a few years. I saw it the other day and it's appaulingly bad. It was never that great, but it was OK. Now it is total mindless garbage. Also, MTV stopped playing music years ago. It's all junk reality shows.

 

[jreelawg]

If you let your children watch MTV then you have nobody to blame but yourself.

This isn't happening on the local news, this is happening on cable television, where you have parental codes and stuff. Or better yet, expose your kids to good music so they never even think about watching MTV.

Do you honestly think that you can keep MTV a secret from your kids?

 

[jreelawg]

I agree that MTV is not a program aimed at a target audience of young children. I don't see what cable television has to do with anything. I think the local stations and PBS should be able to have programs that include nudity (female only) and cursing.

I havn't watched MTV in a few years. I saw it the other day and it's appaulingly bad. It was never that great, but it was OK. Now it is total mindless garbage. Also, MTV stopped playing music years ago. It's all junk reality shows.

The stars of the music industry are really the creation of the record companies. They don't write their own songs, or the music, they don't choose the outfits, or how they dance. Their material is the creation of a think tank of profiteers. What happened to the days when people looked up to musicians for who they were and they had a message of their own. What happened to real instruments and real people?

 

[jreelawg]

I think maybe I am traumatized a little because my girlfriends neighbor who was about 40 and heavy and nasty, used to always play really loud hardcore explicit music and dress up in skimpy outfits, it works when you are young and attractive, but after that what do they amount to but unwanted garbage?

 

[hypatia]

I don't think it sucks to half to edit what your children are exposed to. Its called responsible parenting.

 

[jreelawg]

And these girls are trying to sell dolls to 6-9 year olds.
I'm pretty sure a censored version was performed on American Idol.
I apologize if these lyrics are a little to explicit for PF.

Lyrics to Don't Cha :
(feat. Busta Rhymes)

[Busta Rhymes]
Ok (ahh)
Yeahh (ahh)
Oh, we about to get it just a lil hot and sweaty in this mu'f**** (oh, baby)
Ladies let's go (uhh)
Soldiers let's go (dolls)
Let me talk to y'all and just you know
Give you a little situation... listen (fellas)

[Buster Rhymes]
Pussycat Dolls
Ya see this **** get hot
Everytime I come through when I step up in the spot (are you ready)
Make the place sizzle like a summertime cookout
Prowl for the best chick
Yes I'm on the lookout (lets dance)
Slow bangin shorty like a belly dancer with it
Smell good, pretty skin, so gangsta with it (oh, baby)
No tricks only diamonds under my sleeve
Gimme tha number
But make sure you call before you leave

[Pussycat Dolls]
I know you like me (I know you like me)
I know you do (I know you do)
Thats why whenever I come around
She's all over you (she's all over you)
I know you want it (I know you want it)
It's easy to see (it's easy to see)
And in the back of your mind
I know you should be f***ing me (babe)

[Chorus:]
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha

Fight the feeling (fight the feeling)
Leave it alone (leave it alone)
Cause if it ain't love
It just aint enough to leave my happy home (my happy home)
Let's keep it friendly (let's keep it friendly)
You have to play fair (you have to play fair)
See I dont care
But I know She ain't gonna wanna share

[Chorus:]
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha

[Busta Rhymes]
Ok, I see how it's goin' down (ahh, don't cha)
Seems like shorty wanna little menage pop off or somethin, let's go
Well let me get straight to it
Every broad wan watch a nigga when I come through it
It's the god almighty, lookin all brand new
If shorty wanna jump in my *** then vanjewish
Lookin at me all like she really wanna do it
Tryna put it on me till my **** black an blueish
Ya wanna play wit ah playa girl then play on
Strip out the channel
And leave the lingerie on
Watch me and I'mma watch you at the same time
Lookin at ya wan break my back
You the very reason why I keep a pack ah the Magnum
An wit the wagon hit chu in the back of tha magnum
For the record, don't think it was somethin you did
Shorty all on me cuz it's hard to resist the kid
I got a idea that's dope for y'all
As y'all could get so I could hit the both of y'all

[Pussycat Dolls]
I know she loves you (I know she loves you)
So I understand (I understand)
I'd probably be just as crazy about you
If you were my own man
Maybe next lifetime (maybe next lifetime)
Possibly (possibly)
Until then old friend
Your secret is safe with me

[Chorus:]
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me?
Don't cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me?
Don't cha
Don't cha

 

[tgt]

Showing a naked body, and having sexual content aimed at children are two entirely different things.

In the commercial world, the two are intricately interlinked.

 

[jreelawg]

In the commercial world, the two are intricately interlinked.

It is funny, because I am noticing that most popular "artists" now says sing primarily about money, even the sexual themes are mostly money themed. What is interesting is that these people don't write the songs. In fact for many, each song on an album is created by a different writer and producer.

One of two things or both are happening, either these writers really have an obsession with money, it helps them get laid. Or they are promoting spending and wanting of money to fuel the "economy". It is sad though that a pretty girl has to go up on stage and sing some song that a dirty old man wrote so they can get paid.

I mean come on, we already have plenty of porn to get off on. Do we really need to replace our music with more of it.

 

[russ_watters]

If you let your children watch MTV then you have nobody to blame but yourself.

This isn't happening on the local news, this is happening on cable television, where you have parental codes and stuff. Or better yet, expose your kids to good music so they never even think about watching MTV.

So..... is this all new? Was music not sexually suggestive 20, 40, 60 years ago? And how 'bout the drugs? koo koo ka choo!

America is a country of extremes. On one end is parents who let their kids do anything and they get kids who have kids at 16 (or 14!) and never finish high school. On the other end, you have parents who try to shelter their kids from experiencing anything and what they end up with is kids who die of alcohol poisoning in college or end up in jail or with multiple STDs because they go from complete parental control to a complete lack of parental control.

What is needed is parental involvement, not wrapping the kids in a plastic bubble until they turn 18.

[edit] Now I do think there are limits: Rock music has always been about sex and drugs. Rap takes a different tone and adds in crime. Drugs and cime, I have a problem with. Sex is just biology and is something that needs to be dealt with one way or another. Kids are going to hit puberty and start figuring out what those things between their legs are for whether they have MTV or not.

 

[neu]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiMw1Q65d4

 

[edward]

The average 12 year old now has a television in their bedroom. Mom is at work and dad is in the living room watching something on HBO.

We are not in a steady state. Values are constantly changing. Take the show Dancing With The Stars. Twenty years ago that much skin would never have been allowed on prime time television.

Forty years ago the mom and dad actors in sitcoms could not be in the same bed.

We used to have Sing Along With Mitch and follow the bouncing ball. Now it is follow the bouncing boobs.

Television has become the baby sitter for millions of kids.

Britney Spears at Disney Concert. Luckily she turned out to be a wholesome example for ten year olds. NOT

 

[Office_Shredder]

The average 12 year old now has a television in their bedroom.

How is that NOT entirely the parent's fault if their kid does?

 

[GCT]

I was just watching comedy central, and on the commercial break was a girls gone wild ad. Then I switch to the american music awards, and the pussycat dolls were performing "when I grow up" each with their own stripper pole. I tend to not watch mtv and stuff now days, but when I do I notice a lot of overtly hardcore sexual themes directed at children.

How do you feel about these types of things? I read that the pussycat dolls tried but got shut down trying to market a doll set at a target audience of 6-9 year olds. Should we be concerned about this new generation of role models?

" Porn " on regular cable tv seems to be getting tamer by the year. The worst is Fox with their MA programs , however even Nip Tuck seems to be making the sex scenes more brief and having less of them.

 

[f95toli]

Forty years ago the mom and dad actors in sitcoms could not be in the same bed.

Yes, but 40 years ago was also 1968. Not a year no exactly associates with begin prude and saying no to drugs....

One problem is that most of us grew up listening to music,watching movies etc that were probably as "bad" as most of the stuff kids listen to/watch today (and gun/sex theme is rap music is hardly new, remember N.W.A? That was 20 years ago ).
Hence, we should be careful about throwing around sentences starting with "Kids today...", we were just as bad

 

[Mech_Engineer]

I find it terribly hypocritical that so many people complain about the "pornographic" nature of television these days, yet so few have anything to say about violence.

Groups that claim to preach moral values had a heart attack when Janet Jackson "accidentally" showed a pierced nipple on broadcast television, but nothing is said of the escalation in violence that is shown on television? Naked women and men are evil, but Law & Order and CSI can show victims of violent homicides in bloody, gory detail every day of the week without so much as a peep?

Some of the things that are able to be shown on television these days in terms of violence are miles worse than sex and nudity. Just the other day I was watching Siler pick through Claire's brain with his fingers on Heroes, and on Bones they were piecing together a victim's dismembered corpse (shown in quite graphic detail); how is that so much better than naked breasts? Mind you I enjoy both of those shows quite a lot, but I wouldn't let a 7 year old watch them with me. Some of this stuff I swear would only be allowed in Rated-R movies 20 years ago.

For the record, I'm not an advocate of censoring sex or violence on television (especially in the arbitrary manner it is currently done), as long as the tools are in place for parents to effectively control what their children are able to see. This is of course only really possible if parents actually take an ACTIVE role in their children's lives, what a concept. I think it's terribly ambiguous and arbitrary what is allowed on television these days and what isn't.

More than anything I don't think anyone should let other people tell them what is or isn't acceptable for their children to watch, we can determine that for ourselves thank you very much.

 

[jreelawg]

While there was plenty of drugs, sex and rock in roll in the 60's. The attitude was a lot different. Then it was about peace and love. Now it is about lie, cheat steal, kill. Th 60's obviously brought on a certain type of generation, ushering in a new general public attitude. Will this new generation be the same?

 

[mgb_phys]

I find it terribly hypocritical that so many people complain about the "pornographic" nature of television these days, yet so few have anything to say about violence.

It's easier for parents.
Daddy why is that man sticking a knife through that womens throat?
Because he's a no-good terrorist/commie/vegetarian etc!

Daddy why is that man sticking his tongue down that womens throat?
Well, err , you see, erm, sometimes grown-ups, erm, .... ask your mother.