October 8, 1975

Is TV Setting Up U.S. Disaster?

The biggest farce of the new television season is not a program - they're as dull as ever - but a policy.

The Federal Communications Commission has designated 7 to 9 p.m. as a "family viewing period" during which the programs and the commercials are supposed to be suitable for children.

The networks apparently recognized this attempt to separate violence and pornography from the situation comedies as a signal that anything goes later.

What ever the reasoning, television has sunk to the cultural level of rutting dogs.

I do not believe the trash being thrown at the American public represents their true taste in "entertainment."

It is time we had a thorough Congressional investigation of the misuse of the national airwaves and the motives of the television industry.

The assault on our sense of decency and moral standards is so filthy and sustained that one almost suspects a conspiracy to destroy our society.

I have been stung to these strong words after a frustrating evening of trying to find a program our family could watch together.  Not much problem with "Sanford and Son" and "Chico" although Sanford tread the line of good taste with some double-meaning dialog between himself and a prostitute.

Then we had a choice between two blood and guts crime programs, a Jane Fonda movie about extramarital sex and a documentary by Dick Cavett titled "V.D. Blues".

Previous experience has taught me to steer clear of Fonda and Cavett, so I switched back and forth between "Rockford Files" and "Hawaii 5-0".  Violence and boredom.

In desperation I tried Fonda's "Chapman Report" movie just in time to give my children - age ten and twelve - 30 seconds worth of two men raping a woman.

Back to Rockford.

When the blood started to drip out of a packing box I switched again, inadvertently tuning in Cavett as he assured the "boys and girls" they "don't have to worry about syph and clap because a little penny (penicillin) will fix you up quickly."

By now "Rockford Files" was relatively acceptable so we finished up with it.

But not before we were treated to a commercial about an "exciting" new douche syringe and another about a sanitary napkin that was available in actual sample with leading magazines.

I believe I am broad minded enough to approve the premise that venereal disease should be dealt with in pamphlets and restrained magazine articles.  However, VD afflicts only a minority of our citizens and it is not necessary to make it entertainment piped unbidden into 50 million homes.

The same is true for extramarital sex, douche syringes, and sadistic criminals.  I'm fed up with explaining to my little boy the intricacies of sanitary napkins, and the mechanics of rape to my little girl.  These are matters to be discussed at times of parents' choosing, not some nit wit TV executive.

The most nauseating regular program on TV this season is "Medical Center."  I thought it would be patterned after "Marcus Welby, MD" and so tuned it in twice.  Both were a mistake.

The first episode dealt with the medical aspects of homosexuality, and the next with an operation to make a female out of a man.  Maybe the next programs in the series were a more general interest, but I don't know.  I avoid that program with studied care.

It is one thing to be enlightened, and quite another to being sex sick.  We are becoming a nation of Peeping Toms eagerly searching for cracks in the bathroom and bedroom window shades.

The networks piously defend themselves by a 10-second message warning parents the following material might be difficult for children to understand without parental guidance.  This is a cheap cop-out.  Most children select their own TV fare and such a flag is a come on.

The television channels are limited to a half dozen frequencies.  Congress many years ago decreed that broadcast channels were a national resource to be "loaned" only to responsible private companies.

I say the network companies have greatly abused the privilege of using the television channels.  We have given the most greedy, lowest standard segments of the entertainment industry free use of a near monopoly.

What the government giveth, the government can taketh away.

And the sooner the better.

If the Federal Communications Commission can't regulate the powerful television industry, let us vote for Congressmen that will.

If democracy can not establish and maintain standards of decency, the door will be opened for the communist and fascist elements to take over the task.

The dictators of Russia, China, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey and Brazil - just to mention a few - came to power with a mandate to clean up their country's morals.  It is no coincidence that in these places TV is strictly controlled.

It is somewhat frightening to realize that communist and fascist morals in many instances are superior to our own, and that U.S. television might be setting us up for disaster.

Author: Lindsey Williams